My paws pounded against the treadmill, my legs aching for a break. I wasn't done. I was far from done. Adrenaline pumped through my muscles and I started to pant heavily. The door to the warehouse opened and my boyfriend, Pete, appeared, sweat pouring from his face.
"You're dripping on my floor." Artie snapped. Pete's watch began to beep.
"Well, oh." Pete said. "Come on, Lilypad. Excuse us, we have a date with a forward pass." Pete walked over to the treadmill and stopped it and I hopped up. "Where's Myka?"
"She's outside on her phone."
"Oh, jeez." Pete opened the warehouse door and I raced down the white tunnel to the outside world with Pete at my heels. I balanced myself on my hind paws and pushed the door open. Sunlight blinded me but I could still make Myka out, standing by the pillar on her phone. A whistling noise from the sky and I looked up and saw a football coming down, aiming straight at Myka. "Heads up!" Myka turned and looked at us.
"What?" She questioned us. I raced forward and pushed off the ground with my hind legs, launching myself into the air and snatching the football out of the air in my mouth. I fell back down to the ground, crashing into Myka while I was at it. I scrambled to my paws and I dropped the football at Pete's feet and he bent down to pick it up.
"Hey, you all right?"
"What is it with men and their balls?" I phased and laughed.
"Yeah."
"Where's my phone?"
"What?"
"Where is my phone?"
"It's at your feet." Artie said behind us.
"Oh. Oh!" She bent down to pick it up.
"Hey!" We all turned to look at Artie. A third bank was robbed on Friday in Chicago."
"So what's going on?" I asked.
"Something strange. I don't know how the robbers are doing it, so you three are going to Chicago to find out."
"Chi-town." Pete murmured.
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I leaned against a table in the bank as Myka paced around impatiently, waiting for the bank to give us the security tapes.
"Hey, does Artie seem a little, I don't know, crankier than usual?" Pete asked us. Myka ignored the questioned and turned to face Pete.
"How long does it take to find a security tape?" A loud banging sound sounded on the other side of the bank and echoed to us. Myka jumped and turned to see that someone just dropped their book.
"Jumpy much?" I asked. Myka sighed and rubbed her forehead. Pete turned and face the doors.
"Ok, I don't think we're getting the tape." Pete observed. Myka and I pivoted ourselves to the doors and saw a woman with high heels, a short tight skirt and a blue blouse walk into the bank with three security agents behind her. She made her way over to us.
"Bella Belly, Chicago FBI."
"I'm Agent-" Myka extended her hand to Bella and began to speak but Bella cut her off and ignored her hand gesture.
"Bering, Fang and Lattimer. What do you guys want with my robberies?"
"Hi, guys." Pete waved at the agents behind Bella. "Nice ties."
"Um." I tried to speak but I was too distracted on what Pete was doing with his hand gestures to the agents. I cleared my throat and turned my attention back to Bella. "We would like access to any evidence, witnesses, or leads you might have."
"Now that I'm in your face, you ask nicely." Bella sneered. I glared at her.
"Now that you're in my face, I can definetly tell."
"Tell what?"
"I don't like you."
"Ok." Myka jumped into the conversation.
"I made a call." Bella continued. "A bad shootout in Denver gets you shipped to DC, where, together, you almost lose the president. Then you get exiled off the reservation into my town, humping my leg."
"Nice leg." Pete muttered.
"Agent Lattimer!" I snapped at him. I had forced myself to get into the habit of calling Pete Agent Lattimer in the field even if we were in a relationship.
"Look we're here to help." Myka said.
"I don't want it." Bella retorted. "You three have a reputation for leaving disaster in your wake. Your own agency doesn't even know why you're here. Stay away from my investigation. Enjoy Chicago. Try the pizza." Bella walked off to talk to a bank teller and Pete's eyes followed her.
"I'm in love." He said. I stared wide eyed at him and he quickly looked down at me. "With you of course, Lilypad." I groaned and shook my head.
"Kiss ass." I muttered.
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I stood next to Myka, arms crossed over my chest, looking at the computer screens in front of her.
"I'm rankled, ok?" Artie said through the farnsworth. I looked at Myka curiously at the word rankle and gave her the Is that even a word look. She nodded her head. "I'm officially rankled. You had to go and call Dickinson to get access?"
"Just don't take it personally." Myka said, going through security footage.
"It's entirely professional. I'm just saying that you could have come to me and I could have got you whatever information that you need."
"We needed access, Artie, not information." I insisted.
"Let me be clear. I'm your boss now, ok? You hit a roadblock, you call me. I remove it. Not Daniel Dickinson, me. All you old contacts are off limits, no exceptions. Warehouse security demands it. Understood?"
"Yes." Myka answerd. "Can I have your attention now?"
"Show it to me." I began to type on the keyboard sending the footage to Artie. "Show it to me." I pulled up the file and jumped to the point where men walked into the bank and one of them stood in the center and opened up his trent coat. "Yeah, ok, freeze." Myka hit pause. "What is inside that one's coat?" I looked closed at it. Three circles on each side of the jacket.
"I don't know. A bomb or something?"
"Do any of these tapes have sound?
"No, no, they're all silent."
"Why?"
"It's per a ferderal wiretap law, lest we overhear an account number not party to investigate." I explained.
"Alright. None of these witnesses recall any orders or demands from these robbers?"
"No, they don't recall anything. It's kind of like they have short term memory loss or something."
"Oh, well, you know, lights can do that. Yeah, they can. You know, like a strobe can do that. In some kind of flashing way."
"But nothing's flashing, Artie." Myka protested as she pushed play on the video to finish watching it.
"No, no, no. I'm talking about something at the edge of the visual spectrum. Something, you know, between the video's interlaced frames. You know, um, I had a case once where pollen from a prehistoric plant turned a woman into a sexually rapacious sleepwalker. And she was unaware that she was doing that until she, you-"
"Be quiet."
"What?"
"Artie, there's a man on his cell phone during this entire robbery." I looked closer to see a man holding his open cell phone.
"How did you see that?" I muttered.
"Do you see that?"
"Oh, really?" Artie asked. "Well. Well, that's good. Somebody overheard what was happening there, right?"
"An earwitness. Artie, I need the other side of that phone call.
"Just get me phone guy's name." I picked up a stack of folders to the left of me and flipped through them till I found a match. "Lance LeBlanc." Artie hung up and I sighed. "Well, good day to you, too, Boss."
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We met up with Pete at the FBI conference room and sat down as Myka began to explain to Pete what we found.
"So the guy on the phone was leaving a message on his wife's cell phone." Myka said.
"And Artie got his hands on it." Pete stated.
"Don't ask me how, I don't know."
"Nice catch."
"Thank you." The door to the room opened and Bella came in with a woman behind her.
"Camille, these are Agents Bering, Lattimer and Fang. Camille was one of the tellers."
"I already told you everything." Camille said to Bella. "I don't remember anything else. I can't remember anything."
"It's ok. Just tell them what you told me. It's ok."
"Yeah, yeah." Pete reassured Camille. "Please, sit down." Camille sat down across from Pete and me while Bella stood behind her. "We just have a couple of questions."
"Camille, when the suspects robbed the bank, they played a sound. Do you remember hearing anything?" Myka asked.
"No, nothing." Camille answered.
"Ok, we have a copy of a recording of a cell phone call that occured during the robbery and we're going to play it for you. So you just tell us what you think, whatever you can." I said and Myka pulled out a recorder and played it. Camille listened to it.
"Hey, Kelly." A man said. "I made the deposit. So if you want-oh god. Oh god, they're robbing the-" The sound cuts off and Camille's pupils dilated and she began to cry. Myka, Pete and I exchanged look as Bella moved around the table to see Camille crying.
"I think you should turn it off." Bella said and Myka did so. Camille's eyes reduced back to normal size and she sniffled and look at Myka.
"Hi." Myka greeted her.
"Hi." Camille said back. "Are you, uh, you gonna play something?"
"Camille?" Pete called to her and she turned to look at him. "Hi. What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"You feel ok?" Bella asked.
"I feel loved. I feel loved."
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"So, she had a strong emotional reaction to the sounds on the tape?" Artie questioned us.
"Yeah, but we weren't affected." Pete answered.
"See, what I'm thinking is that this is a limbic trigger. Yeah, the sound rings a bell in the primal, the lizard, part of the brain that connects to pleasure center, see?"
"Yeah, but we heard it too, and my limbic's not triggered. It's not even twitching, so-"
"Well, I would guess you'd have to hear it through the robber's equipment."
"Well, the bank teller heard it here."
"Yeah." Myka and I agreed.
"She heard it there for the second time, so cleary there is a sense memory component."
"Ok, so what are we looking for, Artie?" I asked. "Are we looking for souped-up speakers or Thomas Edison's wax cylinder?" Pete laughed and I looked up from the Farnworth at him with concern.
"Thomas Edison's what?" Pete chuckled the question.
"Ignore him." Artie ordered. "Ok, I'm scrubbing the sound for the melody. All composers leave a DNA, a chromatic DNA, inside their compositions, inside their music. That's why the Beatles sound like the Beatles, that's why Copeland sounds like Copeland."
"And this sounds like my dad's favorite song." Pete muttered.
"Whatever. What I'm doing here is I'm taking sounds and I'm putting them through a tonal deconstruction algorithm." Artie finished his sentece very slowly before looking at Pete through the Farnsworth. "Pete, what did you say?"
"What? No, I just-I said that sounded like my dad's favorite song, um, Center of My Soul by the Bricktones, 1960-something. My dad was just nuts for those guys."
"Eric Marsden."
"Yeah, yeah, that's him. He also wrote, uh-"
"Angel's kiss, A night in my arms."
"Ok, are you saying that this is one of Marsden's songs?" Myka asked Artie.
"The bank robbery remix?" Pete joked and Myka and I laughed.
"Uh, give me a second." Artie said. "Give me one-"
"You know, I never heard of Eric Marsden." Myka said.
"Well, that's because you were too busy dusting off Shakespeare at your Dad's bookstore." Pete said. "When I was eight, my dad took me to the Blue Note in New York to see Marsden. He was into Jazz then. Experimental stuff."
"This is his music." Artie said.
"Are you sure?" I questioned him.
"With a 98.7 probability. I think this is a completely new score. Or, it's a very old composition that's never been released until now. You're looking for an original recording of this song. You can start with Marsden."
"Well, where do we find him?" Myka asked.
"How about twelve miles south of the robberies? This guy's in Chicago."
"What? Is he playing somewhere?" Pete inquired.
"Uh, he lives there. 432 Argyle Street. His music, local crime scenes. I'd say this guy just hit the top of your suspect charts, so go, go, go." Pete closed the farnsworth and we stood up to put our jackets on.
"Four hours to rush hour."
"You're driving." I said.
"Bingo."
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Pete drapped his jacket over me as I shivered from the cold when we walked up the icy driveway to Eric Marsden's house.
"Looks like someone fallen on hard times, huh?" Pete muttered, looking to the pile of junk to the side of the house.
"Hard enough to rob banks?" Myka asked. She went up to the side door and before she could even knock, a woman opened the door and held up her hand to stop Myka from speaking.
"Just hold it right there." The woman said. "Whatever it is you're selling, I am not inerested." Myka pulled out her badge and held it up for the woman to see.
"We're with the government. We'd like to speak with Eric Marsden, please."
"What for?"
"Suspicion of bank robbery." The woman laughed at that statment.
"You've got to be kidding me." When we didn't answer, she stepped to the side and allowed us in before leading us to the den of the house where and an old man sat in a chair and stared out into space. "When my voice went, I needed something to do. I backed him up on over fifty records, so I guess this ain't much different. I've been his caretaker going on five years now."
"Does he have any family?" Pete asked.
"Ex-wife. She got remarried. She started a new family a long time ago."
"What about children?" Myka inquired.
"One kid. Haven't talked in years."
"So will he talk to us?" I questioned the woman.
"Well, he's bipolar, uh, clinically depressed and semi-catatonic. Last month he was diagnosed with liver cancer, but hey, go for it."
"How long does he have?" Pete asked.
"Maybe a year." The woman turned and pointed at me. "You ask the questions. Not you," She pointed to Pete. "As your timbre will bug him. And not you," She glared at Myka. "For he doesn't do too well with authority figures. And cellphones off. No ringing. And sure as hell no vibrating or he's gonna start screaming. So get to it, it's almost lunch." We sighed and slowly made our way to Eric in the den.
"Mr. Marsden?" I called out to him softly as I walked to the front of him. "My name is Lily. These are my, uh, friends, Pete and Myka. We'd like to ask you a few questions. We're looking into some trouble that we think might be connected with something you wrote. A song, possibly." Eric continued to stare out into space, not making any notion to acknowledge me. "Sir?"
"You have a beautiful voice." Eric finally said in a soft, raspy voice. "Could you sing something?" I exchanged glances with Pete and Myka before crouching down in front of Eric and clearing my throat.
"Cover my eyes, cover my ears." I crooned softly. "Tell me these words are a lie. It can't be true that I'm losing you. The sun can not fall from the sky. Can you hear a heaven's cry? The tears of an angel. The tears of an angel. Tears of an angel. Tears of an angel."
"Beautiful voice."
"Eric, is there something you wrote that affects people? Makes them happy? I mean-I'm not explaining this very well. Um." Pete played a note on the piano in the corner and then another note, letting the harmony ring through the crisp air and settle on our ears before continuing to the next note. I soon realized that it was the recorded melody that he was playing. I looked at Eric and saw light fill his eyes as he looked around the room but they quickly went dull again when Pete stopped playing.
"Did you see it?"
"See what?"
"Everything."
"Did you write that piece of music, Eric?"
"I want my grilled cheese now." The woman came back into the room and guided Eric to the kitchen where he sat down at the table and began to eat his sandwhich. She met us back out in the hallway and began to give us more details about Eric.
"Eric went from pop to jazz to experimental to just plain weird." The woman said. "And then he lived in the studio, writing and mixing and playing. Thousands of hours of music. He said he was looking for the key."
"The key to what?" Pete asked.
"I don't know. The human heart, peace, something."
"So where's his music now?" Myka questioned her.
"Stolen. Ask me, that's what broke him."
"Stolen how?" I inquired.
"Ever heard of Jeff Canning?"
"Windy Lake Records?" Pete asked.
"That's him."
"So what happened?" Myka challenged.
"What always happens when an artist meets a con man. One of them gets rich and the other one loses an ear. Eric didn't care about the money. Canning stole his music rights in a terrible deal. Eric was never the same after that. And now Canning is sitting on everything. So if you're looking for a criminal, talk to Mr. Canning. That it?" We all nodded our heads. "And thanks for playing the piano. He hasn't touched it in years but I always keep it tuned. It's good to hear it again."
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"So it looks like the boss man fell of the rich and powerful list." Pete said as we sat in the Windy Lake Records' waiting area for Jeff Canning. "The offices near the elevator are empty."
"The magazines are three months old." Myka observed.
"Well, money is tight all over."
"Except the banks in Chicago are just giving it away right?"
"Any idea on which one might be next?"
"I'm working on it, but if there's a link, I'm not seeing it yet." An old man came strutting around an office and stormed to us and we stood up to greet him.
"Hi, I'm Jeff Canning." The man said.
"Agent Pete Lattimer." Pete introduced himself.
"Agent Bering." Myka said.
"Shifter Agent Lily Fang." I said and Jeff shook hands with all of us.
"And what can I do for the government today?" Jeff demanded.
"Well, I have a few questions about an artist you represent." Myka said. Jeff turned and lead us to the back of the building and opened a door that had tons of boxes built on top of each other on both sides of us.
"I made a lot of deals over the and sold libaries. But ultimately my job is to get the music out there."
"What about Eric Marsden's music?"
"He isn't selling these days. Kind of fallen out of fashion. But I do have an offer on the table to buy his stuff. Of course, if you want to better it, it's yours."
"Who wants it?"
"Ah, anonymous buyer. I suspect it's a collector in Japan. They love the bubble gum." He lead us to the far right corner of the room and waved his hands to the boxes that surrounded us. "This is Eric. All his hits, his misfires, work-for-hire stuff."
"What's this?" Pete asked, pointing to a box with a brown label on it.
"Experimental self-indulgence that will probably never see the light of day."
"Why is that?" Myka requested.
"It costs more to market than you could ever get in return. For this, I blame Jed Fissel."
"Jed Fissel?"
"Eric's engineer. He bought into Eric's search for a new sound that people needed to be hear. New age crap. I spent way too much of money looking for it and most of it sounds like bricks in a blender."
"Where's Fissel now?" Pete directed.
"Last I heard, he was driving a cab downtown. But that was years ago. Look, what's this all about."
"Well, somebody's robbing banks in Chicago and we think that something that Marsden wrote might be involved."
"Anyone can find his stuff in flea markets to resale shops, peer-to-peer networks."
"No, it's something unreleased." I said. "Something the public has never heard until now."
"Not possible. Everything is right here, and I've got the only key."
"Mr. Canning, your lunch date's here and I've forwarded the phones." A girl said behind us and we turned to she a young woman with red hair standing at the end of the isle.
"Thank you, Stephanie. You can take off." The girl nodded and turned to walk out.
"Half days?" I examined.
It's no secret the industry's going through a few changes. Save a penny, earn a penny."
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We sat in a cafe on the corner of main street. Myka sat across from me which I sat next to Pete who was making little scenerios out of the FBI's notes.
"Been off the grid for six months." Myka said as she researched Jed Fessler's file online.
"Dead?" Pete muttered as he drew a stick figure in put it inside the bank scenerio.
"Unknown. There's a pattern. We're missing something that we're not seeing." Pete sighed as he dropped his scissors.
"Fridays, rush hour."
"No, besides that. Why these bacnks, these branches? And they're all over the city." Pete's phone rang and he picked it up to check the caller ID.
"Ooh. FBI." I squinted at him dangerously and he shrunk away from me in fear as he answered the phone. "Lattimer...Oh, if I had a nickel...Based on what?...Except maybe cab drivers."
"Ask her about Jed Fissel." I whispered to him.
"Jed Fissel." Myka repeated me. Pete dropped his down and pressed it to his chest as he spoke to us so Bella wouldn't hear us.
"The FBI is staking out the Midwesterner on Grand, ok?" Pete said. "Belly has a vibe."
"Do you?" I needled him. Pete thought about it for a second.
"No."
"Then I say they're wrong. We're on this."
"Well, but if it goes down and we're not there?" We looked to Myka for an answer as Pete gave her the puppy face.
"Fine, go." Myka sighed and Pete and I got up and raced out the cafe to head to the bank.
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I sat outside the SUV next to the curb, staring at the bank across the street. Bella and Pete were in the car talking. I was too focused on the task at hand to pay attention to what they were talking about.
"Lily!" I looked over my shoulder to see Pete's head out the window calling to me. "We got to get to Pearl! Myka's heading over there now!" I was on my paws in seconds and racing down the sidewalk, slithering through the crowd of people. I jumped onto a parked car making the alarm go off before jumping into traffic and rushing into an alley next to the bank to see Myka handcuffing a guy in a black mask. Bella and Pete pulled in behind me.
"What happened?" Bella asked, getting out of the car.
"Marble and stone and big, high ceilings." Myka said, ignoring Bella and talking straight to Pete and me. "That's what the music needs to work. Wanna ask the recording engineer? Jed Fissel, meet the FBI." Myka pulled off the black mask and revealed the face of the middle aged man. "If you ask nicely, he might give you the other two."
"Lock it up. I need video. I need tech out here right now."
"It's a gray van. No windows, no plates and the right rear tire is walled." Bella nodded and walked away to her car as a FBI agent escorted Jed to the car. Myka waited until everyone was out of earshot to talk to us. "They're using a record player. Lika a, a close n'play."
"Ok, so there's a record." Pete stated.
"Possibly in a, in a silver case. I got hit with it. There's three susptects, including Fissel. One was a woman."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I felt her."
"Did you touch her boobies?" Myka punched him in the shoulder and I nipped at his ankles and we turned to walk away. "Ow."
"Yeah, like that hurt."
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We walked through the FBI building towards the elevator with Bella, two guards and Jed in front of us and two more guards picking up the rear.
"Hey, look, uh, I screwed up, ok?" Pete said to Myka. "I'm sorry you got hit."
"Don't worry about it." Myka assured him. "Let's just get Fissel talking, find this record, and go home, all right?" Pete stopped and turned to look behind him. I halted and looked at him with concern as the others kept walking. He looked back in my direction with worry in his eyes. Uh-oh. He just got a vibe.
"Myka?" Myka stopped and turned to him.
"Yeah?"
"Do you still have those earplugs?"
"Yeah."
"Get 'em in." The elevator bell rang and we turned to see the doors open and three black figures stepped out. One of them held their jacket open for the speaks on their flaps and another played the record. The music traveled through the air and it came in waves as it filled my ears with sweet bliss. The notes banged around in my head causing me to close my eyes and letting my body go into the control of the melody. I let the melody take control over me. I had never felt so relaxed. So peaceful, so happy, so loved. I was so happy, I felt like I wanted to cry. And I almost did cry when the music stopped and I opened my eyes just in time to see the three figures dissappear back into the elevator with Jed.
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After Pete and I came out of our drunken state of being loved and happy from the melody, Pete figured out that it ws Canning's assitant and Myka put together that they were back at Eric's house. We headed to his house and once we got there, I shifted and took the lead through the front door. Myka and Pete were behind, guns in hands. The caretaker for Eric came around the corner and gasped when she saw us. Myka and Pete cocked their guns and I braced myself in attack mode as the woman held up her hands in surrender.
"Where's Jed and Stephanie?" Myka whispered to the woman.
"It was never about the money." The woman said.
"Where's the record?" Pete pressed on. A piano began to play in the den and we looked in the direction of the sound before looking back at the woman. Myka and I slowly made our way to the den as Pete kept his gun on the woman. We entered the den to see Jed playing the piano and Stephanie was sitting next to Eric by the roaring fire. Beside the piano was the whole collection of Eric Marsden's collection that we saw back at Canning's storage room.
"It was never about the money. She missed her father. She had to bring him home." Pete cocked his head to the side, signaling the woman to enter the den before him and he decocked his gun and put it back into his holster. Myka did the same.
"Canning said he had a buyer." Myka concluded.
"An anonymous buyer." Pete added. "His daughter."
"Everything fell apart." The woman said. "He couldn't write anymore. He'd lost his music, he lost his daughter. There was nothing left for him to hold on to, so he let go.
"We have to call the FBI." Myka whispered to Pete.
"Why?" Pete returned the question in a whisper.
"Why not?"
"The bank robberies? They're not our problem. That's our problem." He pointed to a silver case on top of a pile of records.
"Belly will find them."
"Maybe. But maybe not." Myka turned and left the house as I slowly walked forward to the silver case. I picked the handle of the case up in my teeth and dragged it off the stack and turned to follow Pete out the house leaving the Marsdens alone.
