Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue Page 9

  Li Xijuan’s red aura positively throbbed. Lies, signaled Shelby.

  “Then you regret having taken such action?”

  “Yes.”

  No.

  The walrus declared a recess. “Are you sure?” he asked Shelby. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Absolutely. There’s no mistaking that red glow. Li Xijuan is lying in her teeth. She doesn’t regret arming the Burmese rebels in the least.”

  Martel pulled at his mustache. “But she knows we know she’s lying. She’s aware of what you’re here for.”

  “And evidently doesn’t care. Li Xijuan’s a cool one. Maybe she wants people to know she’s lying.”

  “Why would she want that?”

  Shelby lifted her shoulders I-don’t-know.

  “Well,” sighed the walrus, “keep your button-finger in good condition. We’re in for a long session.”

  Ten hours. And twelve the next day. Twelve the day after that. Saturday and Sunday sessions. Li Xijuan’s answers plotted a labyrinthine course of truth and falsehood and evasion and dissembling that succeeded in thoroughly confusing everybody. The unofficial records-keepers were reduced to color-coding her answers: this is a lie, this is not.

  The commissioner from Israel, a gaunt woman in her fifties, was questioning Li Xijuan. “Did you deliberately seek out defective weapons to send to the Burmese?”

  “I did.”

  “To sabotage their efforts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ambassador Aguirrez has testified that he tried to help the Militia by making sure its enemies would not succeed in any uprising they might attempt. Was that your purpose as well?”

  “It was.”

  NoNoNoNoNo, Shelby signaled.

  The Israeli woman paused. “Did you have any additional purpose for arming the Burmese?”

  “None. My only purpose was to mitigate the dangers facing the Militia.”

  NO!

  Eventually every member of the commission had a crack at shaking Li Xijuan’s story. She didn’t budge. Even when the commissioner from Brazil came right out and accused her of lying, Li Xijuan didn’t so much as change expression.

  “I am not lying,” she lied.

  “We have reason to think you are, Ambassador.”

  Li Xijuan didn’t even glance in Shelby’s direction. “You are mistaken.”

  And another time: “Did you propose this faulty-weapon plan to Ambassador Aguirrez?”

  “I did.”

  “And to anyone else?”

  “Yes.” Volunteering nothing.

  “To whom, Ambassador?”

  “To Heinrich Schlimmermann, Ambassador from West Germany.” Not holding it back, either.

  Truth, Shelby’s machine told the others. Li Xijuan was responsible for involving the other two. It was her show from the beginning.

  In the end it was the commissioners who broke, not the Ambassador from China. After six straight days of intense questioning, P. J. Martel declared a two-week recess for “re-evaluation and planning.” Vacation. Li Xijuan left the hearing chamber unruffled and in complete control of herself.

  In fact, she almost smiled.

  CHAPTER 27

  MY HAND IS IN MY HUSSYFSKAP

  “My hand is in my hussyfskap*,

  Goodman, as ye may see;

  An it shoud nae be barrd this hundred year,

  It’s no be barrd for me.”

  —“Get Up and Bar the Door,” Middle English ballad

  “I’m husbandless,” Shelby told her sister. “Eric is gone.”

  “Gone?” said a shocked Tee. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “I mean gone as in gone for good. He left for San Diego a week before he was scheduled to go. He told me I could pack up and come with him right now—or not come at all.”

  “An ultimatum?”

  “Mm. So I wished him luck and called him a taxi. It’s finally the end of the line for us.”

  Tee’s mouth worked open and shut, open and shut. No words.

  Shelby took hold of her sister’s forearms and gave them a little shake. “Hey, it’s okay. This is a good thing.”

  Tee was silent a moment. “Shelby, nobody takes the breakup of a marriage that casually. You and Eric loved each other once.”

  “I’m a slow reactor. It’ll hit me later.”

  “Come stay with Max and me,” Tee said impulsively. “I think I’d better be around when, ah, it hits you.”

  “Thanks, Tee, that’s nice of you. But I’m all right. Really.”

  Tee got an unusual look in her eye.

  An hour later Shelby found herself in the Bradley apartment, apologizing to Max. “Tee insisted. She insists so seldom that I have no defenses when she does.”

  “I’m glad she did,” said Max. “She’s absolutely right. I’m sorry about Eric, Shelby. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

  And no red aura.

  “I’ve got to pick up my car before the garage closes,” Max went on. “Just make yourself at home. We’ll talk later, if you like. I’ll be back in time for dinner—ah. That reminds me. Tee’s planning to have artichokes again tonight. Think you could find out what she does to them?”

  “What’s to do? You drop them in boiling water.”

  “Yeah, but you know what they taste like. Play detective.”

  Slowly silently Shelby Kent Supersleuth tippy-toes in on little cat feet to the Gustum Gustorum of one Martita Bradley sister friend anti-cook. Oh for Merlin’s cloak of invisibility or even Mr. H. G. Wells’s nawsty chemical solution. There there she stands, the Morgana of meatloaf, scourge of the scallions, killer of artichokes. Yes trim the precious prickly little darlings carefully so carefully that’s right Julia Child would love you. My sister the iron-and-vitamin supplemented huswyf reinforcing a cherished all-American-and-then-some ideal in her backlighted conservative-chic kitchen a living-color commercial for …

  “Dammit,” said Tee, sucking a bleeding finger.

  … floor wax and anti-bad-odor sprays and stainless sinks and stickless skillets and you’ve-got-to-be-kidding foods. It’s a plot a plot by UN enemies (Martians perhaps) the entire North American continent to sink slowly into the sea under the insupportable weight of mountains and mountains of Hamburger Helper. Good soldier Tee following General Commerce’s orders guarding her typical kitchen post womanning her typical kitchen weapons …

  … with a wholly untypical blue aura around her.

  “Tee!” Shelby said sharply.

  “What?” Tee jumped.

  “Did you just say something out loud?”

  “Christ, Shelby, don’t do that. Not when I have a lethal weapon in my hand.” She held up her paring knife, on which an artichoke was impaled.

  “Sorry. Listen, Tee, answer me. Did you just say something?”

  “No.” Tee glanced around the kitchen. “Who would I be talking to?”

  “Whom. Maybe you talk to yourself?”

  “Never. Shel, what is this?”

  “You were glowing blue just now.”

  Tee put down the stabbed artichoke. “Blue. Blue? But you’ve never …”

  “No, I’ve never.”

  Intake of breath: “So you can read thoughts now!”

  “No!” cried Shelby, frustrated. “I don’t know what I was reading! I don’t know what you were thinking, and I didn’t hear you say anything. Except dammit, when you cut yourself. So why did you have a blue aura?”

  “I think we’d better get some help,” said Tee.

  * Household duties.

  CHAPTER 28

  DR. WIZARD OR DR. CALIGARI?

  “Is anybody glowing now?” asked Dr. Wedner.

  “No.” Tee, Max, and Dr. Wedner were all aura-less.

  “Has your sister glowed since the time you saw her in the kitchen?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re sure it was blue? Not some bluish shade of red, a purple?”

  “It was about the color of that shirt you�
�re wearing.”

  Dr. Wedner glanced down. “Light blue. Well then, Shelby, one isolated incident—”

  “Is still an incident. I’m quoting you.”

  “I meant it wasn’t much to go on. But you were right to call me.” Dr. Wedner had hopped in his car and driven up from New Brunswick the minute Shelby phoned and told him what had happened.

  “You don’t seem very surprised,” Max said.

  “We were halfway expecting something like this. Ever since the tests showed Shelby’s lie-detecting ability had achieved one hundred per cent accuracy.”

  “But what’s more than one hundred per cent?” Max asked.

  “That’s what we have to find out,” said Dr. Wedner. “You say you couldn’t read your sister’s mind when you saw her aura, Shelby?”

  “No. Why is that the first thing everybody thinks of?”

  “It’s what we’re most afraid of, I suppose. Mrs. Bradley,” he said, turning to Tee, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to bare your culinary secrets. Will you tell us what you think about while you’re trimming artichokes?”

  “Well,” Tee said hesitantly, “I was wondering whether Shelby really does like my cooking or whether she’s just being polite.”

  A silence while everyone digested that. Then Shelby spoke: “I’m beginning to send as well as receive?”

  “I knew it!” cried Tee. “You don’t. Like my cooking.”

  “Let’s try an experiment,” said Dr. Wedner. “Mrs. Bradley, I want you to ‘wonder’ about something else, something you’re not sure is true. Concentrate on it. Watch her carefully, Shelby.”

  They were quiet a moment. “Nothing,” Shelby said.

  “What were you thinking of, Mrs. Bradley?”

  “I was wondering whether Max likes my cooking.”

  Max smiled blandly.

  “Perhaps,” said Dr. Wedner, “whatever this is works only in connection with your sister. Try it again, Mrs. Bradley, but this time think about Shelby.”

  Again, nothing.

  “Well, Shelby,” said Dr. Wedner, “I’m afraid this means more tests. You have two weeks off from the inquiry, don’t you? Could you drive down tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “And Mrs. Bradley, you could help us enormously if you would come too.”

  “Me?” Tee was surprised.

  “Yes, since it was your aura Shelby saw. Also, we’d like to give you a complete physical checkup.”

  “Why?”

  “Many ‘sensitives’ are able to detect illness in their subjects by reading their auras correctly. It may be that your sister is developing that ability next. A physical exam would help confirm or eliminate that possibility. Will you come?”

  “Uh, well, sure,” said Tee, slightly shaken.

  “What,” asked Shelby, “did you think about? The last time?”

  Tee didn’t want to say, but Shelby pressed her. “I was wondering,” Tee said reluctantly, “whether you’d be happier without Eric than you were with him.”

  “What’s this?” Dr. Wedner said sharply. “What do you mean, happier without Eric?”

  “My husband,” Shelby announced dramatically, “has walked out on me.”

  “Eric left?”

  “Today, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Dr. Wedner’s face took on a pinched look. “I’m truly sorry, Shelby.”

  “No need to be,” she said. “It’s a relief, in a way.”

  “Still, it’s a terrible thing to—”

  “Hey, nobody died,” Shelby smiled. “It’s all right. Don’t worry.”

  Dr. Wedner gave her a brave-little-woman look which was resented by—of all people—Tee.

  “What she says is quite true,” Tee snapped. “Here I am all prepared to be a tower-of-strength-in-her-time-of-need and she hasn’t leaned once. Not once.”

  Properly chastised, Dr. Wedner smiled his goodbyes and left.

  “Do you think,” Max asked, “there could be some connection between Eric’s leaving and this new aura? They both happened within a few hours of each other.”

  Shelby thought about it. “I don’t see how.”

  “Nor I,” echoed Tee.

  “I don’t either,” Max admitted.

  They left it at that.

  CHAPTER 29

  SACRE BLEU!

  Tee looked around the laboratory with awe. “All this was built just to test my sister?”

  “Not only built for her,” said Dr. Wedner, “but designed for her as well. Most of it, anyway. We’ve never been able to ‘measure’ auras before your sister came along. She’s unique.”

  “I’m a primitive,” laughed Shelby.

  Tee looked puzzled, so Dr. Wedner explained. “As a rule, sensitives who can read auras see many colors emanating from their subjects’ bodies. Sometimes one color is dominant, but it melts into another color, which in turn melts into another, and so on through all the colors of the spectrum. Like layers of color surrounding the body. But Shelby sees only one color, red—in varying shades, but still the same basic color. And now she has seen blue—only once, so far, but again unaccompanied by any other color. Red and blue are both primary colors—that’s why Shelby said she was a primitive. So if her ability to read blue develops fully, it’s probable that she’ll eventually begin to see people glowing yellow—the third of the primary colors.”

  “Ah. Wow.”

  “Wow indeed. Your sister’s unique in another way. All the other sensitives we’ve tested have had to go into at least a light trance in order to see the auras at all. Shelby’s able to perform her specialty in aura reading while remaining fully alert. That makes testing much easier. Speaking of tests, it’s time for your physical, Mrs. Bradley.”

  Blood pressure a little low, but otherwise Tee was in good condition. Then the real testing began.

  “The trouble is,” Dr. Wedner said, “we don’t really know what we’re looking for. A specific thought, or pattern of thought? An emotional state? Melancholy’s the first thing that comes to mind—that ‘blue’ state we all get into every once in a while. We’ll just have to try everything we can think of.”

  Old hand Shelby took it all in stride, but after four days the testing procedures were beginning to get Tee down.

  “I hate it,” she confided to her sister. “I don’t see how you do it, Shelby! They just … keep at us, all the time. I don’t like having my head wired up every day, I miss Max, I miss my piano, and—”

  “And you’re doing it again.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Glowing blue.”

  Small voice: “I am?”

  “Dr. Wedner! Dr. Wedner!”

  He came running. “Now?”

  “Now.”

  Tee was whisked away. After examining her, Dr. Wedner’s staff put forth the theory that the cause of the blue aura was nothing more than simple anxiety.

  “Right,” grinned Dr. Wedner. “Incredible the way the mind intuits the truth long before even a shred of scientific evidence appears to back it up. Singin’ the blues, I get the blues when it rains—almost a joke, isn’t it? But right on target. Mrs. Bradley—”

  “Tee, please.”

  “All right—Tee. Tee was wondering about your opinion of her cooking, Shelby, when you first saw the blue aura. That was on a conscious level. But she’d just learned a few hours earlier that your marriage had broken up. That upset her, naturally. So her anxiety about you lingered on on an unconscious level even while she was thinking of artichokes or whatever. It was so obvious an explanation that I tended to distrust it.”

  “So there was a connection between Eric’s leaving and the blue aura,” Tee said.

  “Definitely. The ability to read suppressed worry, anxiety—it’s been latent in Shelby since birth, developing at its own speed. Eric’s departure was the strong trigger needed to bring it out. The sympathy between you two was right, and Shelby was able to—”

  “That man over
there is blue,” Shelby interrupted.

  “Great!” yelled Dr. Wedner. “Now we’re moving—it’s broken through. Wait fifteen minutes while I set something up.”

  Twenty minutes later: Shelby, Dr. Wedner, and Tee sitting in a small room, looking through one-way glass into an even smaller room. Just like a police station.

  “I’ve lined up some of the technicians for you to look at, Shelby. They’ll come in one at a time. Examine them carefully, and tell me what you see.” Dr. Wedner signaled for the first technician to enter.

  “Robin’s-egg blue,” Shelby said promptly.

  “Good,” Dr. Wedner nodded. “That’s Johnson. He’s a chronic worrier. If anyone’s likely to give off a blue aura, he’s the one.” He pushed a button that lit a light that told the man named Johnson he could leave.

  The next four, nothing.

  Shelby whistled when the next technician entered, a woman in her late twenties. “Royal blue.”

  “Hm,” said Dr. Wedner. “I’ve heard she—well, we’ll check them all out. Now for the last one.”

  Shelby blanched.

  Wedner, quick to notice: “What is it?”

  “Navy blue, almost black. That man’s in trouble.”

  Dr. Wedner gave her a sharp look. “All right. We’ll take care of it. If he is in trouble, we’ll see he gets the help he needs.”

  The two weeks finally ended.

  “It’s a strange gift, Shelby,” Dr. Wedner said, “and a godsend. If this develops the way I think it will, you may well reach the point where you can diagnose anxiety-based mental illness with the same degree of accuracy you can now detect lies.”

  “I’m feeling a little blue myself,” Shelby sighed. “Tell me something about all the good I’ll be doing mankind.”

  Dr. Wedner laughed. “Personally, I’m looking forward to that yellow aura. I’m positive it won’t end here.”

  “Can we go home now?” asked Tee.

  CHAPTER 30

  PETER QUINCE OR PETER QUINT?