Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1) (15 page)

"
T
his is much better
, Miss Bell," Professor Browning said handing her back the paper. He was wearing forest green corduroys today and a checkered blue shirt tucked in with a silver tie, and had a dark brown suit coat jacket on the back of his chair.

It was the following Monday and this time around he had actually just asked from her what the rest of the class had been assigned. It was a very simple two-page research paper on electoral college math. How it worked and why it had been formed.

Katie had written almost an identical paper her junior year of high school, but for the principle of the exercise she had actually spent two whole hours researching the paper and another two writing the damned thing.

Now, three days after she had handed it in she was very satisfied with the shiny red A on her paper.

Her phone whispered to her silently in her coat pocket and she checked it. Gideon again. She had texted with him on a regular basis since last week but had yet to see him in person, she decided that as a little reward to herself she would change that.

A
fter class
, Gideon had wanted to meet at the coffee shop. To Katie’s surprise, he did not greet her as warmly as she had expected.

"It's been a while," Katie said taking a seat across from him.

"Sorry, I’ve been taking on more obligations than I know what to do with," Gideon said, taking a sip of his tea.

She arched an eyebrow. "How so?"

"I'm a reporter for the Tidings, I don't think I've mentioned that."

Katie shifted where she was sitting, leaning back a little. “You did, but you were drinking.”

The Tidings was the school paper and journalism was one of the few respected departments at the school. SCU was known for it.

"As you know, I helped try to resuscitate Dan, but obviously that didn’t work out.”

Katie didn't say anything. Gideon correctly assumed it was a sign for him to continue.

"Now I was pretty focused on just him, but did you see anything that might be useful? There was a brief bio, but we are still reeling from the whole incident and since the police are continuing to just do their thing…"

"You want to know if I saw anything suspicious."

"Yeah."

"Maybe."

"What do you mean maybe?"

"I mean if I did see something shouldn't I just report it to the police?”

"I'm assuming you did. I want to know for my own reasons."

"You mean for the paper?"

"Right."

She considered Gideon for a moment.

"You didn't like him did you?"

"I didn't know him. At least not personally.”

"Not answering the question," Katie said, smiling.

Gideon grinned back, leaning across the table a little, a twinkle in his eye.

"No, I suppose I didn’t, did I?"

"Why should I share information with you if you won't with me? I'm just saying…"

"I know a few people I like that didn't like him. It's not politically correct to try to dig up dirt but considering what happened to him was so … so brutal, it's definitely not just time to memorialize him as some savior. Well, at the moment it is, but while other people at the paper do that…"

"You're going to try to figure out what happened."

“Bingo.”

It was Katie's turn to pause. The question was, did she really want to share everything with her bed buddy? On some gut level, she trusted Gideon. Of course she found him charming enough to sleep with, but that was still very different than actual trust. Trust was … bigger. Heavier. A responsibility. Katie knew than on some level, Gideon would always come through.

Still, it was enough for her to tell him about the man.

She spoke in short declarative sentences, and he listened intently, with the kind of attention that men his age usually only employed when they were watching sports, playing video games or thinking they would get laid.

Katie left out the detail about the thumb drive, just as she had with the detectives and her father. There was no need to incriminate herself. She still wasn’t entirely sure
why
she had grabbed the drive. Getting caught up in matters that didn’t directly concern her was an old bad habit, but being outright self destructive was not.

A
fter Katie finished
, she waited for him to say something but instead he just shook his head and looked out the window of the shop.

"So what do you think?"

"It seems like this mysterious figure has just as much motive as anyone else, especially if he was talking to Dan with a raised voice."

"It wasn't overly obvious or anything, but
clearly,
something was up. I'm not sure what, but I didn't like it, it's like something was in the air and there was nothing he could do to stop it."

“Well, it turned out you were right." Gideon said.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

T
iffany had texted
Katie during her meeting with Gideon, letting her know she was going to be out for the evening. Apparently she had a date with the football player Duncan Stokes she had met at the infamous party. Katie and Gideon made their way back to her dorm room and promptly ripped each other’s clothes off and for the first time, Katie felt fully in charge. It was just as good as the other times, or perhaps even better.

She stayed on top for the first two rounds and enjoyed gripping his hair (he had great hair), as she rode Gideon, before he rolled over and pushed her face into the pillow. He was not particularly soft that third and final round, but Katie was warmed up and didn't want him to be, and enjoyed Gideon being aggressive.

After as they lay there she had the strongest craving for a cigarette but skipped it so she could check her email. Still nothing from Stacy.

L
ater Gideon had gone
and Tiffany had returned, a strange glow about her.

Katie tilted her head to the side and examined her friend, until she realized precisely what that glow was.

"Were you just naughty?"

Tiffany looked at her for a long moment and batted her eyes. "More than a little."

Katie laughed and hugged her friend, before returning to the paper she was outlining for her physics class.

Tiffany took a seat on her bed and lay back, the glow not subduing in the slightest.

"And I'll tell you what, it was absolutely the best straight sex I've had pretty much ever. He was just … It was amazing."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, hands down. So nice to be out and not being watched by the family either. Ugh."

"That's what college is about. Freedom to do what you want."

Tiffany propped herself up on her elbows and looked at her friend carefully.

"Something's different about you."

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"You totally banged in here." The Southern accent came out for full effect when she said the word “banged” and Katie, not for the first time was so attracted to Tiffany she wanted to jump her friend, but restrained herself.

"Well, you said you were out…"

“No, no, I’m happy for you. Gideon?”

Katie sighed. “Gideon. And it was the best yet.”

"Well done us!" Tiffany bounced up off the bed and hi-fived her friend.

"Well, considering the glumness going around campus, it's nice to have a little warmth in our personal lives.”

"Oh I do, darling,” Tiffany said as she examined her hair in her dresser’s mirror.

"It looks like I need another shower," she said winking at Katie before grabbing her bag and heading back out the door.

"
A
re you sure about this
?" Arthur asked.

Fields and Tapscott both nodded.

"The video was taken on her phone, there's no question about it."

"So Seaborn had a partner."

"Or Seaborn was simply set up," Arthur said.

"He had motive," Tapscott said.

“Did he actually have motive? Or was it more he fit a typical profile?” Arthur asked. “The thing we have to remember is these kills were modeled loosely on Snow. Martin Snow was not a typical psychopath. If he truly has an admirer, it's safe to assume that they will not be typical as well. Martin took trophies, and it's clear whoever's doing this is doing the same."

Fields and Tapscott exchanged looks.

"What makes you say that?” Fields asked.

"Two items are missing from both crime scenes, two things that are important to the victims. Tori lived on that phone. She was a social drinker who had to constantly be having a good time. That device was one of her most important possessions. Maria Rivas always wore a gold cross. Despite her profession she was deeply religious, and it was missing from the crime scene. William Seaborn was a control freak and loved his pen. The ink from his note was from the pen, but it's missing. I don't think a maid took it. Whoever's doing this is proud of what they are doing."

"But why hide it and then frame the third victim? Snow always did the hanging thing. It was important to him, important to the ritual.”

It was Tapscott who spoke this time, though Fields nodded in agreement.

"Because this is someone who admires what he did, but it's more of an homage rather than an exact copycat. One thing is for certain, whoever does this isn't planning on stopping anytime soon, and they want us to know that. Us being aware of the game is important to them."

"So what now?" Fields again.

Arthur clasped his hands together and rested them on the desk. "Now you two do what you do, open up both files and do the usual leg work, go over everything again. Find me something we've missed. There has to be something. I'm going to go have a chat with the boss and tell her we aren’t closing anything.”

3
:28PM

"So you managed to recover it?"

"Yes, I did," Stacy said.

They had met in her dorm room, a single room for sophomores that was about the same size as Katie’s. Stacy's bed was larger than Tiffany’s or her's, and she had larger desk facing the white shade-covered windows. On one wall there was a giant poster for The Lord of The Rings and on the other a picture of a couple of ballet dancers leaping through the air. On her desk was a giant computer monitor, with various cables running down to a desktop computer that lived below the desk. The computer had a sleek black and red case with a glass window that showed the inner workings that looked more like the inside of a spaceship than a PC. Katie wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if Stacy had built it herself.

There was a good desk chair, the kind with expensive ergonomic things with plenty of lumbar support like Arthur had back at the house office. There was also a school piece of crap chair like the one Katie had in her dorm.

Stacy took a seat in the nice chair and indicated the other for her client.

Katie took a seat and watched as Stacy's fingers flew over the keyboard, quickly punching in a series of keys to just access her desktop.

Stacy glanced at Katie and shrugged. “A bit paranoid. In my line of work it comes in handy. Anyway, here's what I found."

She opened the disk image of the thumb drive and Katie saw a dozen files pop up. One was a video file, and the rest looked like image files with one being a text document.

Katie glanced at the taller women. "Have you looked at any of these?"

Stacy shook her head. "I'd offer to just leave the room, but no offense I don't know you and I don't leave my computer unsupervised. The disk encryption is tight enough that I have to leave it actually in my computer to look at it too. Whoever you got it from knew what they were doing."

"Okay, well then let's start with the document shall we?"

Stacy nodded and double clicked the text document.

It was a short letter, only a paragraph long, with a scanned signature.

I
agree
, as a new member to the brotherhood as those who have come before me, that if I give up on this most holy of paths I will disavow all knowledge of my membership, and if do break my sacred pledge all information given here will be free to be used under any circumstance.

Sincerely, Dan Reedman.

K
atie and Stacy
looked at each other.

"Picture time or video?" Stacy asked.

"Pictures first."

The pictures were all basically identical. The first half were all Dan in various inappropriate positions with about half a dozen women, all time stamped for the period of time he was in a relationship with Amelia Wood. One of the women appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties and looked vaguely familiar to Katie.

Stacy pointed to the screen on that image. “I’m pretty sure that’s the football coach’s wife."

Some of the photos were blurry and out of focus, but a few were sharper and were obviously taken in Dan Reedman’s bedroom.

The video came next, and showed Dan sitting in a completely white room in a white metal chair facing what appeared to be a desk where the camera was, and he was talking over the desk at someone, whoever was holding the camera.

"You understand that by agreeing to do this there are certain expectations. Certain … requirements.“

Dan nodded. "I understand. But I have to do this, there is no other way."

"I know you are reluctant, but rest assured that becoming part of this means it is all suddenly far more important than it being just about you. However of course there are personal upsides to it. For instance, an offering of goodwill from us."

The cameraman's hand came into view, holding the small glass bottle of clear liquid. There was a white label on the vial, with a dozen numbers and five black diagonal lines of a barcode underneath it.

Dan looked at the bottle and shook his head. "I'm no doper."

"This isn't dope. And it won't show up on any drug test.”

Dan seemed unsure, but still reached out and took the bottle, pocketing it.

The video ended.

Stacy looked at Katie.

"So how exactly did you come across this thumb drive?"

Katie shrugged, uncomfortable. "I found it."

"You found it."

"Uh-huh."

"Where exactly?"

Katie paused, unsure what to say to Stacy. She was entering unknown territory, and was unsure how to proceed.

"Can I trust you?"

Stacy smiled at the question and shook her head. "If I said yes, does that make me more trustworthy? Usually the people that say ‘you can trust me’ are the least trustworthy. I mean, at least in my experience I’ve found that to be the case.”

Katie laughed. "True. Well then here's a leap of faith."

Katie told Stacy everything she could remember about the party, including the strange man and how she had found the thumb drive in the shirt coat pocket.

Stacy listened with an almost uncomfortable focus on Katie.

When Katie finished Stacy was silent and leaned back in her chair. "There is more going on here then it appears, that much is for certain."

"I kinda already got that from the files."

"But whoever murdered him wasn't looking for that thumb drive."

Katie folded her arms across her chest. "Why do you say that?"

"Look at the crime scene, and look at the actual crime. They were able to stab him, burn him alive and still get out scot-free, but weren't able to find a thumb drive in his fuel soaked shirt when you did in what? Ninety seconds? I doubt it. The murder was about something else, and if these pictures are any indication, there's plenty of a lot else that somebody could be pissed off at Dan Reedman bad enough to kill him over. Not to mention the backpack you saw.”

Katie said, “I agree that the chances that this mysterious man killed him are less likely, given the context of everything."

"Right. Which leads me to my current theory about the whole murder."

"Which is?"

"Whoever killed Dan was still at the party when the cops showed up."

"Maybe his girlfriend? Amelia Wood?“

“Didn’t your roommate tell you Amelia was in the kitchen at the time though? Other’s have said the same I believe. There's no way she magically teleported down another set of stairs that aren't there."

Katie nodded, thinking back to that night. "You've been researching this haven't you?"

"I'm a net rat. And who doesn’t love a good mystery?”

“So what do you think is going on here?”

Stacy spread her arms out. “I don’t know. I’m just guessing there's far more going on here than meets the eye. There always has been about this school. You know, whispers in the dark.”

"Of what exactly?"

"That's the thing, it's never just one thing. Vampires, secret cults, this place being a recruitment camp for the CIA. The usual, kooky and unbelievable. It's never the same thing and yet…"

"Where there's smoke…"

Stacy snapped her fingers, bouncing up in her chair excitedly, happy that Katie got it. "Exactly."

Katie thought about it. "Well, maybe it's time for someone to poke at that smoke and see what’s causing it.”

"Want some help?"