Dave Zeltserman: Bad Karma

“Wrong on both counts. I was just able to exercise amazing self-control.”

“You’d have to walk away from that stunningly beautiful ex-wife of yours.” Eli’s smile slowly faded. “Why don’t you tell me about the job you took.”

“How do you know I took it?”

“I can see the guilt written all over your face.”

“Damn! I washed before coming here.” Shannon pulled a chair up to the desk, sat down and clasped his hands behind his head as he leaned back and rested his feet on the desk.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Eli said.

“Thanks.”

“So tell me about this job.”

Shannon shrugged. His gaze wandered to a framed photo on the wall to his left that showed a herd of elk in a snowy mountain vista, then to one of Babe Ruth in Yankee pinstripes swinging a bat and looking skyward as if he were following the arc of a homerun ball. Turning back to Eli, he said, “You remember those two students who were killed a few months ago? I’m looking into it.”

Eli sat quietly staring at Shannon. The disappointment filling up his eyes gave him a hangdog look. “Jesus, Bill,” he said, breaking his silence. “One of these days you’re going to have to make a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“About the level of spiritual awareness you wish to achieve. At least during this lifetime.”

“Chrissakes, Eli, all I’m going to be doing is investigating a crime.”

“You’re doing more than that.”

“Like what?”

“Like spending your time mired in the worst that people can do.”

Shannon rubbed a hand across his eye. The same old argument, although Eli’s manner now seemed more personal and less academic than all those earlier times. Now there was nothing but disappointment showing in his friend’s eyes. Of course, this was the first double-murder investigation Shannon had taken on since moving to Boulder. When he was a police detective in Cambridge, he had investigated some horrendous crimes that truly did deal with the worst that people can do-including rape, incest and child abuse, as well as murders. Since moving to Boulder and working part-time as a private investigator, the most serious case he handled involved a real estate scam in which several people, at least temporarily, had lost their life savings. Shannon had been able to recover most of their money for them.

“Look,” he said. “This is the world we live in. What am I supposed to do, keep blinders on and only pay attention to uplifting sights, like elk tramping through the mountains?”

“Bill, you’re right, we live in a world where bad things happen, but we can choose what type of energy we expose ourselves to. If you seek out positive energy, it will have an effect on you, just as dark and negative energy will also have its own special effect. There’s a lightness needed to leave your body peacefully and at your own choosing. Dark energy can be like a black hole, pulling you into its own gravitational field. It can be hard to fly when you’ve tied a cement anchor to your waist.”

“Quite a speech.”

“Thanks, I thought so. But obviously not good enough to change your mind.”

“No, not quite.” Absentmindedly Shannon massaged his damaged hand. He clenched his teeth against phantom pains that had started to radiate from his missing fingers up to his wrists. For a long moment it was as if nails were being driven into his joints. “I’m thirty-seven years old. I need to do something. I can’t spend twenty-four hours a day working on my spiritual development.” He paused to look down at his damaged hand. “Anyway, I’m good at what I do,” he added in a tired voice. “And maybe doing this I can help bring justice to the victims and some relief to the families.”

“You don’t sound very convincing with that last part.”

Shannon shrugged. “I met one of the families. Bringing any relief to them is only wishful thinking on my part.”

“Then why do this, Bill? I know it’s not for the money. You’ve got your disability pension and Susan’s making a good income with her practice. I agree, you should be doing something, but don’t try selling me that you’re doing this so you can help people because there are plenty of other things you could do-like working at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or any number of things that could enrich you. So why detective work?”

Shannon removed his feet from the desk and leaned forward so he could pick up an amethyst geode that Eli used as a paperweight. He ran his thumb along the purple and silver diamond-shaped crystals inside it, studying the intricate pattern that they made. “It’s just something I need to do,” he said as he placed the geode back on the desk.

“I think you need to figure out what you really want.” Eli took a cassette tape from the top drawer of his desk and tossed it to Shannon. “For whatever good it will do you, here are some new exercises. Like the old ones, play these a half hour before going to bed.”

Shannon nodded. “Thanks. Are we still meeting tomorrow morning?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“I thought you might be too pissed at me for taking this case.”

“You want to put obstacles up for yourself, that’s your business. I still plan on working with you. And besides, I’m not ending a friendship over something like this.”

“Fair enough. I’ve got a few things to do over the next hour or so, but any interest in catching the Sox game later?”

Eli made a face as if he had swallowed spoiled milk. “I already told you my thoughts on interleague play. Besides, I don’t see any reason to pay money to watch a second-rate team beat a third-rate team.”

“What are you talking about? The World Champion Red Sox a second rate team? Last I checked they’re two and a half games up on your beloved Yankees.”

“I was referring to the Rockies as the second-rate team. I’ve also decided that the Red Sox never won the World Series last year. We’re either the victims of a massive media hoax or are suffering from some sort of mass delusion. And about the Yankees being two and a half games out-don’t take too much solace from that. In seventy-eight they were fourteen games out this same time of year, and we all know how that turned out.”

Shannon got to his feet and, at the door, told Eli that he would see him tomorrow.

Eli nodded, his long face reflective. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Think harder about why you’re still doing this detective work.”

“You got it, Chief.” Shannon gave him a quick salute and left.

The condo complex where the murdered students had lived was off Arapahoe Avenue and was made up of clusters of newer-looking two-story townhouses, with what looked like four townhouses grouped together into each cluster. Driving through the complex, Shannon guessed that the townhouses had been built within the last five years.

Taylor Carver and Linda Gibson had rented a condo in an end unit townhouse that was in the back of the complex and not visible from the street. Shannon found the door to the building unlocked. Inside was a small vestibule leading to two condos. The door to Carver and Gibson’s unit had red smudges on it and some splintering where it had been kicked open. A police notice on the door warned that it was a crime scene and that the area was sealed off to the public until further notice. The other condo had a small metal sign screwed into its door indicating that it was the residence of Mike and Nancy Maguire. Shannon knocked on the Maguire’s door and waited. After several minutes a man in his early forties came out, his face flushed as he gave Shannon a wary look. “Yeah?” he asked.

Shannon introduced himself. “I was hoping you could tell me about the two students who were murdered next door,” he added.