Bad Karma

Chapter 6

Shannon woke early so he’d have time for a five mile run down Baseline to Flagstaff Drive. Even though it was only a quarter past six and there was a coolness in the air, he could tell from the cloudless sky and the warmth of the sun against his face that it was going to be another hot day. When he got to the beginning of Flagstaff and started the uphill part of his run, he pushed himself hard, trying to sprint up the Flatirons to his halfway point. By the time he reached a gnarled crabapple tree that he knew marked two and a half miles from his apartment, he was gasping in air, his chest aching as if it were going to explode. He turned and coasted down the mountain, letting gravity do most of the work as he took long, bounding strides and at times almost creating the allusion of flying. He tried to clear his mind and concentrate on his breath, fixing his eyes on the fields above Chautauqua Park. Off in the distance he spotted a hawk circling the plains below and watched as it made a quick dive to the ground. Chipmunks and squirrels rushed in the grass and underbrush nearby. Occasionally he’d spot one of them. By the time he returned to Baseline, he had his breathing back under control. A couple of other runners nodded to him as they passed by. He maintained a moderate pace on the mile and a half back to his apartment, trying to give the layer of sweat coating his body a chance to dry.

Susan was waiting for him at the small ceramic table they were able to fit in their kitchen. Even though the kitchen was tiny, it had a bright and airy feel to it, no thanks to Shannon. The day after Susan moved in, she painted the walls a bright yellow and added other little touches to give the space a country kitchen feel to it.

“Have a good run?”

She was wearing one of his T-shirts as a nightgown and had a bowl of fresh fruit and granola in front of her alongside another bowl she had prepared for Shannon. Sitting there without any makeup and her long black hair mostly a mess from getting out of bed, she still took his breath away. He stood for a long moment before sitting at the table next to her.

“You’ve got my heart pounding faster now than when I was running up Flagstaff,” he said.

She laughed at that.

“You find that funny, huh?” he asked. “We’ll see how funny it is when you try explaining to the paramedics why I collapsed clutching my chest and why the big smile stretched across my face. Although one look at you and I think they’ll understand.”

She reached out and took hold of his good hand. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

“It was a good run. I needed it to clear my head.” Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it quickly. “This breakfast looks great, by the way. Thanks for putting it together.” He mixed some honey into the granola and took a spoonful of it, making sure to include some of the raspberries and blueberries she had added. “I’m going to have to get some business cards made up,” he said. “Maybe I’ll call myself the Crunchy-Granola Detective.”

She laughed again. “Hon, I don’t think it matters how much granola you eat or what type of metaphysical studies or new age classes you take. I don’t think you’d ever fit the definition of crunchy-granola.”

“You don’t, huh?”

“No, I don’t think so. If I’d made hardboiled eggs for breakfast instead, that would’ve been a better fit for you.”

“So I’m just a hardboiled egg?” he asked, a wry grin showing.

She placed a small hand on his cheek and caressed his skin lightly. “You’re definitely a tough guy,” she said. “You’d have to be to survive what you did. So why the funny mood this morning? What’s going on?”

“I guess nothing. When I saw Eli at the Center yesterday, he asked me to try to figure out why I’m still doing detective work, and you know, it’s a pretty good question. It just seems to be opposite to what I’m trying to do with my life here in Boulder.”

“I think you’re overanalyzing this,” she said. “Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. Whether it gives you purpose, a way to help people, or whatever. Personally, I think it’s because you’re driven to put bad guys away. But again, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re getting satisfaction from it.”

Shannon was going to recite Eli’s long-standing arguments about how it was interfering with the dream work and out-of-body experiences he was trying to induce, but decided against it. Instead, he took her hand from his cheek and gently kissed each small white knuckle before letting go.

“I forgot to ask you,” Susan said, her eyes sparkling, “how was the game?”

“It was fun. Sox won it in the ninth. I couldn’t quite get into it, though. I think I was distracted by this case.”

“I could’ve told you that would happen,” she said. “Whenever you take a case, your mind’s always churning away working on it. And it doesn’t stop until you’ve solved it. There’re times when I’ll look at you and know you’re a million miles away fitting together all of your clues and planning out your next move.”

“I guess I get preoccupied sometimes-”

“Sometimes?” A lightness danced in her brown eyes. “Try always, my darling. But that’s something I love about you, the passion you show in everything you undertake.”

They ate quietly after that. Susan tilted her head to one side as if an earlier thought just came back to her. “Did Eli end up going to the game with you?”

“Nah, he couldn’t stomach the idea of paying money to watch the Sox beat up on a last place team. It’s too bad. It turned out to be a pretty good game. I ended up going with one of the victims’ neighbors.”

“Really?” Susan asked, her face scrunching up into a puzzled look. “That sounds kind of odd.”

Shannon smiled. “Not really. It turns out he’s from Boston and had an extra ticket for the game. He knew I was from Boston also so he invited me. And in this crunchy-granola town, how likely is it you’re going to find someone willing to take an extra ticket for a ballgame?”

“Sounds like a friendly guy.”

“Yeah, he is.” He winked at her. “You’d like him too. Passionate about his baseball. I just hope he didn’t kill his neighbors.”

Susan’s eyes widened. “You don’t think that’s possible?”

“I don’t think it’s very likely, but he did tell me there were some noise problems with them. Anyway, I should be able to cross him off quickly. I’m going to need to talk to more of the neighbors and see if any of them had problems also. But, as I told him last night, lesson two, leave no stone unturned.”

With a thin smile, she asked, “What’s that about no stones?”

“I’m schooling him in the art of being a detective. That was just one of the many pearls of wisdom I shared with him. By the way, I ran into Ed Poulet and Jimmy Mason at the game.”

“You’re joking?”

“Nope.”

“Of all the people from back home for you to run into,” Susan said, wrinkling her nose.

“It wasn’t bad. They acted as if we were long-lost pals.”

“I just bet they did!”

“They did. Believe it or not it was kind of nice seeing them, and in a way, it gave me some closure. Of course, I don’t think I’d want to make a habit out of it.”

“I hope not,” Susan said, laughing. “So what are your plans?”

“First, I want to cross my new baseball buddy off the list. Then talk to more people and see where it leads. Also, I’m thinking I’m going to have to take a trip to Kansas and visit the dead girl’s family.”

“If you have to go…”

“I’ll try to make it a one day trip. Maybe see if I can schedule it for tomorrow. With some luck I can fly out there and be back in time to take you out for a nice dinner.”

“Well, I guess as long as it’s a nice dinner,” she said, exaggerating her pout.

Shannon checked the clock on the wall and saw he still had twenty minutes before he was to meet Eli. The clock was one of the nice touches Susan had added-made from a ceramic plate that had been painted with a barnyard rooster on it. He gathered up the dishes and, after putting the tea kettle on for Susan, washed them and laid them out to dry. After the water boiled, he packed a tea ball with the Darjeeling brand that Susan liked and started steeping it in a cup of hot water.

He caught a glimpse of Susan watching him, her eyes half-closed, a warm and contented look relaxing her face.

“You meeting Eli this morning?” she asked.

“Yeah, I have to leave in a few minutes. Although seeing you like this, I’m thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be late again. And this time more than twenty minutes late.”

She laughed, showing the delicate soft curvature of her throat. “If only,” she said. “I have work I need to do, and my homeopathy group is coming over at eleven so I’ll be busy through lunch. But let’s plan a nice dinner together.”

Shannon nodded. He felt a dryness in his mouth as he watched the playful half-smile forming over her lips. “I don’t want to interfere with your work,” he said. “But would you mind asking one of your patients if I could meet with him? The one who acts as a psychic for the police, helping them find dead bodies?”

Susan thought about it, nodded. “I’ll ask him. But he never mentioned anything about being able to communicate with the dead, only about being able to see people as they’re close to death or have just died.”

“It’s all part of my ‘leave no stone unturned’ motto, and besides, these days being the crunchy-granola detective, I’m up for anything. I figure it can’t hurt.”

“Okay, Crunchy, I’ll call him today.”

“That’s Mr. Granola to you!”

That elicited a small wisp of a smile from his ex-wife.

Shannon brought Susan her tea, then reached down and gave her a long kiss, the palm of his damaged hand lightly tracing the outline of her jaw. On his way out, he checked his email and found a cryptic message from Professor Lester White that simply stated that Taylor Carver was of a cynical nature and his death did not come as much of a surprise. Shannon felt a pounding in his head as he stared at the message. He replied back, asking the Professor to please provide him with more details and for a list of other people for Shannon to talk to, especially those who shared the Professor’s view.

Eli made no attempt to hide his disappointment and it showed clearly on his long face. “I told you this type of work would affect your progress,” he complained, his New Jersey accent coming out in a loud nasal whine. “Not only couldn’t you make any progress with your out-of-body work, but you regressed with your lucid dreaming.”

They had a table by the front window, with Eli finishing off a lemon scone while working on his second chai, and Shannon still sipping his first Grasshopper-a combination of wheatgrass, pineapple juice and mint.

Shannon shrugged. “What got my mind racing was that little homework assignment you gave me to try to figure out why I’m still doing this detective work.”

A thin smile curved up the corners of Eli’s mouth. “Self-reflection’s always good,” he said. “Any conclusions?”

“Yesterday I had someone tell me detective work is in my blood. I think that’s part of it. I think also it’s partly because of Charlie Winters. In some ways I’m still searching to understand that twisted psyche of his better, and maybe this is helping to give me that insight. And I think part of it is to help people avoid being victimized by the Charlie Winters’ of the world. And there are other reasons-a lot of them, actually. All I know is for now I need to keep doing this work.”

“About detective work being in your blood, Bill, we all make our own destinies. It’s only in your blood if you want it to be. And about protecting the world against other Charlie Winters, he was an aberrant case-”

“I never told you this about Winters,” Shannon said, his eyes turning to stone as he interrupted his friend. “One of his last victims was a private investigator named Phil Dornich. Susan had hired him after my last blackout and disappearance to find me. He was a smart guy, at one point he was head of detectives for the Boston Police. Somehow he got a whiff of what Charlie Winters was doing. By himself, he built a case linking Winters to over seventy unsolved murders. Afterwards, the FBI took Dornich’s evidence and was able to expand it, linking that psycho to over three hundred killings over a ten-year period.”

“Jesus, I had no idea.”

“The FBI was able to keep it out of the HBO series.”

“I didn’t watch that,” Eli said. “These days the only thing I watch on TV is baseball.”

“Well, you didn’t miss much. I refused to give them permission to use my name, and they ended up making my character in the series a composite of several of the other cops involved. But the point of this is all you need is one Charlie Winters to create a world of suffering.”

Eli sighed. “This is damaging your progress, Bill.”

“I guess I’ll have to work harder to make sure that doesn’t happen. And I hope you’re still willing to work with me.”

Eli made a face. “What else am I going to do? Drop you? Just keep doing the exercises I gave you last night. Maybe something will sink in.”

Shannon nodded. He felt a jolt from his cell phone that had been put on vibrate, took it from his pocket and frowned as he read the caller identification information. “Mrs. Pauline Cousins, Portland, Oregon. I don’t know her.”

Eli shifted his chair so he was looking out the front window. Exaggerating an insulted look and letting a coolness chill his voice, he said, “Go ahead and answer it. I’ll just sit back, drink my chai and enjoy the many pleasant sights of Boulder. At least those that care to walk past me.”

Shannon answered the call. At first there was nothing. “Bill Shannon speaking,” he tried again.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” a woman’s voice said. It had a high pitched, nails-on-chalkboard quality to it. “This is Pauline Cousins. I would like to talk to you about hiring you.” She cleared her throat and added, “Would you have any time to meet with me this afternoon?”

“I think so. Do you mind telling me what this is about?”

There was a long pause. For a moment Shannon thought he had lost the connection. Then in a shaky voice, she said, “My daughter. Melissa. She joined a cult, something called the True Light. It’s been six months since I’ve heard from her. The police can’t help me. I need to know that she’s okay and that nothing has happened to her.”

“Pauline, are you in Boulder now?”

“I flew in last night.” There was another long pause before she continued, her voice now halting and breaking up between words as if they had a bad connection, which Shannon knew they didn’t. “I-I’m there now-at their complex, but they won’t let me see her. Th-They won’t even let me know if she’s alive.”

“Pauline, are you staying in Boulder?”

“At the Best Western.”

“Go back to your room and call me when you get there.”

There was the sound of her sniffling, then, “I will. Thank you.”

Shannon was still frowning as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He caught Eli peering at him, his heavy eyelids half-closed, belying the curiosity that shone on his long face. “Taking yet another case?” he said.

“Maybe. The woman who called wants me to check that her daughter’s okay.”

“She’s missing?”

“Probably not. It sounds like she joined a cult. Something called the True Light. Did you know Boulder has cults?”

“Do dogs have fleas?” Eli straightened himself in his chair as his eyes narrowed and a seriousness hardened the muscles along his jaw. “For whatever reason Boulder has over the years attracted its share of megalomaniacs. They’re able to set up shop here and convince disenchanted college students and similarly disenfranchised transients and locals that they’re the voice of God. From what I’ve heard, there were some real doozies that operated in the seventies and early eighties, where the leaders would use their disciples, how should I say this delicately, to get their rocks off. I haven’t heard about the True Light yet.” He paused, thought about it, then added, “If you want, I’ll see what I can find out about them.”

“That would help.”

“I’ll call you when I find something.” Eli shifted in his chair, rubbed a thick hand across his jaw, said, “If you feel like talking about it, you can tell me about those two students.”

Eli was trying to be as blase as he could about it, but Shannon could see the interest shining in his half-closed eyes. He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. For all of Eli’s protestations against his taking on investigations, he would still always want to hear all the details, which Shannon was more than happy to share with him. Not only did Eli provide a good sounding board, but at times offered insights and observations that had helped Shannon solve past cases.

“So far I don’t have much,” Shannon said. “I did get a strange email from Taylor Carver’s faculty advisor at the university, saying that his murder didn’t surprise him. At this point I’m waiting to see if he can provide more details.”

Eli raised an eyebrow at that. “It sounds like you need a face-to-face chat with him.”

“Yeah, that would be nice, but the guy’s spending the summer hiking in the Andes.”

Straight-faced, Eli said, “Sounds like an ideal opportunity for you to take your beautiful ex on a well-deserved vacation. I’ve heard that the Andes can be close to a spiritual experience.”

“Yeah, well, I could lead an expedition through South America looking for the guy. Or I could just be satisfied with the mountains we have here in Colorado and in exchanging emails with him.”

“A few weeks backpacking in the Andes might help you get back on track with your out-of-body work,” Eli stated defensively, his expression more serious.

“Lesson six,” Shannon said, “always look for ulterior motives, even in the most innocent sounding suggestions.”

“What’s this nonsense about lesson six?”

“Nothing.” Shannon let the grin he was fighting show through. “I ran into a fellow Red Sox fan yesterday and gave him a few lessons in being a private detective.”

“They win one stinking World Series in eighty-six years and you get deluded fans everywhere popping out of the woodwork. It’s like a bad zombie movie from the fifties. Night of the brain-dead Red Sox fans. The government desperately needs to develop a vaccine before it spreads any further.”

“I thought you didn’t believe they won last year. That it’s all some sort of mass hysteria?”

“All the same, mass hysteria or government hoax, it’s causing this epidemic to flourish.” Still with his deadpan expression intact, Eli added, “After one day on the job that’s all you’ve come up with?”

“No, not all,” Shannon said. “Something’s up with Carver’s family. I met with the mother and kid brother yesterday. Some very weird vibes, along with that they’re more concerned with winning a civil suit against Taylor’s landlord than seeing his murderer get caught. Also there were several new and expensive items in their house that they claimed he bought for them before he was killed. We’re talking thousands of dollars. I’ll have to find out if they had any life insurance on him.”

“Could the police tell you that?”

“They could.” Shannon smiled thinly. “But they’re not being very cooperative. I met the lead investigator. He seemed like a decent enough guy, but he wasn’t going to share any information.”

“Not surprising,” Eli said, nodding grimly. “They seem to have developed a persecution complex, at least that’s how it looks in the papers. But to be fair to them, they’ve been taking quite a beating. So the obvious question begging for an answer is how did a college student come up with the money to make those types of purchases? When I was in school all I could afford every night for dinner was hotdogs and beans or macaroni and cheese. I was lucky if I could scrape together enough money to buy a new pair of sneakers every year. And back then they didn’t cost the same as a stereo system.”

“Yeah, it sure points to drugs, doesn’t it? The one thing the police were willing to share with me was that they’d found nothing to indicate drugs were involved.”

“If not drugs…?” Eli let the question hang, then a spark flashed in his eyes as he looked at Shannon. “Something interesting that you said, and I quote: ‘seeing his murderer get caught’. Do you have any reason to think that only one person committed these murders or was this a subconscious conclusion that you made?”

Shannon thought about it, shook his head. “I have no way of knowing yet how many people were involved.”

“Then something from your subconscious made you say that.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. More likely it was only careless word usage on my part.”

Eli waggled a large sausage-sized finger at Shannon. “Bill, don’t ignore your intuition. And remember, there are no such things as accidents.” Flashing a sheepish grin, he pushed himself out of his chair and moved towards the restroom. “Which reminds me. I’d better return one of these chais before I prove myself wrong about accidents. The problem, my friend, with having a prostate that has swelled to the size of a watermelon. Same time tomorrow?”

“I’ll call you later. I’m thinking I might have to fly to Wichita to meet with the dead girl’s family.”

“Well, let me know.” Before closing the door behind him, Eli gave Shannon a stern look and added, “And keep working on those exercises.”

Shannon gave his friend a quick military-type salute, which was acknowledged by a deadpan stare, followed by a shake of Eli’s head.

It was ten past eight when Shannon left Juiced Up and started down Pearl Street. The street was quiet except for a couple of rollerbladers and some kids with backpacks. He thought briefly about going back to the condo complex and trying to talk with more neighbors, but at that time of morning people either would be rushing off to work or already gone. Realistically, he’d have to wait until evening. Out of ideas, he called Mark Daniels’ direct line at the Boulder precinct. Daniels answered after the third ring, his voice friendlier after he realized that Shannon was on the line.

“I’m glad you called,” Daniels said. “I was going to give you a ring, but I don’t know what time you private dicks get up and about. As an ex-cop, I should’ve figured you’d be working by now.” There was a hesitation, then he added, “After you came by yesterday, I spoke with some people in Massachusetts about you and they all told me the same thing. That you were a damn good cop. Also, you were never a glory hound and that you were in this for all the right reasons. I also spoke with our district attorney here, and have a better understanding of what I can talk to you about without jeopardizing a future prosecution. I might’ve been a tad too rigid before.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, just a bit.”

“Then how about letting me into that condo.”

“Ah, shit. I was afraid you’d ask about that. I still can’t. Sorry.”

“Crime scene photos then?”

There was a pause, then, “Let me talk it over with my captain. I’ll get back to you about it.”

“How about a couple of questions?”

“Go ahead, shoot.”

“Did Taylor have any life insurance?”

“None that we could find.”

The fact that Daniels answered him took Shannon by surprise. He thought he was simply getting a more polite runaround. Taking the call more seriously, he asked, “How about his mom? Did Eunice Carver have a life insurance policy on him?”

“No. Why this interest?”

“Her house is loaded with some big ticket items that she claims Taylor bought for her before his death. We’re talking thousands of dollars worth of purchases. Like a new large-screen plasma TV set. I’m trying to figure out where the money came from. Any idea if he had a job?”

“All he had was a small stipend from the university as a teacher’s assistant. Ah shit. I’ll dig deeper and see if I can find any policies.” Daniels voice became muffled as if he were rubbing a hand across his face. “Fuck. Every time we’ve talked to her it’s been at the station. I should’ve had someone check her house. It’s possible he got the money from Linda. Her family’s pretty well off. I’ll try to track that down.”

“Another question. According to the newspapers they were killed between eleven and two. Is that right or were you feeding the papers misinformation?”

“That’s what we got from the coroner.”

“An upstairs neighbor, Mike Maguire, told me he was working until three that morning. Any chance you verified that?”

“Why? Something not sound right about him?”

“No, nothing like that. But he did tell me there were some noise issues with him and the dead students. More than that, though, I just don’t like coincidences.”

“Give me a minute.” When Daniels picked up again there was a hint of vindication in his voice. “We checked out his story. The company Maguire works for has a security system where you have to use an encoded badge at the door to get in and out. The system records the times that the badges are used, and that day Maguire got there at nine eighteen in the morning and left at two fifty-six the next morning. We also talked to his supervisor. They had a big customer deal going on the next day so Maguire leaving that late made sense.”

“Thanks. That crosses him off. Do you know anything about a cult called the True Light?”

“Yeah, a little bit. They have a compound out in East Boulder by Baseline Reservoir. Been there a little over a year. Why? You think they’re involved in this?”

“Sorry, a completely different matter. I got a call from a Pauline Cousins. Her daughter joined True Light six months ago. She’s worried about her. True Light won’t let her see her daughter. She claims the Boulder police won’t help her either.”

Daniels’ sighed heavily, making no attempt to hide his annoyance. He told Shannon that he’d look into the matter and get back to him. Lowering his voice, he asked, “What’s your take on Carver’s family?”

“Very odd. Doesn’t seem like they much care if Taylor’s murderer ever gets caught. But they do seem concerned about making money off of it.”

“My thoughts also.” Daniels hesitated, asked, “Any plans on visiting Linda Gibson’s family?”

“Yeah, probably in the next few days.”

“After you do, lets touch base. I’m curious if you come up with the same gut feeling I did.”

“Want to give me any hints?”

“I’d better not,” Daniels said. “I don’t want to prejudice you. Let’s compare notes after you meet them, okay?”

Shannon told him he would. After slipping the cell phone back into his pocket, he noticed a young girl walking towards him. She was maybe eighteen, a little heavy, with long frizzy blond hair and numerous earrings and piercings. She wore an outfit that could’ve come from a movie made from the sixties complete with a flowered vest and a skirt reaching down past her ankles. While a lot of wealth had moved into Boulder over the past two decades, it was still a Mecca for transients and a right of passage for hippie-wannabes to hitchhike to and bum around.

She had a sly little smile on her face as she asked Shannon for money. “Mister, I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday,” she said with no attempt to hide her smirk.

Shannon told her to follow him.

“I’m not doing anything for the money,” she said.

“I’m not asking you to.”

There was a cafe half a block away that was open for breakfast. When they got to it, Shannon told her to order what she wanted.

“I’d rather have the money.”

“And I’d rather buy you food.”

She opened her mouth as if she were going to argue, shrugged, and instead asked if she could get something for her friends too. Shannon agreed, and she ordered several roast beef and ham and cheese sandwiches to go, along with a couple of large cokes, chips and cookies. When she got her package, she begrudgingly muttered thanks to Shannon before leaving.

The cashier, a nice-looking brunette in her thirties, shook her head as she handed Shannon the change. “She showed a lot of gratitude, huh?” she said.

“I was probably worse at her age.” Nodding to the cashier, he left the cafe and started walking idly down Pearl Street again, slowing down when he came across two men playing chess. One of them was sitting on a bench, the other on a folding chair, with a chess set on a folding table between them. The man on the bench was in his sixties, and looked like Paul Bunyan, except that his red hair had turned mostly gray. Even though it was midsummer, he wore dungarees, work boots and a heavy red flannel shirt. As he studied the game, he pushed an upper plate in and out of his mouth. The other player was young and probably a college kid. Along with needing a shave, his hair resembled the top of a string mop that had been dyed black and, like his clothes, looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. As he sat there, his eyes moved fervently as they scanned the board.

Standing nearby kibitzing on the game was what looked like another college student. A tall blond Germanic-looking kid with red cheeks, a smart-assed smile and a cheap stogie dangling from his lips polluting the air around him. “Idiot,” he exclaimed as the other kid reached for his bishop. “Don’t you see you can win a pawn?”

The younger player turned to him and pointed a finger. “Are you playing this game?” he asked. “No? Then shut the fuck up.” Under his breath, he added, “Moron.”

The color dropped from the tall blond kid’s face. Still smiling his smart-assed smile but with no humor left in his eyes, he tossed his cigar at the player.

“Sonofabitch,” the kid jumped up, knocking the cigar out of his lap. “You’re going to throw a lit cigar at me?” He was a good six inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than the blond kid.

“You could’ve been more polite about my suggestion…” the blond kid started, but before he could say anything else he was hit hard with an uppercut that sent him on his ass.

“The sonofabitch threw a lit cigar at me,” the other kid repeated, his arms moving in wild gestures as he stormed away. The blond kid looked stunned as he sat on the ground. Then, rubbing his jaw, he flashed an embarrassed grin before getting back to his feet and walking gingerly in the opposite direction.

“I never knew chess was a contact sport,” Shannon said.

The Paul Bunyan look-alike had watched the event with an amused sparkle in his eyes. He slipped his upper plate back in place. “You live in Boulder long enough you’ll see everything.”

“I wonder if your opponent knew you had mate in four no matter what he did?”

The older man leaned back on the bench and appraised Shannon slowly. “Show me,” he said.

Shannon played out the moves, demonstrating how mate in four could be forced.

“You know your chess. The name’s Eddie, by the way. Why don’t you take a seat. Let’s see what you can do.”

Shannon sat down in the folding chair and introduced himself.

“Out to kill a few hours?” Eddie asked.

“More to clear my head.”

Eddie nodded. “You have the look of someone with a purpose. About my last opponent, he didn’t have a clue. I had him hook, line and sinker. Nothing but a fish waiting to be reeled in and gutted. A shame I didn’t get my chance to fillet him.”

The first dozen moves went quickly, then Eddie started taking more time to study the board before making his moves. When it was his turn he’d be locked in deep concentration, his face rigid except for his upper plate sliding in and out of his mouth. When it was Shannon’s turn, Eddie would engage him in conversation.

“How’d you lose those fingers?”

“They were broken off.”

“How was that done?”

“With a nutcracker.”

“That must’ve hurt.”

Shannon looked up, saw no sarcasm in Eddie’s heavily lined face. Other than trying to get an edge by distracting his opponent, he was doing nothing more than talking straightforwardly.

Shannon made his move, then dead silence for several more minutes until Eddie decided on his next course of action. Then:

“You been in Boulder long?”

“About five years.”

“Me, off and on since ’74. I left in ’97 after the student rioting. Ashamed after that to admit I was from Boulder. I only came back a few months ago. And I keep wondering why I did.”

“Students rioted here in ’97?”

“Yep, did their share of damage up on the Hill. And guess what their reason was? To protest racism? Inequality? Poverty? An unjust war? Nope. Nothing more than they wanted underage drinking. When I think back to the sixties and seventies and then what these students did it makes me sick.”

“A different world, different priorities,” Shannon offered philosophically.

“I guess. But ’74, that was when Boulder was Boulder. A different town than it is now. That was before all the Californians and money rolled in. Of course, you’ve always had your share of rich students, but nothing like today.”

“Must’ve been something.”

“It certainly was,” Eddie said, a wistfulness misting his eyes. “As close to heaven on earth as I’ve ever found. Money and urban sprawl changed all that. Maybe thirty thousand people back then in Boulder, outside of the students. If you drove to Denver you’d see nothing but open prairie. Three months ago when I took the bus back here all I could see were new developments. One right after the next. Broke my heart.”

Shannon made his move and sat in silence again while Eddie studied the position. After he made his next move he showed Shannon a toothless grin thanks to his upper plate slipping out of place. Using his thumb he pushed his plate back into position.

“You’d never believe this,” he said. “but Boulder used to be a dry town. That was back in the sixties. What makes that kind of ironic was how this town became a conduit for drugs in the seventies.”

Shannon raised an eyebrow at the older man.

“It’s true,” Eddie went on. “We had a lot of small planes flying to hidden out-of-the-way airfields, supplying drugs for a good part of the West. With the mountains, these planes were hard to track. And because the statute of limitations has long run out, I have no problem now admitting to a police officer that I made a good chunk of my money in those days offloading drugs from these planes and providing a taxi service for them. The route I was usually given was Kansas City. Used to drive there at least once every two months.”

“What makes you think I’m a cop?”

Eddie smiled again, this time with his upper plate in place, showing off perfectly-shaped white plastic teeth. “You’re probably not anymore ’cause of those fingers, but you used to be. Written all over you.”

“Damn, I’ll have to get a squeegee and some soap. But you’ve got good eyes. I did used to be a cop. For ten years.”

“You’re still involved somehow,” Eddie said, nodding.

“That’s right, freelancing these days as a private investigator.” Shannon paused for a moment before asking, “What’s your take on those two students who were killed?”

Eddie shrugged. “I came back a few weeks after it happened but I’ve been reading the newspaper stories about it. Murders are rare in Boulder. Probably more people killed here by mountain lions over the years. When you do have one, especially when it’s as violent as those two, more times than not it’s drugs.”

“What if it’s not drugs?”

“Well, that would be a tough one. Those murders didn’t sound much like a personal dispute. From what I read they were pretty ugly. I guess if its not drugs, then it would have to be one of those random crimes you never know what’s the reason behind it.”

“What if you were to make a guess?”

“Wouldn’t have one.”

When Shannon made his next move, Eddie’s eyes darted from the board to Shannon, then back to the board. He restrained himself for a good minute to make sure he hadn’t miscalculated, then he pounced, making a move that would force Shannon to give up a rook for a knight.

“Fish,” Eddie muttered under his breath.

Three moves later when Eddie realized he was going to have to give up his queen, he put his king down.

“You suckered me into that,” he complained.

“I took advantage of you being a little overeager,” Shannon said.

Eddie’s lips compressed into a thin line as he shook his head, still not believing the mistake he had made. For a moment his heavily-lined face looked like a wood carving. “Care for another game?” he asked.

“I’d like to but I should get back to my snooping.”

“You’re looking into those two students who were killed, aren’t you?”

“That’s a good guess.”

“Aside from what you might think from that last game, I’m not a complete dummy.” Eddie absentmindedly bit down on a yellowed thumbnail. He looked at it as if he were wondering how it had gotten into his mouth. Shifting his gaze back to Shannon, he said, “Leave me your phone number. I’ll put my ears to the tracks and if I hear any rumblings I’ll give you a call.”

Shannon wrote his number on a notepad and ripped the sheet out for the older man. “Know anything about the True Light?” he asked.

Eddie showed a little smile. “If you asked most people that they’d have no idea what you were talking about. I’ll give them credit, unlike other cults that have come to Boulder, they’ve kept a low profile. But I do know something about them.”

“Which is?”

“There’s a price for that information.”

Shannon rolled his eyes, started to take out his wallet but Eddie stopped him. “The price is giving me a rematch,” he said.

“Fair enough. Set them up.”

For the next game, Eddie stayed silent during Shannon’s moves. With his deeper concentration, his face looked older, almost ancient. If it weren’t for his eyes darting over the board and his upper plate sliding in an out, he could’ve been taken for a grotesque example of taxidermy. Even with his more determined effort, the result ended up the same-with Eddie knocking his king over once he realized his position was hopeless.

“Just be gentle when you take me off your hook,” he said, his face frozen in disgust.

“I’ll be as gentle as I can,” Shannon said. “Now for your part of the bargain…”

“About the True Light, huh?” Eddie made a face as if he’d coughed up something that needed to be spat out. “Up until a few days ago I’d been setting up shop at the student center. A week ago, a girl, maybe eighteen, tried hitting me up for money. She ended up hanging around for a few hours while I taught her the rules for chess. Very skittish girl, maybe worse, I don’t know. Anyway, at one point she told me she’d been a member of the True Light. She didn’t say much else about it, other than whispering to me that their leader was a false prophet.”

“When you say, ‘very skittish girl, maybe worse’, what do you mean by that?”

“Maybe she was fearful of something.”

“Do you know her name?”

Eddie shook his head.

“How about describing her?”

“Small. Maybe five feet, ninety pounds, if soaking wet. Long straight red hair along with the pale skin redheads usually have. Would’ve been attractive if her eyes weren’t jumping around like ping pong balls.”

Shannon stood up and offered his hand to Eddie, who frowned at it. “Don’t get offended,” he said. “But I don’t shake hands. It’s just something I’ve never done.” He put his own hand up to his grayish red beard and started stroking it. “If you’re willing to give me a rematch sometime soon, I’ll set up shop back at the student center and see if I can find her again.”

“Deal. How about in a few days?”

Eddie nodded and turned his concentration back to the chess set, frowning deeply as he studied the position he had ended up in.

Shannon checked his watch and saw it was a quarter past ten. He tried calling Mike Maguire, who sounded rushed as he told Shannon now was not a good time and to call him later. Almost as soon as the line was disconnected, Pauline Cousins called. Shannon agreed to meet her at noon at the coffee shop inside of the Best Western motel. He then walked back to the courthouse, found a grassy spot on the lawn, and sat cross-legged as he meditated on his heart chakra using a technique Eli had taught him. The technique involved picturing a small blue ball hovering in front of his chest. At first the ball was spinning wildly, darting in and out of his mind’s eye. After a while he was able to slow it down, and for a moment he had it hovering calmly in place.

His cell phone jolted him out of his meditation. For a long moment he didn’t want to move, hoping to be able to hold onto the peace of mind he had slipped into. Realizing it was lost, he checked the caller ID and saw it was Paul Devens.

“I have a court date for tomorrow morning,” Devens told him. “I’m going to have to do some fancy tap dancing to get you into that condo while at the same time keeping Carver’s family out. I’m afraid if they got in, the place would be cleaned out in minutes.”

“After meeting with them yesterday I have to agree with you.”

“Quite a family,” Devens said.

“Quite a family,” Shannon agreed. He filled Devens on what he had done so far. “I’m thinking I should visit Linda’s family. How would your client feel about travel expenses to Wichita?”

“Not an issue. Whaever you need to do. I’ll call you after the hearing and let you know how my tap dance went.”

After putting the phone away, Shannon thought briefly about trying to get back into the calmness he had slipped into, but decided it was a lost cause. Instead he got to his feet and headed back to his apartment. He didn’t have much time if he was going to make travel arrangements to Wichita before meeting Pauline Cousins.

Shannon arrived at the Best Western motel a few minutes before noon. When he walked into the adjoining coffee shop he spotted a woman sitting alone at the counter who kept glancing towards the door. Her eyes had a hollowed out, desperate look as they locked on his. He approached her. She tried smiling, but it didn’t stick.

“Pauline?” he asked.

She nodded, biting her lip. “You must be Mr. Shannon?”

“Bill,” Shannon corrected.

“Bill,” she said. This time a wisp of a smile stuck for a few seconds before disappearing. “Thank you so much for meeting with me.”

“Why don’t we take a booth? It will give us more privacy.”

She moved unsteadily as she slid off the counter stool. Shannon took her hand, then her arm as he directed her to a booth. She was nearly skeleton-thin and walked as if she needed the support Shannon gave her. Looking as worn out and frail as she did, she could have been anywhere from her late forties to early seventies. Once he got her seated, he went back to the counter to fetch her coffee.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how did you get my name?” Shannon asked as he sat across from her.

She tried smiling again. This time it lasted a few second longer. “A woman at the university recommended you. Lauren Magglia. She told me you helped them find a student who had run off.”

A year earlier Shannon had been hired by the University of Colorado to find a missing student with a history of depression. Lauren was his contact for the job. It turned out the student had stopped taking his medications, and when Shannon found him he was holed up at a fleabag rooming house off East Colfax Avenue in Denver. A month after being back on his medications, he was no worse for wear. Last May Shannon and Susan took him out to dinner to celebrate finishing his junior year of college.

“I understand this must be very difficult for you-” Shannon started.

“This is far worse than difficult.” She put a hand to her cheek and held it there gingerly as if she were suffering from a toothache. “I tried going there this morning. They wouldn’t let me see Melissa. They wouldn’t even let me know if she’s still there. I don’t even know if my daughter’s alive.”

“The police checked that your daughter’s okay.” Shannon told her about a phone call he had with Daniels on his way over to meet her. “An officer visited the True Light after you first called them. He determined your daughter was there of her own free will.”

“How could she be there of her own free will? They brainwashed her!”

“Maybe, but she’s over eighteen. As far as the law’s concerned there’s nothing anyone can do.”

“You sound like my husband,” Pauline said. “That’s all I heard for six months. She’s an adult now. Keep your nose out of it. She’ll leave when she’s ready, you stick your nose in and she’ll stay there forever.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. I’m sorry I let him browbeat me. I should’ve come here the moment I heard about this. I should’ve done everything I could to drag Melissa out of that cult.”

“These things are hard,” Shannon said. “I was a police officer for ten years. I’ve seen this before. There was probably nothing you or anyone else could’ve done.”

“I don’t believe that.” She bit her lip as she fought to keep her composure. Shannon couldn’t help noticing how tight her skin seemed on her face, as if it could rip if she opened her mouth too wide.

“I need to know that Melissa’s okay,” Pauline continued, a wetness showing around her eyes. “And I need to be able to talk to her, to try to convince her to leave that place. Mr. Shannon, I mean, Bill, please, will you help me?”

Shannon found himself nodding. “I’ll see what I can do. Why don’t you tell me about your daughter. How she joined this cult.”

Pauline fumbled with her handbag as she took out a photograph. Shannon hoped the girl in it would have straight red hair, but instead saw the image of a young blonde girl. Even with a slightly upturned nose she was very pretty and, like her mother, very thin.

“That was taken last summer. Melissa’s a sophomore at the university. The two of us have always been close. I used to talk with her at least once a week.” She bit her lip again and made a weak waving motion with her hand as if she were halfheartedly shooing away a fly. Squeezing her eyes shut to fight back tears, she added, “This was a difficult year for Melissa. Her boyfriend broke up with her right after Thanksgiving and before that she was feeling a lot of pressure at school. She decided to stay on campus during Christmas break instead of coming home. I should’ve come here to be with her, but I didn’t. Fred, my husband, told me I’d be smothering her.”

“When did you last talk to her?”

“January 18th. I knew she was unhappy and I was calling her more often, but most days she wouldn’t pick up.”

“Did she say anything to you about this cult?”

Pauline showed a sad clown’s smile and wiped a bone-thin hand across her cheek. “She told me she had found a group that made her feel accepted. I had no idea what the True Light was. For some reason I had it in my head that they were a religious group, something dealing with Bible study. I encouraged her to go to their meetings and to try to fit in. I thought it would make her happy. Can you believe that? I encouraged my daughter to join a cult!”

She closed her mouth as a look of anguish washed over her face. It was quick, only lasting a few seconds, but during that brief moment Shannon was given a glimpse of what Pauline Cousins would look like in thirty years.

“God, I’m a mess,” she said. “If you can believe it, I used to be a strong person. Six months ago I was running 10K races. Since finding out about Melissa, I’ve lost over twenty pounds. But none of that matters as long as I get my daughter out of that cult and safe.”

“How did you find out she joined them?”

“After a week of Melissa not returning my calls, I contacted the university and found out that she had stopped going to class and that nobody in her dorm had seen her for days. I called the police and told them about the True Light. They called me back later and told me they found Melissa there… that she didn’t want to talk to me… that she didn’t want anything to do with…”

Her mouth closed as she fought to keep from sobbing. She almost won, but a few tears broke loose and ran down her face.

“Are you okay with me asking you a few more questions?”

“I’m so sorry.” She waved briefly again at some imaginary fly. “Yes, of course. I’m being ridiculous.”

“No, you’re not. Under the circumstances you’re holding up damn well. Can you tell me what happened when you visited the True Light this morning?”

“They have an iron fence surrounding their property.” She looked away from Shannon, her face wax-like as she stared out the coffee shop’s front window. “It’s like a prison,” she continued. “I buzzed at the front gate and the girl answering wouldn’t tell me anything about Melissa. I told her I wouldn’t leave until I spoke with my daughter. I kept buzzing until two men came out. They were dressed in silk robes, their heads shaved. They looked so angry. One of them pushed me to the ground, and they threatened to do worse to me if I didn’t leave.”

“Do you want to go to the police?” Shannon asked. “You could file charges against them.”

She shook her head. “I just want to get Melissa out of there. I don’t want to do anything that could complicate that. So Bill, will you try to see my daughter?”

“Yes. Of course.”

She started to fumble with her handbag. “How much should I pay you?”

“Nothing right now,” Shannon said. “I’ll see if I can convince them to be reasonable. If I can, there’s no charge. I’ll just be happy to have helped. If I can’t convince them, then we’ll talk again and work something out.”

“No, really, let me pay you -”

Shannon put a hand out, stopping her. “Please, this is something I’d like to do,” he said.

Looking into his eyes, she nodded and put her bag down.

After getting her cell phone number and the True Light’s address, he told her he’d call after visiting them. “How long do you plan on staying in Boulder?” he asked.

For a long moment she stared at Shannon as if she didn’t comprehend his question. Then a grim determination hardened the muscles along her mouth.

“Until Melissa is safe,” she said.