Page 49 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

Gonzalez waved this off. “Let me get some housekeeping done first.”

Oh, right. We’d need to sign some forms to be taken on as FBI consultants for this case. Jon would have to sign for Abby as a guardian, too, and walk her through the forms so she knew what she was looking at. Good thing they’d come in a little earlier.

We sat, did the paperwork, and Gonzalez bounced out the door to the scanner-slash-copier so he could send it all in. By the time that was done, we were ready for the call, so I patched it through and then connected it via Bluetooth to the speaker in the middle of the table. Jon wisely stayed on the far end, away from all tech, keeping a safe distance. Well, hopefully safe; sometimes tech just had it out for him.

The phone picked up and Dwayne’s voice came through loud and clear. Also hopeful.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dwayne,” Abby greeted cheerfully. “You’re not going to believe the update. It’slit.”

Couldn’t argue there. “We’re all here, as well as new friends. Right now, Abby, Jon, and I are all here, plus FBI Special Agents Javier and Marc Gonzalez. Marc is a Tracer, if you know what that is.”

“I do.” Excitement trickled into Dwayne’s voice as he talked. “Wow, nice to meet you, Agents. Uh, I heard my case went federal. Are you here to tackle it immediately?”

“You could say that. I feel like this needs a drumroll.” Abby wentpat a pat a paton the tabletop. “Turns out, the weapon found in your case was made by a psychic. AND according to Agent Gonzalez, the person who made it is in an entirely different state.”

“Legally speaking, since this is now an open case, that makes this an FBI case. Plus, it involves the kidnapping of an anchor, so it’s very much in our jurisdiction,” Gonzalez explained.

“That’s…crazy. I’m sitting here feeling like I’m on one of those ‘Gotcha!’ prank reality shows.”

“Pretty much how we feel about it,” Jon mumbled. Then he raised his voice. “Dwayne, we’re all in really good hands here. I’ve worked with these two before, they’re good friends, and honestly, I reached out to them for help figuring out where this weapon even came from.”

“I’m really thankful. What can I do to help right now?”

“First, some information.” Marc used a glove and pulled the supposed murder weapon out of his bag and put it on the table. “Then we do questions. Right now, I have the murder weapon on the table, and to be honest, I don’t think it’s killed anything. Not even a bug.”

Uh. Seriously?

Abby pointed at the axe and demanded, “Are you sure?”

“Look, no matter how careful a murderer is, it’s really, really hard to get bloodstains off something. I can trace whatever small amount is left behind. There’s blood here on the axe, but itdoesn’tconnectto anything. The blood is as fake as the weapon itself.”

I let out a low whistle. Not surprising but good to know. Also, Marc saying it was fake had a lot more weight than your average psychic because he was FBI. It was his job to stand as witness to such things in trials. Dayum, this was going in all the right directions.

Marc seemed pleased by our reaction. “Told you guys this one was jacked up. It’s why Javier called and asked what the hell we were getting into because this shit’sweird.”

“No kidding,” Abby breathed. “Okay, but do you know what kind of psychic can do this?”

“I sure do. They’re called Materializers. It was not on your short list that Sho gave me, but don’t feel bad, they’re rare. Most of the time, they get recruited into areas like the medical field. After all, with some training, they can create simple bionics, limbs, and whatnot, all perfectly sized for the individual.”

“There’s a Materializer in France who works as a fireman,” Gonzalez pitched in. “He’s exceptional in the job because he can create whatever he needs in a pinch. Doors and windows all blocked with fire? Okay, no problem, he creates a new door into a building to rescue the people. It’s crazy what all Materializers can do.”

Sounded that way. Damn. I might need to get online and do some digging.

“Now, I will say, Materializers have to pass all the same psych evaluations and such that most licensed psychics do. So if they’re proven to be unstable for whatever reason, they’re not given those high-stress jobs.” Gonzalez grimaced. “And sometimes, psychics go rogue like everyone else. I think this might be one of those cases.”

Marc leaned forward toward the speaker. “Dwayne, think hard. Did you have any association with a Materializer? Did your sister?”

There was a pause, which meant Dwayne really was thinking about it.

“I don’t…think so?If someone had the ability, they certainly never showcased it around me.”

Kind of expected this answer.

“Okay. That’s fine, just keep thinking about it. We’ll take any lead right now. The good news is, we can prove it wasn’t you who did this. After all, you’re licensed, so we know for a fact you don’t have this ability. That plus the witness testimony and footage putting you somewhere else should be enough to exonerate you.”

A choked sob sounded through the speaker. Poor Dwayne, my heart just broke for him. He’d really had a terrible year.

---