Page 6

W hen Kate woke up early in the morning to her ringing phone, she answered it to hear Rodney on the other end.

“We’ve got an ugly case,” he greeted her, and he quickly gave her the address. She stumbled into her clothes, gave Simon a kiss goodbye, and was on her way to her car.

She quickly pulled into a drive-through and picked up strong black coffee to help get through the morning shock. Rodney didn’t say much on the phone, but, as she headed toward the address, she realized it was in her old stomping grounds. Her heart clenched as she realized this could be related to Timmy’s case. She parked with all the police cars and headed to where Rodney stood, talking to the coroner.

As she walked up, Dr. Smidge glared at her.

She nodded. “I gather it’s not fun.”

“It’s never fun,” he barked, “but this one is particularly un -fun. You’ll have to solve this fast.” And, with that, he stomped to his vehicle.

Kate turned to Rodney, one eyebrow raised.

He shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s even speaking to you that way.”

She waved her hand. “He speaks to me like that all the time. I just don’t ever take it personally.”

“How can you not?” he muttered. “He damn-near tore a strip off me the minute I arrived.”

“Did he get here before you?”

“Yeah, of course he did, hence the strip.”

She nodded. “Okay, so what have we got?”

Rodney hesitated, then sighed. “A five-year-old boy.”

She winced and nodded. “Okay. Family violence, domestic abuse, drive-by? What is it that got Smidge in a tiff?”

Rodney grimaced. “Seems the boy died at home, but the parents are trying to tell us that it was any number of possible causes. They claim that he was sick for a long time. By the looks of it, this isn’t normal parental behavior. They’re saying that every minute of it they looked after him and checked in on him several times, blah, blah, blah .”

She listened for what she was not hearing and asked, “You think it’s child abuse?”

“Yes,” he stated, “and I’m pretty sure that’s what Smidge’s angry about too.”

“So, what do you think happened here?”

“The child didn’t go easy into the night,” Rodney shared. “He suffered, and that’s really upsetting for all of us.”

“It’s upsetting for any child to die,” she murmured, as she walked toward the body. She stopped and wondered how many more little children she would stand over before the world changed. Then she realized that it would be a hell of a lot more than she could ever make peace with.

When Smidge rejoined her, she looked over at him and muttered, “It’s always worse when it’s a child.”

He just nodded and didn’t say anything. Then he pulled back the cover so she could see the child’s face.

Kate’s heart immediately clenched. “Now that is not good,” she whispered.

“The family is adamant that they didn’t kill him,” Rodney shared.

Kate looked back at the family, standing nearby, and the mother had tears in her eyes, but also terror filled her expression. “Maybe didn’t kill him,” Kate suggested, “but what did they do to keep him alive?”

Smidge turned to her. “What do you mean?”

She let out a big sigh. “Let me know on the autopsy as soon as you can.”

Smidge’s gaze was assessing, as he looked down at the little boy and then back at her. “You think something different is here than what we’re seeing?”

“I think what we’re seeing is exactly what we’re seeing, but definitely something is off about the whole thing.” She looked back over at the mom and noted, “I need to talk to her.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Smidge snapped, his tone laced with bitterness. “I would much rather deal with the dead than the lying living bastards,” he snapped.

“This was long-term, wasn’t it?” Kate asked.

Smidge hesitated, before he looked down and nodded. “It’s been going on a while. I need to do a full rundown to get you more information though.”

“I can already see it,” she muttered, sadness in her eyes. “The different color bruises, all kinds of evidence of long-term distress for this poor little guy,” she murmured. “Do we have a name?”

“Yes,” Rodney replied, standing at her side. “Andrew Adam Smith.”

In front of her, Smidge straightened, then glared at the two of them. “I’m not sure what you’re concocting in those devious little heads of yours,” he noted, looking from Kate to Rodney and back. “However, this is the one and only. Do you hear me?” he asked, staring at Kate. “I don’t want any more of this on my table.”

She smiled at him gently, understanding both the pain in his tone and the reason for it. Speaking softly, she replied, “If you or I could make that happen, we would both be blessed. Yet we know it’ll never happen. I’ll do my very best to ensure no more cross your desk anytime soon,” she noted, “but this kind of thing is almost impossible to stop. As long as hurting, angry people are out there, their loved ones closest to them bear the brunt of it.”

Smidge’s shoulders sagged, and he nodded. “Fine. Do your best, and I’ll get the information for you quickly. I don’t know what this is connected to, but it better not be connected to anything I need to hear about.”

“Anything I should know before I head over to talk to the parents?” she asked Smidge, pointing to them behind him.

“Those parents, I don’t know how guilty they are,” he replied, “but no way they get off scot-free.” And, with that, he ordered the body to be lifted and loaded. Without another word to either of them, he walked away.

Rodney frowned at her. “Please don’t say a connection is here.”

“How can I not go there? Timmy was five years old at the time he went missing,” she asked. “Consider the reminder to think in the puzzle-box message. And look at what we have right now. We have a dead five-year-old child, a child who has been suffering for a long time. I’m just leaving my mind open to this for now. Whether there’s a medical reason or not, I’m not sure, but I can tell you that something is very off about this. Smidge will examine that poor little guy with a fine-tooth comb, but you and I will do the same with the family history to figure out what the hell is going on.”

“Maybe nothing,” he pointed out. “Not everything is always nasty and dark and connected.”

“No,” she clarified, “but mark my words. This one is. This one definitely is.”

With that, he conceded the point with a shrug.

“Names?” she asked him.

“Alana Smith and Adam Smith.”

She walked over to talk to the mother, who sat on the doorstep of their home, her face buried in her hands. Kate crouched in front of her, introduced herself, and said, “Mrs. Smith, I need you to tell me what happened.” And, with that, the woman raised her tear-stained face.

“He was doing so much better,” the young woman whispered. “So much better. He was better, I swear.”

Kate narrowed her gaze at her. “And then what?”

Alana shook her head. “I don’t even know what to say.” She hung her head. “I was gone to a conference for just a few days, and Adam swears he didn’t do it. He swears he didn’t have anything to do with it, but…” Then she started bawling.

“Where were you? What conference was that? You need to tell me, so we can check that.”

Alana just nodded, beyond able to talk.

At that point, Adam walked over, sat down beside his wife, and pulled her into his arms. “Can’t you leave us alone? We’ve just lost our son,” he snapped.

“I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Smith, and I do know that you’ve just lost your son,” she stated, studying him. “That little boy didn’t need to die the way he died.”

Adam glared at her. “Alana didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Maybe not,” Kate noted. “So, where were you, and what was your involvement?”

“I wasn’t involved at all,” he barked.

“If you say so.” Rodney glared at him. “We will check your alibi too.”

Adam snorted. “We didn’t do this.”

The woman turned and looked at him, tears in her eyes. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Those bruises are days old.”

He stiffened. “Okay, I lost my temper with him once, and I told you that. I called you, and I told you and apologized. I didn’t take him to the doctor,” he admitted, turning to Kate and Rodney, “because I knew what would happen. But a friend of mine is a doctor, so I brought him over and had him look after my son.”

Rodney stared at Adam, his fists clenching and unclenching.

“I’ve been in anger management training,” Adam admitted, “and I’ve been trying really, really hard, just to ensure that this didn’t happen. But I swear, I did not do this.”

Kate studied him. “We’ll need your friend’s name, so we can verify what you’ve just told us. We also need to know where you’re doing your anger management training, though I highly suspect that it’s not working that well,” she noted, studying him intently. When he flushed with fury, she nodded. “Anger is one thing, but controlling it is a whole different story, Mr. Smith.”

“I did not do this,” he snapped. With that, he pulled his wife into his arms and held her close. “Honey, I didn’t.… I promise, I didn’t do this.”

She just sobbed, louder and louder. And, for Kate, who clearly saw the damage done to the little boy, it was obvious what the mother would be thinking. Whether it was the truth or not, Kate didn’t know. Yet a ring of truth was in the man’s words. However, the evidence in front of her said something else entirely.

She looked over at Rodney, then faced the parents again. “We’ll need to get your full statements, and we do need to check out everything you’re saying. So, do you want to come down to the station in the morning, or do you just want to do it now?”

“Now,” Alana said immediately. “Now is fine. I’m not sure I can handle anything past now,” she whispered through her sobs. She repeated how she’d been away at a conference. She gave the name of the conference and where it was held and added, “You can check with my office to verify it.”

The tears still ran down Alana’s face, breaking Kate’s heart.

“I was gone for six days,” Alana explained, then frowned. “I think it was six. My flight tickets and the hotel bookings are documented as well, so my office should confirm that too.”

Kate just nodded and took down the company name and all the other given information, and then she turned to the father. “And you, sir.”

He immediately provided the information that she asked for, cooperative and willing, but not necessarily 100 percent truthful. She sensed him holding something back.

When they were done, Kate looked at the wife and asked, “Now, what is it that you’re not telling me?”

Alana looked at her in surprise, then burst into tears.

Kate waited. “I’ll just stay here until you tell me.” Then she looked over at the husband. “You too, Mr. Smith, because you’re both hiding something.”

His shoulders sagged. “I did time for domestic violence,” he shared, defeat in his tone. “All I can tell you is that it was a long time ago. I’ve been doing anger management for what seems like forever since then, and I swear I did not kill my little boy.” He started to cry great big heaving sobs of sorrow. “I didn’t do this.”

Rodney looked over at the wife and frowned.

Kate understood. Rodney had seen the physical damage done to the little boy, including the different color bruises.

Rodney spoke to the father. “But you do admit to having hit him recently.”

Adam gasped and nodded. “Yes, but not hard. Honestly, it wasn’t.” He winced and then shook his head. “It wasn’t hard enough to kill him.”

“That’s a different story,” Kate noted, staring him down. “Because what you think might kill a child and what might actually kill a child are two different things,” she pointed out, “and that will be up to the autopsy to determine.”

“I wasn’t home all night,” he admitted suddenly. When his wife stared at him, he shrugged. “I went out with the guys.”

“And you can prove that?” Kate asked.

“Yes, I can prove that. We went to a local bar because one of the guys from work was leaving. So I joined them and had… a few beers.”

“And who was looking after the child?” Kate asked.

He hesitated and frowned. “My brother.” At that, his wife turned to eye him in horror. “I know. I know, but Sammy said he would look after him just for the night,” Adam cried out. “I didn’t see the harm.”

“Now apparently you do,” Kate declared, turning to look at the wife.

Alana stared at Kate, then back at her husband. “Sammy’s not very stable,” she began. “He does a lot of drugs, and I won’t have him around my kids.” She turned and glared at her husband. “And you knew that.”

“Honey, he’s been clean for months,” Adam protested. “You never would believe me, but he’s been clean.”

“Clean maybe,” she muttered, “but how clean? Look at what happened when you left our boy in his charge.”

“And when did you get home?” Kate asked them both. “We have a time line to work out here.”

“I flew in around eleven. My husband was home.” She turned to face him, and he replied, “I’d just gotten home. I’d only been here for maybe ten minutes.”

“You didn’t tell me that though, did you?” Alana asked Adam.

“No, I didn’t. You went in, and we both found Andrew,” he shared. “After that, I wanted to tell you how much I regret leaving my brother in charge.”

“Where is your brother now?” Kate asked.

“I sent Sammy home.” Then Adam frowned. “And honestly, he wasn’t in very good shape.”

“When you say he wasn’t in very good shape, what do you mean?”

Adam shook his head. “Sammy was slurring his words a little bit. I asked if he’d been drinking. and he told me no, how he hadn’t had anything to drink, and I believed him.”

“You believed him?” Alana shrieked, staring at Adam with anger and mockery. “You fucking believed him?”

“Yes,” he roared. “I believed him. I believe in second chances.”

“It will be interesting to see what the autopsy turns up then, won’t it?” Rodney asked, his tone suddenly hard. “Because now we have three suspects.”

“Suspects?” the father asked, turning to look at him. “What do you mean, suspects?”

“I hate to be bearer of the news, but your child did not die by natural causes,” Rodney pointed out, trying to tone down his own anger. “So, someway, somehow, we need to find out who’s responsible for Andrew’s death, and that is the person who will be charged with murder.”

Adam, the color fading completely from his face, sat down hard on the step beside his wife. “We didn’t do anything,” he muttered, hanging his head. “We’ve been working so hard at getting me back to normal and getting everybody back to normal. We wouldn’t.”

“Maybe not,” Kate conceded, trying to find some sympathy. “Still, somebody, somehow, did kill Andrew, and we need to find out who that was.”

*

The rest of his day wasn’t too bad. Simon was busy with various issues, problems, and challenges. Yet he hated to even say it out loud, lest he jinx himself, but, in general, he felt as if he had gotten through most of the day relatively unscathed. That just made him a little more worried about what could come tomorrow. Good days tended to be followed by crappy days, and he really wasn’t in the mood for any crappy days right now. There were just way too many of them sometimes.

He walked through the alley and headed over to the women’s center. He knew that the owner, Lisa Sands, needed money, even if people didn’t think she deserved it. That blame should be put on her business partner, not on Lisa. So Simon didn’t want to punish all the women who went through the center for one bad egg. He knew a huge investigation was going on concerning Lisa’s former business partner, but he hoped Lisa came out of it in the clear. In the meantime, he took a couple quick corners and ended up right where he needed to be.

He walked up to the side door and knocked. When it opened hesitantly, Lisa was there, the relief evident on her face. He immediately handed her a roll of bills, and she took it gratefully. “How has it been?” he asked.

“Honestly, it’s been pretty tough,” Lisa admitted.

“Of course,” he noted, “and not everybody will understand what I’m doing.”

“No, of course not,” she said bitterly, “but I’m just trying to help these women.”

“I know that,” he replied, “but trying to help can damage your reputation when things go wrong.”

“It wasn’t so much for me.”

He nodded. “I know,” he murmured.

“You’re a good person,” she muttered, staring at him. “I wish more men were like you.”

He just smiled and didn’t say anything.

She was in the business of helping women who were recovering from various abusive scenarios. As such, her response was fairly typical.

“I’ll be back when I can,” he added, and, with that, he backed away.

She stepped back inside, watching him until he disappeared.

He felt her gaze on his back, and he knew that she had to wonder why he even continued to come, but the reasons for coming were the same as they had always been. These women and the children needed help, and Simon was more than happy to participate. Yet he always preferred to do it quietly and in his own way.

He headed back, taking another shortcut through the alley. He was hoping to get home in time to sit down and to do something constructive—such as trying to contact the person who kept socking him in the gut, which had happened several more times. Thankfully the blows had been of lesser strength, at least today.

He also wanted to try contacting Kate’s brother again. To even think that was a possibility still sent him out to left field as he considered doing such a thing. To do it successfully was one thing; to try and fail was another, and yet failure was often the mother of invention. So he couldn’t ignore the possibility that he could get through. It was also confusing as hell to him to even figure out how this could possibly work.

He wanted something to work. He wanted to help lessen Kate’s torment, and he’d held off doing anything about Timmy all this time, mostly because he didn’t know what to do. Now here he was in the position to maybe do something, yet he wasn’t sure that anything would work. All he could do was try. He headed home, taking the small sea-pass across, and then headed to his apartment building. As he walked in, his doorman Harry frowned at him, checking his watch.

Simon smiled, then nodded and acknowledged, “I know. I’m home early for once.”

“Hey, you should do it more often,” he suggested, with a bright smile. “You work too hard.”

Simon laughed. “I’m not against doing less work. It’s just hard to make that happen.”

“If you don’t make it happen, nobody else will,” Harry noted, with a knowing look. “You learn that one pretty-damn fast.”

“And that is true, isn’t it?” Simon asked, as he contemplated this man who had become his friend over the years, a man who had far more insight into what was going on in Simon’s world than a lot of people.

“Unfortunately, it’s way too common,” Harry noted. “You know it as well as I do. Look after yourself. Otherwise, nobody else will.”

Simon thought about the sad life lessons people learned as they moved through the world that existed around them. Harry was correct about that. It was up to them to focus and to make everything work the way they needed it to, but it wasn’t always that easy. As a matter of fact, most of the time, it wasn’t easy at all.

Simon headed up to his place and quickly tossed off his jacket and put on a pot of coffee. When it was ready, he poured himself a cup and then sat on the couch. He didn’t know how to contact these spirits and wanted to attempt something new without anybody peering in to see how he was doing.

He knew Kate would respect his boundaries if he had any way to tell her to butt out and exactly what those boundaries were. But the problem was, he didn’t really know himself, and, therefore, he felt this constant sense that he needed to do something, but what that something was, he didn’t know.

With his coffee done and a notebook close by, he laid down on the couch, closed his eyes, and mentally reached out. He called out specifically for Timmy to respond. Simon remembered his grandmother’s words in the back of his head, telling him that, once he opened that door, it would not close anytime soon. Yet he pushed aside that warning because that door had already been opened. Plus, he couldn’t just walk away from everything that had happened up until now, even if he wanted to. That option was long gone.

He would like to do so many things with his life, and it wasn’t past him yet. However, that deadline loomed. Simon knew there was definitely a time and a place, and he had missed the markers and had already gone well past all of those.

Resting here, leaving himself wide open for any communication, felt strange, and maybe a little disconnected from the real world raging around him. But he opened up, now calling out for anybody who needed to talk to him. Preferably the one in particular who kept slugging him in the gut. Simon stayed here for a good thirty minutes, but nothing came. He felt the frustration starting to build. As soon as he felt frustrated, he knew that would make it worse. That wasn’t helping, but then again he had to do something, and this was the only thing he knew to do. If this didn’t work, what else would?

It’s not as if Simon knew of a psychic school on how to handle this or some specialist he could call. However, Simon knew other psychics were in the world. He didn’t know how successful they were. Maybe if he knew any personally, he might contact them to get some pointers. Then again, he didn’t know anybody who was particularly interested in helping him. That was one of those hard lessons. If somebody was there, did they care enough to assist?

As an afterthought Simon put a protective guard around himself, then immediately felt more centered, more secure in some weird way. Feeling more confident after that, he sent out the call yet again for Timmy or the gut-slugger or just anybody who could help Simon. There was no answer, yet he felt something. What was this feeling?

He wasn’t sure, but he felt some weird sense of movement somewhere. He waited, then called out again and again. Then came laughter and something that he couldn’t fully understand. He wasn’t sure what that was.

Frowning, he stepped off to the side mentally and gave it some room, gave it time to dwell and to expand and to do whatever it thought it needed to do. More laughter came, as if somebody were playing a game with him. He didn’t really appreciate that, but considering everything else that had gone on, he would take it.

Of course you will , someone said, as a snicker swept through Simon’s mind. You’re the one calling out this time .

He frowned, not sure who had spoken.

I said it came the harsh voice.

“Okay, and who are you?” Simon asked.

After a moment of silence, the voice answered, Nobody you care about .

“Then what should I call you?”

Doesn’t matter .

Simon sighed. “I’ll call you Jessie then. So why are you talking to me?” Simon asked.

There came that laugh again. Because I can help .

“Maybe you can,” Simon conceded, “but maybe you’re just here to cause trouble.”

Maybe I am at that, he admitted, almost in a mocking tone, but that’s up to you to decide. Who do you want to talk to?

“I’m looking for Timmy,” Simon replied, and then groaned a bit. “I don’t even know,… for sure, if he’s over there. Do you know anything?”

The voice in his head seemed surprised. If you don’t know, how am I supposed to?

Simon frowned, admitting, “I thought maybe you would know something, anything. Who are you?”

Somebody you don’t want to know , the voice replied, turning sad.

“And why is that?”

I’m here because of things that I did while I was over there, he shared.

“And yet you could leave if you wanted to.”

The voice, disembodied, turned angry. Maybe I could, but, but maybe I don’t deserve to.

Simon winced at that. “Maybe, so what then?… You’ll just stay there in limbo your entire existence, hating yourself?”

Maybe, the voice snapped. Maybe that’s exactly what I’m doing. Maybe that’s exactly what I should do.

“Sorry, I can’t help you with that,” Simon muttered. “I’m looking for somebody specific.”

If it’s not me, I’ll leave you in peace.

“Wait,” Simon called out. “Are you the one hitting me in the gut?”

But Jessie was gone.

Simon frowned, thinking about that. If this guy he had dubbed Jessie had nobody else to talk to, was it Simon’s responsibility to try and talk to him? He didn’t know how any of this worked or what his roles and responsibilities were. He needed something from somebody out there who could give him that information. Yet what he really needed was to connect with the child Timmy himself.

Simon shook his head, having a hard time dealing with it himself. And just when he was ready to give up on this for the day and go grab another cup of coffee, a small shaky voice called out, Hello?