Dead Waters by Anton Strout

that day?”
    I jumped in my seat. Seeing the Inspectre this unnerved rattled me more than I expected.
    “It kills me,” he continued, angrier with each word that flew from his lips, “that I should go so many years only to hear about the man’s death and worse, in a paranormal fashion on top of it. Do you know how much that guts me, how asleep on the watch it makes me feel?”
    “Sorry,” I said. There was little healing power in the word, but maybe the Inspectre wasn’t looking to heal. Maybe he didn’t want someone to fix it. It had been broken too long for me to think anything I said would actually help. It was like trying to put a Band-Aid on a shark bite. Sometimes people just needed to vent and get it out of their system. I decided on another tack—getting back to business.
    “So he was a teacher,” I said. “That’s as good a place to start as any. I should probably ask around and see if any of his students or other faculty noticed anything strange about him over the past few weeks.”
    The talk of the Inspectre’s dead friend in an investigative capacity seemed to help him compose himself. His anger faded from his face and he nodded.
    “Yes,” he said. “I would check his offices over at New York University. Take Connor with you. Mind you, use discretion.”
    “Don’t we always?”
    “Yes, my boy, but now more than ever, given our precarious state of affairs with the city. I would hate to give Director Wesker or Dave Davidson any reason to suggest any sort of impropriety when it came to handling this personal case over others. For instance, some might see this as me exploiting Departmental resources.”
    “But Davidson brought us this case,” I said.
    “True,” the Inspectre said, returning to the pile of papers scattered in front of him. “Nonetheless, exercise extreme prudence in your investigation.”
    “Got it,” I said. I stood up and headed for the door.
    “And, Simon,” the Inspectre said, lifting his head up out of his paperwork. “Please be careful. Given the supernatural nature of his death, maybe the good college professor wasn’t as out of the arcana business as much as I previously thought.”

8
    New York University was big on film and theater, but thankfully not so much on security measures. At least, not for someone who looked like a student still and practiced psychometry. This late at night Connor and I didn’t have to worry about many students in the academic buildings, but every other lock getting to the professor’s office required either a quick psychometric blast to read the electronic ones or my skills with my lock picks for the rest of them. By the time we hit the professor’s office door, the repetition of picking the older locks had become easy. The professor’s door practically opened the second I inserted my torsion wrench and one of my half-diamond picks into the lock, swinging inward and revealing darkness in the office behind it.
    “Jesus, kid,” Connor said. “You sure that one wasn’t already open?”
    “Yup,” I said, shoving my picks back up my left sleeve. “I’m just that good.”
    Connor pushed past me into the dark office, annoyed. “Nice to see you keeping it humble.”
    “Hey, I don’t take pride in much, but let me have this, okay?”
    I slipped into the office after him and flicked on the light just inside the door, then closed the door behind me. A pile of unopened mail sat underneath a mail slot on the floor to the right of the door. “Looks like no one’s taken notice of the professor’s absence yet.” I turned my attention to the rest of the room.
    For a college professor, the office was pretty posh. The furniture was of the old-school drawing room variety, Gothic pieces rich with carved foliage, huge and chunky like they could withstand a hurricane. The walls were lined with academic texts and film memorabilia—books, statues, movie-related knickknacks, and artwork everywhere.
    “Wow,” I said. “This guy had really