Page 92 of Booked for Murder

“Bradley is attuned with generally positive emotions and physical states,” his father announced. “And things associated with positive emotions and physical states.”

Oh. Oh. I covered my mouth, and I worried my face might turn red as the various possibilities occurred to me, including a heightened awareness of physical attraction.

As I’d been a frequent enough flyer of admiring his various assets, if he could read those sorts of biologics, I’d been exposed as a pervert long ago. Unable to think of a single way to ask for confirmation without telling everyone Bradley classified as my type, I leaned back in my seat and pondered the situation.

Beatrice’s eyes widened. “Oh my.”

According to the baffled expressions of everyone else at the table, Beatrice and I were the only perverts present.

“I see you two are quick to come to certain conclusions,” Bradley’s mother said, and she smirked.

“His ability does also include certain negative states, but we have been very careful to avoid registering those abilities, as it is rather destructive for him—and rarely gives the information needed for a verdict,” his father added. “My abilities are much better for that type of verdict, and I’m commonly requested to do blind verifications.”

“Blind verifications?” Mickey asked.

“A rape victim wishing for admissible evidence of her assailant can request someone with my abilities, and I can get imprints of her attacker. I can then pick the attacker out from photographs or a culprit lineup. Then someone verifies I am speaking the truth, and it becomes admissible evidence. Bradley’s abilities are not refined to that degree and are non-admissible in court, so we felt it was wise to keep them off the record. Usually, his abilities do not create any difficulties.”

Bradley’s mother smirked. “Unless you’re thinking perverted things and he happens to have skin-to-skin contact, in which you have likely been exposed as the pervert you are. But, those abilities are also very useful for certain endeavors, so you’ll find yourself rather appreciative of his skills eventually, I’m sure.”

Crap. Busted. No, worse than busted. Busted by the last person on Earth I wanted being aware I had more than my fair share of lewd thoughts about.

Breaking out into laughter, Beatrice pointed at me. “Your face, Janette.”

I could only guess my expression ranged somewhere between complete mortification and the dark depths of despair. “Thanks, Beatrice.”

“Anytime.”

“Now that we have fully embarrassed Janette, we have work to do. Jezabella, did you find anything at the original murder site?” Bradley’s mother asked.

“We found exactly nothing of use outside of identifying several hundred different places within a block someone could hide out and get a visual range of where the killing took place. Assuming, of course, a direct line-of-sight is required for the killing. They could have used drones from blocks away if video relay is sufficient.”

“Or a recording from a television broadcast,” Meridian added. “That killing was televised live on national television on three different major broadcasters.”

I straightened, lowering my hand from my mouth. “Did you just say the killing had been nationally televised?”

“Yes. It was a live broadcast, and a lot of people got to watch him die. It was pretty gruesome. We have three different recordings of the murder. I’ve watched it probably fifty times now, and I can’t see anything useful in it. Everyone in the footage is caught completely by surprise, and nobody acts suspiciously before his death. There’s only about half a minute of footage before he’s killed. There could be a clue in there, but we’d have to identify everyone in the video and learn if they have any connections to any of the political groups potentially behind the murders.”

“Do we have any information on who was in the video?” I asked.

Mickey grabbed one of the tablets littering the dining room table, tapped at the screen, and slid it to me, revealing a spreadsheet with pictures and information. “I ran all of the pictures through a search engine with image matching, and I found some possible matches. Right now, we can’t realistically approach them for questioning, but we were able to get some information online about who they might be, their general political affiliations, and why they were attending the rally.”

“How’d you do that?” I pulled the tablet closer, scrolling through the collection of people and reading their biographies. “How’d you find out why they attended the rally?”

“Social media. Most of these people are activists, and they’re vocal activists. They want people to know what they’re doing, where they’ll be, and so on. A few are unknowns, and it’s impossible to tell if they happen to live in the area without knowing their identity. What I find interesting is that Senator Tomalin was killed while prominent figures of several activism groups were nearby. To add to the complication, these figures aren’t all necessarily against the bill. What I don’t understand is why Tomalin was attending a rally that is very much against what his bill hopes to do.”

I could think of a few reasons, but as Beatrice followed politics a lot closer than I did, I shoved the tablet her direction and asked, “What do you think?”

“I think someone very carefully staged his death to create as many suspects as possible to make investigating his death difficult at best. I also have no idea why anyone would think we have a better chance of solving this than the police do. If they can’t figure it out, how can we?”

I wondered, too.

“It’s like I told you before,” Bradley began, heaving a sigh and reaching across the table, snagging the tablet. “I don’t think the police or other branches of law enforcement want the murder to be solved yet. I think they want to pin the murders on someone so this bill dies along with the politicians responsible for it. I think they understand exactly what the bill does, and as long as it has any chance of passing, they don’t want the killers found. That means pinning it on someone else. If the police play their cards right, the person who becomes the scapegoat will be found innocent after the bill dies. That’s assuming it dies. In their shoes, if that is what they want to accomplish, they will avoid closing the case until after the bill’s death. It’s a fine line to walk.”

“Why target Mickey?” I asked, gesturing to my co-worker. “Any look into his history and his phobia, and it’s obvious he’s incapable of committing the crime. If he’s investigated and arrested for the killing, and they don’t go through due process for the trial, it’s going to bite the police in the ass.”

Bradley’s smile chilled me. “That leads me to believe they think the killer is going to finish his foul work sooner than later. There are only four politicians who helped sponsor the bill left. The killers have demonstrated that they’re able to strike as they see fit. Their choice to stagger the first few killings makes me wonder, but targeting Mickey as the scapegoat, who obviously couldn’t have committed the crime, leads me to believe that the investigators think the bill will either die or the sponsors of the bill will die before the trial can go through. And innocent until proven guilty applies—and they don’t think Mickey really did it, either. If they did, he’d be behind bars awaiting trial.”

I frowned, considering Mickey through narrowed eyes. “Why aren’t you behind bars, anyway?”