Mind Games (5 page)

“Hey, watch it…I’m…Oh, Cameron. I thought you were just a nosy jogger.”

“You’re kidding, right? Hey, catch.”

He threw her a ripe orange. Jen’s favorite. She reacted instinctively, gripping it with her fingers and digging her nails into the soft rind.

“Thanks, Cam. I’ll eat it later.”

“You’re not hungry?”

She rolled the orange from hand to hand. “Not right now.” Then she felt it. There was a little slit on the opposite side of the orange’s navel. “Did you drop this or something?”

“No, just be careful with it.”

“Cameron, you’re doing that thing.”

“What thing?”

“That look. Yeah, it’s that look where you seem like you’re on the brink of giddy. It’s not a very masculine trait.”

“Jen, honey, just open the orange.”

She squeezed the orange with her right hand and held it up to the sunlight, examining the miniature slit. “Open it? What, is there a worm or something in here?”

“No, just…”

“Alright, fine.” 

Cameron nervously bounced his foot against the cement.

Jennifer pressed her thumb into the orange, peeling back the glossy rind. Nestled between slices, a diamond ring dazzled in front of her.

Mr. and Mrs. Frost spent their first two years living in Colorado, but then moved into a house in San Francisco to make room for their ten-month-old daughter, Sarah.

Cameron was not ready to be a father.

He couldn’t figure out how to process all of the responsibility. None of the books or videos seemed to help him transition into fatherhood.

The crying. The burping. The spitting up, the farting, the non-stop waking up in the middle of the night.

At six months, Sarah was already learning valuable persuasive skills from her parents, and her behavior was advanced for her age.

During breakfast, while Sarah ate in her high chair, Jen would play Mozart for her. At first, Sarah wasn’t so sure about the foreign sounds emitting from the CD player.

She would narrow her eyes in efforts of deciphering the strange language of music.

Even though her understanding of the music was fairly basic, her practical response proved far more sophisticated.

And it started in her toes.

Sitting in her high chair, she held her torso in a steady position while her toes started wiggling. Then her knees started swinging and her hips started swaying. Before long, Mozart had Sarah in a whimsical jig, waving her arms and bobbing her head.

“Look, honey,” Jen said. “Sarah’s a natural dancer!”

Wiggling. Swinging. Swaying. Waving. Bobbing.

“Our girl has some moves,” Cameron said.

As she added variations to her dance, Sarah had a grand ‘ol time. And when the track changed on the CD to a brisk work of Mozart, she stopped.

Sarah took another taste of applesauce and clapped her hands before pounding her feet onto an invisible stage.

Then, in one combined motion she grabbed the air in front of her and repositioned her tiny hand as she pretended to grab a conductor’s baton.  Regardless of Sarah’s age, the music was transforming her.

She knowingly tilted her head up and slowly blinked, looking around the kitchen to the full orchestra in her mind.

Jen was speechless.

This was a rare opportunity, like something she’d read about in one of her parenting books. Jen pushed her bowl of cereal out of the way and went to the cupboard to grab a pair of chopsticks while Sarah remained in her dignified pose. Jen separated the chopsticks and gently placed one in Sarah’s little hand before pulling back, trying not to interfere.

Ten-month Sarah stared straightforward and raised her baton, tapping it on the edge of her high chair table, readying her company of invisible musicians.

Jen watched Sarah in the mornings while Cameron worked at the photography studio he’d started for tech products
:
Frost Studios.

Cameron edited photos on his laptop while watching Sarah when Jen had to work in the afternoons. This arrangement usually worked very smoothly. And most days, the entire family ate two meals together.

Jen designed security systems for the Empire Bank in downtown San Francisco. She was responsible for perfecting the locking mechanisms on the bank vault as well as designing unique security systems for the bank’s other branches across the United States.

As Sarah grew, Jen’s career at the bank took off. By the time Sarah was three, Jen was appointed as the senior security systems consultant for the Empire Bank.

During her training for the promotion, Jen became more concerned about the safety of her own home. Of course, she knew there was no way she could prevent a drive-by shooting like the one that killed her brother, but she did feel she had some control over the safety of her own family.

She installed a sophisticated security system at home with magnetically triggered alarms on the doors and windows. These additions were expensive, but they brought her some peace of mind. 

Whenever Cameron watched Sarah, he’d call her his “Sarah Shine.” Now, at five years old (a fact which she was very proud), Sarah would play with her plastic kitchen set, and Cameron would stomp down the hallway like the Giant fro
m
Jack and the Beanstal
k
– her favored bedtime story.

As Sarah pretended to bake her magic beans, Cameron would stomp closer, banging on the walls with his palms.

“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum. I smell the girl who stole the golden goose.”

He planted his feet in her bedroom doorway and puffed out his chest.

“Where is it? Tell, me. Where is my golden goose?”

Sarah turned from baking and tucked her blonde hair behind her ears.

“No,” she said. “I haven’t seen this goose. Golden or otherwise.”

Jen’s nightly story times had greatly expanded Sarah’s imagination into a fervent swirl of ideas and questions.

“Where is it then?
”
The giant stomped his feet
.
“I demand to know. I can no longer make my golden scrambled eggs without it.”

“I see,” Sarah stated, “You’ll just have to start eating something else for breakfast. Your problems do not interest me, Giant. Return in two days time and ask me again.” She grabbed the wooden spoon from her cooking pot. “Maybe your goose will turn up then.”

“WHAT? I cannot wait that long. I must find the goose. Now!!”

Cameron rushed towards Sarah and she screamed in delight. He chased her around her mini kitchen, and she grabbed her plastic frying pan, holding it as a shield with arms extended.

“No beans for you, Giant. You haven’t earned them.”

Cameron cleared the plastic kitchen toys off Sarah’s little table with the strength of his brawny character.

“I’ve already enjoyed Jack as a snack. That makes you desert!!”

He jolted towards her.

Sarah’s feet were especially ticklish.

A decade later, as father to a ten-year old Sarah, Cameron became one of the best CSI photographers in the Bay Area, aiding to solve many homicides with Detectives Amy Hart and Vince Hogan. Among these cases, the night of the Fred Stefani investigation at 1265 Maple Street stood out in Cameron’s mind.

As he drove home that humid July night, Cameron relived the horrors of Stefani’s underground secrets. The twisted shrine compiled of newspaper clippings and maps proved Stefani’s obsession with violence. Cameron remembered how he’d bashed in the drywall with the sledgehammer to discover a rainbow of colored cords leading down, down, down to a mazelike labyrinth.

During his drive across the city, towards home, the night waned on. It was now almost 3AM when Cameron’s face hit the pillow next to Jen.

Then, the bedroom landline rang.

Jen rolled over and groggily answered the call. “Hello?” 

“How soon can you get down here?” The bank manager, George Stevens, was on the other line.

“Why? What happened? What’s wrong?”

“There was an attempted robbery. We need to talk damage control.”

With bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep, Jen changed clothes, washed her face, and drove to the bank.

Mr. Stevens greeted her at the main entrance then guided her towards the hallways to the vault elevators as they talked.

“Jen, I’m not going to lie to you. Tonight could have been disastrous.” His loafers squeaked as they walked. “The intruders made it downstairs to the vault hallway, which means they passed through at least four layers o
f
you
r
security system.”

Mr. Stevens’s loafers stopped in front of the elevator that led down to the vault level. Jen entered a complex password, and the doors opened, revealing two small pools of blood on the elevator floor.

Mr. Stevens continued, “As you can see, two guards were injured. They were sent to the emergency room. One of them is in critical condition. This is very bad for us.”

“I know sir.”

“The safety of this bank…”

“Yes, I know. It’s my responsibility. Look, George, you’ve approved my security designs for years now. If it weren’t for me, you would have dealt with more robberies at more of the branches. But you haven’t. Up to this point, the systems have worked. Now, you can’t tell me it’s the security systems that failed because they are flawless.”

“But you aren’t flawless, Jen.”

“I understand that, George. But you and I both know it’s not just the technology. The guards probably slipped up.”

“Oh, the guards? Is that it?”

“You can’t put all the blame on me. Let’s watch the tapes, then we’ll know for sure.”

“We can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“The break-ins disabled the security cameras.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Apparently not. So, unlike the break-in at the Chicago branch, there’s no footage to review. We’re in the dark. These men are still out there. It seems the security systems were weaker than we thought.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t say they’re weak because they’re not. There must have been something else.”

“So, you can’t explain what happened tonight?”

“No more than you can, but the systems must have worked at some point, otherwise I’d still be asleep right now.”

“They almost got in front of the vault before tripping the alarm. The vault, Jennifer. We’re not talking about the parking lot, the lobby, or the offices. No, they jumped over all those hurtles and almost made it to the main event!” George paced in anger. “This is unacceptable, Frost.”

“Look, sir,” Jen said, “The fact is they didn’t get into the vault. They must have periodically disabled the other layers of security.”

“Listen, Frost.” Mr. Stevens faced Jen and squared up his shoulders. “You have forty-eight hours to fix this system.” Then he turned from and began walking down the hallway away from her. “If you don’t deliver in two days, don’t bother coming back to work.”

When Jen returned home, she wanted to collapse in bed.

But instead, she brewed a pot of black coffee and unrolled a new set of blueprints.

EVIDENCE

As dawn brok
e
, Cameron awoke alone in bed and rushed to the Fourth Precinct downtown.

He downloaded the files from the Stefani murder case, and as the pictures loaded on the screen, he was surprised how much the underground explorations felt like a bad dream.

Vince approached him with sour breath. “Did you get any sleep after that freaky funhouse, Junior?”

The bags under Cameron’s eyes spoke for him.

Amy joined them and watched over Cameron’s shoulder. “I’m looking forward to getting the ballistics report back from the lab.”

Cameron tapped his screen. “So, what was with that computer system in the maze?”

Amy rubbed her eyes. “The tech team is going back this morning to check the hard drives.”

Vince chomped on a toaster pastry. A glob of strawberry icing landed on his shirt. “That property is a night crawler’s goldmine. I bet we could sell tickets to that place as a haunted house for Halloween.”

“That’s a horrible idea, Vince,” Amy said.

“Amy, one of these days, I’m gonna teach you to have some fun.”

Cameron snickered. “That’ll be the day.”

“Yeah, I’ll invite you to one of my blowout parties and you can wear the keg backpack and fill drinks.”

Amy raised her eyebrows. “Assuming you have friends, Vince.”

“
Ohhhhh. Burrrrn
.
” Cameron gave Amy a high five.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny. I dare you guys to come hang out with me sometime – and not around a crime scene.”

Cameron lifted his hands. “If we did hang out with you outside of work, it would soo
n
becom
e
a crime scene. Just sayin’.”

“Hey, good one,” Amy said, “Especially with how tired we all are.”

“Yeah, Vince,” Cameron said. “Amy and I think you’re all talk.”

Vince narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying I didn’t complete the three rack of ribs contest at the Smokey Oak? Is that what you’re saying? Because I had witnesses.”

“Whatever you say,” Amy said. “Did you win a bib or something?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I framed the trophy bib with the BBQ sauce still on it – never washed it.”

Cameron tried not to laugh.

“I think I won something like that in third grade,” Amy said. “My mom was really proud.”

Cameron chortled.

Vince shook his head. “What is with you guys?”

Cameron looked directly at Vince. “Look man, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it.”

Unfazed, Vince finished his toaster pastry. “This is why I don’t invite you guys over.”

“It just breaks our hearts to hear that.” Amy drummed Cameron’s cubicle wall with her fingertips. “The forensics lab told me they’d have the prints from the murder weapon processed as soon as this afternoon. Stefani’s terrorist interests are helping speed things up. We don’t want to wait around with this one.”

Vince tossed his breakfast wrapper across the office, missing the garbage can by three feet. “Yeah, whoever killed Stefani was a true sharpshooter. The medical examiner told me the bullet pierced through his heart.”

Cameron printed and organize
d
photos for other ongoing cases, but the Stefani case was still his main priority. If Stefani was indeed the San Fran bomber, it was up to Amy’s team to ensure the bombings stopped with Stefani’s death.

Cameron posted the glossy prints on the evidence board near Amy’s workspace. The fluorescent light in the office gave the prints a shiny glean, and when Cameron looked from photo to photo, they seemed to animate like frames out of a motion picture reel. Ideally, the photos would be used as a visual timeline showing where and how the murder took place. This realization had not grown dull to Cameron. These photos didn’t simply serve as frozen snapshots.

They were windows into the past.

Through Cameron’s pictures, Amy had an opportunity to step back in time...into the mindset of the killer.

Amidst the photos, the glossy coating was only a thin barrier between the office and the crime scene.

These visual portals drew Cameron into the other senses of the night before, but they couldn’t recreate them altogether. There was nothing quite like being there.

In the cool air conditioning of the precinct, it would have been easy to forget just how humid and sticky Stefani’s basement was. It would have been easy to forget the rush of adrenaline as they discovered the bullet holes in the wall. Cameron realized these experiences, whether he liked it or not, formed an invisible bond between Amy, Vince, and himself. Only the other members of the investigative team could fully grasp the chills of that place. And only their exclusive team could decipher the events that unfolded in Cameron’s pictures.

Posting photos gave him a subtle sense of pride. And after certain cases, where his contributions directly pointed to a lead, Cameron thought of framing such valuable pictures.

But he never did.

The grisly images weren’t meant to be posted on a fridge.

Later that afternoo
n
, Amy held a meeting with the team and Captain Jones to discuss the lab results.

Jones, a beer-bellied man with an affinity for aged scotch, kept a generous stash of pistachios in his desk drawer along with a stainless steel flask inscribed with his grandfather’s initials. Everyone at the Fourth Precinct knew if the Captain had seen a case file because he’d leave a absent-minded coffee rings on the outside of the manila folder. He took his coffee black. The bitter brew insured conversations in the office would be brief since, after a few sips, Jones’s breath was pungent enough to peel a cactus.

The Captain did not attain his position through intelligence. In fact, he was rather slow when it came to understanding many of the minutiae involved in homicide cases. He understood simple police matters on the lower end such as drug busts and standard arrests, but Jones wasn’t cut out to offer much aid in upper level cases.

Amy didn’t include Captain Jones in the meeting because she believed he would help them reach any discoveries, but she did so to give herself a chance to explain the crime scene to a neutral party. And Jones usually listened as closely as he could for the first few minutes before daydreaming about when he could take his next drink.

Instead of discernment, the Captain offered social connections. Upon many occasions, Jones helped Amy to meet with weapons experts or city officials. If a case required an expert in counterfeit bills or other evidence anomalies, the Captain usually had someone on speed dial.

When Amy’s team and the captain were seated in Jones’s office, she reviewed their findings. Tapping his foot, thirsty for the bottle, Jones nodded, stroking his eyebrow now and then to show he was listening.

Like a true alcoholic, Jones needed something to distract him from his lack of buzz. While maintaining eye contact with Amy, Jones would reach to his desk drawer and remove a large handful of pistachios. Then, for the remainder of the meeting, he would crack them, munch them, and swipe the empty shells onto the floor, leaving them for the intern to clean up later.

Amy never let the Captain’s oddities interrupt her train of thought.

“We got the lab results from Forensics. The fingerprints on the Colt M1911 belonged to Derek Hansen. His hands. His gun. It’s registered in his name. He’s a multiple DUI offender and petty thief.”

Captain Jones took a sip of coffee. He nodded.

Amy slid a copy of Hansen’s file in front of the Captain. “This is the guy. The neighbors heard Stefani’s gunshots, not Hansen’s. But Hansen wasn’t the only person on the property during the shooting.”

“Yeah, there was an old guy typing on a computer under the house.” Vince said.

“What guy?” Apparently, now Jones was listening again.

“Sir, it’s nothing,” Amy shifted her stance. “Well, it’s not nothing. It just doesn’t pertain to the murder in the basement.”

Vince bit his nails. “That’s one theory.”

The Captain downed the rest of his coffee, spilling some on his shirt. “Let’s get Hansen in here. Vince, I want him cuffed within the hour.”

“You got it.” Vince grabbed his jacket and left.

Cameron showed the Captain photos of the disturbing terrorism shrine in Fred Stefani’s basement and explained their strange findings in the underground maze. “The site housed two computers that seemed to be used for communication with their weapon clients.”

“And the tech team is over there now?” Jones asked.

“Yeah, about that,” Amy said. “I just got a text from them. Apparently the perps wiped the hard drives.”

Jones leaned forward. “What do you mean? I ordered the property to be on lock down.”

“Don’t underestimate these guys,” Cameron said. “They seemed to have several entrances into Stefani’s house. It must have been set up as some sort of clubhouse.”

Captain Jones removed his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. “So this Stefani guy really had it coming.” He placed the greasy, smudged spectacles back on his face.

“Sir,” Amy said, “The man at the end of the maze was probably communicating with someone else in the group. Stefani may have been the top dog, but we’re starting to think there are more parties involved. Right before we left the property, we saw images of guns on one of the computers. It seems they were running some kind of illegal weapons business. And I suspect it’s a tight-knit group.”

Jones pointed to one of the photos. “Tell me about the goldfish.”

“I’m sorry?”

The captain cracked more pistachios. “What killed the fish?”

It was questions like this that deterred other detectives from meeting with the Captain in the first place.

“Sir, the goldfish really don’t matter.”

Amy sat down to discuss the possible dangers of Stefani’s group, stating that the other members were still unknown. After a few minutes, the Captain’s cell phone rang. It was Vince.

“Hey Jones, I think Hansen flew the coup.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m at his mobile home right now. And get this - I found a printout for airline options. Looks like he’s headed for New York City.”

As Amy and Cameron drov
e
to Hansen’s mobile home, they listened to the top hits radio station and sang along. They were blasting the jams and even dancing a little as they drove. It’s amazing how much fun they could have when Vince wasn’t around.

But the fun abruptly stopped when they pulled up to Hansen’s place.

Cigarette butts littered the entire front yard, and the porch looked treacherous at best. A set of rusty kitchen knives was strewn outside the front entryway, and a bucket of yellow paint was splattered across the floor mat.

Vince stood under the rusted doorframe of the mobile home, tapping his fingers on the metal hinges.

Amy and Cameron met Vince on the porch.

“The bucket of paint is a nice touch,” she said.

“Listen,” Vince said. “If Hansen’s still here, I get first dibs. When we go in there, I get to cuff him. Okay? It’s my turn.”

“I thought you said he left to New York City?”

“Yeah, but he might still be here.”

“Oh no, Vince. You are not pulling this again. Whenever you read them their rights, you start laughing. Do you know how unprofessional that is?”

“You’ve got to admit,” Vince twisted his neck back, stretching it with confidence. “The perps start to sweat when I catch ‘em. They’re afraid of me, Amy.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Really. They are. I can smell their fear.”

“No one’s afraid of you Vince. Not even a little bit.”

“How about this. Whoever gets their cuffs out first can claim him. Deal?”

“Is that a bet?” Amy’s face turned to steel. “But if I’m faster, you’re buying me dinner.”

“Wow, you drive a hard bargain. I knew you wanted a date out of this after all.”

“Not a date. Dinner. And you’re not invited. Vince, if I’m faster, you’ll buy me whatever I want a
t
TASTE OF EUROP
E
.”

The blood drained from Vince’s face. “No, Amy. That’s place is $200 a plate! I can’t afford that!”

“You’ll find a way.”

“Fine, Amy. Geez. What the hell do you want me to do?”

“Nothing much. Just let me cuff Hansen.”

“Dammit, Amy. Good thing Hansen’s in New York.” Vince opened the door to the mobile home.

Magazines and food wrappers covered the living room carpet. The cheese balls spread across the floor started a trail that led from the coffee table to a ratty ottoman. A blue, slushy drink stained the third cushion on the wrap-around couch, and the cover of a lone subwoofer showed damages from what seemed to be repetitive kicking. The furniture was falling apart, yet an 80-inch TV adorned a glass stand next to the back wall.