Twist of Fae (2 page)

"He's outside with Carl. We've secured his gun as
well."

"Anything else special you need from us?" Mac
asked, turning his attention to me.

"No," I answered. "Just a heads up if your
guys find anything unusual. Other than that, I'd just like to observe, but I'll
try to stay out of your way."

Anytime there was a police shooting all hell broke loose
and I didn't envy them. Everyone and their mother would want a statement. Between
Internal Affairs checking policy, and the detectives making sure that the
officers followed the law, the reports these guys were gonna have to do would
keep them busy for the next few days. I also knew that the media would be here
shortly, so even though I'd called my office, they would want reports as well.
Especially if someone noticed my smiling face on TV. I still didn’t know what
to think about the vision, or that crazy leap over the car, but I had a feeling
it was best left unmentioned. But duty called and I still had work to do, so I stepped
up to where Mac was standing.

"Mind if I take a quick peek at the girl?"

"Be my guest. Just don’t disturb anything without
telling us, so we can document it."

"I'm just going to move the towel enough to see her
face," I replied as I knelt down by the body.

He started to walk back towards the stairway, but stopped
and looked back at me. "I'm gonna need you when I.A. and the detectives
get here. They're probably going to want a statement, or at least an
appointment to make one."

"No problem," I said, as I pulled aside the
towel and stared into lifeless eyes. It was her. The same woman I'd seen in my
vision. The rage I had seen was gone, replaced with… nothingness.

I wasn't a stranger to death, be it natural or violent.
But still, it was the least favorite part of my job. Don’t get me wrong. In my
business you learn to cope with it. But each death I visited managed to leave
its mark on me. My sister, Nikki, didn't seem to have that problem. She dealt
with it all the time. She was a CSI in Vegas and regularly covered autopsies as
part of her job.

My dad used to say that we've become dissociated with the
cycle of life. That before death became a business, it wasn't as much of a
stranger. Not that anyone ever welcomed death at the door. But just as children
were born, people died. Family and friends came to visit for both. First to
welcome, and then to say their goodbyes. Then parlors became living rooms and
things changed. Whatever the case, I still never get used to it. As I began to
place the towel back my finger brushed something red. Blood. Damn, and I wasn't
wearing gloves! Then I was somewhere else again.

This time it was different. Faster. Images speeding by.
People, dressed in clothing from bygone eras. Then it slowed. A little girl
walking with, who? Someone familiar. Maybe her father. Then it sped up again as
she grew and changed. Suddenly it was the present. Images rushed by, but some
would stop, if only for a moment. She was with a man. I'd seen this one's
picture before. Then a different one. Images of guns and feelings of violence.
Then she was back in this house, straddling a man in a bed. Then she was
shooting. I'm not sure how long it lasted. Time had lost all meaning while I
watched it fly by. Then someone was shaking me.

"Agent! Hey, Agent," I heard a voice calling.
"You okay there? You looked like you were zoned out for a minute."

"Just thinking. Sorry," I replied, not knowing
what else to say. "This is his sister."

"Whose sister?" the officer asked, a hint of
concern in his voice.

"Holt's," I said, simply, without a clue as to
where I'd gone or how I knew. "Her name's Rebecca Holt. She's my subject's
sister."

What the hell was happening to me?

N
IKKI

My cell phone rang just as I was closing the trunk. It had
been my fourth call of the day and when I saw it was my supervisor calling, I just
knew it was going to be bad news.

"What's up Al?" I asked as I pushed the connect
button on my Bluetooth headset.

"Hate to bother you, Nik," he said. "How's
your day going?"

"I've got a van full of evidence and a shitload of
reports that need finishing. Same as every other day. What do you need?"

"Retta's knee deep in it and needs a little
help," he replied. "She's got the shooting on 18
^th
street
from this morning and she's buried. Can you give her a hand? You know I
wouldn't ask if I had anyone else to send."

"No problem," I said. Yeah, right! I thought to
myself. "But you're gonna have to up the overtime if you want all this
shit processed before Christmas."

"You're killing me," he said with a laugh.
"But I'll see what I can do. I'll have dispatch send you the call."

"Can't wait," I replied as I disconnected. Shit!
Our caseloads were getting bigger and bigger and the Department still hadn't
started the next CSI academy. At the rate we were going, it'd be years before
we ever got any more people. Not that it mattered. Everyone knew we were
shorthanded, so they'd just have to deal with it like we did.

I sighed as I opened the car door and got in, just in time
to hear the MDT (Mobile Data Terminal) beep as Retta's call came onto the
screen. I punched the enroute button after reading the details of the call, and
pulled out to drive in that direction. I'd heard it on the radio when it first
came out, but I'd been lifting prints from a burglary and hadn't gotten all the
details.

It was a gang shooting. A drive-by, actually. But it
hadn't gone the way the car's occupants had planned. As soon as they pulled up,
they'd been ambushed instead, by one of the occupants of the house. Forty or fifty
rounds had been fired and at least three people were dead. The fourth was in
critical condition at the hospital. Patrol had canvassed the neighborhood, but
hadn't found anyone else, so now our job began.

Documenting the scene with photos, gathering evidence, all
of which included finding every bullet. Then analyzing the trajectories so
Homicide can reconstruct the scene for their investigation, and later,
introduce it into court. Unlike the glamorous image of a CSI on television,
there were times that I felt that I was nothing more than a glorified garbage
collector. Picking up bloody clothes, rummaging through shattered glass from
busted doors and windows. But I knew my job was important. I was creating a
snapshot in time with my work that would, coupled with the detective's
investigation, forever memorialize what had happened.

An officer pulled aside the crime scene tape that blocked
the road. I pulled in and parked a few houses down. Retta was in the street picking
up one of the numerous small orange cones that had been placed over what I knew
were shell casings. She stood as she saw me walk up.

"What you got and what do you need, girlfriend?"
I asked as I approached. Retta and I were on the same squad, and had gone to
the same CSI academy, and often worked cases together.

"Most of it's done, actually," she replied,
stretching her back. "I've been here most of the day and Homicide has
already cleared. Just a couple of patrol guys still around to keep an eye on us
until we're finished. I've already packaged up most of the evidence in the
house and done photos. I've just got the shells and a few other things to tidy
up out here."

"Sounds like fun," I said, knowing that it was
anything but. "How can I help?"

"Like I said, I got most of it," she replied,
looking around the street at the other still placed cones. "We recovered
three guns, two 9 mm's and a .40. I've got forty four shell casings between
here and the house. I've been able to account for most of the rounds. Sixteen
40's in the car over there and twenty two 9mm's at the house. I found two 40's
in the house across the street and another two in the wall. Neither of those
went far, but I'm still missing two more of the .40's.

"Since the guy in the house was shooting from an
upstairs window, the damn things could be anywhere. I haven't made it that far,
but patrol checked the alley and knocked on doors the street over, but didn’t
find anything. If you would do a careful sweep, just to make sure they didn’t
miss anything and then help me clean up we'll be good. I don’t know what else to
do if we can't account for those last two strays."

"You got it," I replied as I walked back to my
car. Opening the door, I grabbed my kit, bags, gloves, and tape, and then
headed directly across the street to see what I was dealing with.

Unlike the newer homes, this was an old Vegas street that
still had an alley running behind the houses. Some of the yards were fenced,
either in block, wood, or chain-link, but the one I was standing in front of
was fenceless, which wasn't that unusual in this neighborhood. Cutting through
the side yard, I stopped when I reached the alley, to assess my plan of attack.

I looked back at the house the shooter had been in and saw
that from the window, he could have fired a round damn near anywhere. Since
he'd been shooting at the car, I at least had some idea where to start.
Assuming he hadn’t deliberately shot at something else, the chance of a stray
round that was aimed at the car going much more than two houses in either
direction was slim. Of course, that was a big assumption, since bullets can
travel quite a distance, but I had to start somewhere.

I started by doing a simple search of the walls and
garbage cans along the alley. Most of the walls were wood or chain-link, but I
spent extra time on the block ones. As I expected, there were enough dings and
gouges to make it all but impossible to tell what had caused them, but no
bullet holes were obvious. There were several holes, but most appeared to be
old damage. I was just looking at the second house across the alley, when
something caught my eye. It was a mockingbird.

It was dive bombing something just below the eve of the
house next door. My curiosity got the best of me, so I walked over to see what
the hell it was doing. There was an electrical box to the rear, so I climbed on
top to get a better look. As I stood up, I heard it cawing, and I'll be damned
if it didn't sound like it was trying to say, "here, here." By now
the bird was perched on the roof and as there was nothing more to see I turned
to get off the box and resume my search.

Before I could step down, the damn thing had flown across
the yard and was now buzzing my head, cawing the "here, here" sound.
I damn near jumped out of my skin! I wasn't a fan of birds on any day, but this
was the first time I'd been attacked by one. I swatted the bird away and it
flew back to the eve, still cawing as it did so. Suddenly, the hair stood up on
the back of my neck when I finally saw what it was diving at. There was small
hole about two feet below the eve that looked like it could have been caused by
a bullet!

"C28, C26, I may have something here. Can you meet me
in the alley?" I said, keying my lapel mic, goosebumps forming at the
thought of a bird showing me the spot. C28 was Retta's call sign and mine was
C26.

 "How the hell did you spot that?" Retta asked a
few minutes later, as she stood next to me on the box. "That's one of the
houses where the patrol guys spoke to someone at. Maybe they're still
home."

"Pure luck," I answered, as I jumped down from
the box. I didn’t think the part about the talking bird was relevant, and it
was too crazy to mention anyway. "Let's grab your van and we can take the
ladder over there."

A little while later, I was climbing up the ladder to see
what we had. Retta was already inside, accessing the attic from a hallway,
courtesy of the occupant. She was an older lady who hadn’t heard anything at all
this morning. Sure as shit, the hole looked like it could have been caused by a
bullet; the one found lodged in a stud by Retta a few minutes later. I climbed
down to get my camera, and then moved the ladder over a bit to get some good
pics. That's when I heard the bird again.

Looking up, the damn thing was, once again, perched on the
eve, cawing at me. This time it didn’t sound like anything but bird noise, and
since it wasn't dive bombing me, I just ignored it. I guess it got tired of
watching, because a few seconds later it flew away. I finished up my work and
was beginning to climb down when a shadow passed across the wall in front of
me. Looking up, I damn near lost my footing, as I stared into the eyes of a big
black bird the size of a small dog. I grasped the ladder tighter as the world
around me swirled. I was still on the ladder but things looked different. It
was like I was looking through coke bottle glasses. I moved my head and tried
to focus, but all I could see was that damn big bird.

"That human requires your aid," I heard a voice say.

WTF? I looked around, but I was on top of a ladder, and it
wasn't Retta who had spoken. There was no one else up here except for the bird.
Maybe I had fallen and hit my head and this was all a dream. Was I in the
hospital with a concussion? Surely I wasn't really going to have a conversation
with a bird.

"Excuse me," I heard another voice say, before
realizing it was mine.

"Over there, across the road. The nice human that
feeds us. He requires your aid," the voice said. This time it had definitely
come from the bird.

I swiveled my head, and after a bout of vertigo, I could
see a garden in the back of a house across the alley. My eyes seemed to zoom in,
and that's when I saw him. He had fallen behind the sunflowers and wasn't
moving. Because of the angle, they'd never have seen him by looking over the
wall. Then I saw his leg twitch, and suddenly the world returned. I was back on
the ladder again, seeing things normally.

I shook my head and looked back across the alley. Barely
visible
.
this time, I saw the blue jeans the
fallen man was wearing. Trying not to think about what had just happened, I
scrambled down the ladder and raced across the yard, exiting into the alley.
Jumping the fence, I knocked down several sunflowers and found the man still
lying there. Blood had stained his shirt, but some of it still looked like it
might be fresh. The bird now forgotten as I looked him over. He had taken a
round to the stomach. I was already wearing gloves, so I pulled the shirt aside
and put some slight pressure on the wound, hoping it wasn't already too late,
before grabbing my mic and requesting an ambulance. Retta and one of the patrol
officers joined me a few minutes later. We all hoped that we'd found him in
time.

"It's pretty bad, but at least he's stable," the
paramedic said as he closed the back door of the ambulance. "He must have
been out there for hours. I doubt he'd have had a chance at all if you guys hadn't
come along when you did."

"Yeah," I replied.

"Looks like you guys saved his life," the
paramedic added with a thumbs up, before getting into the cab of the ambulance.

I didn’t say another word as I watched them drive off down
the alley. As I turned to finish up, I saw the big black bird perched on a shed
next to the garden. It just sat there, watching me. I half expected to hear the
damn thing talk again, but it just stared at me for a minute. Then its head
bobbed up and down and it flew away.

I asked Al to have someone from swing shift meet them at
the hospital and then, almost in a daze from my experience, I helped Retta
finish up what needed to be done here. We still had to figure out how he'd been
hit, and Homicide was on their way back out, now that another wounded victim
had been found. Later, as I was putting my gear away, one of the Homicide guys
that had come back out walked up to me.

"Nice work, Nik," he said as he approached.
"That brother of yours, the one that works for Homeland Security, isn't
his name Jay?"

"Yeah, why?" I asked.

"I got a call from one of the San Berdoo guys about a
case right before I came out, and we got to talking," he replied.
"You remember that Victorville SWAT guy, Jesse? He was in town during the
Baker to Vegas run."

"The one that kept hitting on me," I said with a
smile. "How could I forget? Why?"

"Turns out you aren't the only Hoskins to save
someone's life today."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked as I closed
the trunk.

"Well, get this. They're out hitting a house and miss
a suspect in the attic. Jesse goes out to his car thinking the scene is secure,
when out of nowhere this Federal agent by the name of Jay Hoskins leaps up over
his car and tackles him to the ground, just as the suspect cranks out a load of
full auto right where he'd been standing."

"No shit?" I exclaimed.

"Yeah," he continued. "The report said he'd
seen a flash off the barrel right before she fired. Kinda coincidental when you
think about it."

"What's coincidental about that?"

"I don't know. Bullets in the attic I guess," he
replied, shaking his head. "He sees the flash in one attic, you see a
bullet hole in another, then you both end up saving someone's life. Hey, that'd
almost make a good movie." Then he patted me on the back, and with a
chuckle, turned to walk to his car.

Suddenly the goosebumps came back, and I suppressed a
shudder. I pulled out my cell phone to call Jay's number. What the hell was going
on?