“Probably,” he said, and she heard the fatigue in his voice. “He accosted me on the street and accused me of cheating—which is projection, by the way. He was pretty desperate, and the rest of the group had beaten him up pretty good. He had a gun and held it on me. I kicked it out of his hand. He took off and came back later with a gun. I’d only manage to walk a couple of blocks. He pointed the gun at me, then decided that he would shoot himself instead. He pulled the trigger and blew his brains out all over the back alley.”
“Did you call it in?”
“I did,” he said. “It would have traced back to me anyway.”
“Yeah, it sure will,” she said. “So, if you’re at the ER, come straight down to the station, and we’ll take your statement.”
“As if,” he said. “I need coffee, and I need food. I haven’t slept, and my talk with the cheater was a little less than polite.”
“How less than polite?” she asked.
“The worst,” he said. “He shot at me first.” And, with that, he hung up the phone.
She looked over at Colby, but he was already swearing. He turned to the others. “Find out from the street cops what the hell the deal was with the cheater’s body last night. See where he was found, check out Simon’s statement to see if that’s correct, speak to the other poker players,” he said. “This guy is in the middle of way the hell too much. I want him either cleared, or I want him charged. You guys got that?”
She glared at him, picked up her coffee, threw back the rest of it, sucking up the last drop. Then she snatched her half-eaten pretzel and said, “I’m gone.” As she headed for the door, she heard a shout from behind her. She looked to see Rodney heading her way. “Colby wants me to go with you.”
She shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “I’m calling Simon back to see where the hell he is.”
“Don’t you think he’s still at the ER?”
“Knowing him? No. He’s probably home.”
“Where is home?”
“Penthouse in False Creek North,” she said.
He whistled. “So this guy’s got money, huh?”
“He’s got money. What I don’t know,” she said, “is whether he got it legitimately or not.”
“But we can’t assume he did or he didn’t,” he said. “We have to look into this guy pretty closely.”
“Yeah,” she said, “he’s all over the place. Particularly considering he’s the one who found the dead little girl.”
“And he’s psychic?”
“Psychicis another word forcharlatan, so maybe,” she said.
Rodney looked at her. “My grandmother had the sight,” he murmured in a calm, affable manner.
“Good for her, but she is still dead.”
A hard snort came from him on that. “You know, believe it or not,” he said, “death comes for all of us. You can do anything you want to avoid it, but death still has your name on its watch list.”
“I got no problem with death,” she said, “until it comes to people taking children’s lives, and then there is no forgiveness.”
“Got it,” he said. “But back to the psychic.”
“You mean charlatan. So what about him?”
“What if he is the real deal?” he said. “What if he actually can help us?”
“Oh. Well, he hasn’t helped us yet,” she said. “Why would he start now?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but he called us on the little girl.”
“And she would have been called in within the hour anyway,” she said, the fatigue catching up with her. “I don’t know if this guy is for us or against us, and, like Colby, I would like to place him securely on one side or the other.”