Here's the first chapter of Face Value, the sequel to Poison the Well and The Dead Letter Office.
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Callista
Lee looked up from an open folder of papers on her desk, and said, “Come in,”
at exactly the same time as a knock sounded on her office door.
The
doorknob turned, the door opened about a foot, and a head, adorned with a
lavender and pine green striped silk scarf, poked in. “Callista, dear, Mr. Snowe would like to see you for a
moment. Although I expect you
already knew that, didn’t you?
Only if you’re not in the middle of something, he said to mention.” Arabella Leidenfrost, the agency
secretary, gave her a cheerful smile.
Arabella was one of the only people Callista knew that was entirely
unfluttered in her presence.
It
was refreshing.
“It’s
no problem,” Callista said. “I was
just finishing up the documentation on the Perry case, and it can wait.” She stood up, and shut the folder. “That’s a lovely scarf,” she commented,
as she followed Arabella out of her office and down the hall. Bethany would think I was being
sarcastic, Callista thought. I always seem to come across
that way, somehow. And actually,
that scarf does suit Arabella, although I can’t see myself wearing it.
Callista’s
own clothing ran more to colors with names like “taupe” and “fawn.” She’d once heard someone call one of
her dresses “a burlap sack with a belt,” which wasn’t very kind, although to be
fair the individual hadn’t said it out loud.
But
Arabella, of course, didn’t take it that way. She never did.
“Oh, thank you,” she said, tugging at the end of it. “I do love this one. My niece got it for me in Sri Lanka, in
an outdoor market. She apparently
haggled for a half-hour to get it down to a price she was willing to pay. When she finally settled on a price,
the merchant shook her hand and said he’d never known an American who was that
good at playing the game.”
They
reached the end of the hall, and Arabella knocked on Mr. Snowe’s door. A cultured voice said, “Come.” She opened the door for Callista, and
said, “There you are, then, dear.”
“Thanks,”
Callista said, and went in.
Mr.
Parsifal Snowe was seated at his antique mahogany desk, and looked up at her
with a paternal smile. “Miss Lee,
excellent, thank you for coming. I
trust we have not interrupted you in anything too pressing?”
“Not
at all,” Callista said, and looked over at the other person in the room with
some curiosity.
The
other occupant was a man of about thirty years, slim and rather
fragile-looking, with a narrow face and large, luminous pale blue-gray
eyes. He had a tousled mop of
sandy blond hair, and was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans that were rather
too large for him.
But
the oddest thing was the thoughts that Callista picked up from him. Her telepathic sense was normally
powerful and accurate; she could hear sentences of internal dialogue, a
continuous stream of words that faded with distance but which was still clearly
audible from ten feet away, or sometimes even twenty or more with particularly
readable individuals. This man,
although his thoughts were detectable, was somehow different. His mental monologue lacked the
booming, amplified resonance that almost everyone else’s had. His thinking was soft, rounded, full of
images with blurred edges; like watching a television through frosted
glass. She could hear him
thinking, It’s a girl, I’d better be cautious, as he looked at her, but the words had no volume, no impact. And the image of her in his mind faded
as soon as he turned back toward Mr. Snowe, who spoke again.
“Miss
Lee, this is Mr. Quentin Joyner.
He came here today because of a rather disturbing situation, and has
requested our assistance. I
thought that you in particular should be here, so I have asked Mr. Joyner if he
would be willing to have you present.
He has agreed. I will now
allow Mr. Joyner to explain what brings him here, circumstances that are most
upsetting to him.”
Quentin
Joyner looked over at Callista, and again, she had the fleeting image of
herself as a wavering image through fog.
But he spoke, in a slow, patient voice, and she turned her mind away
from what he was thinking to what he was saying.
“I
witnessed a murder last week,” he said, so matter-of-factly that it took
Callista a moment to be certain she’d heard him correctly.
“Of
whom?”
“You
probably heard about it. Her name
was Tess Ethridge. She was killed
while jogging, out near Carlisle Lake.
I was out walking my dog, and I saw it happen.”
“I
read about it in the newspaper,” Callista said. “The police called it a robbery.”
Quentin
nodded. “The killer took her
wallet. The credit cards were used
later that evening at a convenience store, and the person who used them was
identified from the security camera and arrested for the killing. But he swears that he didn’t kill her,
that he found the wallet by the side of the road in Colville and just decided
to use the cards. He said he
didn’t realize that the owner of the cards had been murdered.”
“Were
you able to identify the killer?”
Quentin
gave a little smile, but she could hear a flutter, like a mental sigh, pass
through his mind, and she caught the words, Here we go again. “Well,”
he said, “I can’t.”
“Why
not?”
“I
have a perceptual problem. It’s
called prosopagnosia.”
Callista
looked at him, raised her eyebrows, and shook her head.
“I’m
face blind.”
“Oh,”
she said. “Then, you can’t…” She hesitated, stopped.
“It’s
okay,” he said. “I’ve been this
way all my life. You don’t have to
act awkward. But yes, it’s what it
sounds like. I can’t recognize
anyone. If you walked out, and
then walked back in, I might not know who you were, although I have become
pretty good at memorizing specific things and remembering them – like what a
person is wearing. But if you
changed your clothes, or put your hair up – I wouldn’t have any idea it was
you.” He looked down. “I wouldn’t recognize a photograph of
my own mother.”
“How
do you do with voices?”
He
looked up and smiled, and the smile gave his face an almost ethereal
beauty. He looks like something
from one of those paintings from mythology. Like a woodland sprite or an elf. But the smile was gone as
quickly as it came.
“I
recognize voices very well,” he said.
“But the murderer didn’t speak.
Just stabbed that poor woman, grabbed her wallet, and ran.”
“Do
you know if the killer was a man or a woman?”
Quentin
shook his head. “I’m not sure. The murderer was wearing a cap and a
heavy sweatshirt. That was the
first thing I noticed; it was a hot day.
I was in a t-shirt and shorts, and Tess Ethridge – the woman who was
killed – she was running in shorts and a sports bra.” He blushed a little.
“Like I said, I notice clothes.
It gives me an anchor if I need to remember someone later. But the killer – he, or she, was
wearing jeans and this bulky sweatshirt, and a cap pulled low. And she – the victim – just came around
a bend, near Willow Point, and I saw a figure jump out from behind some
bushes. I was about a hundred feet
away or so. My dog jerked to the
end of his leash, and started barking.
By that time, she was already on the ground – it happened so fast. I don’t think the killer knew I was
there until then. So the killer
looked up, looked right at me, and then sprang up and ran, holding the knife in
one hand and something he’d taken from her in his other hand. I later found out that her wallet was
stolen, so I guess that was what it was.”
He swallowed. “It was
horrible. I shouted, and ran to
see if I could help her, but she was unconscious. I had my cellphone, and called 911, but she was dead by the
time the paramedics arrived. She
never regained consciousness.”
“The
knife was later found, discarded, in the bushes further along the trail,” Mr.
Snowe said. “The killer was
evidently either wearing gloves, or wiped it clean before it was tossed aside.”
“I
see,” Callista said.
“The
police questioned me,” Quentin said.
“I don’t think they believed me, that I had no way to identify even if
the killer was male or female. I
tried to explain, but… you know, one thing I have found from having this
disorder for 28 years is, it’s really easy to just think I’m making it up for
attention, that I really do know who people are and that I just don’t want to
admit it. That’s what the police
thought. But then they caught the
guy using her credit cards, and figured they had the murderer. So case closed, right?”
“And
you don’t believe it.”
“No. For one thing, the guy who was caught
with the credit cards was really heavy-set. They showed me a photograph, still trying to get me to say
that I recognized him. I said that
it couldn’t be him – that the person I saw ran really lightly, you know, with a
spring in the step, a bouncy stride, someone who wasn’t overweight. But then they said, ‘Do you recognize
his face?’ and I said I didn’t, that I couldn’t say one way or the other for
sure if that was the person I saw.
They didn’t get it, kept hounding me, harassing me. Finally I had my doctor talk to them,
and explain why I couldn’t say if I recognized the guy’s face, neither to rule
it out or to support it – he said that if necessary, he’d come down to explain
why my condition would prevent my either being a witness for the prosecution or
for the defense. So at that point
they decided that I was useless and sort of left me alone. But still – I kept thinking about that
man in jail, and the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it couldn’t
be him. The way people move is
something else I’ve trained myself to notice.”
Callista
nodded.
“So
that means that the actual killer is still out there,” Quentin said.
“How
did you find out about us?” Callista asked.
Quentin
gave a quick look at Mr. Snowe, who responded with an almost imperceptible
nod. “My sister is a friend of
Marie Mackenzie’s,” Quentin said.
“I think you were on a case for Marie’s family last year. Well, Marie apparently thinks you are
the most amazing detectives in the world, and when my sister mentioned to her
that I’d been a witness to Tess Ethridge’s murder, Marie told her that I should
come to you.”
A
corner of Callista’s mouth twitched.
“Really?” she said. “I was
under the impression that Marie Mackenzie thought we were a bunch of bumbling
incompetents.”
“No,”
Quentin said. “The way she talked,
she made you sound like magicians – like you could wave a wand and pull the
guilty party out of a hat.”
“Hardly
that,” Callista said. “I guess
it’s good to know that she changed her opinion of us. But in any case, I’m not sure we have a lot to go on,
here. Other than your feeling that
the man the police arrested isn’t the actual killer, what more can you tell
us?”
Quentin
Joyner blushed again, and shrugged.
“Nothing. I know, it sounds
ridiculous. But it’s been
bothering me. I can’t sleep at
night.”
“So,
you didn’t know the victim?”
He
shook his head.
“Allow
me to remind you, Miss Lee,” Mr. Snowe said, “that we have taken on cases far
more hopeless-sounding than this.
If you’ll recall, in the Petrillo-Scanlon murder case, we didn’t even
know the victim’s name for quite some time. I have told Mr. Joyner that we are able to take this case on
a provisional basis, and if we find other information that supports his conjecture
that the murderer was not the man currently cooling his heels in the Colville
Correctional Institute, we can pursue a full investigation at that time.”
Callista
shrugged. “Okay, I’m game,” she
said.
“I
suspected you would be,” Mr. Snowe said.
“And therefore, Mr. Joyner, I think at this point you may leave it in
our hands. You took the right
course of action, coming to us, given your lack of success with the more
conventional authorities. If
nothing else, for your own peace of mind.”
Quentin
nodded. “Thank you.” He looked at Mr. Snowe, his odd, pale
eyes open wide. “I can pay you for
your work.”
“I
have no doubt that that is the case,” Mr. Snowe said. “But let us discuss remuneration at another time, when I and
my associates have confirmed that this case merits further inquiry.” He gave Quentin Joyner a gentle
smile. “I will be in touch, Mr.
Joyner.”
It
was clearly a dismissal, and Quentin stood up, fidgeting nervously and fishing
in his pocket for his car keys.
“Thanks,” he said, and gave a quick, shy glance at Callista before
leaving. He shut the door quietly
behind him.
“Fascinating,”
Callista said. “I’ve never met
anyone like him. That’s a thinking
pattern I’ve never run into before.”
Mr.
Snowe nodded. “Prosopagnosia is, I
believe, quite rare. While some
individuals have a lower than average ability at facial recognition, complete
prosopagnosia is usually only found in the victims of strokes, where the damage
has affected the fusiform gyrus and left the rest of the brain relatively
intact. It is extremely uncommon
as a perceptual disorder suffered from since birth, as Mr. Joyner’s apparently
is.”
“I
didn’t think you’d studied neurology, Mr. Snowe,” Callista said, smiling
slightly.
He
turned his hands palm upwards.
“Call it a hobby,” he said.
“One
of many,” she responded.
“It
is essential to keep one’s brain occupied,” he said. “But as far as Mr. Joyner, I feel certain that he is telling
the truth. I desired your presence
because I thought that as a telepath, you would be in the best position to
confirm that supposition.”
Callista
nodded thoughtfully. “All I can
say,” she responded, after thinking for a moment, “is that his thoughts aren’t
like anything I’ve experienced before.
You remember the Garrick case, six years ago? I was reminded immediately of Jason Garrick, not because
Garrick and Joyner were similar, but because they were equally outside the
norm.”
Mr.
Snowe nodded. “Jason Garrick was
an unfortunate young man. Such a
brilliant mind.”
“He
and Joyner are both difficult to read, but for differing reasons. Garrick’s thoughts were disjointed,
like turning a radio dial rapidly and catching bits of music and bits of
talking, interspersed by bursts of static.”
“Mr.
Garrick was schizophrenic,” Mr. Snowe said.
“Yes. A vastly different illness. And like I said, I didn’t get the same
sense from Joyner – I only brought up Garrick because I was reminded of him by
how unusual they both are.
Joyner’s thoughts were like… I don’t know. As if they were wrapped in gauze. Filmy. You
couldn’t hear or see them clearly.
Usually, it’s not hard to hear thoughts; in fact, I have more of a problem
keeping them out when I don’t want them.”
“The
inevitable downside of being as sensitive a telepath as you are,” Mr. Snowe
observed.
“Yes. But here… I kept losing him. It was like, I don’t know – like his
voice was so unobtrusive that I had to keep focusing on it, or I’d forget I was
listening to him. And the images –
he really does see people as vague, faceless colored shapes. They don’t stick at all in his
mind. I really do think that if he
saw either of us on the street, he wouldn’t have any idea he’d ever seen us
before.”
“I’m
quite sure that is the case.”
“When
he was describing the murder, primarily what I got was feelings – the breeze on
his skin, the light of the setting sun on his back. I could even feel what he’d experienced when his dog yanked
on the leash. He lives in a very tactile
world – perhaps to make up for his lack of visual ability. Feeling is everything to him.”
“Witnessing
a murder,” Mr. Snowe said, “was undoubtedly a dreadful experience for someone
of Mr. Joyner’s temperament.”
“Yes. I picked up strong memories of his
desperation to save the victim’s life.
It was weird – I could feel her blood on his hands. The warmth, you know, the wetness – it
was so real. But then, I tried to
fish around, get an image – and all I got were faint traces of bloody hands. No emotion attached to the visual part
of it. It was like… I don’t
know. Like looking at a faded
watercolor image, where you can barely even tell what you’re looking at.”
“Do
you think,” Mr. Snowe asked, “that Mr. Joyner was telling the truth about not
knowing the victim? I realize that
he may seem an unlikely suspect, but it is worth considering. After all, he was the only other person who has unequivocally been
shown to be at the murder scene.”
“No,”
Callista said. “No possibility
that he was the murderer. Like I
said, I know that what he was telling us reflected true memories, because I could
feel what he had experienced. His
dog pulling on the leash, barking.
Then the feeling of running, of feet striking the path. Then lifting up the victim, the blood
flowing, her weight in his arms.
The panic, the accelerating heartbeat. There was nothing in any of that to indicate that he was
lying. I’d be willing to bet my
next month’s salary on it.”
“And
no sense that he knew the victim?”
“None. Did you suspect he was lying about
that?”
“No. I have just found that in practice it
is always best to make as few ad hoc
assumptions as possible.”
“Understood.”
“We
therefore are left with something of a mystery.”
“That’s
putting it mildly. A murder victim
where the only witness can’t tell us anything about the murderer.”
“You
have more than once, Miss Lee, mentioned that you enjoy puzzles.”
What
would have been sarcasm in anyone else came across merely as gentle
encouragement. He really has
the demeanor of an eighteenth century gentleman-scholar, Callista thought, and then stopped herself; she had
never been certain how much of her own mental voice her boss picked up. Mr. Snowe’s paranormal skills, whatever
they might be, were not something he shared with his employees. The whole thing gave him an aura of
omniscience.
She
regarded Mr. Snowe with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, it’s helpful to have at least a little information,” she said,
watching his face carefully to see if it betrayed anything of what he was
thinking.
All
he gave her was a beatific smile.
“Oh, there is always information, Miss Lee,” he said. “It only remains to determine its
location. That, I believe, is the
key. The pieces are there. What separates us from detectives who
lack, shall we say, the rather unusual skill set that you and your associates
have, is a unique ability to determine how to fit the available pieces together
to make picture – a picture, in this case, of a person who knifed to death an
innocent jogger.”
