Beyond Belief

Chapter 1 Maybe tonight was the night he'd learn to believe in magic. Not damned likely, Joe Bailey thought. Over the years, he'd received too many calls that promised something extraordinary but never actually delivered. Why would tonight be any different? He unbuttoned his overcoat as he climbed the polished granite front stairs of a mansion on Habersham Drive. He checked his watch: 1:40. The call had come only fifteen minutes earlier from Lieutenant Vince Powell, who headed the evening watch at the station. There had been a homicide. "I'm in bunco," Joe told him. "You're sure I'm the guy you want?" "I know who you are," Powell said. "You bust up all the phony seances, psychics, and witch-doctor scams." "Among other things, yeah." "Well, we got something right up your alley. It's scaring the shit out of the officers on the scene. You wanna take a look?" No, he didn't want to take a look, but he was here anyway. He strode through the open door. It was a cold February night in Atlanta. Mid-thirties, he guessed. He could still see his breath in the air as he walked through the foyer and looked for the uniformed officer who usually secured a crime scene. Probably upstairs getting the shit scared out of him. There were voices echoing down the stairway. Not the matter-of-fact grunts he'd heard at the few murder scenes he'd visited; the words were the same but uttered faster and louder. A totally different energy. But whatever it was waiting for him up there, he was sure it wasn't magic. He always tried to allow for any possibility, but in his six years on the bunco squad, he had yet to see the genuine article. He'd been a professional magician in his twenties and early thirties, so the smoke-and-mirrors stuff had quickly become his specialty. It was still only a small part of his job, but when the squad needed someone to pull apart spirit scams or sleight-of-hand cons, he was the man. He'd never been asked to investigate a murder. "Who the hell told you that you could be a real cop?" a voice drawled from the top of the stairs. Joe looked up to see Carla Fisk, a detective he had once worked with on a beauty-juice investigation. The perp had been selling bottles of tonic that supposedly made its female users flower into beautiful specimens of womanhood. Carla, who cheerfully admitted that her face looked like the "before" picture of almost every beauty ad ever printed, had worn a wire and purchased a few of the bottles. She was no glamour girl, but she was one of the most beautiful people Joe had ever known. He smiled. "It's past your bedtime, Carla. You're not working nights, are you?" "Nah, I was down the street at Manuel's Tavern. Everyone wanted a look at this one." "Why?" "You'll see. How's that little girl of yours?" "Furious. She wasn't happy about being woken up and shuttled to a neighbor's place so I could go check out a Buckhead murder scene." "She'll understand." "Maybe if I come back with Yo-Yo Ma tickets." "You gotta talk to your kid about the music she listens to. People are gonna think she has a brain." Carla grinned, flashing yellow teeth. Then she cocked her head down the hall. "You'd better get down there. They're waiting for you." He walked down the long hallway, feeling a sudden chill. Was it getting colder? No, it was probably just his imagination, fed by the nervous voices at the end of the hall. What was in that room? He stepped into the doorway and froze. He thought he was prepared for anything, but he was wrong. Suspended high on the far wall, a man was impaled by a large spiked sculpture. The sight was so odd, so out of the realm of belief, that JoJohansen, Roy is the author of 'Beyond Belief' with ISBN 9780553582284 and ISBN 0553582283.