Halfway between the row of electric doors and the baggage claim belt was a carpeted pillar. Kevin had chosen it as the perfect spot to wait. He had a good view of the passengers coming from the gate to the baggage claim.
The flight the Memorite was arriving on, according to the status board, had arrived. That could mean that it had just landed. Or it could mean the passengers had gotten off ten minutes ago. The Memorite knew what Kevin looked like, so he just waited.
A couple sat almost on top of each other on some padded benches near the entrance to the gates. They were oblivious to anyone around them. The guy, about 19, was gently touching the girl’s cheek, while their foreheads touched. The girl, close to the guy’s age, was saying something to him and looking into his eyes. Kevin noticed several other people watching the couple, as well. He grinned and looked back down the long concourse that led to the gates.
His mind went back to the case. He wished he’d been able to finish processing the crime scene, but exhaustion was making him miss things, and Ben Tucker was good at what he did. He’d be able to look at the evidence he and the Chief had put together soon enough. It still bothered Kevin how the shooter had pulled it off. The opening that he’d shot through allowed no more than about six inches of visibility on the other side. Kevin had measured it when one of the forensic team was standing over the body. He could only see the ‘ORE’ in ‘FORENSICS’ on the back of one of their jackets.
Kevin closed his eyes and visualized a person walking past a six-inch circle. The reaction time needed to get a shot off was inhuman.
Something nibbled at the back of Kevin’s memory. Something he’d seen in the past year or so. Something about someone doing something extremely fast. It was a documentary, aired one night about Memorites. It was fairly boring, helped by the Memorites trying their best to downplay their abilities, but there was one part where the reporter tried to show that Memorites could do more than read fast and remember a lot. The reporter had talked the Memorite into doing a demonstration for him. The reporter took a fairly long document, about the length of half of a small paperback, and had it transmitted to the Memorite through some sort of device. Now he remembered! It was that thing on the victim’s arm. Kevin furrowed his brow as he tried harder to remember. Fortunately, he had his eyes closed and couldn’t see the odd glances he was getting from people walking past.
It took the Memorite just about thirty seconds to receive the information, and he was able to answer detailed, random questions about it. At the time, Kevin dismissed it as some sort of con game. There was the inhuman speed. Walser had already been arrested, so it looked like the case against him would be a whole lot easier.
Kevin felt an almost physical wave of pride in that conclusion. It answered a lot of questions. He opened his eyes and looked around. The flight was still ‘arriving’, and no one was walking up to him to introduce themselves.
About seven feet behind him and to the left, he could hear two women talking. He had been blocking them out, but he heard one of them mention the murder.
“It’s been all over the news this morning. I was really surprised that they didn’t cancel classes, but Sarah said the students wouldn’t have it.”
“Why not, I’d think they’d like a day off.”
“The professor that got killed was really big on making the most out of every bit of time you have. Sarah talked about him all the time. I guess he was very popular. She said they wanted to have classes out of respect for him and what he taught them. That President Payton is about to have a stroke with every reporter for 40 miles around snooping around the campus.”
“Reporters or college presidents, I’m not sure who I’d like to see tossed out first.”
“Well, it’ll probably be the college professor because they already arrested that other Memorite, and the way I heard it, the only reason he was there was because Payton pestered those Memorites so much they sent some flunky just to shut him up.”
“Some flunky. I knew those Memorites were scary, but I never thought they would go around killing each other.”
“Well, the way Sarah tells it, the one they arrested wasn’t liked very much. The teachers were always complaining about him, and the one who got shot had to put the other in his place a time or two. Although, leave it to our police to probably screw it up and let him get away with it.”
“Audrey, that’s not fair, our police aren’t that bad. You’re just mad because you got a ticket the other night.”
“And I wouldn’t have if that nosy police officer hadn’t been snooping around our neighborhood. Can’t even drive home at night without them popping out of the bushes at you.”
“Well, when you drive home doing 65 in a 45 zone, they tend to do that, Audrey.”