"So…the devil made him do it?"
"For five hundred a day, Dresden, you should be telling me."
A side glance at Murphy let Harry know his attempt at levity had not been appreciated, despite the fact the lieutenant had not spared him a glance. Her dark eyes remained unhappily trained on the figure lying on the hospital bed on the other side of the window. The bed's occupant didn't look particularly satanic. True, he looked a little pale and a closer inspection would reveal droplets of dried blood still staining his neck that the nurses hadn't quite managed to wash off. To Harry, Jason Simms looked like an ordinary man, getting some shut eye.
But he had missed the show Simms had put on earlier that had involved copious screaming and the breaking of a lot of hospital equipment as well as a few staff noses before the doctors staff had sedated him. The wizard had also been spared the sight that the arresting officers had seen of Simms attacking and nearly murdering his wife of ten years in their apartment with a kitchen knife.
"Thank god for thin walls," sighed Murphy, tiredly. "If their neighbor hadn't heard, he would have made himself a widower," she said, nodding toward the sleeping figure. The already existing grimace deepened. "I can't believe he'd do something like this," she muttered, half to herself.
"You know him?" asked Harry, giving her a surprised glance.
"You've never heard of Jason Simms?" asked Murphy. "He's a writer. Children's books," she supplied when the wizard shook his head. "Anna used to love his stuff when she was younger. He wrote the Johnny Pike series." Harry gave her a blank look. "Kid archeologist? Goes on adventures with his uncle? Never mind," she waved off as Harry's blank look only doubled. "He just came out with a book of modernized fairy tales."
Harry's eyes fell on the restraints currently strapping Simms to the bed. "Yeah, not exactly your idea of a potential killer," he agreed. "And not that I don't appreciate the extra income, Murphy, but what makes you think this is up my alley?"
Taking the wizard's arm, Murphy led him away from the viewing window as a male nurse, who looked like he probably doubled as a bouncer on his off nights, passed by them to enter Jason Simms' room to check his vitals. Apparently, the staff wasn't about to send in anyone who couldn't lay out Simms in a single punch if necessary.
"The hospital's resident shrink got to see Simms when he was first brought in and before he went ballistic," informed the lieutenant as they approached the depressingly lit patient waiting area. The space was unusually empty of any other persons, allowing them to talk freely. "Simms wouldn't tell him why he tried to kill his wife, but according to the doctor, he kept repeating that demons were haunting him."
"Well, technically ghosts haunt," Harry corrected. "Demons just….lurk." That earned him a glare. "Murphy, he wouldn't be the first guy in history to say a demon made him do something crazy when all that was going on was his mind snapped."
"And what would explain a perfectly normal family man suddenly attacking his wife?" demanded Murphy.
"Family history of mental problems?" Harry guessed. "Maybe he and his wife were having problems?"
"Medical records ruled out guess number one. And I interviewed his wife," said Murphy. "Other than him feeling a little tired from lack of sleep over the past week, nothing was out of the ordinary with them. They were happy."
"You sure she wasn't lying? Maybe she was embarrassed about an affair or something."
"Harry, her husband tried to kill her. I don't think admitting to an affair would seem that big a deal after nearly getting your throat slit," said Murphy. "Look, I'm not saying his rants are real. I just want to cover all my bases. It might be that he's just nuts, but I'm not about to tell his wife to lock him up and throw away the key based on what I know now. Which is next to nothing."
The wizard nodded at that. Murphy had that determined gleam in her eyes. It was the look of someone completely and utterly convinced of a mission and from past experience, he knew not to challenge her on it. And Murphy was rarely wrong about people's character. If Simms' wife seemed genuine to her, she probably was.
"Okay," Harry agreed. "Can I talk to Simms when he wakes up? If I can get a better idea of what kind of demons he thinks he's seeing, maybe I can figure out if he's seeing a real one or not."
"Doctors think he'll sleep the rest of the night. But when he wakes up and is hopefully not trying to gouge out an eye, he's all yours."
"Can't wait," cheered Harry with as much energy as the flickering neon lights above them. "In the mean time, do you have the clothes and stuff he had on him when he was brought in?"
Murphy sighed. "I shouldn't be surprised at this point with a request like that, but can I ask why?"
Harry shrugged. "Covering all my bases."
"And he's claiming the devil made him do it?"
"No, no just demons," said Harry. He bunched up the empty plastic bag that had held the clothes and personal belongings of Jason Simms that the man had on him during his arrest and subsequent admittance to the hospital. They were all now spread out before him on the hastily cleared work table of the wizard's lab. "And he didn't say they made him do it," Harry added as Bob eyed the arranged display. "He just…you know…mentioned them."
"Mr. Simms would hardly be the first to make such a statement and be wrong."
"Yeah. Or the first to be right," Harry reasoned, laying out the last item. "It might not be demons. But something made him snap. Maybe something supernatural. Either way," said the wizard with mustered enthusiasm. "It's up to us to give the cops a lead. That's why we get paid the big bucks."
Bob rolled his eyes. "Really? Has the value of the dollar gone back a hundred years since I last checked?"
"You know what I like about you, Bob?" said the wizard, wagging a finger in the ghost's direction. "You're always practical about money. Being a ghost and not having to actually deal with cash for the last half a millennia hasn't deterred you at all."
"Someone has to be," Bob replied, dryly.
"Right, so let's get started," Harry waved. "Here's Simms' stuff. Give 'em a feel and see if you get anything."
"You might want to consider the implications of an ancient dead spirit being more financially pragmatic than yourself," Bob continued, ignoring the wizard's call to arms.
"Got it. On the list. Right here," Harry tapped his temple. "Now, Simms' stuff?"
With a heavy sigh, Bob considered the items laid out. Moving toward one end of the work table, he positioned himself to start where Harry had put Simms' shoes. The ghost needlessly flexed the fingers of his right hand to smooth out any phantom stiffness from joints that did not technically exist before he sunk them into the black shoe. After a few seconds, he moved onto Simms' khakis and then his shirts.
"Finding anything?" asked Harry.
"Yes. I'm discovering Mr. Simms has an appalling fashion sense," Bob concluded as he disdainfully pushed his hand through a top that looked like the result of breeding between a Hawaiian shirt and plaid. "Beyond that, nothing so far."
The ghost soon moved onto the items that had been taken from Simms' pockets, which included a cell phone and the house keys. The elegant fingers dug in last to the brown leather wallet that looked like it had seen better days. A frown faintly colored Bob's pale face as he kept his hand in the item.
"Got something?" asked Harry, seeing the look.
Bob didn't answer right away, extracting his hand. "Perhaps. You'll need to open the wallet. Lay everything out."
The wizard shoved aside Simms' offending shirt to make room. From the depths of the creased wallet, he extracted the typical objects one expected to find: a few credit cards with the major banks, a photo of his wife, and some cash with a few receipts mixed in amongst the green bills. Carefully, Harry laid out each item and watched as his former teacher slid his hand through everything before stopping at a small receipt.
The frown on Bob's face deepened as his fingers lingered on the scrap of white paper. "Here," he mused. "A trace…no….more of a stain, I think."
"Of a spell?"
"I can't be sure," the ghost admitted, keeping his hand over the receipt. "There's something…a residual or…" Bob trailed off, finally removing his hand. He stared at the printed slip, the frown now replaced by an unreadable expression. But before Harry got a chance to try and chisel away at the stony look, the ghost snapped his eyes up to the wizard. "This receipt. Where ever it came from, some sort of magic was involved. I can feel the mark it left behind."
Walking over to where Bob stood, Harry picked up the slip. The print was pale to the point of unreadable, though the wizard could make out that it was dated two days ago and the name of the establishment.
"Fallen Books," he read aloud. "It's a bookstore."
"Perhaps something happened there to cause Mr. Simms uncharacteristic violence."
Harry thought to make a crack about books being lethal tools, but thought better of it as it was most likely the ghost would take the joke at face value. It was kind of true in their line of work. Instead, he pocketed the receipt to find the store's address. He'd give Murphy a call tomorrow to meet him there.