Chapter Twelve: Crimes and Confessions
Seattle; June 22, 2010; 10:24 a.m.
Death is one part of life that no one is prepared to deal with. Even to those who look at it as 'the next great adventure,' and those who think about it with a lethargic nonchalance, the actual thing is gruesome. No creature with any shred of humanity can see death without their world stopping for just a second as they find a new meaning to life.
Shimmer, though she immediately closed down her emotions upon hearing June's words to create a façade of calm rivaled only by the steadfast seriousness that was ever present on Zach's face, was thrown into inner turmoil. The redhead had seen more death than most over the three years of her memory, yet she still felt her eyes grow hot as June spoke. It was not that Shimmer hated death, but that she hated any form of suffering, and she doubted that any kill done by the Cult was done humanely.
Nash was the first to break the silence. "They expect us to come investigate?"
June nodded.
"I can go," Cane offered after a moment. "It won't be my first time."
"It won't be anyone's 'first time,' Cane," June said.
"I have to deny that," Theodore said quickly. "Can't say I've been to a murder scene before."
"It doesn't matter," Shimmer spoke up. "There's no reason for you to go, Theodore. We can't risk exposing you. Anyway, I'm going. Grant, you can come with me if you want; I don't know how it's going to affect your telepathy, so I'll leave that up to you."
"I'll be fine," Nash replied. "And if I can pick up on any residual emotions, it will be for the better."
"You two really don't mind?" June asked. "It seems like you are the only ones to go do any investigative work."
"Which is probably best," Shimmer said. "It only makes sense—by now most people know that we are working on it, but they don't know about the rest of you five. That gives us an edge."
"That's a good point," mused Theodore, "but I don't think we should send only two people. The more sets of eyes, the better."
"Then Branson can come with us," Shimmer said. "Now, if that's settled, we should get going."
"I'll suit up and meet you there," Cane told them, walking towards the hallway three extension.
Shimmer looked at Nash, who gave her a crooked smile. "Let's go see a dead guy."
₪∞₪
"What kind of sick person leaves a body in a park?" Nash asked as their taxi pulled up.
"The kind that wants to make a point," Shimmer offered.
Nash sighed, but not in exasperation. "It was rhetorical."
"I know."
The two climbed out of the back of the taxi and onto the sidewalk, looking at the taped off area swarming with different uniformed officials down the street. The street along the park had been blockaded to prevent any cars from coming close, and swarms of people were being held back by a few men wearing Seattle Police uniforms.
Shimmer resisted the urge to dissolve into the street light next to her to circumvent the throng, instead walking next to Nash and forcing her way through the crowd. As soon as it was made known just who was walking through, a path was made in front of her, and she and Nash made it to the barricade with little trouble. The police officer standing there did no more than nod at them with wide eyes as they passed.
Nash pointed to a group of people in blue who were being directed by three individuals wearing suits. "That'll be the ISDA."
They turned and walked towards the group. As they approached, a suit-wearing woman took notice of them and greeted them.
"Hello," she said, pushing a piece of hair that had escaped her bun back behind her ear. "I am Agent Maddie Holmes. I was told you would be here."
"Yes," Shimmer said. "Where is the body?"
Agent Maddie Holmes looked mildly offended by Shimmer's abrupt dismissal, but pointed behind her nonetheless. "Our people are looking into the site."
Shimmer began walking to the cluster of people.
"Miss!" the agent called behind her. "You can't go too close, or you will disrupt the evidence."
Shimmer glanced over her shoulder. "If you didn't want me to look, why did they send us? To chat?" she said, and continued on her way. Pushing through the crowd, she caught sight of the scene, and even her woe-hardened stomach clenched uncomfortably. Most of the people present stayed at least seven feet away, forming a circle around the unfortunate centerpiece, while a few blue-clothed figures darted in and out of the area. Shimmer herself stopped six feet away—a distance she judged as safe—and was soon joined by Nash. Both stared at the empty shell of a man in front of them in silence for a few minutes.
"Getting anything?" Shimmer asked.
"Not really. There are too many people around."
"Well then," Shimmer sighed. "I guess we wait."
"I'm starting to wish we had stopped to see Rena first."
Shimmer smiled slightly, glancing at a nearby light pole. "What do you want?"
"Took them long enough," Shimmer muttered when she, Nash and Cane were informed that the specialists were done and that they could now approach the site.
"Thirty four minutes and sixteen seconds, to be precise," Nash told her with a grin.
For the past thirty four minutes and sixteen seconds, Shimmer and Nash had been standing six feet away from the park bench that had been covered in a piece of black plastic only minutes after they had arrived. Truth be told, Shimmer was glad for it. The sight beneath the plastic was... grisly, to say the least. Those thirty four minutes were made bearable by Shimmer's constant 'zapping,' as Nash termed it, across the city to bring back coffee and muffins for Nash, and later Cane, as they all tried to forget about what was under the plastic until the time came that they had to think about it.
That time had now come, and Shimmer accepted the pair of white plastic gloves being handed to her by some unknown blue suited man. A faint snapping noise came as she put the gloves on.
"Let's take a look," Shimmer said, stepping into the de facto circle. "Shall we?"
She and Nash carefully pulled back the plastic, and the three of them got to work. Their investigation took under twenty minutes, but that time was enough to make Shimmer feel uncomfortable in a way she had never before felt. Cane filled any silent spaces of time with morbid jokes while Nash stood back slightly, his face drawn into a constant look of confusion, anger, and sadness.
Both men were somewhat surprised when, while they were unable to look at the blood-soaked corpse for more than a few seconds, Shimmer covered her face in a blank mask, void of all emotions—even the sarcasm often found in her arched, red brows—and began carefully poking and prodding the body. For seventeen minutes (and twenty nine seconds, as Nash would later inform them), Shimmer applied herself to the task at hand, using some knowledge that she knew where had come from, and some she didn't.
Finally, she stood and motioned for the blue-suits to come and take it away. One of them muttered angrily about her spoiling its integrity by making them leave it out here, but Shimmer ignored them. She had wanted to examine things exactly as the cult had left them, to be sure that no significance escaped her.
"What next, Dr. Frankenstein?" Cane asked.
Shimmer thought for a moment. "Where is the note?"
Nash supplied the answer. "Stapled to a tree over there."
They walked in that direction, and Shimmer took careful note of the positioning. The small, white slip of paper was on the side of the tree facing the body, which was positioned so that it was looking directly at the paper.
That's disturbing, Shimmer thought.
"What's disturbing?" Nash asked, turning to look at her. "I mean, everything here is disturb—" he stopped speaking as he noticed her glare. "What?"
"I told you not to read my mind," Shimmer answered, and the confused look that had appeared Cane's face vanished.
"Sorry," Nash replied, not seeming too worried about it. "Can't always help it. You kind of threw that one out there."
"Whatever," Shimmer muttered. "Anyway, the body was positioned so that it was looking at the note."
"I noticed that, too," Nash said. "Someone took a lot of time with this."
The group came to the tree where the note was hanging and looked at it closely.
"'He who claimed that we were weak,
Has now been judged unfit to speak,'" Shimmer read aloud.
"That's short and to the point," Nash noted. "Do your thing, Shimmer."
"Well," Shimmer began, her tone of voice changing slightly. "It seems like whoever wrote it wanted to write more—like they would have written an epic if they could have. That says they're dramatic. The flourishing on the words and the manner of speaking indicate a woman—"
"I bet it was a blonde," interjected Cane. "It's always the blondes that are the evil ones."
"You're a blonde," Nash pointed out.
"I meant women," Cane said, defensively. "As you were, word-freak."
Shimmer glared at him for a moment before turning back to the paper. "The words have a smooth glide to them, most likely written with a good quality ball point pen. She doesn't have the standard writing style common among women taught in any period before the Nineties. I'd guess she's between fifteen and twenty five."
Here, again, Shimmer was interrupted. "That young? You can't honestly think a teenager would do this." Nash said.
"It's the letters that are speaking, Grant. Not me," Shimmer told him. "Further," she said, focusing again. "The tilt and weight of her letters suggest that she wrote this at her leisure, most likely before the murder took place."
"So we have a fifteen to twenty five year old over dramatic murderess on our hands?" Nash asked.
"If I'm right," Shimmer replied.
"Hey, what about one of those quirks you were talking about?" Cane asked. "The things that identify writers. Does she have one?"
Shimmer turned to look at him, eyebrows raised.
"What?" Cane asked.
"Nothing," Shimmer muttered. "I just didn't think you would remember that. And, yes. She does; she wings her 'k's and curls her 'i's."
"That can't be too uncommon, can it?" Cane asked.
"No, but she does it in a specific way—the wing is just barely curled and the 'i' is practically a 'c' with a dot."
Nash changed the subject. "Is there anything else we need to do here, or can we go back to the Tower and talk there?"
"Have you gotten a read on anything?" Shimmer asked him.
"No," he replied. "We got here too late for there to be any energy left."
"That's a shame," Shimmer said quietly as the three of them began walking away from the scene. "I suppose there was no real reason for you to come then, was there?"
"Hey!" Nash said, faking annoyance. "I'm not completely useless."
Shimmer rolled her eyes and didn't reply.
"Anyway," Nash continued, "are we going straight back to the Tower?"
"If you want to," Shimmer replied. "Or we could stop and get another cup of coffee on the way."
Nash grinned at her, leaving Cane confused and silent at their exchange. "I like the way you think."
₪∞₪
Cane was beginning to accept the notion that Shimmer could act friendly towards someone as he stood in the elevator with her and Nash. He was having a hard time finding places to slip in sarcastic comments about her with the constant stream of chatter that Nash put forth.
When the elevator dinged into place on level seven, Nash finished his somewhat one sided and decidedly longwinded debate about the superiority of caramel to vanilla.
"So," he began again after a breath, during which Shimmer resolved to never ask him for an opinion on food. "What's the plan of action here?"
"I think we would do best to tell Sage to get everyone to the conference room so that we can tell them what we found."
Nash and Cane both snorted under their breaths. "June will probably have everyone on standby just for that reason," Nash said.
At that, Shimmer smiled lightly, which Cane saw and started at.
"You'll want to be careful there, Miss Malignant, or you'll be kicked out of the Society."
"You know, Branson," Shimmer said, "it still manages to astound me that you have an acceptable knowledge of words commonly used by intelligent life forms. It's quite shocking, really, and I still fail to understand how you remember them, because, in my experience, men like you resist the idea of using your brains for thinking."
"You find that astounding, huh?" Cane answered. "What I find shocking is that you haven't imploded yet into a giant black hole of darkness and vindictive personality, but that's just me. What do you say, Grant?"
Nash looked between them for a moment, amused, before saying, "I think that we need to rename the conference room. There are so damn many of the things in this place, and ours isn't really a conference room as much as a shared office."
"You know, if you had used the term 'Communal Office,' instead," Cane told him, "Shimmer may have spewed forth more cattish invectives insulting you and the use of your di—"
Cane cut his words off sharply as they walked through the second set of doors to find themselves instantly pinned by June's sharp eye.
"Hey, June!" Nash said with an added cheeriness to try to distract from the obvious tension.
"Hello, Mr. Grant," June said, her voice slightly less bubbly than normal. "How did it go?"
"As well as can be expected," Shimmer answered. "Shall we meet you in the conference room?"
"No need," June replied. "The others are on their way. I'll walk with you."
"So," June said, looking around the table at the six people seated there. "What do we have to go on?"
"Red claims that the note was written by a dramatic blon—I mean woman between the ages of fifteen and twenty five who has good taste in pens," Cane told her.
"That's something," Theodore said. "I can run it through my system and narrow down the search parameters."
"Good, what else?" June asked.
"Morticia was the one to examine the body," Cane said.
All eyes turned to Shimmer, no one bothering to question the name by this point. "There are two main important things," she began. "First, he wasn't killed in the park. There wasn't enough blood in the surrounding area for that. I'm not good enough with forensics to tell you how long after he died he was moved, but I know that he was moved and positioned very carefully. Second, the wounds were extensive."
"No, really?" Cane interrupted sarcastically. "I didn't notice by the way his skin was in ribbons."
The only reaction he received was a small twitch of the eyebrows before Shimmer continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Because this was obviously done by a human, I assumed that the wounds were caused by a knife, but upon closer inspection found that they are consistent with very large claws or spikes of some sort."
"Like a bear?" June asked, disgusted.
"No. It didn't have any pattern I recognize. They are at least three inches long and very sharp."
"Does anyone have any experience with that type of thing?" Theodore asked.
Everyone was silent for a moment before Cane spoke up. "I met some sort of mutant creature with spines down its back, once."
"What was it?" June asked.
"Disgusting."
"Did you find out anything about it?" June pressed. "Like how it mutated, or how it worked?"
"It wasn't particularly chatty," Cane replied, grimacing.
"Well then, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see," June said, resignedly.
"I can run a search to see if anyone's posted something that matches that description," Theodore offered, to which June perked up a bit.
"So who was this guy?" Nash asked, looking up from the table, which he had been staring at in deep thought, for the first time.
"Daniel Riley," June answered. "A small time radio personality."
"What did they want with him?"
"Listen for yourself," Theodore said, and pressed a button on the computer he had brought with him.
A smooth voice filled the room. "Yes," it said, "we have problems. Yes, there are some bad people out there. Yes, the world is a dangerous place, but does that mean we come running home and hide under our beds and let other people take care of us?" the voice said in a rising crescendo. "No! What we need is to step forward and take responsibility for ourselves. We don't need to live in fear, convinced that we are weak and need protection. The human race lived for eons without a bunch of super-charged fools in fancy suits flying around, and there is no reason why we need them now. We should not lie down and believe that we are inferior to them simply because they have super powers and we do not. We should stand up and fight for ourselves, by their sides if we must, and against them if need be! Because we are not weak! If anything, we are stronger than them! They are weak—relying on super strength and lasers, sonic waves and sparkly electron beams!"
Here, Theodore tapped the computer again and the voice cut off. "I think he was talking to you with that last bit, Shimmer."
Shimmer merely tilted her head and twitched an eyebrow in a conceding way.
"The note," Cane said. "The note said 'He who claimed that we were weak has now been judged unfit to speak.'"
"I think we found a motive," Theodore said.
"I think we found a crazy," Cane muttered.
Silence fell once more, to be broken after a minute by sporadic music. All eyes fell on Nash, who sheepishly pulled out his cell phone and answered it.
"Hello?" he paused. "Um, yeah. Hold on."
He held out the phone to Shimmer, who took it, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes?" she said into the phone. After listening for a few moments, she spoke again. "When will you be ready?" Another pause. "Where are you?" Nash looked at her questioningly. "I'll be there," she finished, handing the phone back to Nash without even bothering to turn it off and disappearing in a shimmer of lights.
₪∞₪
Jared Lowe couldn't have been happier at the boy's words. For days, he had been at a loss as to what to do about the unfortunate situation, and now the boy had up and decided to accept some help. Despite what Tyler had tried to make him believe, Jared knew that he wasn't a bad kid.
With all but a smile on his face, Jared dialed up the ISDA headquarters. After being asked to hold, he gave his name and station, before waiting again.
"Hello," said a female voice. "How may I direct your call?"
"I'd like to speak to Ayla Pierce," Jared replied.
"What is your authorization code?" the voice asked.
Jared paused, unsure of what to say. "Um, I don't really have one. I was just told to contact a secretary by that name."
The woman sighed. "Who told you this?"
Here Jared knew what to say, yet he still felt foolish saying it. "The super hero called Shimmer."
A small sound of surprise came across the line. "Wait just a second."
After no more time than mentioned, another click sounded and a different voice told him that he had reached 'Ayla Pierce in Agent Garland's office.'
"Yeah, hi," Jared said. "I'm trying to get a hold of Shimmer."
"Are you authorized?"
"Um..."
"Oh, never mind. I don't think anyone in their right mind would try to contact that woman without permission. Honestly, she scares me to no end."
Jared gave a nervous chuckle. "So can you help me?"
"Of course. I can send someone to find her, if you like."
"If that's what you need to do. I'm in a bit of a rush, though—I'm with the police, and I need her to get here as soon as possible."
"Oh," Ayla replied. "I'm going to give you a number to call. Hopefully, the man that answers will be near her, and you can talk to her yourself, okay?"
Jared replied that this would work, received the number, and made the call. Shimmer was proving to be a hard woman to talk to.
"Hello?" said a man, sounding a bit pressured.
"Hi. I need to speak with Shimmer. Is she near you?"
The man replied to the affirmative, and Jared finally managed to hear Shimmer's voice.
Jared quickly explained that Tyler Greyson, the young man Shimmer had apprehended at the jewelry store, had decided to take up Shimmer's offer and wanted to speak with her.
"When will you be ready?" she asked briskly.
"I'm with him now."
"Where are you?" Shimmer asked, her voice accompanied by a shuffling that Jared assumed was her standing up. He described where he was, and was beginning to tell her how to get in when she cut him off abruptly. "I'll be there."
"Wait," Jared called. "They won't let—"
"She's already gone," came the male voice from before. "But trust me. No one keeps Shimmer out."
"What do you—Holy—" Jared half-swore as a large group of shimmering lights appeared before him, quickly forming into the recognizable shape of Shimmer.
"Hello, Officer," Shimmer told him calmly.
"Uh, yeah. Hi," Jared replied, before realizing he still had the phone turned on. A faint chuckling was to be heard from the other end. He spoke into it. "Oh, and thank you. Good bye."
The officer knew he was being rude, but his astonishment covered his guilt.
"Where's Tyler," Shimmer asked, skipping the formalities past a greeting.
Jared led her into a small room with a metal table and three chairs, deciding the normal protocol didn't really apply. One of the chairs was occupied by a young man with light brown hair.
"As promised," Jared told the kid, gesturing to Shimmer.
Tyler looked at her nervously, and Shimmer raised her eyebrows, sitting down in one of the chairs opposite him.
"Could we talk alone?" he asked, looking to Jared.
"I've got to be in here."
"Do you now?" Shimmer asked, narrowing her eyes.
Jared raised his hands. "Look, the fact that you're in here is bending the rules pretty far. Any more and I don't know what will happen. I'll stay out of the way."
As the officer in question leaned back against the wall next to the wall, Shimmer sighed and said, "Fine."
Tyler looked less willing to let it go, but after a moment he started to talk to Shimmer. "You said that you would try to help me if I let you, right?" Shimmer nodded. "Well... it's not so much me that needs help. I've just been—I mean—I'm trying to—I got myself into something," he stuttered out.
"What kind of something?" Shimmer asked, one eyebrow raised.
"The kind I never meant to get involved with in the first place, and now it's not just me involved."
Shimmer studied him for a moment. "Let me guess," she said. "You're in trouble with a gang, and now they're going to hurt someone important to you."
"Yeah, actually," Tyler said quietly. "How'd you know?"
"I've been doing this for a while, Tyler. That, and that this situation has been recorded by play writers and novelists for thousands of years."
Tyler's lips twitched slightly at her comment. "I guess it has."
"So, how did you meet this gang?"
"I'm not really sure what happened..." he said. "I was just walking down the street one day with—I mean I was walking and these guys came up to me, and started pushing me around and stuff. Said that if I didn't get them five thousand dollars by Friday, they would hurt m—me."
"Who was the bracelet for?"
Tyler's eyes got wide. "What do you—"
"Don't lie to me. I'm not stupid. I was watching you that day, and I saw you ask the woman to show you a bracelet. You stuck it in your pocket, but I'm guessing this gang wasn't interested in jewelry."
Tyler stared at her for a minute before giving in. "My sister. They threatened to hurt her, and..." he trailed off, as though the thought was too painful to speak of.
Shimmer studied him for a minute. "Why are you only asking for my help now?"
"I thought that maybe, if I stayed quiet, they would leave her alone."
"And they didn't?"
"No. They said that I failed."
"Okay," Shimmer said. "Listen. I'm going to take care of this. You are going to tell me your sister's name and where I can find her, and every single thing you know about this gang. Then, you are going to cooperate with this const—police officer," she corrected herself. "Anything he wants to know, you are going to answer honestly. Understood?"
Tyler nodded mutely.
"Get to it then."
**Hello! This chapter was giving me some trouble with editing, so I apologize for the wait. 4055 words though! I've decided that my word count is probably half made up by quotation marks, because I write a heck of a lot of dialogue.
So, BIG NEWS! As of yesterday (March 21, 2017) the rough draft for this book is done! Hoorah! Now it'll just be editing and posting for this one (and maybe getting started on a new book...). Anyways, this means that the next time I take a look at the chapters I've posted will be for the FINAL EDIT. Any input you have is helpful to me! I want your criticism! I want your comments! I want to know what you love and hate! LET ME KNOW. Please :D
Anyways, I hope you're having a great day, whatever day you may be reading this on. Vote, comment... tell all your superhero loving friends... Or just keep reading. I'm down with that too.
~Bear