Free Bad Karma by Dave Zeltserman Page A

but the bottom line was he was working to help a defendant in a civil case keep from having to pay out a large judgment.
    Thoughts of one of Susan’s homeopathic patients also kept buzzing in and out of his mind—the psychic who was stuck in two worlds, the dead and the present. In some ways he could argue the same about himself. He had moved to Boulder for a fresh start, to heal himself, to live a different life than the one he had submerged himself in Massachusetts. Yet here he was, back investigating the types of crimes he’d thought he wanted to leave far behind. Like Susan’s patient, he found himself floating between two worlds, unable to fully commit to either one.
    Focusing on his next steps, he decided he’d have to visit Linda Gibson’s family, which meant a trip to America’s Heartland. And he’d also have to find out how a college student was able to afford the purchases Taylor Carver had made for his mother. Especially if he wasn’t dealing drugs as Lieutenant Daniels claimed.
    The Rockies made the final out by popping up harmlessly to second base and Maguire exchanged high-fives with a couple of other Red Sox fans nearby and traded a few more jibes with the Colorado fans he’d been engaged with.
    “Another eighty-six years before they win another one,” one of them told him.
    “Ha, want to bet eighty-six years before your team has another whiff of the playoffs again?”
    “You’re still a bunch of chokers.”
    “Like the last four years, with three Super Bowls and one World Series Championship?”
    “And you won them personally, huh, asshole?”
    “Hey, they’re the teams I live and die for. How have your teams been doing?”
    That elicited a number of “Fuck you’s” and “Move back to Boston if its such a fucking paradise”. As they walked back to the car, Maguire acted animated, buoyant, but when he got into the passenger seat the life seemed to drain out of him, almost as if a switch had been thrown.
    “Oh man, I’m wiped,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Sorry, any more questions you’re going to have to wait. I’m fucking exhausted.”
    Shannon glanced over and saw Maguire’s chin moving slowly towards his chest, his eyelids mostly closed. “Lesson five, learn how to pace yourself.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Maguire mumbled as if he were talking in his sleep. “I’ll take notes later.”
    “I have a few more questions,” Shannon said without much hope of getting anything more out of his companion. “And I still need to talk to your wife.”
    “Tomorrow,” Maguire said, his voice slurred as if he were using the last bit of strength he had. “Give me a call tomorrow.”
    The traffic leaving the ballpark was bumper-to-bumper and it took a while to navigate to I-25 North, but once Shannon pulled onto US 36 West he seemed to have the highway to himself—as if he and Maguire were the only people from Boulder to attend the game. More likely than not that was true. There wasn’t much interest for professional sports in Boulder, outside of some of the college students and transplants like Shannon and Eli. While you could stop almost anyone on the street and discuss the Tour de France endlessly, it was a tough town to talk baseball or football in.
    As Shannon drove, he could hear heavy breathing coming from Maguire along with sporadic choking noises that would last for a few seconds before sputtering out, then Maguire’s heavy breathing again. There were moments where Shannon was afraid the guy was going to suffocate. At one point he glanced over and saw his passenger’s face dead still and lit up by the moonlight like something waxen, not quite alive. Then the heavy breathing and sputtering kicked in.
    When he arrived back at Maguire’s townhouse, he shook Maguire until he opened his eyes. At first there was only disorientation and confusion in those eyes, then a heaviness fell over his face as he realized where he was. “Shit,” he moaned. “No way I can climb those