Chapter 17: The Pineapple Precedent — Part 3
Marco Reyes's house was the kind of modest single-story that people bought when they expected to raise families and grow old in the same place. The lawn was overgrown now, the paint peeling, a "For Sale" sign in the front yard that looked like it had been there for months without any takers.
The front porch sagged under my weight as Gus and I approached the door.
"You ready?" I asked.
"Define ready."
"Ready to interrogate a man who lost everything and then made choices that are going to destroy what's left of his life."
"No." Gus straightened his shoulders anyway. "But I'm here."
I knocked. The sound echoed through what felt like an empty house.
Footsteps. A chain rattling. The door opened a crack, revealing a man in his fifties with the particular exhaustion of someone who'd stopped sleeping properly months ago.
"Marco Reyes?"
"Who's asking?"
"My name is Shawn Spencer. I'm a psychic consultant with the Santa Barbara Police Department." I touched my temple. "And I'm getting very strong impressions from this porch. Impressions involving pineapples. Fire. And a family restaurant that meant more to you than anything else in your life."
The door started to close.
"Your grandmother always kept a pineapple on the counter," I continued, the words flowing with an ease that surprised me. "Symbol of hospitality. Welcome. The feeling of home. That's why you've been leaving them at the businesses — the ones that used to belong to families like yours before Garrett Baxter's shell companies bought them out."
Reyes stopped. His hand stayed on the door, but he wasn't closing it anymore.
[DUO ABILITY ACTIVE: GOOD COP/CRAZY COP ENERGY][SE BONUS: +2. INTERROGATION FLOW OPTIMIZED.]
A warmth spread through my chest — subtle, like the first sip of good coffee. The words came easier. The rhythm of the conversation felt natural, almost musical.
"I understand," I said. "I understand what it's like to lose something that defined who you are. But a man was hurt this morning. A kitchen worker. Burns on his arms that are going to scar. He wasn't part of Baxter's operation — he was just doing his job."
Reyes's face crumpled. "I didn't know anyone was inside. The buildings were supposed to be empty—"
"They were supposed to be. But you didn't check." I kept my voice soft. "And now a kid is in the hospital, and the police are going to find you whether you talk to us or not."
Gus stepped forward, his voice shifting into something warmer, more professional. "Mr. Reyes, I work in pharmaceuticals. I've seen what happens to people who lose their family businesses — the depression, the isolation, the feeling that nobody understands. But I've also seen people find new paths. You still have options here."
"Options?" Reyes laughed, bitter and broken. "I lost everything. Forty years. Three generations. My grandmother's recipes. My father's tables. Everything."
"And Garrett Baxter is going to face zero legal consequences," I said. "I know. His acquisitions were aggressive, predatory, and completely within the law. There's nothing I can do about that."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because someone is going to get killed if this continues." I held his gaze. "And because you're not a murderer, Marco. You're a man who ran out of ways to fight back and chose the worst possible option. But you can still choose differently now."
The interrogation flowed. Gus asked about timelines, about purchases, about the specific targeting decisions. I provided the unpredictable energy — talking about pineapple symbolism, about the spiritual weight of inherited recipes, about the difference between justice and revenge. Every conversational pivot landed. Every question found its mark.
[INTERROGATION COMPLETE. CONFESSION OBTAINED.][+67 XP. NO META-KNOWLEDGE MODIFIER — FULL CREDIT.]
Reyes admitted to everything. The pineapple arrangements. Both fires. The months of planning, the escalating frustration, the moment when warnings stopped feeling like enough.
His family restaurant had served Santa Barbara for four decades. Baxter's holding company had offered below-market value, applied pressure through code enforcement contacts, and eventually forced a sale that left Reyes with barely enough to cover his debts.
"I just wanted him to feel it," Reyes said, sitting on his sagging porch while we waited for Lassiter to arrive. "The powerlessness. Watching something you built disappear while someone else profits."
"I understand." And I did. More than I could explain.
Lassiter made the arrest. Reyes went quietly, hands cuffed behind his back, face resigned to whatever came next.
I stood on the lawn watching the patrol car pull away, feeling the weight of a case that had no real winners.
"You did good work." Juliet had appeared beside me, notebook closed. "The interrogation technique you and Mr. Guster used — it was effective. Almost seamless."
"We've had practice."
"Three weeks of practice." She tucked the notebook into her jacket. "Most partnerships take years to develop that kind of rhythm."
[WARNING: JULIET O'HARA — PATTERN ANALYSIS ACTIVE][FOLDER ENTRY #3: DUO INTERROGATION EFFECTIVENESS]
"Some partnerships just work," I said. "Chemistry. Fate. The mysterious alignment of compatible personalities."
"Or something else." She didn't push further, but I could see her filing the observation away. "I'll make sure the Baxter connection is documented in the case file. Even if we can't charge him with anything."
"Will that matter?"
"Probably not." She started toward her car. "But patterns exist whether we act on them or not. Sometimes documentation is all we have."
The Psych office was dark when I returned.
Gus had gone home hours ago. The case was closed. Marco Reyes was in custody, facing arson charges that would likely result in significant prison time. The kitchen worker was recovering from burns that would scar.
And Garrett Baxter was probably celebrating the positive press coverage — "Developer cooperates with police to catch dangerous arsonist."
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: FIRST BLOOD][+1 OBS PERMANENT. CURRENT OBS: 3][CASE COMPLETE: PINEAPPLE PRECEDENT][NOTES: FIRST ORIGINAL CASE. NO META-KNOWLEDGE USED. FULL XP AWARDED.]
The notification shimmered gold in my peripheral vision. An achievement. My first completed case without a cheat code, without episode knowledge, without the safety net I'd been relying on since waking up in Santa Barbara.
I should have felt proud.
I dismissed the notification and stared at the corkboard instead. Baxter's name was still circled in red. The seven business addresses were still connected by thread. The question mark I'd drawn next to his name had been upgraded to an exclamation point after our meeting.
"He's the kind of villain the system doesn't have an achievement for stopping."
The thought sat heavy in my chest. Marco Reyes had lost everything and chosen violence. Garrett Baxter had taken everything and faced nothing.
The world wasn't fair. I'd known that before I died in Chicago. But knowing it and watching it happen were different things.
A flyer landed on my desk. I looked up to find Gus standing in the doorway, looking tired but oddly energized.
"Comic-Con," he said. "I got us tickets. Weekend passes."
"Gus, I'm not really in the mood for—"
"There's been a murder." He pointed at the flyer. "VIP pre-show event last night. Comic dealer found dead in the exhibition hall."
I picked up the flyer. Santa Barbara Comic-Con. August 4-5, 2006. Featuring rare collectibles, celebrity appearances, and apparently, at least one corpse.
"How did you find out about this before the police?"
"I have friends in the collector community." He smiled slightly. "Also, Buzz texted me. He's working security at the event."
The corkboard waited. Baxter's name glared at me from behind red thread.
But cases didn't stop coming just because the last one left a bad taste. And Comic-Con sounded like exactly the kind of distraction I needed.
"Fine." I tucked the flyer into my jacket. "But if anyone tries to spoil anything about Star Wars, I'm walking out."
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