4. Diem

4

Diem

F ucking mind control. Jesus H Christ. What the hell was I doing? Talk about being led around by the dick and balls. What had happened to my backbone? I needed to seriously reevaluate my self-worth and figure out why I couldn’t say no to Tallus Domingo.

I wasn’t sure if I dove into investigating his convoluted theory because I was curious about Madame Rowena or wanted a reason to call Tallus sooner than later—not that I was any good at talking on the phone.

Either way, I spent the rest of my Saturday on the computer.

I didn’t care what people claimed or believed when it came to psychics. I didn’t care if Amber’s brother or Allan’s neighbor were convinced mind control was responsible for killing them. I didn’t give two shits if the CIA was one day going to use our cell phones to get inside our brains and turn us into a bunch of mindless drones. In my opinion, it was all bullshit.

My focus was on Rowena Fitspatrick and performing as thorough a background check as I could to prove to Tallus she was a regular, everyday quack psychic with no special abilities, and Memphis—God I hated Memphis—was safe to have his fucking palm read, or whatever the fuck he wanted to have done.

What a waste of money. Idiot.

It should have been a no-brainer, but less than ten minutes into my search, my job became complicated. My mind grew uneasy. It turned out sixty-five-year-old Rowena Fitspatrick had a list of extortion and fraud charges on her file a mile and a half long, some dating back to the late seventies when she was a spry seventeen-year-old college student sporting bell-bottoms, a psychedelic lantern-sleeved shirt, and platform shoes—I’d found pictures.

The woman had spent time in prison, and it had nothing to do with the murder charge Tallus had glazed over.

In seventy-eight, the woman had been arrested for witchcraft fortune telling—a criminal charge I didn’t know existed until I looked it up. In eighty-four, it was extortion of over five thousand dollars. She had manipulated victims into believing something bad would happen to them unless they paid her a remittance fee upfront for her to rid them of their curses . Rowena had spent eighteen months in prison for that offense.

Tallus had found the incident in eighty-six, when Rowena was going by her married name, Hilty, and the stage name Madame Fitz. She and her husband, William Hilty, were doing mobile sideshow performances across the province and latching onto county and city fairs when they could. A psychic and hypnotist duo. Neither were licensed—which the police believed was why they took their show on the road, hoping authorities wouldn’t catch up with them and throw them both in the slammer. It had happened anyway when two men from Scarborough ended up dead under suspicious circumstances following one of their performances.

Reading up on the incident, I was flabbergasted. It wasn’t that I hadn’t believed Tallus, but I was convinced he had embellished the story to earn my cooperation. He hadn’t.

An honest-to-god trial had taken place, accusing Rowena and William Hilty of mind-controlling the victims and causing their deaths. There had been an uproar in the community. Due to the nature of the charges, there had been plenty of news coverage. In the end, the judge threw the case out—because of course he fucking did—and the married couple went free. Although, both accused had been fined for practicing without licenses.

The sideshow never performed again so far as I could tell.

Things with Rowena went quiet for close to fifteen years after her near-murder trial. I couldn’t find any record of further arrests or newspaper articles about her in the community. She hadn’t gone to prison, but she was definitely lying low.

It wasn’t until 2002 that she resurfaced. Another ding showed up on her police file. Two dings, to be precise. Identity theft and internet fraud. The missing years started to make sense. The woman had continued her manipulative ways but under several fake and stolen names, and it had taken the police a while to catch up with her. Using stolen aliases, Rowena had taken advantage of the birth of the internet, using its anonymity to scam people left and right from behind a screen.

It was bound to fail, and the law caught up with her again. She spent another couple of years locked up in a woman’s detention center outside of Toronto.

In 2011, at the ripe old age of fifty-two, I found a record that Rowena Fitspatrick—she was back to using her maiden name—had earned a certificate in spiritual and energy healing. She had gone on to open a legitimate practice in Toronto, doing psychic readings and offering spiritual healing. From that point on, nothing noteworthy was added to the list of crimes. Rowena, for all intents and purposes, had gotten herself clean.

Curious about what had happened to her husband, Mr. Wannabe Hypnotist, I dug into his background. William Hilty’s record was dull in comparison to his ex-wife. Apart from the incident back in eighty-six, where he was arrested and put on trial for the murder of two college students via mind control, he was squeaky clean. After the failed trial, the worst thing on his record was the fine he’d earned for practicing without a license. Hilty divorced Rowena in eighty-nine and went to the University of Guelph, where he earned a legitimate degree in psychology and hypnotherapy.

Presently, Dr. William Hilty ran a practice in East York.

I found the man’s website and gave it a browse. In a roundabout way, the list of medical and psychological issues he claimed to cure was similar to the ones the psycho bitch had on her website: Anxiety, depression, chronic pain, smoking, insomnia, phobias, and so on.

The desk chair protested as I leaned back, absorbing the information I’d discovered. Was it interesting? Sure. Why not? Did I think Rowena was able to mind-control people into committing suicide? Fuck no. Was she a manipulative bitch who had spent a lifetime scamming people? Yes. Could Amber or Allan have been manipulated by this woman in some way? Could she have blackmailed or threatened them with bad juju if they didn’t comply with her demands?

Maybe. Some people were gullible to a fault, and this psychic weirdo would know exactly how to fish for the right victim.

So, in a broad sense, could Madame Rowena have been somehow responsible for making Allan and Amber paranoid and delusional enough to the point they lost their heads and took their own lives?

I considered for a long minute. Growling, I slammed the laptop closed. “No, goddammit. Fucking no. No, no, no, no.”

I scrubbed my face, knowing Tallus would get his nose out of joint if I called him and explained his theory was a bunch of convoluted bullshit. To top it off, the second he found out what kind of person Madame Rowena was, he’d be all up in my face, telling me I was wrong, using her criminal past as proof that she must have killed people. People escalate , he would tell me. Tallus’s investigative skills all came from prime-time TV. How can we know for sure if we don’t poke around more?

How was I going to approach this without making Tallus angry or getting sucked into further investigating some voodoo mind-control shit that wasn’t real? Tallus had a boner for snooping and sneaking around where he didn’t belong.

I would have to put my foot down.

I would have to be the bad guy.

He would hate me for it, and I might never get invited inside his apartment again when I showed up half in the bag after midnight looking for a fuck, but it was a risk I had to take. I couldn’t let Tallus lead me around by the balls anymore.

I didn’t investigate witchcraft.

I picked up my cell phone, found his number in my contacts, and stared at it a long time before putting it down again. First, I needed to figure out how to relay the information without getting tongue-tied. Tallus had a unique ability to turn me stupid.

Plus, if anyone was capable of mind-control manipulation, it was him. He had the power to talk me into almost anything, and I wouldn’t let it happen. Not this time.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and all of the next day stewing and pacing the office. On Sunday night, with a few beers in my system, I connected a call to Tallus.

He answered on the third ring.

“Well, well, well. He does know how to use a phone. I must say, I’m shocked. How long did it take? Wait. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You found answers about Madame Rowena right away. The second I left your office yesterday, you dove headfirst into looking her up even though you thought everything I shared was a convoluted load of crap.”

I growled under my breath. “I didn’t—”

“Come on, Guns. You did so. But, since we both know you’re halfway in love with me and don’t know how to tell me to fuck off, you looked into her anyhow. Maybe she intrigued you, but it’s okay, you don’t have to admit that part. I’m flattered you gave me the time of day even though I couldn’t pay you. Anyhow, I bet you found answers right away but didn’t want to contact me because it might have made you look too eager. No, no, wait. You didn’t contact me immediately because you were nervous and tongue-tied.” Tallus paused and hmm ed. “Maybe both. Was it both?”

I didn’t answer and ground my teeth instead.

“Doesn’t matter. Either way, you needed time to figure out how to relay the information you found. I bet your carpet got a workout, too. Did you pace? You totally paced. Did you sleep last night? I’m surprised you didn’t show up at my door. I half expected it. I bet it took a few drinks before you could pick up the phone. I’m close, aren’t I? Did you find anything? Was I right about her?”

Tallus’s musical laughter traveled through the phone when I growled.

“Poor cuddle bear. Am I making you uncomfortable? It’s intentional. I love making you squirm. One of these days—”

“Stop fucking talking. And I’m not halfway in love with you.”

“Wow. Got stuck way back there, huh? All the way in love? It’s kind of soon for that, don’t you think? We aren’t even dating. Hell, you’ve never once fucked me in a bed.”

“Tallus,” I barked.

More laughter. “It’s too easy. Okay, I’m shutting up. Your turn, D. Don’t leave me hanging.” But before I could speak, he added, “PS, spoiler alert. If you did ask me out on a date, I’d say yes.”

I choked and sputtered and forgot what I was about to say. The fucker did that on purpose. All my carefully constructed sentences flew out the window. When I managed to make words, they were the wrong ones.

Without couth or a filter, without careful editing, I sputtered the wrong string of information. Or rather, the perfect string of information to make Tallus’s investigative boner spring to life.

“She’s a fucking scam artist. Nothing more. She’s been in trouble with the cops since the seventies. Extortion, fraud, witchcraft, identity theft, you name it. The list is a mile long. She hasn’t murdered anyone through mind control because it’s not possible to mind-control people. The judge laughed it out of court. The worst thing your fuck buddy Memphis has to worry about is being scammed out of money. The end. Happy?”

“Holy shit,” Tallus breathed. “I can’t believe you still think I’m fucking Memphis?”

Covering my face with a palm, I cursed.

More chuckling. “I’m teasing, D. Are you for real? Witchcraft? Fraud? Extortion? This is huge.”

“Tallus—”

“The woman is an escalating criminal. That’s what they do.”

“She’s not an—”

“But she is. I’ve watched every episode of Criminal Minds . It’s Behavioral Psychology 101. How do you not know this?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Murderers start with small crimes. As those crimes become less satisfying, they move on to bigger things. Plus, it’s not like she hasn’t tried this before. She did. In the eighties with her husband. Yeah, yeah, the judge tossed it out, but the joke’s on him. She’s been perfecting her skills ever since, and now she’s figured out how to get away with it.”

“No.”

“There could be more victims we don’t know about.”

“There aren’t.”

“She could have been doing this for a long time.”

“She hasn’t.”

“It’s the perfect crime. My god, this woman is brilliant.”

“It isn’t. She’s not.”

“D, we need to look into this further. Where’s her husband? Is he dead? Did she kill him? Are they divorced? Maybe we could talk to him if we can find him.”

I counted backward from ten as Tallus kept talking a mile a minute, suggesting we try to contact Amber’s brother or Allan’s neighbor to get a better feel for what they had witnessed, suggesting we set up a meeting with a psychologist to learn how psychic manipulation worked because it was so real and hadn’t I heard about those cult leaders who managed to convince hundreds of people to commit mass suicide?

“It was mind control, D. How can you deny it? When can we meet? I work until five thirty all week. Tomorrow night? I can be at your office at six.” When I was about to tell him no, he added, “I had plans with Memphis, but I can postpone. What do you think?”

Fucking Memphis. He didn’t want to know what I thought. And since Tallus had managed to scramble my brain and electrify my blood, I stammered, “S-six?”

“Or six fifteen. Traffic pending.”

“Fine.”

“Awesome. You’re the best, D.”

We got off the phone, and I sat in confusion, unsure what exactly had happened and how I’d been talked into investigating a bullshit alleged mind-controlling psychic who Tallus thought was killing people.

“Motherfucker.”