Body Swappers 24
Maya and Robert revise their end goal.
Maya and Robert had another meeting going over what they knew and trying to brainstorm their next steps. When they came up empty, Maya burst out, “We’re bad at this! Who are we kidding?”
Robert said mildly, “What do you expect of us? We aren’t detectives.”
Maya stilled, and under her breath, said, “That’s it.”
“What’s it?”
She turned to him. “We need to ask a detective for advice.”
A bit of a smirk pulled on Robert’s lips. “Know any who want to work with a defense attorney and a body swapper?”
“Crisis Management Agent,” Maya bit out. “And Jeff has police contacts. I’ll ask him to set something up.”
When Maya asked Jeff about it, he reminded her he had one police contact. His friend, Mason, agreed to have a meeting with Maya and Robert while he was off-duty.
“What can I help you with?” he asked.
“We’re trying to figure out who’s really behind this string of murders,” said Robert. “We don’t believe they’re unconnected, as science alone would have us believe.”
“Someone is possessing the people, and using their bodies to kill abusers,” Maya said. “But we don’t know what to do with what we’ve learned.”
Mason said, “As far as how to conduct an investigation, I don’t know. I really don’t know when you don’t have warrants. But also, I’m not a detective. I just do what I’m told. But now I’m curious.” He frowned. “What were you going to do, when you’ve figured out who is possessing them?”
Robert said, “We were hoping by the time we figured it out, the vote on Initiative 1511 would have passed, and we could turn over our evidence to the police.”
Mason leaned back, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. “Say it did pass. It wouldn’t take effect until the first of the new year. And even after that, I doubt many people are going to get arrested on suspicion of having used magic to commit crimes. You know most police officers don’t believe in magic, right? And prosecuting attorneys prefer proven methods for getting convictions.”
Maya felt like her stomach dropped out. “So it’s pointless?”
Mason tilted his head. “Not necessarily. What do you know so far?”
They told him, and he said, “If you do figure out who it is, and it can be shown that they drew the blood of everyone who’s been convicted or suspected of these odd murders during the past few years, that’s strong evidence of multiple counts of conspiracy to commit murder. There’s no way that connection would have happened by random chance, so whether the police, attorneys, judge, or jury believed in magic, it would be beside the point. It would be pretty clear this suspect was the mastermind behind all these murders, even if non-believers still thought the ones who carried them out did so willingly.”
Maya and Robert continued to check in with one another after that, but there was no immediate action to take. Their lack of lead wore on Maya. “I wish Gimble would just let me look in his head,” she grumbled more than once that week. When the initiative did pass, Robert sent Gimble a message, asking if he’d be willing to talk now.