Deja Blue (7 page)

“Protocol they call it. Sorry. Much as Raule believes in you, the FBI has never been comfortable with psi powers behind the agency’s emblem.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Still worried about their image.”

“Meanwhile, over seventy percent of the American population believes in psychic powers, among other otherworldly powers and paranormal events, such as apparitions, angels—”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Rae.”

“And I’m sick of apologizing for the screw ups in the Carnivore Man case.”

“Rae, we lost a man during that case.” “We…at least you say it was us and not me alone lost Gene.”

“Just that everybody loved Kiley.”

“A kinder man never lived. Gene, my close friend, advisor, mentor, and trance-helpmate died saving me and my daughter in Phoenix. Something he wanted to be remembered for, and instead everyone’s thinking he messed up and blaming me for his death.”

“It was our first field operation. We were all being tested. On the spot.”

“And we made some spectacular, spot on significant, unquestioned ‘hits’.”

“However.”

“Yes, however… but… yet…Gene died in the bargain, thanks to Carnivore Man.

Adding salt to the wound, official reports held her partially responsible for Gene Kiley’s death. Official reports asked questions of her ‘normal perceptions’ perhaps short-circuited by her paranormal perceptions. Official reports second-guessed her intuition, steps she had taken, steps she had not taken.

The report had gone on to question the time it’d taken to collect, analyze, and interpret her visions, saying this slow process had cost more than time, as that time lost had cost lives, lives other than that of a valuable agent…the lives of victims. The report had said nothing whatsoever of how late the case had been handed over to Rae in the first place. Still it did praise her on one point. She had indeed localized the geography of the killer, and she had located his latest victim, and she had saved young Julian Redondo’s life, or at least her team had been given credit for this.

To date this injured, tortured Phoenix kid, Julian, had made a remarkable recovery. The boy continued working to rebuild his life and psyche, thanks in large measure to her following up on his progress. Not much in the official report on that fact, and nothing indicating that she had seen to getting him the best psychiatric help available. Success and failure all in the matter of a single moment in time; a moment that had proven Rae’s powers while paradoxically calling her psychic sensory investigatory powers into serious question among some colleagues.

“Aurelia, you’ve gotta quit beating yourself up over the past. We all made mistakes, and it does no one any good to be asking what he might’ve or may’ve or could’ve or should’ve or would’ve done differently.”

“I should’ve never placed Nia in such a situation.”

“Had you the foresight, maybe. Who knew?”

“Odd thing about being a psychic.”

“What’s that?” “It’s as if the gods of the psychic predetermined that at no time could the ‘gift’ be used for personal gain or for saving one’s own kid!” “As I recall it, Nia saved you.”

Since the events in Phoenix, she and Nia had become closer. Death of a mutual loved one either parted people or bonded them, often as a result of the lynch pin that the deceased had represented. And so much depended on the character of those left behind to grieve. Fortunately, something good had come out of Phoenix. In fact, her broken down relationship with Nia had come out of the ashes of that nightmare, much as the winged phoenix of mythology. Not that it’d meant an end to their tiffs and troubles.

“Concentrate on the here and now,” Copernicus firmly suggested. “Focus on the Dream Killer case.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Heard you walked out of another session,” he then said.

“I did. Wasn’t getting anywhere.”

“Give it time and another shot.” He placed a hand over hers. “You’re still the best, Rae, and you always will be.”

“Raule send you out here to give me a pep talk?” “He did, yes, but I wanted to; I care a great deal about you, Rae.”

“Been too many changes too fast, but I’ll go back at it, for you, Copernicus, and for the victims.”

EIGHT

The field techs, what TV viewers knew as the CSI team, had managed to get hold of some items from the victims bedrooms where they’d died, and these items were spread before Aurelia Hiyakawa like offerings to a Buddhist monk.

Some of the items collected by the CSI team and finally turned over for a kinetic examination at Rae’s fingertips proved soft—useless really, even if from the victim’s room the night of her murder—while other items proved hard—useful and imprinted with images of that night, images embedded in one hammer forgotten and left behind by the killer at the scene believed to be his first killing. He’d gotten careless, messy. At that time, the BSU would have labeled him a disorganized killer, his actions random, brought on by opportunity and perhaps passions out of control, suggesting a possible relationship to the victim beyond that of the hunted.

She immediately set aside a second ‘control’ hammer that’d been brought in as a ‘ringer’. An array of brushes, lipstick tubes, fake fingernails used by the victim along with hair spray, rings, necklaces and other jewelry, and a carefully arrayed set of Ace Hardware nails, one a three-penny sized nail, and the only one that sent a chill through Aurelia. A chill so shocking as to make her drop it.

She carefully raised it between two fingers again, laid it before her and allowed her hands to circle the nail. In her mind’s eye it was dripping blood. The image of it being viciously driven into the skull of a victim flashed before Rae. Her gasp came over the Comlink, freezing everyone. All eyes went to Rae, anticipating a breakthrough.

# # #

Two hours later

“Aurelia!” the chief called out to her and indicated his office.

“Great, what’d I do now?” she said to passers-by.

One, a BSU agent, Tina Snyder joked, “What didn’t you do?”

Inside Apreostini’s office, she was greeted by authorities from Charleston, West Virginia, two men, one calling himself Chief of Police Carlton Orvison, a wry look of knowing on his experienced, creased face, and his detective, Amos Kunati, young, smooth-faced, coffee and cream complexion, not a wrinkle to speak of, not even on his forehead or his suit.

Orvison and Kunati both exuded a good nature, but Orvison kept a check on his smile, whereas the black Kunati, of African heritage, she assumed, had a smile as wide and as pleasant as the actor Sydney Poitier, but there seemed something reserved in the eyes. Where Orvison was solid and stout and short of build, Kunati proved tall, lithe, and he made movements as if he were liquid. She guessed him a former member of a basketball team somewhere, as he possessed an athletic grace. Most likely a Charleston team, perhaps a one-time hometown hero who’d been recruited from a faraway place, say Nigeria or Sierra Leone, or so her mind quickly sped through first impressions.

“Dr. Hiyakawa is our best psychic sensory investigator,” Raule told the men from Charleston.

“So we’ve been given to understand,” replied Orvison. “Question is, what has she got for us? Anything, anything at all?”

“They only handed me the case yesterday, gentlemen,” she replied for herself. “As for being the FBI’s best psychic detective…well, there’re only a handful of us and most are in training.”

“Your Chief tells us you’ve done a lot of the training.”

“Agent Gene Kiley did most of the training. I just followed his lead.”

“Then why don’t we have this guy Kiley working on the case?” asked Kunati as a direct challenge to his having to work with a woman and a psychic at that, she sensed.

“Afraid he’s ahhh…no longer with us, gentlemen,” replied Raule, being tactful.

“Haul ‘im back maybe?” asked Kunati, and now Rae caught a sound bite of sarcasm embedded in his speech. “We need all the help you can give us.”

“Gene’s dead,” Rae explained, “and not even Gene can come back from that.”

“Jeeze…sorry, real sorry,” replied Orvison. Kunati looked away.

“He didn’t make it our last time out in the field,” she added.

“Maybe he wasn’t so good after all then,” said Kunati, drawing a glare from Rae.

“He was the best at what he did—training. He was there to back me all the way, and he did, to the end.” She felt her face flush with anger. “Now, as I was saying, gentlemen, I’ve just gotten my feet wet with respect to what’s going on in your town.”

“Regardless, Rae,” began Raule, “you and the portable crawl—”

“Going to Charleston, I know,” she finished for him.

“—are going to Charleston,” he finished for himself and frowned at her. “And stop telling me what I’m going to say before I say it.” A laugh trailed his reprimand.

“I am a psychic, you know.”

He looked for a moment perplexed, then said, “Be at the airstrip at two.”

“Today? That’s impossible.” “This is possible,” countered her boss.

“Raule… ahhh Chief, you know I have a daughter, that I can’t just jump on a plane whenever you decide it’s best, and that the prospect of trekking off on another field experiment with Eddy’s toy ahhh? I mean Copernicus’s device doesn’t exactly do it for me.”

“It’s the best I can do. An FBI jet will be waiting for you at 1AM.”

“We’ll roll out the red carpet for you in Charleston,” commented Orvison while Kunati remained ominously silent. “Promise,” added Orvison.

Rae tried to imagine what the red carpet entailed in a city the size of Charleston, West Virginia. Was it even a carpet? Was it faded red denim?”

“I don’t want the key to the city, gentlemen, but if I’m given a free hand and your trust, that’d be enough.”

“Sounds a good deal,” replied Orvison.

“However, it may take some time to situate my daughter. Nia’s going through a rough time right now at school—a new school she’s just trying on, and it’s rough for a kid her age.”

“Dr. Hiyakawa will be on the plane with you, gentlemen,” Raule assured the Charleston officials.

She moved in on Raule and near whispered through gritted teeth, “What am I to do with Nia, Chief?”

“Hey, we’re all family here, Rae. Between your housekeeper and me, you know we’ll see she’s taken care of.”

“I don’t know, Raule. She’s still somewhat shell shocked from Phoenix, you know. She and Gene were close, and she’s had bad dreams, nightmares.”

The chief showed not the least response to this, his eyes glinting like steel spikes, his jaw set. He simply addressed the Charleston authorities. “Isn’t a mother’s love a wonderful thing?”

“You wouldn’t be patronizing me, would you, Raule?” she asked.

“We really do need you in Charleston,” said Orvison, his hands open to her.

“And maybe one day I’d love to come, but my daughter comes first.”

Aspreotini took her aside. “This is a great opportunity, Rae, to give you another chance.”

“Me or the remote CRAWL? You talked to Copernicus about this before me.”

“Yes, it’s an opportunity for both of you.”

“Copernicus has no responsibilities.”

“Look, I will see that Nia gets all the help she needs.”

“You, babysitting Nia? You’ll see she gets to school on time, to her practice on time, to her shrink on time?”

“Whatever it takes, yes. I’ll put a female agent on her. An SS agent. Can’t do any better than that?”

A halting laugh escaped Rae. “The president’s daughter was surrounded with SS agents in Argentina when her purse was stolen.”

“I promise no one’s going to steal Nia’s purse or harm her while you’re gone.”

She looked deeply and intently into his eyes. At one time they’d been romantically involved but never again. The chemistry between them had completely turned a 180. “All right. I guess between Enriquiana and an SS agent, Nia just might be safe, but she needs more than safety and an SS agent right now.”

“Enriqui is good with her, you told me, remember?” “Sarcasm is wasted on you, Raule.”

“But you said…”

“Nia twists Enriqui around her finger like a pretzel.”

“Have you considered a boarding school?”

“She needs me right now, needs an emotional support.”