Deja Blue (22 page)

“I’ll take that challenge, Detective,” she firmly said. “I was wondering how I could stress reduce in Charleston.” “Stress reduce with a sword in your hand?” asked Orvison, smiling wide.

“It’s a foil, not a sword, Chief, and yes, nothing more relaxing than flexing with a foil.”

“I’ll set it up then,” Kunati added, still with that smirk on his face. Rae would like to wipe it off.

Do that, she thought the smug reply, but she said aloud, “Wonderful.”

“Be at Crown’s Gym, McCorkle Avenue at ten,” he replied like a man calling her out in an Old West gunfight.

“Count on it.”

Knowing there was little more that could be accomplished tonight, Rae decided to call it a day. She remained spent from the haunted trailer of the night before—not so much from the psychic exploration, as in fact she came out of such explorations revived and invigorated—but from the lack of sleep she’d gotten. She knew to do her best in the fencing match, she’d have to get some added Z’s. It was back to the hotel for her.

The thought of going head to head in competition with Kunati at the end of a foil kept playing over in her mind, making her unsure she could get any rest. Still, she knew that the major element in preparation for anything, as Einstein would say, was the visualization of events before they occurred. Being psychic, this was child’s play for Aurelia.

NINETEEN

Before she even found Crown’s Gym via cab, Rae thought of how best to handle Amos Kunati and the fact he had so much reach on her. She gave a good deal of thought to what her trainer had always said about a larger opponent with a longer reach. “Feint, feint, feint, lunge and strike at the abdomen within the target circle that comprises a direct hit,” Joy Carr had said so often. All she need do is get under his reach without receiving a strike from his foil before hers arced and bowed against his suit.

She imagined this possible. Saw it in her future. Pictured it happening.

In a sense, she prayed for it.

Rae believed that if she could show Kunati her ability in this sport, that perhaps he’d calm down about her abilities in tracking a killer. Perhaps they could begin on a new footing.

The cab driver stared into his rearview mirror at his passenger, who now let out with another

“Ommm…ommm…ommm” chant as she imagined a positive outcome against the tall, powerful Goliath she must play David to. Men, she thought, always with the pissing contest.

The moment she entered the gym, Rae Hiaykawa could smell it. A regular boy’s club; the odor left little doubt. While she hadn’t expected lacey curtains or the odor of perfume, she didn’t expect the absolute out of touch all male bastion. Not another female in sight.

Does the man wish to be humiliated before his friends and fellows this way, she wondered, seeing Kunati in full fencing garb at practice with another fellow his own size. Their fencing wear struck her as unusual—not the usual whites—but the color of medical scrubs—a dull green. This took her by surprise as she’d never seen green fencing wear before, but someone she recognized from the precinct, another cop friend to Kunati, shoved a foil, gloves, and green fencing clothes into her hands. “No ladies room, so you’ll have to change in my office,” he told her. “I own the place.” This last was said with great pride. Few cops owned anything outside a bottle of beer. Obviously, Crown’s owner, had invested wisely.

Amos Kunati stopped long enough in the session that already had him sweating to acknowledge her arrival; he raised his foil strait up and sent the tip in her direction. A regular Musketeer, she thought. She also had seen him in action. He was no slouch. She now imagined losing to him and struggled to regain her earlier vision of events yet to unfold.

Rae turned so as to not stare at her opponent, and she found the private office to change into the fencing wear they’d provided her.

They’d picked out a boy’s small size, and it was tight-going for a moment just getting into the outfit. Once in, she realized no one could possibly mistake her for a boy or a man, and she feared if she lunged, as she must, she might well rip the outfit either at the shoulders or at the crotch. The discomfort only hastened her new fear that she might lose and lose badly to Kunati, so she began considering this as quite the possibility, and yet it seemed to her that losing to him might well be the better outcome here in the long run.

Beating the big man in a place where he came to relax, to be among friends and like-minded souls, beating him in his city, his reaction might well be the opposite of what she wanted to see after all this was over. Perhaps, although she’d put up a good fight, throwing the contest his way could be beneficial to her case, and to their working together. As it looked now, she might not have to bother ‘throwing’ anything.

Someone rapped hard at the door, and she heard the owner’s voice shout, “You OK in there?”

“Fine…fine…you got a longer foil?” It was meant as a joke, but the man replied, “Adult standard…all the same.”

“Just kidding, officer.”

“Daniels…name’s Daniels.”

She pulled the door open, and he gazed up and down at her. For a moment, she thought he’d whistle, but he stifled it. She held her green mask in the crook of her right arm, her foil in her left hand, slightly off the floor.

“You’re a lefty?” he asked.

She smiled but said nothing, going past him for Kunati and the fencing arena. Amos wasted no time after a long drink from a bottle of Deja Blue spring water. They took positions opposite one another, and Amos said, “Didn’t think you’d come.”

“Why not? This is how I relax.”

“We do have something in common then.”

The spotter raised a hand and dropped it, signaling the start of the match up, which to everyone in the gym must look like no match up at all. Everyone had gathered round for the kill, and Rae imagined it was like people rubber-necking to see a brutal car wreck.

Kunati lunged from the get-go, scoring a strike on two feints, the second one ending in a touch to her side. She already felt like a sacrificial lamb, and inwardly, she cursed her clumsiness.

The round is lost but not the match, she cheered herself on.

They squared off again, she realizing Amos had far more than just reach on her, that he was good, very good. She called up her every lesson, her every trick, her every mental power and sensibility against him now. She wanted to at least do the Rocky Balboa thing and come off as having some guts and stick-to-it-tiveness.

Again the signal to fence.

This time, knowing he’d be aggressive, she took the initiative and lunged forward and again forward, the two foils clashing so loudly that their contest drew more spectators. For a moment, she felt like a regular Zorro as he backed off, fending off blow after blow. One foot moved over the circle, and while she did not score a hit, she won the round.

The contest went back and forth this way for some time, until she was backed over the line. “Two out of three,” Kunati said, grinning. “Care to go longer?” “I’m OK, sure.”

The match continued with Rae showing true grit, but Amos’s reach proved devastating and twice more he’d scored hits. Four of five lost. Going to the requisite seven proved unnecessary. Kunati had won, and as she’d predicted, her outfit was split in several embarrassing places, which explained the quizzical laughter that had erupted from time to time during the bout. One rip showed her black undies. The roomful of men applauded either her panties or Kunati’s win, she could not tell.

Pulling off her mask and gloves, she gasped, sighed, shook out her hair and shook Kunati’s hand in the traditional gesture of good sportsmanship even as perspiration dripped from them both. “You kicked my ass,” she said.

“And you gave me a run for my money,” he said, showing a bit of humility.

“And you kicked my ass,” she repeated, making him laugh and thinking it was a miracle to manage that. Maybe now you’ll quit kickin’ my ass on the job. See me in a new light, she thought but did not say.

“Winner buys drinks,” he said. “Why don’t I shower and get changed.”

“Shower? What about me?”

“You can do likewise.” “Where? You got a woman’s shower?”

“Right through there, sure. Shower, lockers, whole nine yards. The best for our ladies.” He pointed at a door marked Ladies.

“Then why was I changing in the owner’s office?” “Lucas Daniels is a peculiar guy. I suspect he had his reasons.”

“Reasons? What kind of reasons?”

Kunati only shrugged.

“Look here, Amos, if pictures of me in my skivvies show up on the internet, I’ll have this place closed down.” “No, no, nothing like that.”

“What then?”

“He was just throwing you off, he thought, psychologically…you know, screwin’ with your head.”

“And whose idea was that?”

“I swear it wasn’t mine. The guy…well, he thinks he’s my main man.”

“That explains the too small suit.”

“I thought it was a great fit.” He laughed again, a good-natured laugh.

“You and every other man here.” “What about drinks?” he asked.

“I’ll let you know how I feel after my shower.”

“You did well,” he admitted.

“You mean I didn’t get steam-rolled?” “I mean, you stood up well.”

“Thanks and you, you ran me ragged.” She saw him beam at the compliment. Perhaps losing to this macho man was the best policy after all, besides, he’d won fair and square. She’d become somewhat rusty, and she knew it now. Maybe the victory lap meant she must have drinks with him.

As she headed for the showers, Daniels provided her with the blouse, slacks, and shoes she’d come in. She looked past Daniels to a smiling Kunati. As she entered the locker room, she hoped that this rite of passage had cleared her in Amos’s eyes, and that their working relationship would find a better track tomorrow.

# # #

Drinks later at the hotel bar went well. They spoke of everything but the case, and as it seemed the last thing Kunati wanted to talk about, she stayed off the subject. She learned from him that he was born in Nigeria where his father and grandfather before him had been actual tribal shamans, so he was no stranger to the paranormal.

“Then you believe in paranormal activity?” she asked.

“I have tried to divorce myself from such things, and a life that I never really knew. I was adopted by a very nice American family here in West Virginia, and I’ve never looked back. Today I am as American as…as apple pie.” His smile was infectious.

“Amos, all I can tell you is this. The gift I possess is real, and I have devoted my life to using it for the right reasons.”

After that, Amos Kunati stared at his watch, commented on how late it’d become, and said he must rush off.”

They parted, she felt, on firmer ground and better terms.

TWENTY

The following evening at Charleston Police Headquarters

There’d been a green glow connection to the killer from the beginning. How many suggestions had come with that cue? How many clues of a green, greener, greenest nature indeed? Still, how many ways could the idea of green be turned over? How many shades of green were there in the spectrum? Emerald, jade, olive, lime, bottle green, sea green? Green was in some ideologies the color of hope, new life, nature, purity, wholeness as in organics, or grassy or leafy items—growth and growths. Lush came to mind, verdant even, alongside rural and country and countrified.

Still, it could also mean just the opposite as in a bad growth, a gangrenous sour green as in something gone from fresh to rotting. Then again it could simply mean young, developing, unripe, or untrained, wet-behind-the-ears, new to killing. The color of gullibility, the naïve and callow unsophisticate; the inexperienced and untried. Certainly, green could signify immaturity. Sure, but it could also be pointing to a green grocer, or a gardener with a green thumb.

Was she hunting a ‘green’ serial killer? Someone like the Green River Killer? The aura of green might simply point to the killer himself as having a green aura about him. The greenness could mean anything, but the clothing the killer wore appeared to Rae as definitely green. The man was cloaked in it.

Yes, indeed, she saw green jeans or overalls more than she saw green beans.

She rolled over the idea and meaning of green as many ways as she could; no green thing was safe from her thoughts, not so much as collard greens and turnip greens. One thing the FBI and PSI powers had in common was the importance of brainstorming, and in the act of

brainstorming, no answers were too insane to cast out, for sometimes the most insane of notions spiraled up and up to a sane answer, one that resolved a question.