Mind Games (7 page)

To anyone off the street, the photos would be the stuff of nightmares. But Amy had to look further. She didn’t become a detective to allow violence to permeate her life, and she certainly didn’t want it to overpower her own mental health. However, there were still some cases Amy could never leave at work. She never planned for it, but sometimes the evidence would slither into her coat, riding her back as she left for home. And there, in her apartment, the weight of the invisible creature would unlatch itself from her, waiting until she turned out the lights.

It never appeared right away. The evidence might wait for Amy, watching her as she brushed her teeth, watching her as she sat alone in a sleepless stupor. These were the moments when she was the most vulnerable to its powers. And these were also the moments the evidence was vulnerable to her powers.

There, in the serenity of her apartment, Amy would confront the hellish presence as if she were doing battle with evil itself. To do this, she had to be brave.

Whatever evils caused the violence in the cases, Amy knew she was stronger than her past.

Real victims with real killers.

Evil had its chance, and now it was her turn. Sometimes, she thought, even evil might experience guilt. Even evil might recognize the losses and gaze upon the blood trails, counting them in fault.

Amy never found resolve in believing evil would dissipate on its own. Like a squirming beast before her, Amy wrestled with what she knew. The documentation of each crime scene revealed different beasts of different sizes. Some spewed fire while others spewed ice.

Amy’s mental network of knowledge was her defense against the beasts. Of course the answers weren’t always clear at first, and not every case had a complete chain of solutions. Still, even when fear manifested as an inner trembling, Amy did not back down.

Over the years, she’d disciplined her mind to decipher the lies in the evidence. The times when it seemed there was no progress, no overarching developments in a case, Amy remembered that evil always left traces of its desolate work. In its path of destruction, even after bleaching and scrubbing, evil would always forget something. The cleanup was always rushed because it was already looking for its next victim.

Similar to the nature of a lie, some cases had a way of growing, gaining momentum and volume in the passage of time. Other cases underwent the negative powers of time, growing colder as the clock ticked on. When residual images crawled on her back, Amy felt their weight bearing down on her. Many nights, she winced as tiny claws pierced the muscles in her back, scratching down, digging into her skin.

The times when she felt its presence Amy already knew she was going to win. Somehow, she had an instinctive advantage. The beast would usually latch on during her drive home after work.

Even when she felt the claws dig in, she just kept driving. There were a few recent cases where the claws dug too deep, almost causing her to swerve off the road.

Those nights, she didn’t care if she got home. She would stop the car, slam the door, and run her hands over her back, clutching the weight and ripping it from her. She’d throw it to the ground and watch as it scurried across the grass, pawing the green blades with sour vengeance. Amy could never injure the beast or call its name. Instead, she’d watch it race down the street like a hungry predator.

But Amy always knew it would return.

Once the bitter, orange sun dipped behind the horizon, drops of fear would drip from her fingertips. Amy didn’t have to fall asleep to wrestle with the nightmares. And she preferred it that way. When she was awake, Amy had a fuller sense of time and space. She could analyze the beast and rebuke it, throwing it from her repeatedly if necessary.

And if the nightmares crawled back too quickly, Amy would run. She’d pull off to the side of road, opening the door like a crazy person. Then, she’d run from her car, not looking back. And as she ran, the blood flow to her brain would bring her back to reality. The oxygen-rich blood had a way of restoring her sanity and refreshing her mind.

Then, as her feet hit the pavement, she had the time to think. As the mass of information galloped behind her, Amy played the options over and over, unfolding paradoxes and linking ideas.

Certain cases, the really grisly ones, Amy never wanted to stop running. On those cases, she deeply feared the sunset since it signaled a literal and metaphysical darkness about to fall over the city.

Amy had solved many cases on these runs. Surely, they were more effective than the times she sat stagnant in her apartment, scouring the walls for answers.

In the kinetic energy of running, Amy was able to focus. She wasn’t running from the evil. Instead, she was confronting it by not letting it sink its claws back into her body. When she ran, jumping over curbs, winding streetlights, shifting for every turn, Amy stayed ahead. The many diversions in her physical path matched her efforts of tricking the evidence to confess its filth.

Of course, not all cases unfolded on her nightly runs. Amy’s time at the precinct during the day was also a vital part of her methods. There, in the safety of the office, the darkness in the evidence was subject to light.

Posted on the evidence board, the photos, documents, and suspects had to squint in the fluorescent judgment of the precinct lights, subjecting the evidence to a sort of interrogation.

The daylight hours revealed logical details, and as the hours passed each day, Amy both feared and reveled the chance to battle the case in the dark. As long as she kept running through the glaring streetlights of San Francisco, she still had a chance to come out on top.

But she wasn’t just running from evil.

Ultimately, Amy was chasing truth.

The pictures from Stefani’s shrin
e
didn’t quite make sense. His bombs surely weren’t meant for random civilians. Amy thought the victims were probably targeted out of revenge.

What else was there? The fish tank. Bleach. Bobbing, dead fish.

Amy noted even those weird things, but weird didn’t mean important. Sometimes weird just meant weird.

Then she thought of the web of terrorist articles. Amy closed her eyes and rewinded through her thoughts, scanning the front pages of past newspapers in San Francisco regarding possible threats. Her photographic memory made exercises like this a breeze compared to the hours other detectives spent scrolling through microfilm or online sources.

She recalled the front-page reports of the recent bombings. Back then, no one knew who the real bomber was. Amy now had the luxury of knowing the bomber’s identity, but she didn’t want to focus on the past bombings.

Now that she had strong evidence Stefani was the San Fran bomber, Amy still had a nauseous feeling that his work wasn’t finished. If Stefani acted on revenge, Amy suspected he wouldn’t even let his own death prevent him from finishing off the targets on his web of photos.

Amy rewinded through her mental videotape, recalling the various houses and locations of the bomb-fire victims. But again, there didn’t seem to be an obvious connection between victims.

She leaned toward the pictures on the evidence board, further studying Stefani’s shrine. Nothing jumped out at her, so she looked to the photo of the glass room underground where Stefani kept the touchscreen computer.

Unfortunately, without the hard drives, there was no way to gather a list of Stefani’s black market clients. Amy feared Stefani’s accomplice, the white-haired man at the keyboard in the glass room, had the power to continue Stefani’s revenge mission. Even though the man vanished from the glass room, Amy was certain the hard drives from that computer still existed and therefore still posed a threat.

She tried the open-shut method with her eyes.

Eventually, one photograph stood out to her: a sign to Highway 17. She saw it mid-blink, and the image burned itself behind her eyelids.

Amy was determined not to let this clue fall into oblivion.

Cameron rushed into the precinc
t
and dropped his leather jacket on his chair. Out of breath, he walked up to the evidence board next to Amy, asking something in a mumble, but she shushed him.

“First, Cam, you’re late. Second, be quiet. I’m working here.”

He gave her some space and leaned down to tie his shoes. He’d almost tripped running out of the house. It was usually best to just leave Amy alone when she was in her trancelike state; so Cameron went to the break room for some coffee.

Amy stood back from the evidence board and quieted her mind. The image she’d just seen shifted into sound
:
Highway 17. Highway 17.

What the hell did that have to do with Stefani’s weapon business? Or the bombings? Or anything?

Amy knew the Captain would be over to check in with her later that afternoon, and she needed something. Anything.

Scanning furiously, Amy’s eyes stopped on another picture. It was a local address to an apartment building with stained glass windows at the entrance: 445 Timber Circle, San Francisco.

When Amy was stuck, she would often play th
e
“What if
”
game.

What i
f
the bombings weren’t about revenge but about creating a distraction? Or even possibly leading up to something bigger?

What i
f
Stefani was plotting to use the gun business to formulate more attacks in San Francisco?

What i
f
he’d been planning it for a long time, and his death really was a rash murder by Derek Hansen?

What i
f
Hansen was discussing something important with Stefani – something he didn’t agree with? Possibly even something to kill for? Hansen might have just been trigger-happy.

There was still the issue of the address. Where did Stefani get it? Was he buying drugs or more weapons?

Apartment 445.

Why did Stefani post the address on his terrorist board?

There must be a reason.

What i
f
the person living at apartment 445 was actually Stefani’s drug supplier? Yeah, and Stefani wanted him dead because he ran out of money. (Financing an underground maze system would do that to a guy.) Since Stefani seemed to be organizing some kind of violent group, he needed recruits.

Vince casually walked by Amy, slurping a can of diet Coke. “You got anything yet?”

“Yeah, I think I’m finally getting somewhere. It doesn’t help when our main suspect, accomplice, whatever he is, goes missing.” She pointed to the board. “See this one? Apartment 445. I’m starting to think Stefani’s drug supplier lives there.”

“That can’t be right,” Vince said.

“Why not?”

“Those apartments aren’t cheap.”

“What? You don’t think a drug lord would have cash to burn? “

“Good point. Black-market sales are tax free.”

“Wait,” Amy turned to Vince. “You know these apartments?”

“Of course. Look at the photo. There are only so many apartments that have stained glass windows near the entrance. I believe that complex is on the south side of the city. I investigated a homicide there last fall.” He stepped closer to the board and crumpled the aluminum can. “Yeah, those are definitely the same apartments. What are we waiting for? Let’s get over there.”

He tossed the mashed can towards the trashcan and missed again. The office busted into whoops and hisses. Sometimes Vince missed on purpose, just for the attention.

“Cameron, wake up,” Amy smacked him in the back of the head. He had fallen asleep again – this time leaned against the water cooler in the break room. His arm was slumped over the edge of the plastic water dome, but it was slipping off. Amy caught his arm and used it to lightly slap his face. “Cam, we’re all tired. But you make a better photographer than a vampire. Let’s go bust some drug lords.”

Amy knocked on the stained glass windo
w
of apartment 445 Timber Circle. Vince was right. This was the place pictured on Stefani’s web of photos.

Loud music blasted from inside the apartment. Amy could feel the vibrations pulsating through the door. She knocked again, but the blaring music continued. The volume increased as if someone turned it up. She knocked a third time and the music suddenly stopped, replaced by shouts from inside.

“Teresa, get the gun! It’s the cops!”

Amy heard rustling from within the apartment, then a muted whisper. A few drawers opened and shut, and Amy readied her gun.

“SFPD, open the door!”

A woman inside 445 cleared her throat and Amy saw a figure slowly move towards them from behind the stained glass. The figure unlocked the door and opened it only a sliver. A set of cracked French tip nails scratched the edge of the door when she gripped it, and she forced her nails through the opening.

“What do you want?” It was the shaky voice of an older woman.