Spook Squad

Spook Squad

A PsyCop Novel

PsyCop #7

Jordan Castillo Price

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Spook Squad: A PsyCop Novel. Copyright © 2013 by Jordan Castillo Price. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN 978-1-935540-66-3

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Chapter 1

I often wonder what I might have done with my life if I’d never become a cop. There was this kid who sat behind me in fifth grade. His name is long gone from my patchy memory, but I do recollect two things about him. One, he annoyed the hell out of me by wiggling his foot against the leg of my chair all day long. And two, he knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: a garbageman. Not in an ironic kind of way, either. Careers in sanitation fascinated him. He drew pictures of garbage trucks like other kids drew rocket ships or unicorns. On trash day, he would set his alarm early so he’d be waiting there in the alley to get a glimpse of his heroes. If you gave him a box, he wouldn’t make something useful out of it like a car or a teleporter. He’d make a dumpster.

When I hear the pneumatic wheeze of a garbage truck’s air brakes, I occasionally think of this kid, whatever his name was. I wonder if he ever did manage to live the dream, or if his parents talked him into being an accountant, or maybe a doctor.

At one point in my prepubescent life, I had aspirations of joining the military. Not because I’m pro war, and certainly not because I’m good at following orders. I suspect my subconscious was grooving on the idea of being dumped into the plastic bag with a few dozen other little green army men and losing myself in a tangle of arms, legs and rifles.

Real life being as disappointing as it often is, my chosen career (or the career that chose me) turned out to be a continual display of territoriality and machismo rather than teamwork. Other than my partner, Bob Zigler, I’ve never really grown comfortable with anyone at the precinct. The feeling is mutual. Sometimes the evidence of exclusion is subtle, like when conversation ebbs as I cross the threshold. Sometimes it’s overt, like finding every last pen gone from my desk when the fully stocked supply room is a hell of a lot closer to everything else, and Zig’s desk is untouched.

It says something about how awkward things were that I preferred being at a crime scene to reporting back to the station and dealing with all the other cops. This aversion to groups probably started early. I grew up in group foster care with a rotating stream of snotty kids—troubled kids, I know now. I’m sure they acted like they did not because they were inherently jerks, but because they’d been starved, beaten, and molested, or at the very least, neglected. Sure, we had toys, but they were nasty second hand toys. Naked dolls. Games with missing parts. Dirty plastic action figures with the paint rubbed off.

One thing I don’t remember attempting to play with is a jigsaw puzzle. I’m sure we must have had them, probably with a good handful of pieces missing from each one. But I couldn’t dredge up any specific memory of putting together puzzles.
 

Maybe eventually I’d get the hang of it, although probably not tonight. It was already past six—and while I’d been focused on my project, the cannery had grown dim.

“I’m home,” Lisa called from the foyer. My heart did a little relief-flip every time I heard her say that. Even now. All these months after we coaxed her out of the greedy clutches of PsyTrain.

“I’m in here.” My voice was phlegmy from staring so hard I’d forgotten to swallow.
 

Lisa tracked in melted snow and frowned down at the dining room table. “You’re not done with that thing yet?”

To be fair, it might be my first jigsaw puzzle…as far as I knew. “I didn’t realize there was a time limit.”
 

“That’s not what I mean.” Lisa tousled my hair and went back to hang up her coat. “Me and Jacob gave up after the first hour. But you’re still at it. Thought you said those guys aren’t your type.”

Judging by the box lid, the puzzle seemed like it should have been fun. It featured male dancers with bare chests, bulging muscles, sparkly bowlers, clingy slacks, bow ties fastened around bare necks, and ginormous baskets. Yeah, not my type. But kitschy and stupid in a way I could appreciate. Figuring out which tab fit into which hole was a welcome distraction from the way I’d spent my day: figuring out which vehicle must be covered in minute traces of a distressed murder victim’s blood.
 

Cops need a solid chunk of time to unwind when they clock off. I hadn’t been actively searching for something to deaden my brain after work. It just happened to be there. Jacob’s gym pals had presented him with the goofy gift at his private retirement party—the one that guys on the force weren’t privy to—along with a card that read,
We’re puzzled that you’re retiring. Don’t go soft on us!

Lots of people were puzzled. Not me, though. I knew exactly which carrot Regional Director Con Dreyfuss had dangled in front of Jacob to get him to join the FPMP, and more importantly, which stick he’d subtly suggested might beat Grandma Marks to death.

I tried and rejected yet another piece. “They’re all skin-toned or black.” Maybe I should have started with something easier, like a bouquet of differently-colored flowers. As it was, I’d been staring at one particular dancer, a guy with a dorky come-hither look on his face, for the better part of an hour. There was a big puzzle-shaped hole in his gut where his six pack should have been. You’d think I could spot a set of washboard abs without much problem. But with masses of spray-tanned skin cut into jigsaw pieces, the body parts eventually started to blend.

Lisa turned on an overhead light and joined me at the dining room table. The puzzle and I had been monopolizing the tabletop for a while now, but none of us actually ate there anyway, since meals happened on the coffee table and TV trays. Usually the big table was home to books and newspapers. Now the books were on the floor and the papers in the recycle bin…and somehow, inadvertently, I’d ended up with a new hobby.

All it took was a critical need to unwind and a major life change in my partner that neither of us had seen coming.

Lisa and I sat together and stared down at the die-cut cardboard pieces, and eventually she found a piece of someone’s thigh and clicked it into place. And then a smoky bit of background. And then an oiled shoulder. All the while, I continued searching for my abs. Then she found three nondistinctive gray background pieces, one after the other. Click, click, click. “Are you using the sí-no?” I finally asked.

She looked up, startled. “No. Why would I…?” She laughed and cuffed me on the arm. “That would take all the fun out of it.”

Right. Fun.

I was trying to finesse a not-quite-right bellybutton into position when the doorbell made us both jump. Since the cannery’s bell was meant to be heard over the drone and clang of heavy equipment, its chime wasn’t exactly what you’d call melodic. You don’t want to be caught holding a hot cup of coffee when it goes off.

I collected my sidearm before I answered, not because I’m a paranoid nutcase, but because I’m a realist. Since I wasn’t expecting anybody, I’d need to be prepared for the possibility that some whacked-out anti-Psych had decided to visit—with a shotgun. But it turned out this time my caution was unnecessary. Yes, my visitor was scary. But at least her gun was holstered.
 

“Is Jacob here?” Carolyn asked.

“Uh, no. He’s…” I glanced at my watch. Nearly seven. Ideally he’d be home by now, but no big surprise that he wasn’t. “Not yet.”

“I figured. I didn’t see his car out there.”

Oh. Here I thought she’d been looking for him—not looking to avoid him. I stepped aside and let her in.

“So he left some stuff in my car.” Carolyn began dropping things on the catch-all table beside the front door. A leather-bound notebook, some fancy pens, an MP3 player. I considered mentioning that maybe she should stay awhile, since Jacob would be really glad to see her. Unfortunately, I sensed her reply might be phenomenally awkward, given that she can’t whitewash the truth like the rest of us can. She’d probably considered mailing his effects—I know the idea would have crossed
my
mind—but that would seem too weird. Easiest to engineer the drop-off while Jacob was at work. She seemed eager to rid herself of his things and then bail, but when Lisa drew up beside me to see what was going on, Carolyn paused, cocked her head, and looked Lisa up and down. “Are you just visiting,” Carolyn asked, “or do you still live here?”

“For now,” Lisa began, while in my panic I talked over her and said, “It’s really not a problem. We have plenty of room.” Because I’d been through too damn much to get Lisa back, and I wanted to keep her right where I could see her. I didn’t want Carolyn fucking that up with any inconvenient truth. “All kinds of room.”

Carolyn looked pointedly around the foyer, then said, “Room, but not many walls. That’s not exactly an ideal situation for three adults.”

Now, Lisa and I may not possess the type of talent where we could feed thoughts back and forth without other people being any the wiser. But we can read each others’ body language like a front page headline. Lisa shifted forward slightly. So did I.

As if that wouldn’t just pique Carolyn’s curiosity.

Hey, I said Lisa and I were in synch. Not that we were adept at steering a conversation. Carolyn strode past us like we’d just told her there were warm brownies in the living room that needed eating. Lisa and I turned away from each other. I shrugged. She sighed.

“How long have you…?” Carolyn’s voice seemed overloud against the hardwood and brick. “Whose idea was this?”

We followed her into the main room and shot guilty glances at the big blue dome-shaped tent in the corner. Yes, it’s not something you see every day. But if it worked for the three of us, who was Carolyn to make us feel like a bunch of weirdos?

I’m not even sure who’d suggested the tent. Just that after Lisa spent a few weeks on our couch, there’d been an edge to the “I should probably find my own place” discussion that sounded pretty serious to me. And Jacob’s tent was going to waste rolled up in the basement.

And if you have a room big enough to hold a living room set, a dining room set, and an entertainment center with space left over for a four-person tent…why shouldn’t you pitch it? “It’s just a privacy thing,” I said. “Not a fashion statement.”

Carolyn glanced up at the loft, where we’d be able to see down over a room divider with ease, and then looked me over to see if I was being truthful. Apparently she was satisfied; she didn’t challenge me on it. But she did subject Lisa to additional scrutiny. “Are you running from something, is that what this is? Or did something happen in California that nobody’s talking about? Because the three of you troop out there, and when you get back, suddenly you’re playing living room adventurer and my partner hands in his—” she broke off and turned away with her hand clasped against her mouth, and I realized with a sudden and awkward certainty that I was about to see hard-assed Carolyn Brinkman cry.

“I’m not running,” Lisa said. Unlike me, she wasn’t moved to awkwardness the minute anyone teared up. But exactly like me, she’d seen way too much weird shit at PsyTrain to sleep without a nightlight…and she didn’t like to discuss the big, fat, ectoplasmic mess any more than I did. “And I’m not bothering anyone either. If Victor don’t want me here, he’ll say so.”

“I do want you here.”

“So don’t be judging me.” Lisa punctuated her statement with a ghetto-tastic side-to-side head move that made me realize I was seriously outclassed in the current discussion.

“Is that what you think this is about?” Carolyn snapped back. “I’m not
judging
you—I’m worried. You lost your PsyCop badge, you skipped out on PsyTrain, and you’re sleeping in a tent in your ex-partner’s living room. Does that sound healthy to you?”