Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted Read online

  I had a sudden thought. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You say you found Avatar’s body two weeks ago. Just this week I saw him on TV answering reporters’ questions. How can that be?” I realized the answer as soon as the question was out of my mouth. I looked at Doppelgänger. “It was you, not really Avatar.”

  “Give the man a cigar. Maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought,” Doppelgänger said. “Though I can only replicate the powers of live Metahumans, I can copy the appearance of a person even if they are dead.”

  “But, why?” I asked, once again ignoring Doppelgänger’s jab at me. Perhaps later, once we were not standing over Avatar’s dead body, I would find out if Doppelgänger could replicate the appearance of a two-by-four when I applied it repeatedly to his head. “If you told people Avatar has been murdered, the entire world would help you in finding the killer.”

  “Things are not quite that simple, Mr. Lord,” Seer said. She hesitated. “Are you familiar with the Cold War concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD?”

  I was puzzled by the seemingly off-topic question. “You mean the idea that if several different countries possess nuclear weapons, no one would use them because if they did, nuclear weapons would surely be used in a retaliatory strike? The underlying notion was that if everyone was powerful enough to destroy each other, no one would attempt to destroy anyone.”

  “Precisely,” Seer said. “Avatar is—” she hesitated, correcting herself, “was an Omega level Hero and the most powerful living Metahuman. With the possible exceptions of Chaos, who is in government custody and has been rendered impotent, and that young woman in China who is in a self-induced coma. Just as the mere existence of nuclear weapons prevented nations from going to war with each other, Avatar’s mere existence served as a deterrent to curb the worst impulses of certain supervillains and nations. They knew that with Avatar around, there was a limit to what they could get away with. Consider the fact that there has not been a wide-scale war after World War Two since Avatar came on the scene as a Hero. Nor have any of the more powerful supervillains made an attempt to take over the world.” I thought about what she was saying. She was right. I had never considered the possibility that Avatar’s existence might be directly responsible for that—I tended to deal more with street crime and small-scale issues than with geopolitics and world-conquering supervillains—but what she said made sense. I could believe Avatar and the power he wielded acted as a check on people’s worst impulses. He was, in essence, a nuclear bomb in Hero form.

  “That is why we have restricted knowledge of Avatar’s death to the five remaining Sentinels, Pearce, and now, you,” Seer said. “It is also why we are keeping Avatar’s body here for now as no one except but Millennium can access this plane of existence. Once it is known Avatar is dead, there are certain groups and interests which will try to take advantage of that fact. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all, and Avatar’s death means there is the largest power vacuum in the Metahuman community ever. We are taking steps to curb the impulses of those most likely to try to take advantage of Avatar’s absence from the world stage. What those steps are is frankly no concern of yours. We hope the world remains ignorant of Avatar’s death until certain measures are in place, and we fully intend to have Doppelgänger impersonate Avatar as often as needed to perpetuate the illusion of Avatar still being alive.” Seer paused.

  “But, there is another reason why we do not want news of Avatar’s murder to be publicized just yet,” she said. “Are you familiar with the Werther effect?”

  “No. But if you hum a few bars, I’ll try to follow along,” I said. Though I could not see Doppelgänger’s eyes, I could almost hear them rolling at my response.

  “You really are a prize idiot, aren’t you?” Doppelgänger said. “How in the hell did you ever get a Hero’s license? The Werther effect is not a song. It’s a psychological phenomenon. It refers to the fact that if someone commits suicide and that suicide gets a lot of publicity, there will be a spike in suicides afterwards. The effect is named after—”

  “It was named after a 1774 book by the German writer Johann Von Goethe called The Sorrows of Young Werther,” I said, interrupting Doppelgänger. “In that book, the title character committed suicide. That sparked a wave of copycat suicides throughout Europe, so much so that authorities in several countries banned the novel. I was kidding about not having heard of the Werther effect.” I wanted to stick my tongue out at Doppelgänger. “Are you suggesting that if news of Avatar’s death gets out, it’ll lead to copycat murders of other Heroes?”

  “We know it will,” Mechano said. “The greater the publicity, the greater the Werther effect is. Since Avatar was the greatest Hero of our time, his murder will be worldwide news. It will be the news of the year, if not of the century. I calculate that publicity about Avatar’s murder while his murderer is still at large will lead to a twenty-one percent increase in licensed Hero deaths. The percentage of Heroes who will be merely injured in the increased number of attempts on their lives will be even higher. If we identify Avatar’s murderer and publicize his capture at the same time we announce Avatar’s murder, that will greatly reduce the impact of the Werther effect.”

  Seer jumped back in. “So, as you can see, if you help us find Avatar’s killer, it is of paramount importance that you do so without telling anyone of Avatar’s death. Or even hinting at it, for that matter.”

  “So let me get this straight,” I said. I was incredulous. “You want me to solve the murder of the world’s greatest Hero all without letting anyone know that Hero has in fact been murdered.” Most murder cases were solved because someone had seen something or knew something related to the identity of the murderer. The trick was in locating that person or persons and getting them to talk. To get to that person, an investigator had to ask a lot of questions of a lot of people. Asking those questions of those people without letting them know what you were investigating was like being asked to hit a home run while blindfolded and with both of your hands tied behind your back.

  “That is correct,” Seer said. “Now that you know the full situation, do you think you can help us?”

  All the Sentinels looked at me, even Millennium with his inky black eye sockets. I considered Seer’s question. I had admired Avatar as long as I could remember and his adherence to the ideals of truth, justice, and protecting those who could not protect themselves. He was everything a Hero should be. Of course I wanted to find his killer. How could I say no?

  “No,” I said.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Are you certain you will not reconsider Mr. Lord?” Pearce said at the closed front door of the Sentinels’ mansion. He handed me my hat. I put on. After spending time in Millennium’s parallel universe, it was good to have my feet on the ground and my hat on my head again. Those were the sorts of things I could understand.

  “Yes,” I said, more firmly than I felt. As a private eye and Hero, walking away from investigating the death of the world’s greatest Hero was like a football team declining an invitation to the Super Bowl. Even so, I knew I had made the right decision. “Being asked to solve a murder case without letting anyone know there has been a murder is like trying to find a needle in a haystack without moving any of the hay out of the way. I just don’t see how it’s possible. I’d be setting myself up for failure. Plus, Avatar believed in truth and transparency. He never would have approved of the public being deceived about his death. I won’t dishonor his memory by being a part of such a deception.” When I had told the Sentinels earlier I did not think Avatar would approve of how they were concealing his death from the public regardless of their motives for doing so, I had gotten the impression that Ninja and, oddly enough, Doppelgänger agreed with me. But, the Sentinels had apparently voted on how to handle the news of Avatar’s death long before they had brought me into the picture, and Ninja and Doppelgänger had been outvoted by the other three Sentinels.

  All of the Sentinels, though, had been incredulous when I told them
I would not help them. The Sentinels were not used to people saying no to them. Unfortunately, it happened to me all the time. People constantly saying no to me had started with girls when I hit puberty and continued right up until the present with both romantic interests and people I was trying to get information out of. I wondered what it would be like if people said yes to me all the time. I would have more children than the Brady Bunch, maybe.

  Pearce’s mournful eyes met mine.

  “I fear you are correct, Mr. Lord. Master Avatar was the most honest and forthright man I have had the pleasure to meet and serve. At the risk of telling tales out of school, he would never have agreed to the sham of pretending he is still alive.” Pearce shook his head. “But, I am not a Sentinel. It is not my decision to make.”

  “Nor mine. So, as I told the Sentinels, I’ll keep the news of Avatar’s death under my hat even though I’ll not be working on the case.” I sighed. I hated to walk away from a case like this, but I did not see how I had a choice. I put my hand on the knob of the front door. “It’s been a real honor meeting you, Mr. Pearce, despite the circumstances. It has been a dream come true.” I started to open the door. Pearce pulled a card out of his jacket pocket and pressed it into my hand.

  “Your principled position on this matter has convinced me you are the right man for this job,” he said, looking at me earnestly. “Please give me a call should you change your mind. My direct number is on this card.”

  “I will,” I said.

  I walked out the front door and back into the world I was used to. Though the sun was still shining, the day seemed far darker than it had when I first entered the mansion. I still could not believe Avatar was dead. It was a dark day for the world, and the world did not even know it. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.

  I walked back into the park that comprised the Sentinels’ front lawn. Just as I had when I entered the mansion, several people looked at me as I left it. Perhaps they were wondering if I was a superhero. I was feeling neither particularly super nor particularly heroic, though. It was with a heavy heart that I started walking back to my car. A stream of other people made the trek with me. Most of them seemed pleased with their visit to the Sentinels’ property. I was glad someone was.

  It was when a group of us were waiting at the crosswalk to get to the other side of Sentinels Way and the parking lot there that he drew my attention. “He” was a beefy man, maybe a little shorter than I, who looked to be in his early twenties. He wore faded blue jeans, a zipped up Astor City Rockets baseball jacket, and a matching baseball cap. His sandy brown hair that was not hidden by the cap was cut close to his skull in a buzz cut. His skin was pale and doughy. He looked simultaneously strong and out of shape, like a man who lifted weights a lot but did not watch his diet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him looking at me. I looked at him, and he immediately looked away. He started to examine the light pole as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. He looked familiar. It took me a few moments to realize why: he had been lingering near the front of the Sentinels’ mansion when I had gone inside, and had watched me enter. He also had been near the front of the mansion when I left and had seen me come out of it.

  Maybe it was just coincidence the man had seen me go into and out of the mansion and now he just happened to be going to the parking lot at the same time I was. Then again, maybe he was following me. In my line of work, it did not pay to assume something was a coincidence. It was better to assume someone was out to get you and guard against it than to have someone stick a knife in your back while you were out and about blissfully smelling the roses.

  I shifted where I stood a bit. I kept the man in my peripheral vision as the group of us crossed the road and entered the parking lot. A couple of times, as a test, I casually glanced in the man’s direction as if I were simply looking around some more at the surrounding property. Each time I did so, the man looked away. He was quite obvious about it, which was the worst thing you could do when you were trying to follow someone without that someone knowing about it. I smiled to myself. Perhaps I would teach this neophyte how to properly follow someone. If I could not find out who killed Avatar, perhaps I could at least do this.

  The group I was in dispersed in several different directions once we arrived in the parking lot. The man with the hat and jacket peeled off to the left, away from me. Huh. Maybe I was wrong about him following me. Maybe his interest in me really had been coincidental. Maybe he had simply been admiring the cut of my suit and the rakish angle of my hat. If so, I could hardly blame him.

  I got to my car. I glanced around. I did not see the man in the baseball cap anymore. I took off my jacket and hat, put them into the back, and got into the driver’s seat. I started the car up, backed up, and headed towards the parking lot’s exit. I got into a long line of cars waiting to get out of the lot. The line moved relatively quickly, and soon I arrived near the front of the line. Once there, I noticed that over on the left a faded maroon Jeep Cherokee was parked in the middle of the front lane. As I slowly approached the Cherokee, I could see the man in the Rockets baseball cap through inadequately tinted windows. It was an odd place for him to idle his car as he was partially blocking the lane. Maybe he was waiting for someone to let him into the line of cars exiting the parking lot. Or, maybe he was waiting for me to drive by so he could start following me again. My money was on the latter.

  Sure enough, after I passed the man in the Cherokee, it eased forward into the line of exiting cars, making it so the people behind me had no choice but to let him in. Car horns rose in protest as the man shoehorned himself into the line of cars behind me. He was two cars behind me. Since the Cherokee was high off the ground compared to the two cars between us, I could see the man in the baseball cap pretty clearly in my rear-view mirror. He now had on dark aviator sunglasses. Perhaps he now thought he was disguised. I smiled to myself. Amateurs were adorable.

  After a few more moments, I got to the front of the line of cars. I turned right onto Sentinels Way, heading back towards the heart of Astor City where I both lived and worked. The Cherokee turned right as well. There was a single car between us. As I made my way deeper into Astor City, the Cherokee stayed behind me, sometimes directly behind me, sometimes with one or two cars between the two of us. Though I think the man in the Cherokee was trying to be subtle, he in fact could not have been more obvious about the fact he was following me if his car was lit up in neon lights spelling out the words “Hot on Truman’s trail.” I started to think of the man as Captain Obvious. Giving code names to your opponents was an occupational hazard of being a Hero, like getting shot at by supervillains or having beautiful women swoon at your feet. Actually, I had never had a woman, beautiful or otherwise, swoon at my feet. Wishful thinking.

  I had no idea what the man in the Cherokee wanted from me or why he was following me. Perhaps he bore me ill will. Unfortunately, plenty of people did. I sometimes wondered if the only people who liked me were my girlfriend Ginny and my friend Shadow, and I was not so sure about Shadow. I had made a lot of enemies over the years. Perhaps this guy had been hired by one of them. To what end, I did not know.

  I considered evading the man in the Cherokee. Based on the way he had followed me, he was clearly an amateur at this type of thing. I was a lot of things, but an amateur was not one of them. I did not think losing him would be particularly hard. But, I would not learn why the man was following me if I lost him.

  So instead, I let the man follow me. I had initially intended to drive to my downtown office, but I did not want to let the man know who I was or where I worked if he did not already know. I instead drove to the main business district of the city. This time of the work day, the streets were relatively empty while the movers and shakers of the business world were inside creating wealth, oppressing the little man, and having sex with their secretaries. As traffic ebbed and flowed, a couple of times I had to deliberately slow down so the man in the Cherokee would not lose me. I felt like a parent delibera
tely losing a game to his child.

  I parked in a metered parking space. The Cherokee drove past me, and parked in a space up ahead. I got out of the car, and put my hat and jacket back on. I would have preferred to leave my jacket off so I would have easy access to my gun, but a lot of civilians are put off by a man who is not a police officer carrying a gun. I left the jacket unbuttoned. I went around to the front of the car to the meter. I stood on the sidewalk, taking my sweet time digging coins out of my pocket and feeding them into the meter. I wanted to give Captain Obvious a chance to park, get out, and lay eyes on me again.

  Finally, I spotted Captain Obvious up the street north of me. He still had his sunglasses on, and his cap was pulled low on his head. He appeared to be looking at a storefront. He was trying so hard to be inconspicuous, he was very obviously conspicuous. I started walking south, towards Jewel Street. The sidewalk was sparsely populated, so it would be hard for even Captain Obvious to lose me. I walked slowly, like I had not a care in the world. Captain Obvious followed, keeping a good distance between the two of us.

  I turned right onto Jewel Street. Once I was around the corner, I pressed my back against the building there. In a few moments, Captain Obvious walked past. He stopped. I stepped up directly behind him. He glanced from side to side, clearly confused as to where I had gone.

  “Hi!” I said loudly, almost right in his ear. Captain Obvious jumped, startled. He spun around. His sunglasses were mirrored, and I could see myself waggling my fingers at him through them. He froze for a moment. He clearly did not know what to do. I almost felt badly for him. Up close, I could see that he was wider and bulkier than I, though a bit shorter.

  “Uh, hi,” he finally managed to croak out. He looked away. He hesitated again, probably hoping I would start moving again so he could follow. I stayed where I was. Patience was a virtue. Thanks to me turning the Sentinels down, I had no client I was currently on the clock for, no place to go, and no place to be. I would wait here all day if I had to. I had the patience of a saint, though not too many other saintly attributes. I smiled broadly at Captain Obvious. It was a smile calculated to say, “I can stand here all day, so the first move is yours.” I did not know if Captain Obvious was sophisticated enough to read smiles, though. Now that I was getting a really good look at him, Captain Obvious looked vaguely cavemanish, with a big head and a sloping skull. He looked like spoken English might be tough for him, much less the nuances of nonverbal communication.