Chapter 2

Mayor Harry Dove had called Police Chief Bud Black to his office to talk business. The investigation was not going well and the lead editorial in today’s South Jersey Post read, “Dim Bulbs Spark Race Divide.”

The Mayor was furious; the Chief seemed to be taking it in stride. Everybody knew that the Pest, as the locals called it, was a muckraking wad of bum fodder. The Mayor knew it too. Though the editorial was unsigned, it was clearly the work of P.C. Cromwell, an ambitious, unprincipled scandalmonger, who still went by her childhood nickname, “Peaches.”

“Look at this,” he shouted. “Dim bulbs need to amp up. Who d’ya think she’s talking about?”

“I wouldn’t take that too seriously,” said the Chief. “She says we’re groping in the dark. But amping up would just blow the bulb or the breaker. She should have said we need more wattage.”

The Mayor stared in disbelief. “Nobody in Gardenfield understands how electricity works. She called us dim bulbs. And somehow that makes us racist?”

The Chief was unfazed. “And she got the facts all wrong. Listen to this.” He picked up the paper and read part of the op-ed aloud:

“Two weeks have passed since the commission of this heinous crime and we’re having trouble deciding which is worse: the crime itself or the hapless nature of the investigation.

“The body was found during the Quaker meeting in early April. All of the children at Gardenfield Friends School were present. The victim was a girl, 10 or 11 years old, who has not been identified; Camden County Medical Examiner, Dr. Morris J. Cronkite, is calling her Ginnie Doe. According to Dr. Cronkite, the cause of death was a broken neck. The medical jargon fails to tell you that the perpetrator, in all likelihood, was a hit man trained in silent assassination techniques.

“The discovery practically sparked a riot on the spot. And the victim’s tender age has created a nightmare scenario—not just in the Friends School, but also throughout the school system. Children are experiencing ongoing psychological trauma. If this goes on, South Jersey will rank with ‘Newtown’ and ‘Columbine’ as a synonym for school violence.”

“What’s inaccurate about that?” asked the Mayor.

Chief Black raised his hand and started ticking off points on his fingers. He was a strongly built man in his late 50s. His red-blond hair had dimmed down to a blondish-white hue, but he still had a full head of it. His robust constitution and keen blue-eyed gaze remained unimpaired. “First of all, you can’t really call it a riot. The kids were scared and they ran out screaming, but that’s not a riot. A riot is when people get mad and start firing guns or breaking windows. You have to at least break a few windows for it to be a riot …”

“OK, so it was a panic, not a riot.”

“It wasn’t a mass murder and it wasn’t a shooting,” continued the Chief, “so comparing us to Columbine is a complete distortion.” He was now pointing toward his ring finger, saying, “And the killer wasn’t a classmate. Peaches herself admits as much.”

“Parents keep calling and writing to the paper saying their kids don’t want to go to school anymore,” Mayor Dove barked.

“Parents? You mean Bill McRae? Is he still threatening to sue?”

The Mayor scratched his head. “He’s still pretty upset. Claims his daughter’s personality has changed completely. Not necessarily a bad thing, if you want my opinion.”

By coincidence, Mimi’s father, Bill McRae, worked as the Gardenfield city attorney. The Mayor had firsthand experience of Mimi when, one day when she was about six, she’d visited her father at work and managed to deface the walls of the Municipal Building with globs of orange Day-Glo Silly String.

“Bill told me she’s diagnosed with PTSD.” The Chief looked genuinely concerned.

“Yeah, I know. But I’m guessing that’s just legal posturing. The thing is, who’s he going to sue? The Quakers? The Borough? That’d be like suing himself.” The Mayor seemed pleased to have uncovered this paradox.

The Chief refused to allow him to change the subject. “I feel bad for McRae’s daughter. You can see why she’d be shook up. Anyone would be. But things are getting better.” He folded the paper neatly and started to hand it back to Mayor Dove. “Except for the Pest, all of the other media have backed off this story. At least we don’t have TV crews getting underfoot like we did at first.”

“So you think everything’s going to turn out OK? That P.C.’s wrong and we can just ignore her? What about these charges of racism?” Harry Dove ripped the paper from Chief Black’s hands. “Just listen to this:

“After two weeks with no leads, the County Task Force had no choice but to walk away. ‘It’s up to Gardenfield now,’ our confidential source told us. ‘We’ve got bigger fish to fry—and more of them—in Camden.’”

Mayor Dove swiveled angrily to face the Chief. “It’s almost like she thinks we should have more murders here, just to even things out.”

“Politics,” said Chief Black. “Camden wants the suburbs to supply more of their funding. In our meetings, that’s all they talk about. They’ll say anything …”

“But Peaches doesn’t have to print it. Here’s the capper …” He picked up the paper and resumed reading:

“Although we’ve always supported Mayor Dove’s administration in the past, the Quaker Killing is causing us to rethink our position. Something’s going to have to change, and we have a few suggestions. Get harder. Be more diverse and hire people with experience with modern urban crime. Get smarter. Bring in the latest technology—DNA sampling, surveillance drones, and Big Data. Or get creative. A psychic was instrumental in apprehending the infamous Mainline Monster. Shouldn’t we bring a psychic here to help us find the Quaker Killer and bring him to justice?”

Chief Black was finally provoked. “This is ridiculous. We have plenty of diversity on the force. We’ve got Michelle Coxe and Nancy O’Keefe who are female … and then there’s Gary … Officer Malone, who is … you know. But that’s not why I hired them.”

“I know. I know,” sighed the Mayor, who had been through this speech from Chief Black countless times. “Forget diversity. Drones, DNA testing, data mining? I don’t know what they’re smoking over there. What do you propose to do about this?”

The Chief wasn’t sure if “this” meant solving the crime or responding to the criticism in the editorial. “It has never made sense to hire a full-time detective in Gardenfield. The truth is, we’re not staffed properly for this type of violent crime. I’m the only one who has experience running a murder investigation.”

Mayor Dove pulled at his fleshy right earlobe; his normally slack expression now showed signs of extreme effort. He was in a tight spot, he realized, but with clarity of thought and a little ingenuity, things could work to his advantage. “I want you to hire that psychic detective.”

The Chief looked startled. “You’re kidding.”

“No. Why would I joke about something like that?”

“A psychic’s a waste of time and money. I was hoping you’d agree to hiring a detective, because …”

The Mayor cut him off. “We don’t need a detective. You said you’ve got experience. If we hire the psychic we’ll have both, a regular detective and a psychic one, for the same price.”

The Mayor swiveled in his chair so Chief Black couldn’t see him beaming. “Old P.C. gave us an out. All we have to do is follow her recommendation; we’ll give a press conference saying we’re responsive to the community so we’re hiring the psychic. Will it really work? I doubt it. But it’ll buy us time. We can distract P.C. with updates on the psychic’s progress. She just wants good copy. We’ll give her as much access to the psychic as she wants. That’ll give you the breathing room you need to solve this crime as quickly as possible. And you better get it done … as quickly as possible. Do I make myself clear?”

The Chief was too surprised to counter effectively. “So you want me to hire this psychic, but then ignore what he or she says and just investigate in the normal way?”

The Mayor swiveled around to face the Chief. “I think we understand each other.”