“Where is she, shithead? She’s mine and you stole her. I want her back, now. Where did you hide her from me? No one’s been to pick her up, I’ve been watching.
“This white muthafucka is batshit crazy and needs to back off. Matt, take a hint, she don’t want to be with you. She already left, and you need to get gone before I call some friends up here. I barely feel the first time his knife enters my torso, but suddenly it’s harder to breathe. I step back and swing down at the back of his head, but he tucks down and turns aside at the last minute, so his leather jacket absorbs most of the blow. I call out for anyone to come into the room, but I’m not sure if I’m heard over the music. I raise my left arm to block another blow and realize it’s just his fist as he uses his other hand to stab my right side. I grab his left arm, rip his stupid mask off with my other hand, then headbutt him, but the compression of bending down causes me to cough and I taste blood in my mouth. This alarms me and I let his arm go, only for him to slash deeply across my chest. As I grab my chest, he steps around me and stabs me a few more times in my upper and lower back.
“I can’t breathe at all now and I can hear myself gasping horribly. She’s mine and you can never have her now. I should’ve taken him more seriously, I just thought he was a guy who harassed women to make him feel like a big man but was otherwise a coward. With the last of my strength, I kick Matt back into the corner of a dresser and hear bone breaking. My last thought is Mom’s gonna be so mad at me for getting killed but at least she’ll know I did it to help someone else.
“Psycept speaking, end of reading. I’ll include a description of Matt and Brenda in my written report along with the address of the house that Franc stopped at to help Brenda. I don’t know what happened to Matt or about the lack of forensic evidence collected from Franc or the room. Hopefully I’ve given you enough for you and the cold case police to work from. Signing off.”
I take off the headphones and stop the Walkman which had been playing at low volume the entire time during my reading. I turn off the recording equipment as I don’t need to read the other two objects sent. Shortly after starting the case, I realized Franc was a Psycept, a PsyChometrist I would guess. His memories were so clear and easy to read, and I felt that he was with me, urging me to pay attention to this or that. I also know his mother had the same gift, thus why Franc was sure his mom would know what happened to him. I don’t know if she found out before her death, hopefully she had access to his Walkman and that’s where Julius got it. Best case is she learned of what happened to Franc but kept quiet for fear of being exposed or dismissed. She must have known she was terminal and didn’t want her daughters’ last memories of her being called a mother driven crazy with grief by the police. Franc’s death happened years before the paper about the scientific study exposing psychics was published. However, the ten-year study of possible psychics was halfway completed, and Atlanta was one of the towns used. Maybe she didn’t want any scientists with lab coats to try to study her in her last days.
I finish logging and packaging everything for the consultation, then I gather Echo and Shotzie and all their puppy stuff. We’re meeting Wendy for dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant.
Wendy always makes fun of me when I call it Tex-Mex as the restaurant was here with the same ‘Mexican-inspired’ menu before any residents from the US arrived in Albuquerque. I contend that it’s okay to call it Tex-Mex as it’s close to what we knew back home. The restaurant owner doesn’t care what it’s called, his business boomed. The few restaurants here did okay before our arrival, but citizens of SWACon tend to cook their own food. We US-raised residents unfortunately go to restaurants a lot more, which is unhealthy for us but good for the restaurant business. Those originally from the US knew Mexican-cuisine as either authentic or Tex-Mex as Texas is how Mexican food made its way to the US. Mexican food made its way to Canada through California, thus Mexi-Cali. The restaurant doesn’t taste like Mexi-Cali and authentic-Mexican takes too long to say, so Tex-Mex it is. Plus, I’m originally from Texas, so.
We are first to arrive at the restaurant and I get a table in the pet section for us. Most public spaces in SWACon allow animals and restaurants have large rooms where diners with animals sit. In fact, non-animal diners are the minority, so it’s more like there is a small section set aside for them. The non-animal diner areas remind me of smoking sections back when I was a kid. We don’t have to worry about smokers in the GT as that was never a thing and the tobacco cigarette industry was not allowed to penetrate the GT. Here, tobacco is smoked with a pipe and used in ceremonies, but it’s not a recreational thing.
Wendy sits down just after I settle the dogs. While there is a section of the menu devoted to
