Chapter 3

Deckard didn't recognize the cop driving him and Perry to Headquarters. The patrolman seemed to be the silent type and that was fine with Deckard. He listened in to whatever nonsense Perry murmured to Nix behind his back, but it was mostly flattery of the most exaggerated kind. She might be a cute, smart dog but she wasn't the most brilliant dog on the planet, or the prettiest. She seemed to be eating up the praise, though, and wagging her tail at Perry, which was one mark in his favor.

Perry wasn't letting any clues slip about himself in the babble, so Deckard phoned headquarters. "Hey, Manda, anything on the weirdo in the fox mask? The silver Mercedes?"

"Sorry, Deck," their com coordinator said. "Nothing so far. No silver Mercedes in the state with that partial plate, so either you remembered wrong or it's a stolen plate."

"Damn. Get them to check the cameras on my squad car all the way back to when I first parked outside the Hoffward, and also get an analysis of that residue on the door pillar that I sent photos of."

He frowned. Life had been a lot simpler that morning. Who was that creep in the mask? Why the bomb, assuming it was the same guy? One glitter guy was easier to believe than a glitter gang. Was he shooting at me or at Perry?

Deckard turned to stare at the back seat over his shoulder. His attention made Perry flush and look down. Why the hell does he look so guilty? Deckard hated mysteries. Scratch that, he hated unsolved mysteries, and he was going to solve this one.

Their driver let them off in front of Headquarters and drove away with a wave. Deckard clipped on Nix's leash, signaled her to heel, and moved in close to Perry's elbow. "Come on. Inside."

Perry put on the brakes. "Why? I've told you everything I know."

"I really doubt that."

"Well, I could tell you what I ate for breakfast and how long it takes to get a package from the mailroom to Justice Carpenter's door, but that's not useful to you." Perry still didn't meet Deckard's eyes.

"That delivery time might be, if the bomb was on a timer," Deckard pointed out. "And I want to know why you're looking guilty as hell."

A red flush crept up Perry's neck. "Maybe I want a lawyer?"

Deckard raised an eyebrow. Those weren't quite the magic words. "Do you?"

"I don't know," Perry wailed. "My mom's going to kill me."

Interesting that he's more worried about his mother than prison. Although Deckard had met a mother or two in his time he'd have taken a jail sentence to escape. "Look, Perry. Someone put a bomb in a package to try to kill a justice of the state supreme court. That's a very serious crime. We need to figure out who and why. If it wasn't you, then you're not in trouble."

"If it wasn't me?" Perry's eyes went wide. "I would never."

"I'm sure," Deckard said soothingly, if untruthfully. "But you have to admit, you could've built the bomb yourself and then called it in."

"I know nothing about explosives. And why would I mail it to the Hoffward when I work right there?"

"As an alibi?" Deckard suggested. Far more likely, if Perry was guilty, that he emptied a legitimate box and put the bomb in it, but he avoided mentioning scenarios to suspects. "I'm not saying you did anything, but the more we know, the better chance of finding the person who's really guilty."

"I guess." Perry looked up at the forbidding brick walls of Headquarters. "I don't want to go in there. It looks like a prison. Can we talk somewhere else? Please? I'll tell you anything you want."

Formally questioning a witness had rules and regulations. "It's just a building. I promise, no one will lock you in and you can leave whenever you ask to." Unless you incriminate yourself, of course.

Perry shook his head, looking stubborn.

"I can't force you to come with me, but it looks a lot better if you volunteer whatever you know."

"Over there." Perry waved at the city park across the road where a few people wandered the big green space. "How about that bench by the hedge? That looks private." Without pausing for an answer, he dashed across the road toward the park.

Deckard cursed under his breath and ran after Perry, Nix jogging at his side. He caught up to Perry at the bench. "Hey, you can't just run off."

"You said you couldn't make me go in there."

Deckard wanted to pull out his hair, but that would look unprofessional. He wasn't sure why Perry had him so flustered. "Come on, half an hour interview, easy questions. I swear, nothing in that building will kill you."

Perry dropped onto the seat, twisting his hands in his lap and staring down at the paved walkway.

"Fifteen minutes, tops." Deckard waited.

Perry crossed his ankles the other way and stared off into the middle distance.

Fuck it. Sometimes informants chose when and where they were comfortable talking. He'd call this one of those times. Deckard slipped Nix's leash over his wrist and told her, "Off duty," then sat on the other end of the bench and turned to face Perry. He got out his phone, setting it on the bench between them and toggled it to record. "All right, we'll go with here. Do I have your permission to record this session?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"State your name and address for the record."

Perry did so.

"Okay, Perry." Deckard debated the advantages of shock and awe versus lulling and sneaking up on a topic. He decided Perry was the kind of guy who might shut down with shock. Lulling it is. "Tell me about your day from the moment you stepped out your front door."

"Side door. I rent a room from Mrs. Goshima. I use the side exit."

"Same thing. Every step from when your foot hit the pavement."

"Well…" Perry went through his morning. In detail, which was fine, because the guy was obviously lulled by the ordinariness. "…and then I went out to Coffee House and brought my boss his blond vanilla latte like he always wants, and I got a chocolate-cream cold brew because who needs hot coffee in the summer, although the mailroom's kind of cold when the AC's cranked…"

Deckard nodded along, asking a few questions, like whether anyone unusual came to the mailroom that morning and whether the boss seemed his normal self. When they reached the package delivery, he slowed Perry down and went through step by step, but Perry was adamant there was nothing out of the ordinary. Until he heard the package ticking. Perry didn't quite meet Deckard's eyes when he said it.

Sure you did.

Deckard pretended to let the statement go, noting how Perry slumped in relief and continued the narrative to where Deckard and Nix arrived.

"And the rest you know," Perry said. "Because you were there."

"Tell me anyway. From your perspective."

"Really?"

"Of course. You may have seen things I didn't. The guy in the mask, for example. I want your observations."

Perry said he'd waited in the alley while the squad disarmed the bomb. "I know you said coffee shop but it felt safer being outdoors."

Probably wasn't, if bits of the Hoffward Building began raining down. Deckard didn't point that out.

"I didn't notice that silver car," Perry said. "At least, not to pay attention to. I was checking out Nix."

She looked up from where she was sniffing around the base of the bench and cocked her ears. Deckard told her, "It's okay, you're off." She shook her head, long ears flapping, and went back to identifying whatever kinds of grot the people using this bench had dropped.

He only realized he was smiling as he watched her snuffle when Perry said, "Wow, you're a lot less scary when you aren't frowning."

Deckard pulled his cop face back on. "Right. Now, what did you see from the moment you noticed me approaching the cruiser?"

It turned out Perry had even fewer recollections of the guy in the mask than Deckard did. He'd heard the "popping sound" but Deckard had "knocked him over" and he'd barely seen the back of the driver accelerating away.

Deckard intensified his stare. "And then you got in my cruiser as I started to pursue him. Why?"

Perry scuffled his feet on the gravel. "I was mad, okay? Someone tried to blow up my work. And then that guy was making fun of us, wearing that mask. I wanted to help you stop him."

"That's not your job."

"No." Perry's face fell. "I guess not."

"You could've been badly hurt in that crash, or shot if we caught up to a man who builds bombs, assuming it was even the same guy. That's no place for a civilian."

Perry swallowed and said nothing.

"And if he could tamper with traffic signals, who knows what else he might do?" Deckard watched Perry closely as he uttered the words, because he had a suspicion Perry knew more about that odd green light than he was letting on.

Sure enough, Perry got a shifty look and muttered, "Right. Who knows?"

Time for the shock and awe. Deckard barked, "Right. Tell me about the signal light. Now!"

"I didn't mean to!" Perry clapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide.

Ah-hah. "Didn't mean to what?"

"You told me to get the light."

"I mentioned my lights. The flashers? The ones that would make the signal change for us? The right way."

"Oh."

"What did you do, Peregrine?" Deckard fixed a hard glare on Perry's nervous chocolate-brown eyes behind those nerdy glasses. He shouldn't be getting a kick out of how Perry fidgeted. He definitely shouldn't be liking the color rising in his cheeks, or the way he bit his lip. "Well?"

Perry pressed his lips tight and pointed at Deckard's phone. "I don't want you to record me."

"This isn't about what you want. This is a criminal investigation."

Shaking his head, Perry recovered enough to raise his voice. "I won't say!"

You will if I tell you to. But Deckard really didn't think Perry was some criminal mastermind. He tapped his phone. "There. Recording paused. Now tell me."

"I… um… I have a superpower."

"You have what?" Despite Perry's Clark Kent look, that was the last thing Deckard had expected. "You work in a mailroom. What kind of power?"

"A stupid one, okay?" Perry put a hand over his face and mumbled something about colors.

"Say that again."

"I can change colors. Like, not me personally. Things I look at. I can switch them."

Realization dawned. "Such as the light."

"Yeah. That."

Deckard stared at him. "What did you do?"

"Well, you needed the light to stay green, right? So I…" Perry held up a hand in front of himself, palm out, thumb extended. Deckard realized he'd seen that gesture before.

Lowering his arm, Perry framed a white rock on the edge of the path between his thumb and fingers. A second later, the rock turned green. Traffic-light green, although not glowing.

"Ah. Well." Deckard told himself to play it cool. Sure, he knew there were plenty of people with powers out there, everyone did, but he'd never met a superhero in person. And I'm not sure I have now. "Colors, huh?" He stared at the rock. "What do you use that for? How long will it stay green? It's not permanent, right?" The light had been red on the next cycle.

"How long depends on how hard I pushed it." Perry eyed the green rock. "Longest I've done is a month at a time. That was these puke-green curtains my color-deluded mom got for my room. Seriously ugly. Like, that was how I found out I had a power to begin with. I wanted so bad not to stare at baby-puke all day and night, I tried to will them a different color and it worked."

"How old were you?"

"Fourteen. The effect lasted a few minutes at first, a pretty forest green. Then I did it again and it lasted till next day. I got to where they just needed touchups once a month, till I moved out." He sighed. "They're probably puke-color again now."

"What else can you do with that power?" Deckard tried to come up with a use and failed. "Obviously changing a traffic light is a bad idea."

"I know." Perry rubbed his face. "I forgot about the other direction. I could've gotten Nix killed."

And yourself. And me. "Good thing the Lexus was still accelerating and I'd slowed. But yeah, super-risky move."

"Totally bozo-assed move. But that's me. I tend to jump in without thinking."

"Like climbing into my patrol car in the first place."

"Yeah."

Deckard eyed him. "The light went back to red the next cycle."

"I fixed it. I can change things back." Perry framed the rock with his hand again. An instant later its powder-white color returned.

"Hm." Deckard went over and picked up the stone. The rough surface felt cool and hard and totally normal. He set the rock on the bench near Perry. "Can you do other colors than green?"

"Sure." Perry held out his hand. The rock flashed through a series of rainbow shades and then back to white.

"The bench underneath the rock didn't change."

"No, just the thing I'm working on. And just the outer layer. So, like, if I turn the icing on a cake blue, the inside will still be white or chocolate or whatever."

Deckard wasn't sure he wanted to eat something magically color-changed. "So, cake decorating. What else is your power good for?"

"Not much?" Perry shrugged. "In school, there was this bully, the goalie for the hockey team, like, totally gross with all the anti-gay shit. I turned the back of his favorite sweatshirt Barbie pink for a whole day. Took him a while to figure out why people were snickering when he walked by. Next day, I turned the next one he wore lavender. I wanted to do rainbow, but my power only likes solid colors."

"Anything else?"

Perry glanced away. "I might've changed the color of the hockey puck to white one time in the middle of a game so he lost sight of it at the last minute and let in a goal. Okay, maybe a couple of goals. Like, six times. Or actually, eight. It was just a high school preseason game. No one was filming."

"Or betting?" Deckard raised an eyebrow.

"I hope not."

Deckard wasn't sure what kind of cheating that'd be called, but it wasn't exactly honest. "I hope you don't make a habit of that."

"No, I swear. And we were going to lose that game anyhow. Our team sucked."

"Any legitimate uses?"

"I thought about working for an interior decorator. Like, I could turn whole walls different colors so the homeowner could decide what looked best. Or couches. But that seemed like it'd be really, really boring."

"And the mailroom isn't boring?"

"It's not permanent. Plus, if I did the design thing, people would know about my power."

"They don't? I thought you used it in high school."

"Yeah, but no one knew who the sweater-pinker was. I was anonymous."

"Ah. Got it." Deckard figured they had the traffic light covered. Which left another mystery. "Tell me about the bomb now. I know for a fact it wasn't ticking." Clammie had microphones on her insides. They'd have heard it.

Perry twisted the hem of his shirt around his fingers, staring down as he played with the fabric. "Sometimes I turn the boxes or wrapping different colors. Just for fun, like, practice. That one felt wrong."

"Felt wrong?"

"Yeah." He hunched. "Like, it wanted to be an ugly color. Violent."

"Peregrine." Deckard crouched in front of the bench to catch Perry's gaze. "Felt so wrong you knew it was a bomb?"

"I guess."

"How?"

"I just knew, okay? Like, a feeling. A suspicion."

"Strong enough to call 9-1-1."

"Maybe I'd rather be wrong about calling the cops than ignore a bomb?" The rise of his voice made it a question. "If you see something, say something, right?"

"That's the slogan." Perry still wasn't meeting Deckard's eyes. He pressed harder. "What was it you felt? An aura? You detect explosives? Wires? Some kind of other power?"

Perry pushed to his feet. "I can't explain it. Just a feeling. You should be glad I did!"

Deckard stood too, liking the fact that he was several inches taller, and growled, "Tell me straight, how did you know?"

"I can't tell you straight," Perry deflected, flushing, "because I'm queer as a drag show."

If he thought that might make Deckard back off, he was sadly mistaken. "So am I." Deckard grinned as Perry's mouth dropped open. "Bisexual." He didn't want to know why he'd handed a suspect that personal tidbit, just pushed on. "Your orientation and mine have nothing to do with this case, unless Campbell is a homophobe?"

"I don't know anything about him. I've only met Justice Campbell a few times. I bring a package up to his door. If he's inside, he takes it, says thank you. No sneering. Tips me five bucks."

"Pretty cheap."

"Lots of the residents don't tip anything. It's my job. Anyhow, I have no idea why anyone would want to kill him. It must be related to his job, right? Not the building."

"We have absolutely no information yet. Hell, the device could've been set to go off in the mailroom and kill you. Does anyone want you dead?"

"What? No!" Perry went pale. "At least, I don't think so. Oh, man, do you think that's possible?"

He looked so ill, Deckard had to pat his shoulder. "Possible, but very unlikely. Unless you have an evil ex or something? Someone obsessed with glitter?"

"No evil exes. No real exes at all. I've gone out with guys, but nothing serious, you know?"

Oh yeah, I know. Deckard hadn't managed more than a week with the same guy or woman before being ditched for being boring and obsessed with his job. "Okay. Make sure you tell me if anyone springs to mind."

Perry nodded a few times, then shook his head. "Glitter? Like on the car?"

"Yeah. Who knows what Fox-face was after, but it's a stretch to believe that weird shot was a coincidence and not related to the bomb." The glitter in the bomb was a secret, but that glue shot had been very public.

"Why a fox?" Perry tilted his head as if thinking, a cute expression of concentration furrowing his smooth forehead?—

Not cute. Not even slightly cute. Deckard gave himself a mental smack. "Exactly. Why glitter, why a fox?"

"I don't remember a superhero or villain who's a fox. Or related to foxes. Although there might be one. I'm sure there's lots I don't know, but I do pay attention to the superfolk who make the news."

"Because those are your people?" Deckard really needed to remember that.

"No!" Perry stared at him. "Because I don't ever want to be found out, remember? Ever!"