Free Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller by Al Macy Page A

of different colors jammed the shelves—no digitizing for Stan. The walls were gray and devoid of ego photos and diplomas. His semi-cluttered work surface included a travel mug, a water bottle, and a photo frame. I leaned forward and turned the frame toward me—it held a picture of his wife. The din of a busy police station filtered in from the hall.
    Stan came in, dropped some binders on his desk, and installed himself behind it.
    “You slept in your clothes.” This came from a man who always looked as if he’d slept in his. “How’s the shoulder?”
    I rolled it around. “Not bad.”
    “I don’t have much time. You here about the woman?” He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands across his stomach.
    I nodded. “She woke up at two a.m. She’ll try to escape, I’m sure of it.”
    “Name?”
    “She says her name is Viviana Petrescu from Moldova.”
    Stan wrote it down. “The old country.”
    “But she may be lying about her last name.”
    “One of your hunches.”
    “Right. She’s a good liar, and she doesn’t want us to figure out who she is. A good actress, too, but nervous underneath. Like a trapped animal. Can you put a guard on her room?”
    Stan chuckled. “Like she could slip past all the paparazzi?”
    “We’ve fooled them so far. They all think she’s at a different hospital.”
    “Doesn’t the FBI have someone on her room?”
    “Not all the time.”
    “I don’t know, Eric. She’s big news, but at this point, it’s a science thing, not something for the local police.”
    “You worked on it before.”
    “Yeah, but word has come down on this. She hasn’t done anything illegal. Energy crimes have exploded, and we’re overloaded. I don’t like it, but my hands are tied. Does she know what happened—how she could appear like that?”
    “Amnesia.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Says she doesn’t remember a thing. Could you put some rookie cop there?” I asked.
    “They’re all busy. What about you?”
    “I’d do it, but I want to find Donny Winkel while he’s still alive. Have you got anything on that?”
    Stan sat back up and pulled a binder toward him. He looked through it. “No, nothing useful on this Roman McCrea guy. He’s the guy you say kidnapped Winkel then died, right?”
    “Yes. Have you searched his house, talked with his widow?”
    He left the binder open. “While the San Francisco Police Department would love to take advantage of your many years of investigative experience, we know how to work a case.”
    “If you’ve got a list of his friends, it could save me some legwork.”
    He sighed and turned to a page in the binder with a list of names, then looked out the window. After a few seconds, he said, “Done?”
    I frowned. I wasn’t getting anything useful from Stan’s mind. “Done what?”
    “I’m looking out the window now.”
    “Okay, got it.” I took out my tablet and snapped a photo of the page. “Thanks, Stan.” I waved to the secretary on my way out, but Stan came into the hall and called me back.
    “Here’s what I’ll do,” he said. “For some strange reason, your hunches sometimes pay off. I do think there’s something important about Ms. Petrescu, and if she disappeared, it wouldn’t look good for the department. So, I’ll put a kid from the police academy outside her room. Now get outta here, Batboy, and let me get back to work.”
    * * *
    Back at my office, Peggy was putting the finishing touches on her nails. I guess beauty is a full-time job when concealing one’s dudeness. She waved her hands as if playing a fast polka on an invisible accordion. “Coffee, boss?” She nodded at the stack of mail on the corner of her desk.
    I shuffled through the bills and other junk mail. “Yeah, and get us both some sandwiches from the deli.”
    “You got it.”
    She and two pastramis on rye soon joined me in my office, and I filled her in on the Donny Winkel case. She was particularly interested in the sex