Singularity (2 page)

Present

He chased her again.

The walls were blurry and surreal as they scrolled past, she in the lead, he just behind. She wore the dress that she’d had on when they’d met. White and long, it flowed out behind her like a pallid comet’s tail, rippling with each hurried step.

He could hear his breath rasping in and out of his chest as if he were in the last five miles of a marathon, not fifteen feet from the front door of their one-bedroom apartment. He heard her name being called and he wondered who had yelled it with such panic and desperation. Then he felt his throat constrict again and knew it was him screaming her name. She glanced back over her shoulder, one violet eye searching him out, pinning him to the wall as he ran, teasing and accusing at the same time. He hated her then. He wanted nothing more than to hurt her, to make her cry out for him to stop, so he could gather her thin frame in his arms and hold her. Just hold her.

He felt himself slow. He knew this part. She gained a bit of ground, and now he could see the balcony and its thin, black railing. The afternoon city lay beyond, ten stories below, cars winding their way between buildings on the streets like ants finding alternate ways to their hills. He could see his hand reach out and it looked so small and faint compared to the glaring white of her dress. How it ruffled and swayed as she ran.

She reached the balcony and paused only a moment, perhaps to survey the view one last time. Her hands gripped the wrought iron and for a second her knuckles matched her dress. She looked back at him through the veil of dark hair and smiled sadly this time. There was so much in that smile. A lifetime of happiness waiting there that would never be realized.
Children unborn and anniversaries that would linger only in his mind.

He ran faster as she leaned out, more than the average curiosity would push a normal person over such a height. Her feet left the cement of the balcony and she tipped forward. She slid out of sight toward the ground in wisps of white fabric that flapped with a breeze he couldn’t feel as he said the only word he could that would make it all go away. No. No. No.

==

“No!”

The word rang out in the bedroom as Sullivan Shale sat up, chest heaving in
lungfuls
of air. He looked around at the darkened room.
The wood floors.
The dresser that held his clothes against the far wall.
The black outline of the bathroom door that opened up in the corner.
His breath shuddered and he ran his hand through a tangled nest of dark hair. His eyes found the curtained window, and out of habit he immediately guessed the time:
4:23,
he was sure of it. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table: 4:44. He sighed and dropped his face into a sweat-slicked hand. He hated it when the time was all the same numerals. For some reason it felt wrong. As if time shouldn’t line up that way. It should always be changing, moving forward, moving away. Not the same. Not ever the same.

He swung his feet out from beneath the light sheets and put them on the floor. The boards felt warm. It hadn’t cooled off overnight and he wasn’t surprised. The heat wave was slated to last through today and into the following evening. Then the rain would begin again, or so the weatherman said.

Thoughts of using the bathroom and then trying to return to a few more hours of sleep crossed his mind, but the memory of the dream resurfaced and he tried to swallow the dryness that crept into his throat. He’d never been able to sleep after having the dream. Not in two years. There was no reason this morning would be an exception. The chirping of his cell phone as it vibrated across his nightstand put any other thoughts of sleep to rest. He knew the number on the screen and answered without hesitation.

“I thought I had a few days off,” he said, his words thick with sleep.

“You did. That was yesterday and this is today,” the gruff voice said.

“I’m assuming that I’m back on?”

A long sigh issued from the earpiece. “Yes, I need you here in the next half-hour. There was a death over at Singleton Penitentiary last night, the local sheriff called it in.
Asked for help.”

Sullivan leaned forward, his eyes narrowing at a spot on the floor.
“Singleton?
Inmate
kill
an inmate?”

“No.”

“Inmate
kill
a guard?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s …” Hacking paused on the other end of the phone. “Strange,” he finished.

Sullivan sat back on the bed and scrubbed a few granules of stubborn sleep from his right eye. “‘Strange.’ Okay. What do you mean by that, boss?”

“I mean, you need to get your ass into the office and get briefed before you get to the crime scene.”

Sullivan’s eyebrows shot up at his superior’s tone. Cameron Hacking had never before sounded like this on the phone.

“I thought my mandatory leave lasted until next week.”

“You’ve been fully reinstated as of now,” Hacking said.

Sullivan scanned the dresser for his necessities: ID, keys, and gun. They were all there. “Okay. Anything else I need to know?”

The silence in the phone sounded almost like that of a dead line. He wondered for a moment if his SAIC had hung up without further comment, but then he heard the familiar intake of breath before Hacking spoke.

“The victim was killed in solitary confinement.”

==

The leaden sky hung just above the reaching tips of the pine trees surrounding the North Central Bureau of Criminal Apprehension building. Sullivan studied it as he stepped from his black Trailblazer. His left eyebrow hung irritatingly low and he scrunched his forehead up in frustration at seeing it enter his field of vision. He needed to do the exercises the doctor suggested to perform on a daily basis. He’d start on them again tonight, when he was alone. He rubbed the pale scar line above his eyebrow, which snaked off his face and ended in the middle of his temple. He couldn’t be seen in public working his brow up and down like a confused drunk. The air felt just as heavy and oppressive as the clouds
above,
and already sweat started beading on his skin. The air conditioning of the car seemed like a dream from another life.

He strode to the side entrance of the building and swiped his magnetic keycard through the slot beside the heavy door. The interior of the building was cold and he welcomed the crisp, cool air on his face. He had lived in
Minnesota
his entire life and had never seen weather like this. It was too hot. And when it got too hot, people did weird things. Steal, cheat, murder. It was always this way in the summer, but a feeling of apprehension settled over him as he made his way down the corridors, past darkened offices, toward the back of the building. It felt like he wasn’t prepared.
Like he’d forgotten some essential piece of equipment at home.

He could see Hacking’s office now, behind the other cubicles in the main area of the building. Hazy light shone through the window and outlined the man who sat behind the desk. Cameron Hacking was almost fifty, but he looked a decade younger. Only a faint hint of gray near the temples tainted the man’s full head of black hair. He had a high forehead and a thick-lipped mouth, without a line in his face to mar the persona of the collected senior agent that he was. Hacking’s cobalt eyes were trained on the computer screen before him, and when Sullivan knocked on the ajar door, they locked on to him and pulled him inside the room. Without a word, Hacking motioned to an empty chair on the far side of the desk. Sullivan sat and unbuttoned the top of his black dress shirt, letting the cool air of the office circulate around him. He stared across the room at his superior, and waited. Hacking tapped momentarily on his keyboard, and then sat back from the desk to study the younger man.

“This one’s
gonna
be a bastard,” Hacking said.

Sullivan raised his eyebrows and adjusted himself in the chair. “Why do you say that?” Sullivan asked.

“Number one, we have a dead inmate, which means the warden and senior officers over there are going to be watching your every move. They’re going to want to help or provide support in every possible way.”

Sullivan licked his lips. “If what you told me is accurate, they have to realize we’ll be looking at their staff as possible suspects.”

Hacking nodded and pointed a finger at Sullivan’s chest.
“Exactly.
So it’s imperative that they be kept at arm’s length. Until we know more, we can’t rule anyone out.”

“What exactly are we looking at here, boss?” Sullivan said.

“Let’s wait until Stevens gets here. He’s coming with you as support.” Hacking eyed the darkened lobby and looked at his watch. “Where the fuck is he?”

“I’m guessing he’ll be here soon. He was on vacation, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, first day back is today.”

Sullivan stood and stepped to the door. “You want a coffee while we wait?”

Hacking nodded, turning back to his computer screen. Sullivan made his way out to the dark kitchenette that stood at the far end of the room, and flipped the coffeemaker on after adding enough water and grounds for three cups. He stood waiting for the dripping of the dark liquid to cease and wondered again why he’d felt such uneasiness earlier. He’d never investigated a prison case before, but protocol was the same. Wait for the invite from the locals, have the forensics team scour the area, interview each and every person involved, formulate a suspect list, and bring them in for questioning. He shook his head as anxiety squirmed in his stomach once again and tried to push the strange feeling away.

As he made his way back toward Hacking’s glowing office, he heard a door in the hallway slam. A few seconds later Barry Stevens appeared from the darkened corridor. Barry was thirty-seven, five years Sullivan’s senior, and had thinning blonde hair and a spare tire of twenty pounds hanging around his midsection. His face was long, with a hooked nose and eyes that were nearly always watery. Sullivan had worked with him on dozens of death investigations, attended his children’s birthday parties, and been so drunk with him on two occasions that all he could remember were snippets of conversation and bellyaching laughter. The man was rock steady and Sullivan was glad Barry would be coming with him on this one.

Stevens’s eyes found Sullivan in the dark and his smile lit up a newly sunburned face. “Sully, how goes it?”

“Better than you, it looks like. There’s this new thing called sunscreen, you should look into it,” Sullivan said as he handed a cup of coffee to the older man.

Stevens laughed. “That Mexican sun is hotter than shit. You should see my kid’s back. We thought we were going to have to take him to an emergency room down there.”

“Better than the rain we’ve been having up here, though,” Sullivan said.

The two agents walked into Hacking’s office. After Hacking greeted Stevens, both men sat and looked expectantly at the senior agent. Hacking opened a manila folder and pulled two sheets of paper out and handed one to each man. Sullivan studied the top portion, which held directions to Singleton Penitentiary, and then the bottom, which contained some brief information gathered since the call came in earlier that morning.

“Like I told you both, this one’s fucked-up,” Hacking said. “The deceased’s name is Victor Alvarez. He was a runner and dealer for a Mexican supplier specializing mainly in cocaine and heroin. Got busted last fall in central
Minnesota
selling to a
minor.
His trial date was set for later this summer, and he was transferred to Singleton only ten days ago. Yesterday, he got in an altercation with another inmate and hurt the other guy pretty bad. He also attacked several prison officers when they tried to intervene. Subsequently, he was thrown in one of their cells that serve as solitary on the lower level. At about one o’clock this morning, a guard went to check on Alvarez after hearing noises coming from his cell.”

Hacking rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger before continuing. “This is where it gets strange, boys. The guard called the local sheriff’s office in the neighboring town of
Brighton
and said that Alvarez had been torn apart.”

Silence invaded the room, cut only by the low hum of the single fluorescent overhead. Sullivan glanced over at Stevens before shifting his gaze back to Hacking.

“He was torn apart? Like, dismembered?” Sullivan asked.

Hacking nodded. “From what I can gather, it was a bloodbath. The guard was pretty shaken up. Apparently this was his first week on the job. A Sheriff
Jaan
called it in shortly thereafter. He said the crime scene was too much to deal with for their local staff and requested our help.”

“Forensics already been dispatched?” Stevens asked.

Hacking nodded again. “They should be getting there in about a half-hour.”

Sullivan studied the overview of the case before looking at Stevens. The older agent also was re-reading the text, and when he looked up and shrugged, Sullivan asked the question that had been on his mind from the moment Hacking called him about the murder an hour earlier.