He breathed audibly. “And how exactly will you be able to determine that?”
“Actually, he was hoping Lauren would tell me.”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No, sir. You see, sometimes…the dead…they speak to me.”
His jaw dropped slightly, then his eyes narrowed. “You’re a psychic.”
Although the way he said the word, it sounded more like “fake.”
“I have a gift.”
“You see things?”
“No. I’m not clairvoyant.”
“Feel things then. Isn’t that how it’s done?”
“That’s clairsentience. And I don’t have that gift either. I can’t read your mind or see the future. I’m a medium, Mr. McDonough. I make contact with those who have passed through their loved ones. That’s all.”
“That’s all,” he repeated, his voice calm and moderated but as sharp as glass. “You disgust me. People like you who prey on the innocent and trusting. The grieving. A gift? More like a sham. You are the worst sort of con artist. How do you live with yourself?”
“I’m sorry you don’t believe me.”
“Don’t apologize. Detective!” He stood then and raised his voice enough so that Dougie turned and came rushing back to the desk. “Are you part of this ridiculous scam?”
Dougie looked at Cass, and she merely shrugged in defense. “Mr. McDonough, Miss Allen has been a consultant for the PPD now for some time and…”
“I don’t give a damn what label you stick on her. I am done with this pretense of an investigation. Psychics! That’s who you bring in to help. No wonder you haven’t found Lauren’s killer. Is the mayor aware of your current police procedures?” He shook his head. “I’m leaving. If you insist I stay, you’ll be insisting to my lawyer.”
“It’s okay, Dougie.” Cass squeezed through the two men, who were facing off and looked pretty close to coming to blows. At the slightest brush of her shoulder against his chest, she felt Malcolm shrink away from the contact, his revulsion evident.
The physical slight didn’t stop her from revealing the truth. “You can let him go. He’s innocent.”
McDonough quickly turned his angry gaze on her, pinning her in place with his fury.
“You sure, Cass?” Dougie asked, not giving an inch of ground. “The guy sort of looks to me like he has a bad temper.”
Instantly, Malcolm pulled his eyes away from Cass to meet Dougie’s hardened cop face.
“I’m sure. You see, Mr. McDonough hates blood. Can’t stand the stuff. He gets physically queasy any time he sees it. Something he’s worked his whole life to hide, especially when he’s on a construction site. When Lauren was young, she had to have her tonsils out. A nurse came into her hospital room to draw some blood while he was there. Malcolm saw the needle, went after the nurse, pushed her off his sister and then stuck the needle in the nurse’s…well, in her bottom.”
“How could you…” McDonough cut off his words, his incredulity proof enough that the story was true.
“What’s that got do with what happened to Lauren?” Dougie wanted to know.
Cass shook her head. “Don’t you get it? He didn’t stab his sister. He certainly didn’t watch her bleed to death or cut out her tongue. He couldn’t have. He wasn’t her killer, Dougie. He was her hero.”
Chapter 3
“I’m really sorry. I had no idea he was going to go off on you like that,” Dougie said.
He had won the battle and was driving Cass home, her motor scooter tucked safely in the back of the Cherokee. After everything that had happened that night, she hadn’t put up much of a fight. It was late. At midnight, the neighborhood was sketchy, so she couldn’t imagine things improving at 3:00 a.m. It made sense. It just didn’t sit well with her to have to rely on anyone, even Dougie.
“He was definitely pissed,” Cass agreed. Although the word
“I didn’t think you would actually tell him about…you know.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t planning to, but he kept pushing. And you know I don’t lie about that stuff anymore. Anyway, he never really even yelled. Just spoke to me in that kind of tone that makes you feel like you’re ten years old. I had this irrational urge to show him my ID and prove I was almost thirty.”
Dougie glanced over at her quickly, then focused again on the road in front of him as he navigated the narrow city streets around Logan Square. “He wouldn’t have believed it. When you’re fifty you’re not going to look thirty.”
She pointed to the thin, elfin nose that tipped up ever so slightly at the end. “It’s the nose.”
He laughed and made a right turn then slowed to a stop in front of her apartment building.
“You should move closer to Old City.”
“Ugh. I just moved to this place because you were on my case. It’s fine. I’m not saying I’m going out jogging on my own after midnight, but I haven’t had any problems,” she said.
He double-parked in front of her building. She hopped out and made her way to the trunk to get her scooter, but Dougie had beat her to it and was already lifting it to the ground.
“I can take it from here.”
He merely scowled at her and rolled the thing toward the building. It was only three stories tall, each apartment having its own entrance off of a series of cement steps. Hers was the basement apartment. Walking in front of him, she made her way down the steps and used her key to let herself in.
“Seriously, Dougie. I could have carried it,” she said as she stood back and let him set the scooter inside what she called the foyer but what was really part of the kitchen. “I do it every day. I’m not as weak as I look.”
“You look like you’re barely five foot and a hundred pounds wet.”
“Ah, ha! See how wrong you are. I’m five foot two and a hundred and four pounds wet.”
He chuckled and set the scooter aside, using the kickstand to stabilize it. He proceeded to check the place out, looking for bogeymen in the closets, she imagined.
“Where are the creatures?” His affectionate term for her cats.
“They’re probably on my bed sleeping.”
“Good,” he muttered.
“You really need to get over this paranoia.”
“They don’t like me.”
“Maybe that’s because you look at them and wonder why they’re not dogs.”
“All pets should be dogs,” he insisted.
“Spoken like a dog lover. What I don’t get is, if you love them so much, why you don’t just get one?”
He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. “My schedule is too…whatever. Hey, check that out. Is that furniture?”
He was pointing to the futon she’d recently purchased that sat in the corner of her sparse apartment. The foyer off the door opened up to a small kitchen that was no more than a space with a stove/oven, a counter with a sink that held most of her dishes and a refrigerator. Beyond that was the living room, although
Dougie’s joke about the futon wasn’t completely off base. Cass liked to call herself a minimalist because it sounded as if there was a reason for the lack of furniture. Mostly, she just didn’t like clutter. She was a lousy housekeeper and the less she had, the less she needed to keep clean. Plus there were fewer places to leave dirty clothes.
She had a low Japanese-style table where she knelt to take her meals, a small TV to catch the evening news, a yoga mat that spread almost the length of the living room and some Pilates bands that she was incorporating into her workout. And now the futon. The cushion covering the oak frame was bright red and amazingly comfortable for napping.
Down a narrow hallway there was a bathroom on one side and a large closet that she liked to call her bedroom
