San Diego Noir

“Is this information up-to-date?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, you’re free to go. A case investigator will be in touch with you soon.”

Heading back to my truck, I had the uneasy feeling that comes over me when I sense I’m being stared at. I looked up at the condominiums clinging to the cliff. If someone was peering down at me, I couldn’t tell. The reflected sunlight in the windows of the ocean-facing condos made them impenetrable as one-way mirrors.

Later that afternoon, the case detective rang my doorbell as I was working in my home office. I checked him out in the CCTV monitor above my desk, the one that’s fed by a hidden security camera and microphone on my front porch. His thick silver hair, dark eyebrows, and sharp features were reminiscent of Sean Connery, but his wrinkle- free pants and unfashionable jacket screamed undercover detective. He was whistling a haunting rendition of “Stairway to Heaven” and looking vaguely bored. Like any good investigator, he hadn’t called in advance to announce his visit. I closed the file I was working on and went to the door.

“You Elizabeth Chase?” He was holding the business card I’d given to the patrol cop that morning.

“Yeah, and you’re Detective …” I drew the word out, waiting for him to fill in the blank.

“Baxter.” He looked at me with a face that made me want to confess, even though I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. I wondered how many years he’d been perfecting that trick.

I led him into my office, where he did a quick survey of the room. His eyes scanned my P.I. certificate and my doctoral diploma—a PhD in parapsychology from Stanford—and lingered on a framed letter from San Diego’s chief of police. The letter was a commendation for a kidnap case I’d cracked last fall.

“Your business card says you’re a psychic,” he said as he continued to read the framed letter.

“For lack of a better word.”

“You don’t like that word?” he asked.

“Hate it. Every time I hear it, I see embarrassing images of scam artists and phony hotline counselors. Don’t you?”

He was staring directly at my face now, studying me through narrowed eyes.

“They say you’re the real thing.”

“I am. I don’t tell people what they want to hear. And when I draw a blank, I don’t make stuff up.”

“If that’s true, I’m eager to hear what happened to the woman in the cove.” He stepped closer to get a better look at the books on my shelves. He was slightly shorter than me but exuded an easy confidence. No Napoleon complex here.

“Afraid it’s not that simple,” I said.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. How do you work the psychic angle?”

“It’s more accurate to say that it works me. I don’t control my psychic experiences, I just receive them. If I don’t receive anything, I’m as clueless as the next Joe.”

He arched a thick black brow. “You can’t summon visions at will, like they do on TV?”

“Receive, yes. Summon, no. Most of the time I have to investigate the methodical way, like everybody else. I can tell you how I found the body.”

“Okay.”

I repeated for Baxter everything I’d told the patrol cops earlier that morning. He sat in my guest chair and took notes on a small spiral pad. When I was done, he read the notes silently to himself as he chewed on the top of his pen.

“Anything else you know about this?” he asked.

“I know that the victim’s name was Wendy Woskowicz. She was a college dropout with a history of mental illness. She hadn’t had a permanent address for at least three years. Lived in an ’82 Dodge van with a pet pig named Tiny. Let’s see … she had a rap sheet of sorts … misdemeanor drunk-in-public and animal-control violations, mostly. Guess she and her pet pig had a habit of disturbing the peace.”

“You get all that in a psychic vision?”

“No. I made a few calls and searched a few websites.”

Baxter smiled as he pulled a box of Altoids from his pocket. I declined the mint he offered. He slipped one of the white tablets into his mouth and sucked thoughtfully for a few moments.

“So you’ve been digging,” he said.

“I wanted to know who she was.”

“Just remember you’re a witness here, not an investigator.”

“Witness. Got it.” I smiled at him and meant it. I liked the warmth I saw in his eyes. If I had to put money on it, I’d bet Baxter was a decent guy. Cynical, but decent.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “that I think the psychic thing is bull crap. I’ve never met a medium who told me a damn thing that wasn’t an educated guess.”

“I know what you mean. The real thing is pretty rare. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“What was in that little pouch around the victim’s neck?”

He crunched down on his mint and shook his head. “You’re the psychic. You should be telling me.”