He did not want any more surprises.
The heavily encrypted files on the Glazebrook family that had been given to him contained only sketchy information on Clare Lancaster. He reviewed it quickly.
Clare came from long lines of registered Society members on both sides of her family. There was an asterisk next to her Jones Scale number. It meant that, although she had been assigned a ten, her particular type of sensitivity was so rare that the researchers did not have enough examples to guarantee that the rating was accurate.
There was a similar asterisk next to the number ten on his para profile, too.
Clare had been raised by her mother, Gwen Lancaster, an accountant, and her great-aunt, May Flood, in the San Francisco Bay area. She had a degree in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He knew enough about the reputation of that branch of the UC system to be aware that she had probably emerged with not only a respectable education but a slightly offbeat view of the world, as well.
He paid attention to that small fact because here in Arizona, Glazebrooks were not inclined to be offbeat. They were pillars of the community, active in civic, business and charitable affairs.
He dug a little deeper into the files and found the item he was looking for. There was a small note to the effect that following graduation Clare had applied to work for the West Coast branch of Jones & Jones. Her application was rejected.
In the intervening years she had applied several more times. And been rejected several more times.
Following her failure to obtain a position at J&J, Clare had gone to work for a small nonprofit foundation. She stayed there three years before accepting a managerial position in the larger, more prestigious Draper Trust.
The Draper Trust was a private foundation that specialized in making grants to organizations that worked with battered women and homeless families, and in the fields of early childhood health and education. She had evidently been very successful at the trust. At least, that had been true until six months ago. That was when she was questioned in connection with the murder of Brad McAllister.
When she had returned home to San Francisco she was fired from her position at the Draper Trust. Her engagement to another executive at the trust, Greg Washburn, ended at the same time. She had spent the intervening months searching for a new position in the charitable foundation world without any luck. She had also sent another application to the West Coast branch of J&J.
Rejected again.
Jake did a quick search on Greg Washburn in the Arcane Society records. There were a few Washburns listed, but not the Gregory R. Washburn who had been Clare’s fiancé. She tried to fake it with a nonsensitive, he thought, just as he tried to do with Sylvia.
That gave them something in common. They both knew that very few members of the Arcane Society were interested in marrying a level-ten exotic of any kind, let alone a hunter or a human lie detector. They had each gone outside the community to find mates. The results had been spectacular failures for both of them.
He sat back in his chair and sipped the scotch, thinking.
After a while he pulled up the data on Brad McAllister’s murder.
There was a good deal of information available because McAllister’s death had been big news among the country club set in Stone Canyon. Most of the material was unhelpful, however, and superficial at best. The investigation had gone nowhere.
Clare had given a statement to the police but was never an official suspect. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out why she was cleared so quickly, he thought. She was, after all, Archer Glazebrook’s daughter. No one affiliated with the Stone Canyon Police Department would have been eager to press an investigation without solid evidence. It would have been a career-breaking move.
He sipped more scotch and thought about what Clare had told him. She had called Brad evil and claimed he was responsible for Elizabeth’s nervous breakdown. That was pretty heavy stuff. It was also the first hint of negative gossip he’d picked up concerning Elizabeth’s sainted husband. As far as the rest of Stone Canyon was concerned, Brad had been a damn near perfect husband.
But what if Archer Glazebrook had suspected that Elizabeth had been abused? Jake didn’t doubt for a moment that Archer was capable of gunning down a son-in-law if he thought said son-in-law had done something terrible to one of his children. Archer grew up on a ranch and spent time in the military. He knew guns.
The problem was that Archer, Myra and Elizabeth had all been seen at the Arts Academy reception that evening. There was no shortage of witnesses.
Then again, how hard would it be to slip away from a crowded reception long enough to kill someone who was only a couple miles away?
Jake pulled up the Bradley B. McAllister file. There wasn’t much of interest in it.
McAllister and his mother, Valerie, were both members of the Society, but neither had tested high on the Jones Scale. Valerie was a two and Brad a four. Both had been rated as possessing “generalized parasensitivity” with no special aspects.
As a four Brad had probably been a very good card player. The talent also explained his success as an investor. McAllister had been a very wealthy man.
The Arcane Society members were statistically more inclined to possess varying degrees of paranormal talents because of the group’s long history of encouraging marriage between psychically talented people. Like every other human trait, genetics played a role.
He went swiftly through the rest of the information Jones & Jones had on McAllister. Brad appeared for the first time in the local area a few months after his mother married Owen Shipley. Brad had no previous marriages, according to the file. He was well educated, had a flair for the financial world and had worked for a medium-sized brokerage house before going out on his own as a private investor. By the time he arrived in Stone Canyon, he had amassed a sizable fortune.
Didn’t mean he hadn’t married Elizabeth for her money, Jake reminded himself. Some people never had enough.
After a while he opened his cell phone and punched out a familiar number. Fallon Jones answered on the first ring.
“I hope this call is to tell me that you’ve finally made some progress in Stone Canyon,” Fallon said.
The low, dark voice suited the man, Jake thought. Fallon was a brooding loner. He was probably at his desk. Fallon was nearly always at his desk, hunched over his computer. He resembled some mad scientist. The analogy was apt. Fallon Jones could trace his lineage straight back to the founder of the Arcane Society, Sylvester Jones the alchemist.
Like most of the men in the founder’s long line, Fallon Jones was a strong sensitive. He was also uniquely qualified to head up a psychic investigation agency because his exotic paranormal abilities allowed him to discern patterns where others saw only randomness; conspiracy where others saw coincidence. He was invariably right.