Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1) (5 page)

A
rthur watched
the surveillance footage again. Since Agent Tapscott had left his office he had gone over it two more times. He watched the whole thing at one-and-a-half-times speed, focusing on a different person on each viewing.

Other agents would have always focused on Tori Watson, but he had only needed to do that on his first viewing. On his fourth time through he focused on the men around her. By the end of the day, he would watch it at least three more times, focusing once on each of the different men. It didn't matter if they actually did anything incriminating on the tape. That wasn’t the point of the exercise. What mattered was whether their stories of that night matched their actions, or at least were in drunken line with what the tape showed.

On the fourth time through he was paying specific attention to the last man Tori Watson had danced with. He was in his early thirties, Caucasian, and wearing a grey suit and white shirt. He bought her the last two drinks, both mixed cocktails, and for the last half hour did a very effective job of grinding up against her which Tori seemed to not mind in the slightest. They headed out together right before last call at 1:53AM. Before they left the building Lacy, no longer serving but still hanging out, bumped into him spilling a beer all over his shirt. In the video he clearly became angry and snapped at her before heading to the bathroom to clean up, but Tori wandered outside without him, and headed down the street alone and disappeared from the street camera at 1:57AM. The huddle of people leaving had created a bit of a crowd around the front door and it was no different for the man in the suit trying to break through them at 1:58AM. Tori was gone, but he did head down the block the same direction she had wandered off before he too disappeared from the last camera.

Arthur yawned and rubbed his eyes. It was after eleven, but he could use another cup of coffee. He was still tired, but didn’t mind the slight throbbing right behind his eyes. He had a good one, and that was enough motivation to have the slight hurt be worth it.

It occurred to Arthur others would be a bit disturbed to hear him describe such a grizzly case as a "good one,” but the truth was that was how he saw it. Even after everything he had been through, after everything he had put his family through, there was nothing like the thrill of the chase for him. If someone had to do it… it might as well be someone who seemed to have a particular knack for it. He looked at the picture on his desk of Katie in her prom dress. Her hair was blonde in the picture to match her cream-colored dress and she looked stunning, like a real life princess.

He picked up his phone to call her and then thought better of it and put the phone back down. It was only day two. He didn't want to smother her.

The cocktail waitress Lacy would be in soon, and Arthur was curious how she would behave in the questioning. He doubted she was have any useful information, but perhaps she would remember a name of one of them in the bar before facial recognition did it’s job.

Personally, Arthur suspected that the reason she had come down to the building was uniform eyes. There were more than a few women that had fallen in love with TV procedurals and on those rare chances they got to actually feel like they were a part of one, maybe even secretly (and obviously hoping ) to give that crucial key to help break the case.

Arthur’s guess would be Agent Kenneth Tapscott’s good looks and cowboy swagger had had an effect on Miss Lacy Persons. He was aware that stereotyping was bad, but in the current climate he didn’t mind using whatever tools he had at his disposal. Either way, it would probably be the most entertaining part of his day, and he was curious how Agent Fields would do running point.

Who knows, maybe because she was running it they might have a break due to nothing other than beginner’s luck.

T
hey weren’t lucky
.

Lacy was a nervous women who was probably insecure that she was getting closer to thirty than to twenty by wearing far too much makeup (though it was at least well applied) and had not yet realized that men did not really care, (especially any she would meet at the club where she worked.) She had a thin frame and large breasts, and Arthur suspected they were an enhancement, as well as it looked like some work done to her lips and maybe even her face, though the last part was unclear.

Arthur’s hunch about Lacy wanting to chase a badge was right-on-the-money, much to his amusement, and Agent Fields annoyance. Lacy attempted to be very helpful and batted her eyes a great deal at Tapscott, while being downright cold to Fields, who asked the majority of the questions and who Lacy never answered directly, instead keeping her attention on the very manly and fit agent. For his part, Tapscott tried to play it cool, but it was obvious he was not above the flattery, puffing his chest up at more than one question in the twenty-minute interview, which made Arthur crack up from behind the glass one-way mirror.

The gist of Lacy’s answers were simple: she had seen Tori at the club before the previous month and had danced with her before, and remembered all the guys though she had only had two drinks after she got off work.

Tapscott thanked her and shook her hand before they let her go.

Arthur was waiting in the hallway when Lacy and Agents Tapscott and Fields finally left interrogation room number two. Seeing her closer up, Arthur suddenly had the strangest feeling that he had seen Lacy before, someplace other than the video.

"Agent," she said warmly as she passed him before heading out the door.

Tapscott hesitated before following after her, his eyes darting quickly to his boss.

"I'll just walk her out."

"Uh-huh."

Agent Fields watched her partner rush after the cocktail waitress and glanced at her boss, shaking her head.

“You may have been only thinking it, but I swear you just said ‘men’ in a disgusted tone,” Arthur said.

Agent Fields looked taken aback by her boss’s humor.

“What, just because I’m a badass doesn’t means I can’t be funny.”

“A badass?”

Arthur shrugged. “I’ve had my moments.”

Agent Fields turned and started to head back to her desk, but Arthur thought of something and called out to her.

“Agent Fields.”

She turned back.

“I saw you were reading through old case files of Martin Snow. I appreciate the background work but know if you have any questions about them, feel free to ask me about them anytime.”

The younger agent looked surprised. “Really. Even--” she blushed, embarrassed she had started to ask
that
question.

“Yes. Even though. I also happen to have another advantage besides being more entertaining than a thousand pages of dull reports.”

“What’s that?”

Arthur looked off, his eyes distant for a moment. “I was there,” he said before turning away from her and heading in the opposite direction down the hallway.

K
atie woke
to find Tiffany was gone, leaving Katie to consider her options for the morning.

SCU was on the quarter system, which irked Katie, but she had decided being closer to her father was more important to her than worrying about participating in an academic system that was fundamentally flawed. Arthur had protested, especially considering she had also gotten into Brown, Berkeley, and Vassar. She had won out in the end, because when Katie’s mind was made up about something, that was it. There was no way to sway her no matter the power of the opposing force. Besides, SCU had given her a full ride on an academic scholarship.

Even though she had just woken up, she was already feeling tense. Katie could feel her that her shoulders were tight, and the back of her neck. Her preferred method of stress relief was running, and Katie realized to her disgust she hadn’t gone for almost a week. It was time to rectify that.

Katie had always been fast and had even made it to state her junior year. It wasn’t her life, though she did love it, and it was good to be able to just put on her shoes and go. Not having to think about whatever the hell was on her mind, no matter how shitty the world was around her, she could just take off, and not think. For Katie, running was an escape from … everything. Feet pounding on the ground, sweat on her brow, her heart pounding and sucking in fresh air as music hit her ears, there was nothing quite like it for Katie.

So, Katie threw on some workout shorts and a grey tank-top and put on her pair of pink-and-blue Nike runners.

K
atie took
it easy and ran a 5K on SCU’s outdoor track. She warmed up with a half-a-mile jog before she started to push herself. Due to the week off, her legs felt stiff when she started, but her breath was calm and regular, even if her muscles were not responding as quickly as Katie would have liked. After the first mile at her usual pace her body relaxed, muscle memory taking over and she felt like a weight was being lifted off her shoulders; Katie didn’t have to think about it, or anything else for that matter. She could simply float, letting her body take care of the rest.

When Katie was done she was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and for the first time since she had arrived at SCU felt relaxed. Maybe relaxed was too strong of a word, but at least at ease enough that she decided it was time to better familiarize herself with the campus.

I
t was
a trait she had picked up from her father. Arthur Bell never went into a building without knowing where the exits were, as well as having at least three alternative routes out of the location. He hadn’t pushed his lessons on his daughter, but he had taught her, and she had listened.

In high school Katie had known the floor plan to the campus so well that when the need had arisen (a few times) she had easily been able to sneak out or in of whatever building she had been in, without anyone else being the wiser.

It wasn’t like Katie sought out trouble, but … morally tricky situations had been presented to her on more than one occasion, and she had dealt with them as best as she could.

Before Katie had stepped foot on SCU she had looked at several maps of the campus, as well as a city map of Asheville and spent plenty of time on Google Maps looking at nearby cross streets. It wasn’t her town, not yet, but it was going to be.

Katie felt like she had a good grasp of the actual locational layout, but it was the interior of the buildings themselves she was still fuzzy on.

Katie decided her main goal for that Saturday morning would be familiarizing herself with building G. It was the central building that housed both the bookstore and the food court, as well as student government offices and administration offices, as well as classrooms. Katie only had one class there in the fall, General Research 101, but it was the main building, so it was the perfect place to start. Besides, the exploration would fill the requirement of going to the bookstore, which was on her list of things to do anyway.

First though, she needed a shower and a change of clothes.

T
he third floor
dorm showers were just down the hall from her and Tiffany’s room and she was left undisturbed as she showered and shampooed. It was that time of the month again, and Katie groaned as she added a tampon and tossed back two sugar-coated Advil. The cramps hadn’t started yet, but she knew her body well enough to know they would come.

Back in her room, Katie slipped into a pair of black jeggings with coordinated rips on both legs and a dark green T-shirt and examined herself in the mirror. She had put on a light amount of makeup in the bathroom, just a basic layer of blush and eyeliner, but in the mirror she added a muted red lipstick. Lastly, she slipped on her current favorite pairs of shoes, light grey Tom's with no socks.

Katie pulled her messenger bag over her shoulder and did one last spin in the mirror to make sure she was satisfied (she was) and headed out.

K
atie glanced
at her G-Shock as she left Everwood. It was 10:20AM. The bookstore didn’t open till 10:30AM and Katie’s stomach had started to grumble in the shower.

She stopped off at the coffee shop first and it was a girl working this time, not “baby-faced.” Katie ordered a latte and a blueberry scone, her favorite.

Unfortunately all baristas are not created equal and the latte wasn’t anything particularly special, certainly nowhere near as good as the Americano from the day before. Katie wondered why that was, and made a mental note to learn more about coffee someday, if she ever had the time and still cared. The scone was great though, freshly made and still nice and flaky. Katie ate it before checking the time again. 10:32AM.

She sauntered down to the shop. As Katie walked, she started to see more students begin to emerge from their perspective dorms and wandering about, though they all had a look of sleepy haze that Katie had shed hours before. Katie preferred keeping a nocturnal routine but unfortunately for her that was not an option starting the following Monday with her schedule. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Katie had a 9AM class that she silently cursed (and when Katie had first realized she had to take it, the curse had not been so silent).

G
Building was located
at the northeast end of the campus and was five stories high. It was massive, about the size of a standard city block, and it was also ugly like gutter water. It was all brown and lifeless cement, with not nearly enough windows for Katie’s taste. Even though she arrived about five minutes after it had opened, the bookstore was already crowded by the time Katie entered.

She found her books quickly and the other additional supplies she needed, a few pens and some extra notebooks and a stack of index cards. Katie also browsed the computer section of the store and glanced at all the laptops and technical additions, before selecting two things she needed. She didn't have a sleeve for her laptop and grabbed a charming one that was black but had a nice design of a Japanese maple on it, and a 16G thumb drive. Katie already had two thumb drives, but she was huge on backing up her information. It never hurt to have a spare with extra data on it. Once she purchased all her items, Katie made one last run through the store to see if there was anything she had forgotten, but came up empty handed. When Katie had paid for everything, she had used her student ID credit card and the total was $153.00 which boggled her mind. Apparently even average higher education prices were downright highway robbery.

B
ack at the dorm room
, Tiffany still wasn't there and Katie finished unpacking as well as putting away her new purchases. She looked out the window and considered what to do next. The idea of wandering outside and just running into people kept popping into her mind. The only problem with the idea was it didn’t actually appeal to Katie very much. Sure she was all about trying out new things, but there was no way that she was going to meet new people doing that. Something else was calling to her, something that was far more appealing, though it was nothing new. It didn't stop her though and she quickly dove into reading the two new textbooks she had just picked up. None of her classes looked particularly hard to her this first quarter, but Katie liked walking in the first day being more than fully prepared.

Her parents had taught her many valuable things over the years, but the most important thing was something Arthur had drilled into her over and over again. (The first time she remembered hearing the speech was when she was six, but he probably said it earlier than that.)

"Remember, Katie, it's the people that plan carefully who get it done. Yes, some people, well really everyone, has winged it from time to time with various results, but it's the ones that plan ahead that succeed. The secret is, that's the hard part. Doing the work ahead of time and being ready. Showing up is half the battle. The planning's forty-five percent, and then it's just the five percent of doing it that really counts."

He had playfully poked her nose at this point, and then headed off to work, or so she liked to think of it back then, he was off to catch bad guys.

Except one of those bad guys had caught up to them.

Katie shuddered and shoved those thoughts down where she didn't have to think about them.

Less than a minute later she was lying on her bed and engrossing herself in the first of two books she could not apparently obtain anywhere else. It was written by the professor teaching the course and was on basic psychology. Ten pages in Katie understood why it had no major publisher. It was utterly dull, and while in some ways it complemented the Psychology 101 book that was course required (and she had already read,) it was written in an academic manner that was so stuffy Katie thought she was going to sneeze. Another ten pages in and she began to feel her eyes droop, but she continued, determined to make a solid dent in the book before she moved on.

"
W
ell
, good afternoon, sleepyhead," Tiffany said.

Katie's eyes snapped open.

The book was literally lying on her face and Tiffany was standing nearby, wearing an knee-high orange summer dress this time and a pair of silver four-inch heels, and a wide brown belt wrapped around her thin waist.

"Sorry to wake you…"

"No, no it's fine, this book is dreadfully boring. Put me to sleep in fact."

"What does that say about the class you're going to take?"

"I'm afraid to find out."

"So you went shopping at the bookstore this morning?"

Katie yawned and sat up, stretching her arms above her head and hearing a familiar and very satisfying pop of her back.

"Yeah. Where did you go so early?"

"Oh well, I'm still on Texas time. I guess I wanted to see and explore the town a bit."

"You walked downtown in those things?" Katie asked pointing at the heels.

"Goodness no, there was an early bus running downtown and I took that. A super creepy guy hit on me actually. It was a bit disturbing. I think he was homeless. Still though, aside from that, Asheville is so quaint and adorable. It reminds me of Gilmore Girls. Like what I've seen of the town anyway, but I do wonder how the night scene is."

Katie felt her face light up. “Wait a second, you like Gilmore Girls?”

“Oh, I just love them.”

Katie hugged Tiffany. “I think I’m like totally going to love you,” Katie said, and both girls started to giggle.

“Listen, even if the night scene here does sucks the city’s only two hours away. And I have a car," Katie added smiling at her friend.

Tiffany smiled and looked Katie over again, obviously inspecting her outfit.

"I adore those pants. Be careful or I may steal them."

"I don't think we are the same size."

"Of course we are the same size. Well…" Tiffany glanced around Katie at her butt.

Katie pushed her playfully. "Skank! Actually it's true. I do have a bit of a butt."

It was actually Katie's favorite feature, other than her mother’s eyes. She still managed to fit into skinny jeans and actually because of her larger back area looked great in them, but it was from long hours working out that enhanced the feature.

"That's a very kind offer about the city, but the real question is what do you want to do right now? That is if you don't have any plans…"

"I'm totally free."

Katie's stomach gurgled. She touched it and then looked back at her friend. She was craving meat and fat.

"You hungry?"

T
hey got
food at
Till You Drop
directly across the street from
Pizza
. It was a bar, but they allowed minors until 9PM according to a Goth girl with a nose ring, two studs in her right eyebrow, and earlobes that looked more metal than flesh. Tiffany was nervous to approach her, but Katie had a good vibe so she had asked as they passed their darkly dressed peer. The Goth girl was nice (and downright shy) and mentioned that the bar had the best fries and burgers around, and completely tolerable salads.

Katie ordered a cheeseburger and fries, while Tiffany went with a grilled chicken salad and a diet Coke.

The Goth girl was right, the food was good and they both enjoyed themselves.

Tiffany talked about her time in Texas, her time with friends and showed them off with various pictures on her iPhone. Katie shared as well, her pictures showing her prom with Luke (Tiffany oohed at how attractive he was, and Katie smiled despite herself) and her sister-from-another-mother-Sarah-Ann.

Tiffany shied away from talking about boys. Katie got a pretty straight orientation from Tiffany, which was why Katie noted it, though it didn’t matter to her one way or another. Everything else about Tiffany was not the least bit gun-shy. She seemed brutally honest in fact, a trait that Katie admired.

It wasn’t like Katie didn’t have her own things she’d rather not talk about. Like why she was going to SCU as opposed to her other many options. She had a feeling it would come out at some point (if nothing else because even two hours away from the city, people did talk, and of course there was just a simple Google search), but Katie was in no rush to ... rush things.