Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective

Chapter 38

Zandra looks Steve over. There's an extra layer of shine to the grease cementing his hair to his scalp. Probably been up all night, paranoid Zandra would come back with the knife. For once, it pays off.

"I take it you already dialed the police when you saw the car drop me off," Zandra says.

"Didn't have to. They're at your apartment right now. Planning on meeting with me any minute now," Steve says and strokes the trigger with a finger.

"Mind if I come in?" Zandra says.

"Actually, I do. You stay put right there, girlie," Steve says. He emphasizes that last word. Tries to use it to sound intimidating. Never mind that Zandra is twice his age and three times as smart.

"Fine. But I have a question for you."

"Oh, yeah? What?"

The tip of the barrel shivers in Steve's tired hands only a few feet away. It's close enough that Zandra could reach out and swat it away while pushing Steve's scrawny body through the doorway.

Zandra unfolds the copy of the Stevens Point Journal from her pocket. Opens it wide so the pages shield her face from Steve's view.

"I noticed something in this article about me," Zandra says. She holds the paper to her face. "It says here there are security cameras in the parking lot. That's funny. Last night you told me there aren't any cameras on the property."

"Yeah, uh, I forgot to mention that to you," Steve says. "Hard to think with a knife at your throat."

Zandra listens to Steve shuffle his feet. Good. She cut his defenses open a bit. Now to stick a couple fingers in and dig around.

"I suppose so, but answer me this, Steve. What kind of picture does that paint of you to someone like me? There you are with your mountains of porn, which is fine enough for an average guy, but not if you're a landlord with full access to apartments lying to tenants about them being monitored by security cameras, guarding your lair with a shotgun. Do you get where I'm going?" Zandra says.

It's quite the leap of faith, even by Zandra's psychic standards, but it's an educated one. Steve isn't forthright with tenants about anything. A few even took him to court for violating some personal and legal boundaries. That's to say nothing of the uncomfortable meetings with tenants in his apartment with the TV paused on a hardcore scene.

It's all detailed in Zandra's files on Steve, now confiscated from her apartment. But the police couldn't take her memory.

"Oh, here's something else you might like in the article," Zandra says, shaking the newspaper tight. "It says here I kept a, 'bizarre collection of damning personal information on Stevens Point residents.' Imagine that, Steve. I wonder what that information contained."

Zandra stuffs the newspaper back into her pocket and takes a fresh look at Steve. His face mimics the panic of the rest of Stevens Point's guilty after reading that article.

"By all means, Steve, let's have the police swing by again. I can tell them which file to look in to learn more about you," Zandra says.

In reality, the file only hints at Steve filming tenants in private bathroom moments. There's no proof. But accusations raise questions, and questions demand answers. Steve doesn't look prepared for that level of scrutiny, even if he isn't guilty of anything.

"Or?" Steve says, aiming the shotgun at the sky instead of Zandra.

"Or I could come inside, you could shut the door and we'd pretend like no one is home. You could leave a note on your door telling the police you stepped out for groceries," Zandra says.