Mason's Order, Chapter 1

1

When I woke up in the dead black silence of my own bedroom, wide awake and anticipating death, I knew I’d be getting the call. 

I’m not a Voyant, and I’m certainly no ‘Cog, but there are times I just know.  I stared at the ceiling, a dim shape in the near-pitch shadows, and tried to relax. 

I let my mind drift over the filtered images of the sheets beneath my fingertips, sheets woven by an 84 year old grandmother in Missouri whose sure, gnarled, hands had lost none of their grace as they shuttled the loom back and forth in endless, joyous monotony.

I absorbed the smooth stroke of the handlathe that shaped the timbers of the bedframe, moved by a master craftsman from a line of craftsmen using a technique older than the Industrial Revolution.  I hummed his whistled tune, a New England ditty about wave and rain and boat and girl.

I reached out and brushed my fingertips across the lamp, a twisted bronze hippo that was an artshop project for a college dreamer full of ambition but lacking drive.  His flights of fancy found their way into the very essence of the piece, and always brought a smile to my lips even when I knew the call was coming.

And then the phone rang, and disturbed my peace. 

Levering my legs out of bed, I tossed the handmade sheets aside.  I never answer the phone in bed.  That bed is my sanctuary from the cacophony of Life; bringing the world’s hate and fear and death into it would be both sacrilege and stupidity.

I rocked the phone from its cradle, muting the hundred different remembrances left impressioned on it with the ease of 3 decades practice, and grunted into the receiver.

“Mason.”

“Mason, that you?”  In the background, I heard the wail of a siren fading away – an ambulance, probably.  Well, they don’t call after midnight to invite me to the Christmas party…

I just sighed.  “Said that, didn’t I?  Who’s this?”  I knew it was Chris, and he knew I knew.  He told me anyway. 

“It’s Chris Kapler, Mase.  We’ve got – well, we’ve got a huge mess on our hands, and we need your help.”

[We need your help.  Need your help.  Strangled…beaten…shot twice in the face…can’t figure out…can’t you help…God, so much blood…]

His words echoed in my head, amplified by previous calls, previous words, previous deaths.  I sighed again.  Time to get a new phone.  “Don’t tell me:  your psychic’s on vacation.”

Chris fumbled for the right words.  “She’s, uh, out of her depth.”  Too much was unsaid in that.

“About to quit on you, I take it.”  I wandered barefoot across the rich, tufted carpet and into the bathroom, phone cradled to one ear, and flicked on the light.  The harsh incandescence stabbed at my eyes, but it also helped me clear the final cobwebs from my head.  It’s probably gonna be a long night. 

He sighed.  “Yep.  Third one in two years.  You sure you don’t want to come work for us?  It’ll save our Special Dispensation budget…”

I barked a short, mirthless laugh.  “You don’t pay enough.”  And it was true.  As a private investigator there might be death, but there might not.  The Federated Law Enforcement Division tended to keep their psy-puppets as dog-and-pony shows that only sold tickets on homicides.  Good way to go crazy, that.

But for the occasional death, I don’t mind doing the boys in blue a favor.  They cut me a fat check and I give them the details of what happened, and maybe why - if we’re lucky.

It’s usually on a tough case or a rush case, though.  Too expensive for them to pay me for every spousal shooting that goes on in this town.  And at this time of night…

“So, Chris.  Child molester or serial killer?”  The blank pause on the other end of the line really made me want to add “Elementary, my dear Watson.”  I refrained.

“Uh, I’ll tell you when you get down here, Mase.”  I could almost hear Kapler fidgeting uncomfortably on the end of the line, though, so I let it go.  “Fine.  Where’s the vic?”

“We’re at that feral’s place, The Shift.  You know it?”

“Yeah, I know it.”  That place was practically at the junction of the Right Side and the Wrong Side of the tracks.  And in that public a location, the media hounds were gonna be crawling all over the yellow tape.  One glance in the mirror just confirmed my suspicions:  I looked like crap, with black circles under my eyes and a sandpaper face, and I had a lot of work to do before the news crews at the scene got any pictures of me. “Let me call a cab, and I’ll be down.”

Chris cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “We, uh, have a unit en route.  Should be there in five.”

I let the silence linger a second.  I hate presumption.  “Ballsy.  They’re gonna be waiting a while, you know that - right?”  Chris just cleared his throat again, not saying anything. 

So I hung up.  The kid had stones, but he really didn’t need to hear what I wanted to tell him.  Besides, this was obviously An Issue.  They don’t rush me unless they’re spooked - and I really hate it when they’re spooked.

It means I have to earn my money.

My New Case closet slid open at a gentle touch, well-oiled and whisper silent.  The tools of my trade were inside, and I took them out one by one, a ritual formed over my dozen years in the private investigaton business.

One shirt, white, pressed.
One pair of slacks, slate gray, pressed.
One belt, synthetic leather, thin.
One watch, diver’s.
One pair of socks, black.
One pair of comfortable dress shoes, broken in by hand.
One suit jacket, slate gray.
One pair of thin leather gloves, black.

But no tie.  I hate ties.  Had a serial hanging case once and after that I’ve never been able to wear one.

From the other side of the closet I took out the long coat, black.  Winter case wardrobes always cost more - but I include it in my bill under miscellaneous expenses.

The other closet in the hall is the Old Case closet.  It holds all the wardrobes from my completed - and closed - consulting cases, hermetically sealed with their jolly tags firmly fastened and the wonderful smell of mothballs to keep them relatively intact.  My pending cases are still held by the prosecution in case I need to testify.  Can't have a house fire burning up the case evidence - and I don't want some knuckle-head trying to set my house on fire because it's here, either.

And with any luck, I’d be adding this wardrobe to that closet in short order, and a fat consulting check to my bank account to boot.

I washed up and shaved, ran a comb through my hair and slicked it back, and then slid into my never-worn clothes a piece at a time.  The cops were waiting, but my ritual has a purpose.

The mind must lead the body.

One last look in the mirror showed the sunken, tired face almost totally subsumed within a crisp, immaculate exterior.

The mask that was me smiled. 

“Showtime.”


                   *                    *                    *                    *                    *

The parking lot was lined with witnesses as our black and white pulled up to The Shift. Neither of the officers in the car with me was doing much talking, so I just took in the scene. Patrons wearing mink coats or leather and not much else stood impatiently in the chill air, answering questions from uniformed officers with aggravated puffs of steam condensing in the air.

Smart to question them outside.  That many shifters trapped in an enclosed area could be trouble. 

The Shift was, for lack of a better term, a werewolf bar.  That it advertised it proudly was a statement of how far parahuman rights has come in the last few years – and of how popular it was.  Shifters – or ferals, as Kapler called them - went there for companionship, but humans went there to see or be seen, and to try their luck at picking up a shifter for an after-hours party. 

With an aggressive temperament and stamina to spare, the rumors flew hot and heavy and the college crowd wanted a taste.

Ah, to be young again.

But with that aggressive temperament came ready brawls and furniture damage galore.  The Shift employed pro-active bouncers and few of the conflicts got past the fistfight stage - but the occasional escalation did happen.

From the look of things, they’d escalated right to the top tonight.

We stopped in front of the gaggle of policemen at the entranceway, right next to the ambulance and the morgue-mobile.  Never a good sign.

The uniform came around and opened the back door of the cruiser for me.  I slid out with a grimace, feeling like I should brush myself down to get the soul-grime off me.

“Thanks.  Hate riding back there.”  The cop just gave me a blank look and a nod that lacked understanding, but I didn’t feel like explaining.  “Where’s Kapler?” 

It was an unnecessary question as Chris strode toward me, relief written under a heavy brow.  Behind him there was a burly sort meandering about beyond the yellow tape and flipping through a notepad purposefully.  Must be a new guy.

Chris motioned the uniform away and stepped around one of the medics headed toward the pile of humanity sitting on the asphalt, bleeding. “Glad you could make it, Mase.”    He was the strapping image of a multi-cultural department, with his mocha skin and European features loudly indicating his mixed heritage. He had the body of a linebacker, the face of a model, and the demeanor of a boy scout. 

I had a bet going with the Chief that he wouldn’t last 3 years in Homicide. 

“Did I have a choice?”  I rolled my shoulders in a shrug and tried to get the left-over images of pimps, whores, druggies and wife-beaters from the police car’s backseat out of my head.  “The least you could have done was send over a one-man patrol car instead of a two.  I had to ride in the back.” 

“Aw, Jeez Mason, I didn’t even think…” Chris started to stutter an apology as someone else shouted my name. 

“Mason!  Mason, can we get a quote for the cycle?”  A leggy bottle-blonde with immaculate taste in clothes and a stride like a panther on the prowl headed my way, microphone held out like a weapon and cameraman trailing in her wake.

Jeanie Cavanaugh, Channel 8’s blood-sucker.  A true professional, she cared about the corpses even less than most.  Her smile was a thousand-watt soulless light.  Sleeping with her must be like fucking a stiletto-wearing shark.  The girl was a carnivore, and she loved only herself, and the job, which is why she was so damn good at it.

I know – I touched her microphone once, and got to See it all.

“I haven’t even seen the crime scene yet, Jeanie.  I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

“But you are consulting, right?”  She ran an unnecessary hand through her still-perfect hair and grinned at me conspiratorially.  “I was hoping to see you here – it means I’m on the right story.”

High-profile deaths are like high-profile parties:  the same boring people talking about the same boring things.  Jeanie and Chris and I show up, swap stories, scratch each others’ backs and promise to chat later, darling.

It churns my stomach acid.

Still, she gets my face on the news more than any other investigative reporter in the city – which not-so-coincidentally brings me more clients and more money - so I try to play nice whenever possible.  “Jeanie, when I know something, I’ll give you a bite, and you can run it up the flagpole.  Sound fair?”

She blinded me with those insincere teeth again, almost touched me, thought better of it and just made the universal “call me” hand-signal instead before running off to get more grist for the television mill.

“That lady really gets under my skin,” Chris muttered, looking after her with the beginnings of a scowl darkening his already-dark face.

“Really?  Because I don’t think she even knew you were here.”  Chris glared, I smiled briefly, and then motioned for him to lead on.  “Isn’t there supposed to be a crime scene around here somewhere…?”

The burly guy finally made it past the tape and ambled over.  A new face for our old parties.

He flipped his notebook shut and eyed me up and down in a jaw-clench inducing manner.  “You’re Mason, huh?  The PI psychometrist?”

I nodded once.  “We prefer Metric.”  Almost everyone with a Gift has three titles:  the clinical definition, the self-definition, and the slang slur.  Psychometrist, Metric, and Psycho.  Negro, Black, and…well, you get the drift.  Everybody deals with it. 

He frowned at my flat tone.  “Not sure how you shorten it to Metric.  I’ve heard the term psychos, though.”  He gave a short, barking laugh as Chris winced behind a gloved hand.  “The way these guys talk about you…thought you’d be taller.”  And I thought you’d be smarter. I gritted my teeth and let it go.  “Good to meet ya, I’m Detective Bentel.”  He shoved a large paw in my direction.  Apparently he didn’t work with Metrics much; I just looked at him.

As the scowl was spreading across his face, Chris jumped in.  “Sorry, Detective Bentel.  He doesn’t like to be touched.  You know how it is.”  Obviously he didn’t, but he just grunted and lowered his hand.

Early in life I learned to touch people as little as I had to.  A handshake would lead to images of gloves being bought or fingers being broken or rings being removed prior to illicit affairs.  People do everything with their hands, and because of that focus the memories they create are more vivid. 

It’s just better for my sanity if everybody else keeps their mucky mitts to themselves.

Shoving his hands back into his pockets, Bentel walked me under the day-glow tape and into the crime scene.  I leaned closer to Chris as I ducked beneath the barrier and pitched my voice accordingly.

“Haven’t seen the detective before.”

“Bentel’s new from Boston homicide.  Got here a couple months ago, just after Shigatchi left.” And that explains why he doesn’t know his way around Metrics.  I wasn’t sure whether to smile as the fact clicked into place or snarl in frustration.

The great state of Massachusetts passed a law a while back allowing its cities to choose whether or not to use “psychos” in city jobs, especially law enforcement.  Seems the pope had issued an edict using lots of capital letters, stating that Gifts were a device of Satan to divert Man from the Church, and apparently the Irish-Catholics of Boston made their wishes felt.

I don’t know what makes me angrier, US law being influenced by papal decree or the Church using Gifted hypnotists to perform suppression of parishioner Gifts and calling it exorcism.

The club itself was nice – or had been before the stampede for the door that busted up some of the furniture and left a clutter of glass fragments from beer bottles and tumblers strewn across the floor.  There were rows of lights in all manner of colors, a three-sided walkway up above the dance floor suspended from the ceiling, some cages that I could only assume recently held gyrating ladies in various stages of intoxication.  Nice place.

You could see the footprints, and the blood, where people had gashed themselves open on the glass littering the ground.  The scrabbling hand marks.  The dragmarks and scuffs where one person fell and someone else pulled them along to the exit.

It had been panic, blind panic, in a crowd of hundreds. 

And since I couldn’t see a body, I had to ask myself, “from what?”

I crouched down briefly and touched one of the hundreds of glittering shards that coated the ground with my fingertips.

[Light-and-dancing], beautiful, God-she’s-pretty…
[staggering/vomiting girl-stairs]…her problem?
[blood-screaming-run-run-RUN] body deadbody waitress
[fall/trample] RUN!!!…

I pulled my hand back and disengaged from the images, absently pleased that I hadn’t cut the fingertips.  It happens sometimes, twitching in the middle of Watching.

Bentel was most of the way across the main floor by now, picking his way over chair kindling and other various debris while the crime sceners took their pictures and their measurements. Kapler was just looking down at me, his face a mixture of puzzlement and admiration.

“See anything?”  At my dead silence, he amended quickly.  “What did you Watch?”

“Just some chaos, Chris.  Everything was fine, one of the bartenders or waitresses came up the stairs with blood on her, and then chaos.”  I rubbed my palms on my thighs and stood up again, feeling the Gift ebb and take its color-saturated high with it.

Chris nodded.  “That’s about what we got out of the witnesses.  Still haven’t figured out why the stampede happened, though.  It was dark, and everybody couldn’t have seen the girl at once.”

“Smell.”  I headed after Bentel, looking for the stairs down. 

“Huh?”

“The shifters smelled the blood on her, and then her blind panic, and that started the flight for the door.”

Chris frowned.  “Of course.  Should have thought of that myself.” 

“You would have.” I didn’t have to think of it either, Chris, it was shown to me.  Always easier that way.

Bentel looked back over his shoulder, glared at the larger-than-expected distance between us and him, and then headed down the stairs. 

I took my time following after, to Chris’ consternation.

The staircase was well-used, the varnish partially stripped off by excessive bleach moppings and a few of the timbers cracked or worn.  The smell of blood and shit wafted up the staircase in a very unwelcome concoction.  Must’ve been hell for the shifters and their more acute olfactory senses.

Bentel was waiting at the bottom, rubbing absently at his nostrils and smirking in my general direction.  I just wrinkled my nose a bit and descended into the foul dark. 

Beer kegs and wine racks lined both walls, but there was no body here.  It was apparent from the acres of yellow tape cordoning off the far rooms that it must be back there, and the scattered and numbered file cards indicated the blood evidence strewn across the poorly lit floor.  I just turned and looked at Bentel expectantly, while Kapler watched us both.

All I got in return was a deliberately indifferent shrug.  “Normally we would have been down here doing what detectives are supposed to do, examining the crime scene.  But when the department’s…medium couldn’t find nuthin’, Detective Kapler suggested we call you and wait outside to avoid tampering with the crime scene.  You know, before you got here to put everything together for us.”

His smile was all vicious distaste.  I just shrugged in return and turned to leave. 

“C’mon Mason.” Kapler was getting a little pissed off, both at myself and the Boston detective.  “We don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t work with assholes, Chris, you know that.  It’s why I’m a PRIVATE dectective; I don’t have to.”  And I wasn’t kidding either.  My job is hard enough when the system is working with me.  Even my consulting fee wasn’t enough if it was working against me.

But apparently Chris was feeling his oats today.  “The lieutenant told me to call you down, Mase, and the Chief is behind it too.  We want you on this one, ALL of us.”  He seemed to want to include Bentel in that, even if Bentel had other ideas.

The stocky Bostonian snorted.  “Why?  I’ve been solving crimes the old-fashioned way for twelve years now.  What do we need him for?”  Something in the way he said it got my back up.  Maybe because I don’t get called unless I AM needed.

Even so, I hate having to do parlor tricks.

I put my hand on the stairwell frame at about shoulder height, just before the stairs started, and let the View wash over me for a few seconds.  When I lifted my hand off, an involuntary shudder rippled down my spine despite my best efforts. 

“There’s a girl in that room,” I said, pointing to my right while still looking up the stairs.  “The waitress was coming to change the beer on tap when she noticed blood and…other things seeping under the door.  There’s a girl in there, tied up in her own entrails, who was still alive when she was found.”  Keeping my voice steady with the fresh emotions of the bartender’s hysteria still engulfing me was no mean feat. 

“And how do you know that?”  Bentel suddenly sounded unsteady.  “Kapler told you, didn’t he?”

I caught a glimpse of Chris’ face out of the corner of my eye; he was ghost-white, and his voice was a few shades lower than normal.  “I didn’t know she was still alive at the time,” he murmured.  “You interviewed the witness, Bentel, not me.”

I swallowed and sighed.  “So I take it the victim’s dead now?”  Neither detective said anything, but then it wasn’t really a question.

“How did you do that?”  Bentel wasn’t just unfamiliar with Metrics, he was definitely an unbeliever who was having to do some quick re-evaluating.

I nodded toward the stairwell.  “When the waitress was stumbling up the stairs, she put her hand right about here.  She must be about my height.”  A bit tall for a woman, a bit short for a man.  Not that I have a complex or anything…

Chris just looked vindicated.  “Now, if neither of you mind, could we do the crime scene?”

I just snapped my fingers and held out my hand, palm up, waiting for latex gloves.

Let’s do this crime scene – so I can get the hell outta here.

*    *    *    *    *

The room was apparently used for storage; hopefully it held nothing of import, because every hastily-taped cardboard box and randomly strewn paper pile had been absolutely drenched in blood or other fluids.  Boxes were already deforming under their own weight along gore-soaked sides and the sheafs of papers were curling and sticking together as everything slowly turned to viscous glue.  Sprays of vermillion decorated the walls and ceiling – and some sort of scrolled lettering that I didn’t recognize was painted over all of it with heavier strokes.

“What is that?  Can’t be Arabic.  It’s not Hebrew…some sketchy Cyrillic?”

Chris and Bentel looked up.  “No idea,” Chris offered in a subdued voice.  “We sent a copy to one of the professors at the University, but…” He trailed off and Bentel just shrugged and made more notes.  Neither had an answer – and honestly, I wasn’t expecting one. 

I just wanted to delay the inevitable a little longer.

Pinned to the far wall was the body of what used to be a woman.  Her abdomen had been cut open and her entrails were unrolled and tacked in an intricate pattern to floor, wall and ceiling - and as the waitress had so vividly impressed upon me, had been pulsing with blood long after she should have been dead from hemmorhage or shock.  They remained attached to her by some unholy surgical miracle, sick puppeteer strings starting and returning at her core. Her face was the kind of used you might see in lifelong addicts or anorexia deaths, but I was far too afraid she had not looked like that before she met this horrific end. 

Her hair had been chopped off raggedly and strands were scattered in the blood in seeming random patterns, but not enough to be all of what was cut.  A trophy taken, then.  And probably not the only one. 

I glanced at Chris, breaking away from the gruesome scene.  “You did have your crime scene photographer get all this, right?  I’m not gonna have to wait for that…” but Chris was already nodding.

“Done and done, Mase.”  He was swallowing hard, I noticed.  It smelled like a slaughterhouse in here.  A slaughterhouse in an outhouse. 

“The bootprints: ours or his?”

Bentel spoke up, much subdued.  “The medics.  Like you said, she was alive when they got here.”

I could probably have asked other questions.  Unfortunately, I’d already exceeded my stalling quota for the day.  “All right.  Here goes.”

I laid my latex-encased fingertips on the wooden door frame.

[jealous-rage-purpose-hate-hunger-hate-hope-need-want-hatehateHATE]

And I pulled them off like they’d been burned and just stared at them.

“Problem?”  There was Bentel, full of false sympathy if not nearly as cocky as he had been a few minutes ago.

“Not sure actually.”  But the fact that I couldn’t erase the frown on my face was probably an indication that yes, there was.  Luckily Chris was behind me and couldn’t read my expression.

I tried again, brushing the doorknob this time.

[Door pushes open] who spilled wine…blood, so much bl…God, from the ceiling, girl…
[Scream, shove-door/fall-back] alive-alive-ALIVEHELP!!  Girl-blood-toomuch…
[run] run-run-rungetaway…

I shuddered slightly when I disconnected from the waitress and her thoughts when she opened the door.  If the scene was bad now, it was worse when the victim was alive.  Still breathing, still bleeding, though where it all came from I had no idea.  The pools of blood shone in the fluorescence, disturbed only when more droplets fell like tears to splash on the ichor-coated floor.  And the terror and sheer horror of the poor waitress…

I blinked hard to clear my Sight, then moved further into the room.  No sense going anywhere but the source now.

“Tell him not to mess with the evidence, Kapler…”  Bentel’s voice was just a nagging whisper on the edge of my awareness now.  The woman’s abused face and form beckoned me even as I tried not to lose my footing in what used to be the Life pumping through her veins.  I didn’t even know her name, yet; I had to at least know her name.

Her left hand hung open in death, but her right was closed tight, rigormortis slowly settling into those tightened tendons.    I saw the stained metal encircling her finger, and knew what I’d need to do. 

I braced myself, and then touched her wedding ring.

A flood of images buried me, of her husband [Jim, Jim Dennison, Mr. And Mrs. James Dennison she practiced on a napkin in her humble kitchen], of her two daughters [Nat and Charlie, such a tomboy Charlie, and Nat looks so much like her father], of the wedding day and birthdays and Christmases and private times.  Her dreams for her marriage, her children, her life. 

I sorted those and discarded, needing the recent pain over the past love.  I Watched her last moments before she left for work, hugging her children goodbye and telling them to be careful, always careful to look both ways at the bus stop.  I Saw her walking home from the train station [chill in the air, should have brought my other jacket/who’s there?], Saw the blur of someone or something hitting her and knocking her across the pavement.

I was with her when she woke up in this place with a giant’s too-long face hovering over her; he was doing something to her head before stretching up to paint letters on the twelve foot tall ceiling with her hair as the brush.  I felt her confusion turn to horror as she looked down at herself, as she saw what he had done to her.  I begged with her as she pleaded for her life, talked about her family and how they needed her.

I prayed as she prayed, and died inside as she said goodbye, holding tight at the last to her ring and her memory, even as the medics came and tried to free her and everything faded at merciful last to black…

A hand on my shoulder roused me.  I shook my head and looked uncomprehending at Chris’ concerned face.  He was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him over the rushing blood in my temples and the wash of the Past swamping my Present.  I shook my head again and he repeated.

“….hell is happening, Mase?  You were screaming…”  He trailed off as I blinked and looked over at Bentel, who had his hand on his gun butt and was eyeing me like I had just escaped from the zoo with a bad case of rabies.

I shrugged Kapler’s hand off in irritation.  “I’m fine.  Stop touching me.”  My legs still felt like jelly.  Screaming, huh?  Great, just what my rep needs. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, the afterimage of my Gift still blazoned on my lids.

“What’s up, Mase?”  I could feel Chris staring at me through the back of my skull.

I sucked in another fouled breath and let it out slowly.  “Why do I let you drag me to See shit like this?”  It wasn’t him I was asking, but I heard him move, and his voice was closer, softer when he spoke.

“Open your eyes.  You know why.”  The frozen scene of the girl’s death greeted me again, but it was more a sick diorama than the vibrantly obscene tableau of her living suffering that I had just Watched.  Hung like a marionette from the wall, with just the gleaming polish of her wedding ring highlighting a fist clenched tight and covered in flaking blood.

Held on to her family until the last. At least she had that.

“See anything?”  The naked sympathy in Chris’ voice was maddening.  Don’t you dare pity me, Kapler, not ever. 

I glared over at him.  “Yeah.  Something.”  I started picking my way back to the door through the mess.  “Her name’s Gail Dennison – two n’s, one s.  Husband James, two daughters.”  Bentel scribbled notes in his little book.  “Looks like she lives on the North Side ‘cause she was taking the Six train home. 

“Also, the killer doesn’t leave a signature.”  Chris sucked in a breath;  Bentel just looked blank.  “It means there’s nothing to read off of whatever he touches other than vaguely directed emotions.  It happens.  Certain psychoses can do it - Multiple Personality Disorder, for instance - and shifters don’t leave much in the way of signatures at a scene either.  Unfortunately this is a shifter bar so there’s not a shortage of suspects.”  Shifters usually leave SOME trace sig, though, and this one had next to nothing.  Still, I could be wrong; this was no time to get eye-glazing with specifics.

“She also thinks the killer is eight feet tall and kinda blue, so she was probably on some serious drugs.  Or in shock – which might be the easier explanation.” I left out that I was hoping she was on something, because blue giants aren’t covered in the How To Stop A Serial Killer manual.  “Let me know what the M.E. comes back with on the Tox screens.”  Chris nodded, but Bentel was already balking.

“Why?  All you were here for is a consultation, not to take over the case.  Unless you’re hiding a badge somewhere up your ass, I don’t share with…”

“Bentel.”  I was far clear of the doorway by then, pulling off the detestable latex gloves and handing them to a crime scene worker.  Don’t want to spend a second longer in there than I have to.  “I don’t work for you, detective.  I work for the city.  If you don’t like my work, take it up with the mayor.  I’m sure he and the Chief will reprimand me sternly at our next poker game.”  Why is it every schmuck with a badge thinks I’m his toy poodle anyway?

I smiled humorlessly.  “Besides, isn’t there another one of these bodies somewhere?  If it’s a serial case I can’t be working in the dark when I go to crime scenes.  I need to know whose Sight was clear and whose was cloudy.  Or I can’t help you very much, now can I?”

Bentel from Boston just growled.  “You can’t help me much anyway.”

If I could have laughed I would have, but my humor had been strangled at the source.  I smirked sourly instead.  “I don’t care if you found a guy covered in the victim’s blood, with the murder weapon in his hand and a dozen witnesses that point the finger at him.  If I say he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it.  That can be very helpful.”

The man just would not be swayed.  “It takes three psychos in court to make a vision count as evidence, Mason.”

“It takes an army of crime lab guys to back up your gut feelings too, Bentel, but if you say a guy did it then he probably did, right?”  I didn’t even wait for his non-committal grunt.  “The difference between us is that my gut is never wrong.” 

“And your ‘gut’ is now saying we’re looking for an 8 foot smurf serial killer?”

Damn.  Knew that was gonna come back on me. “Let’s wait and see what the Tox screens say, shall we?”  At least he had learned enough in the last hour to realize I might not be a charlatan.  “But since you just confirmed my serial killer hunch, tell me – what was the first crime scene like?”  Kapler and Bentel exchanged looks, and then Chris shook his head. 

“Like this,” he sighed, motioning with his notebook and trying not to look around anymore.  “Hair cut off, words or symbols at the scene, twisted death.  We kept most of it from the papers, but with a second one…‘Serial Killer stalks West Side’ will be on every broadcast and every headline.”

I glanced at my watch, its hand-crafted perfection ticking away the seconds like a metronome, and yawned reflexively at the time shown.  I turned to Kapler.  “Okay Chris, I’m gonna need to talk to your psychic, and I’m gonna need to go to the first crime scene…but first I need to sleep.  I need a few hours of recovery time before I go jump in another fire like this.”  Chris looked skeptical, but I’m a consultant, not a murder vision mule. 

I just stared back at him until he nodded, and quirked my lips in a reflection of a smile.  “Good.  On the ride I'll fill out the skew so you don't have to do your own paperwork.  Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.  And I’m not ridin’ in the back this time either.”