A Change of Worlds

Book 5 of the Killian Kendall Mysteries

By Josh Aterovis
Copyright 2026

Chapter 13

I awoke with a jolt when my cell phone began to ring on the nightstand next to my bed. I scrabbled for the damn thing while trying to focus my bleary eyes. It was only a little after seven.

"'lo?" I grunted, when I managed to answer.

"Killian? It's Lily."

I came awake instantly at the tone of her voice. I'd never heard her sound so upset. "What's wrong?"

"They just arrested Jacy."

"What?"

"They showed up at the door with an arrest warrant a little while ago and took him away." She sounded dangerously near hysteria.

I jumped out of bed and began to scramble about the room, pulling on clothes while I talked. "Take a deep breath and tell me what happened."

"It was so late when things finally settled down last night that I decided to spend the night here on the couch. I woke up this morning to pounding at the door. It was the police. They had a warrant. They burst in here and arrested Jacy!"

"What are they charging him with?" I hopped on one foot, squeezing the phone between my cheek and shoulder, while trying to pull on a pair of jeans.

"I don't know, but it had something to do with the fight he had with Healy."

"They didn't say why they were arresting him?"

"Well, they said they had some questions they wanted to ask him about Quinn Healy."

"Did they place him in handcuffs?" I managed to get the pants on and then tackled socks, once more balancing precariously on one foot.

"No, they just said they needed him to come down to the station with them. They had a warrant, but they said it would be easier if he accompanied them voluntarily."

I fell backwards onto the bed, which, it turned out, made putting socks on while talking on the phone a lot easier. "Then maybe they aren't actually arresting him. They really may just want to ask him some questions."

"You get a warrant and go to someone's house at seven in the morning to ask some simple questions?"

"Good point. How is Fletcher?"

There was a pause. "He's okay — worried, but okay. He keeps saying he should have done more to prevent this."

"I'll be right over. In the meantime, do you have a lawyer you can contact?" I grabbed a shirt and got one arm into it.

"I already called Franklin Larrimore. He works for the tribe. That was my first call. He's on his way to the police station."

"Good. Where are you now?"

"Still at Fletcher's. I was afraid to leave him alone with everything going on."

"Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes."

I finished pulling on the shirt, slid into some shoes, grabbed my keys and ran downstairs, texting Steve a brief message while dashing out the door.

I may or may not have broken a few speed laws on my way to Fletcher's...I refuse to incriminate myself. When something huge and white leapt in front of the car, however, I was probably going too fast for safety. I slammed on the brakes, causing the car to slide a ways before coming to a halt a few feet from the creature.

I might have been wrong, but it appeared to be the same deer I'd seen a few days before. I couldn't imagine there being more than one of these magnificent beasts — in those woods, at any rate.

The buck regarded me through the windshield, his large round eyes revealing an intelligence that left me unsettled. We stared at each other for several seconds before he turned with surprising speed and finished crossing the road in a single long leap.

I took a few more moments to gather myself before continuing at a much slower speed. I arrived at the house with my heart still hammering from the close call.

Before I'd even shut off the engine, Lily was at the front door waiting for me. "Thank you for coming over."

"Of course. Have you heard anything more about Jacy?"

She shook her head as she stepped back to let me enter.

"What about the lawyer?"

"He just called. He's at the police station trying to find out what's going on."

"Good." I followed her into the living room, where her father was sitting in one of the armchairs, looking rather ashen. "Hello, Fletcher."

He nodded distractedly in my direction. "I should have seen this coming," he muttered by way of greeting. "I'm supposed to be looking out for him."

I shook my head. "What could you have done? He's not a child anymore. He eventually has to learn to watch out for himself. Besides, Lily said the lawyer is there now. I'm sure it will all be straightened out quickly."

"This isn't over yet. Didn't you say you knew the officer in charge of the investigation?"

"Yes. I spoke to him last night."

"You were here last night?" Lily asked.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you let us know?"

"It was late," I said simply and hoped they would accept that.

Fletcher was too intent on his own train of thought to get sidetracked by my whereabouts the previous night. "Frank Larrimore is a good lawyer, but I'd feel better if you were there too. You know people, and you understand more about what's going on."

I turned to Lily, and she nodded. "I realize this isn't why we hired you, but do you think you could try to find out what's going on?"

"Of course," I replied quickly. "I'll do whatever I can to help."

I wasn't sure how I could learn more than their lawyer, but if it would make them feel better, I could certainly go to the police station. Although, after the previous night, I wasn't at all sure Sgt. Kaplan would talk to me.

I had Lily repeat the events of that morning, but she couldn't add much more than she'd already told me over the phone. The police hadn't really "burst in," however, as she'd put it earlier. They'd been quite polite, or at least as polite as they could be while waking everyone up and taking someone away to the station for questioning.

"Well, I guess I'd better take off," I said when I figured I'd learned all I could from Lily. "I'll check in with you later and let you know what's going on."

"Thank you. Oh...and Killian?"

"Yes?"

"Is your shirt on inside out?"

After putting my shirt on correctly, I left for town. I drove extra slowly until I was out of the more rural areas for fear of the white buck, but thankfully he didn't make another appearance.

At the police station, I was asked to take a seat and wait until Sgt. Kaplan was available. Time ticked by so slowly I began to wonder if he was keeping me waiting on purpose. I read through several outdated entertainment magazines, then called in to the office to let Novak know I'd be late — if I showed up at all. Finally, just as I was about to resort to the home-decorating magazines out of sheer boredom, the inner door opened, and Kaplan gestured for me to follow him.

"How'd I know you'd end up here before the morning was over?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Your finely honed detective skills?"

He snorted. "Coffee?"

"That would be lovely."

"Don't speak too soon. You haven't tasted it yet. I had to make it this morning." He stopped at a desk set up with a coffee maker and all the accoutrements, where he poured the black brew into two Styrofoam cups. "How do you take it?"

"Cream and sugar." My early-morning wakeup call had caught up with me while I was waiting, and I needed whatever boost I could get. Caffeine and sugar fit the bill nicely. "Lots of sugar."

He loaded my cup with sugar and powdered creamer before handing it to me and continuing to his office. I noticed he took his black.

Once we were seated, he at his desk and I in the same chair I'd occupied just a few days before, I took a sip of the coffee. I was immediately glad I'd requested all the extra sugar. Even with it, the brew was strong enough to curl my toes. I raised an eyebrow.

The sergeant chuckled. "I needed it after last night. Did you get any sleep?"

"A few hours."

"That's a few more than I got. So let me guess. You're here because we picked up Jacy Elliott this morning."

I nodded. "What's that about?"

"Just what you'd think. We needed to ask him some questions regarding Quinn Healy."

"Because of the incident at the site yesterday?"

"That depends on which incident you're referring to."

"The, er, altercation?"

"Nope. That would be considered assault, and without the professor around to press charges, that wouldn't amount to much."

"So what—" I broke off as it occurred to me what he was saying. "The murder?"

He nodded.

I stared at him in surprise. "Jacy is a suspect?"

"Now, I didn't say that."

"So he isn't?"

"I didn't say that either."

"What's going on? Is Jacy a suspect or not?"

"We don't know yet. Possibly."

"Can we not play games on a few hours of sleep?"

"I'm not trying to play games. We don't know to what extent he's involved, if at all. We don't want to jump to any conclusions."

"Why is he even being considered as a suspect?"

"His fingerprints were found on the murder weapon." I stared at him flabbergasted. "Combine that with their scuffle earlier and you have enough to make him a person of interest, at the very least."

"What's Jacy saying?"

"Not a lot. The kid was closemouthed before the lawyer arrived, and hasn't said a word since. He's in a private conference with the lawyer now. I really need to get back in there and see if he's ready to talk. Why don't you wait here?"

I nodded, and he left the office.

My mind was abuzz with thoughts of the murder. I couldn't see Jacy as a killer, but then again, I barely knew him. My instincts said he was innocent, though, and generally they turned out to be right. That left the question of how to explain his fingerprints on the murder weapon. I wasn't concerned about his reticence. Jacy was naturally shy, and he was smart enough to know that the less he said, the less the police could use against him.

I sat in Kaplan's office for another half hour before he reappeared. He dropped into his seat with a sigh. "Some days they really make you work for your paycheck." He picked up his empty coffee cup and stared morosely into it.

"What happened?"

"Not much. We're letting him go."

"Are you dropping the charges?"

"There are no charges to drop. We never charged him. This was strictly for questioning. The investigation remains open."

"Is Jacy still a suspect?"

"Absolutely."

"But you're letting him go..."

"We're not ready to charge anyone yet."

"Then he must have offered a good reason as to why his fingerprints were on the murder weapon."

"You'll have to get the story from him. I'm too exhausted to go into it. I'm going to go home and sleep."

"So, he's free to go?"

"He's probably gone already. Why are you still here?"

I laughed. "Okay, okay, I'm leaving." I stood up and started for the door.

"Oh, and Killian?" I stopped and turned back around. "I know this is probably a waste of time, but try to stay out of this, okay? This is a murder case, and we don't need you nosing around. Now, having said that, let me just add that when you ignore me and get involved anyway, be careful, and for God's sake, don't screw up any evidence."

I grinned. "Got it, Chief!"

He shook his head. "If I was chief, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'd have you tossed in a cell and throw away the key just for your own safety — not to mention the safety of everyone around you. Now get out." His weary smile softened his tough words.

I waved, then obliged. I found Jacy standing in the parking lot talking to a man with thinning brown hair, sharp eyes, and thin lips, who I guessed to be the lawyer. The man was wearing a well-fitted, charcoal gray suit and had a professional air about him.

Jacy looked up as I approached. "Killian! What are you doing here?"

"Lily called me. I was just talking to Sgt. Kaplan."

"Franklin Larrimore," the lawyer said, sticking out a manicured hand for me to shake.

"Killian Kendall, private investigator."

Larrimore arched an eyebrow. "They hired you quickly."

"I'm actually working on a separate matter. At least, we think it's separate. It could be related."

"So what did the sergeant say?" Jacy asked guardedly.

"He didn't say much — which is how he described his questioning of you too."

Jacy gave me a weak smile, and Larrimore nodded. "He did the right thing by staying quiet until I got there."

"I didn't even know you were coming. I just wasn't about to say anything they might see as incriminating."

"Well, it was smart thinking," Larrimore concurred.

"So what happened?" I asked.

Jacy sighed. "Can I tell you the whole story on the way home? I was going to call Lily to come get me, but since you're here, maybe you could give me a ride?"

"Sure."

"I need to get back to my office," Larrimore said. "Jacy, if anything else happens, make sure I'm notified immediately. I don't usually work in criminal law, but one of my associates does, so if he's needed, he'll be available to you. Let's just hope this will be the last of it and his services won't be required."

"I sure hope so. Thank you, Mr. Larrimore. I appreciate your coming down here so quickly."

"No problem, Jacy. I've known you since you were born, and I've known your grandfather even longer. I'm just glad I could help. Killian, it was a pleasure meeting you." As he walked away, he pulled out a cell phone.

Jacy and I started towards my car. "I'm glad he got here when he did," Jacy said, with a glance over his shoulder in the lawyer's direction. "He helped a lot."

"Good. I'm sure it was a scary experience."

Jacy nodded emphatically. "Yeah, being shaken awake and told there was a cop who wanted to take me in for questioning is not my ideal way to start the day."

We climbed into my car and pulled onto the street. "So what happened once you got to the station?"

"They put me in this room with a table and some chairs and left me alone for a while. Then Sgt. Kaplan came in and asked me to tell him again what happened yesterday at the excavation. So I did. I mean, I'd already told them last night, so I figured one more time wouldn't hurt anything.

"They asked if I went back later, and I said no. Then they pulled out a knife in a plastic bag and asked me if I'd ever seen it before. The knife was mine, but I wasn't about to tell them that. I usually carry it in a sheath on my belt. I noticed last night it was missing, but I decided I'd left it at work. It didn't take a genius to figure out that, if they had the knife, I must have lost it at the excavation when I was fighting with Healy."

"That must be the murder weapon. He said your fingerprints were on it."

Jacy nodded grimly. "That's what I figured. I decided it was in my best interest to stop talking at that point. They asked a few more questions, but I refused to answer. Then Mr. Larrimore got there, and they left me alone with him for a while. When they came back, he explained that the knife was mine but I'd lost it the day before, 'presumably during the altercation with Professor Healy' — his words, not mine. Then he told them I wasn't going to answer any more questions, so unless they were ready to charge me with something, they had to let me go."

"And that was it?"

"Pretty much. Well, I had to agree that everything Mr. Larrimore said was true."

Stopping at a red light, I turned in my seat to face Jacy. "Okay, look. I have to ask you this, so please just give me an honest answer and don't take offense. Did you kill Quinn Healy?"

Jacy's face registered shock. "No!" he answered without hesitation. "I can't believe you would even ask me that! I thought we were friends!"

"That's why I asked you. I needed to hear it from you and see your eyes when you answered."

A car horn sounded behind us, and I looked up to find the light had changed. Neither of us spoke for several minutes.

"For the record, I believe you," I finally said. "It doesn't really matter what I believe, though. The police are the ones you have to be concerned about and, right now, they're just looking for an excuse to nail you. You could be in real trouble. If they find any more evidence to link you to the murder, then you'll be under arrest."

"There can't be any more evidence linking me to the murder because I didn't have anything to do with it."

"Unless someone is setting you up."

He looked over at me with a startled expression. "You really think someone would do that?"

"I don't know. It's a possibility. If your knife was used in the murder, it could indicate someone was trying to make it appear that you killed Healy. Or maybe the killer just used the first thing he found. I wonder if there were any other fingerprints on the knife. I'll have to remember to ask Sgt. Kaplan about it."

"So you'll be investigating the murder?" Jacy sounded hopeful.

I hated to burst his bubble, but I'd gotten a little ahead of myself. "Not unless it turns out to be directly connected to the thefts. The tribe didn't hire me to investigate the murder."

"Do you actually think it's unrelated?"

"Honestly, no. That would be stretching credulity, but right now I don't have any direct evidence."

"I know I said this before, but I really want to help with the case — even more so now. It's become personal."

"I don't know..."

"Killian, please!"

"Jacy, it could be dangerous. We're dealing with a killer here."

"Yeah, and it's my life on the line."

"We'll discuss it later," I put him off as we pulled into Fletcher's driveway. "Right now, I need to get back to my office."

Jacy sighed. "You're not even going to come in?"

"I can't. Tell Lily and Fletcher I'll be in touch later."

I arrived at the office to find the construction crew busily working in a cloud of drywall dust. Novak's door was closed, but I let myself in anyway.

"Shut the door!" he barked before I was even completely inside the room.

I did, and the sounds of construction became slightly muffled.

"How much longer will they be here?"

He sighed. "I think — I hope — they're almost finished. If I'd known it was going to be this much trouble, I would have shut down the office while they were working. Speaking of trouble, the phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from people wanting to make appointments. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hear with all that racket going on out there? No. You wouldn't, since you haven't been here."

I stifled a grin at his little tirade. "You're just jealous because you couldn't find any excuse to get away from your desk today."

He laughed. "Ouch. The truth hurts, kid. Have a seat and bring me up to date on your case."

I flopped into one of the armchairs and started filling him in on what had happened since I'd talked to him last — which turned out to be quite a bit.

"I read about the murder in the paper this morning, although there weren't many details." I winced, thinking about Micah, as he continued, "I figured that had something to do with your late arrival this morning. What's your impression of the kid? Do you think he had anything to do with the murder?"

"I asked him point blank, and he adamantly denied it."

"What did you expect, a full confession? What's your gut say?"

"My instincts say he's innocent, but I've been wrong before."

"Haven't we all? I'd say you're right a lot more often than you're wrong, though."

"He wants to be involved in the case."

"What do you mean? He wants to know what's going on, or he wants to be an active part of the investigation?"

"The latter. I tried to discourage him, but he seems determined."

Novak leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. "I think you should let him."

"What? This is a dangerous case. There's a killer involved. Jacy doesn't have any experience with that sort of thing."

"Neither did you when you started. You said he was determined to be involved. My guess is he'll find a way to do it, whether it's official and through you, or on his own. At least if he's helping you, you can make sure it's on your terms. Give him some busy work and keep him out of trouble."

"Fletcher didn't want him involved."

"He's over eighteen, right? That's old enough to make decisions for himself."

I sighed. "We may be getting ahead of ourselves. I wasn't hired to catch Healy's murderer, only to find out who was stealing artifacts from the excavation. I suspect the person behind both will turn out to be one and the same, but I don't know that at this point. Unless the tribal council decides to extend the scope of my investigation, I might not even be involved. They could even pull the plug on the whole thing, now it's escalated to murder."

"True. It's always better to stick to what you were hired to do. I suspect you'll be asked to look into this matter, though." He leaned forward across his desk. "Do you have any suspects at this point?"

"Not yet. I haven't found out enough to start suspecting anyone."

"What are some possible motives for killing Healy?"

I pulled out my notebook and flipped through, looking at my notes. "Personal? From what I saw, he was an arrogant jerk. I can easily imagine someone wanting to kill him."

"There are a lot of jerks in this world, yet people don't generally run around killing them without some exacerbating provocation. You need to talk to people who knew him personally: friends, coworkers, students."

"Someone may have been trying to discredit the excavation."

"Murder seems like a pretty big step to take if your goal was simply to discredit the project."

"Maybe the looter got caught in the act and panicked."

"The use of Jacy's knife indicates forethought."

"So maybe it was planned. Or maybe the goal was to shut down the excavation, and when the looting didn't do the job, he or she resorted to violence."

"Who is this 'he or she,' then? Someone from the tribe?"

"It makes sense. Who else would want the dig stopped?"

"So you can add the entire Pomocatan tribe to your list of people to be interviewed."

"I'll start with the council members. If anyone is in a position to know who is against the excavation, they are. In fact, one of the elders was pretty vocal in his opposition."

"I'd start with him then. Anything else?"

"Well, the most common motive for murder is personal gain. That would bring us back to the looter. If he or she was looting the site in order to sell the artifacts or add them to his own collection, he'd have a pretty strong motive for murder — especially if Healy caught him in the act or confronted him."

"You've got a list of artifact collectors to talk to, right?"

"Well, I have a collector to talk to, as in singular."

He shrugged. "It's a start."

"You know, before I waste any more time on this, only to find out I'm off the case, maybe I should call Lily and double check my status."

Novak gestured towards the phone on his desk. "Help yourself."

I pulled out my cell phone instead. "Sorry, Grandpa. I've got this."

He shook his head. "I don't know how we survived without those things. They've made the Rolodex practically a museum piece."

Smirking at him, I dialed Lily. "Hi, this is Killian."

"Oh, Killian. Is everything okay? We were surprised when you didn't come in earlier."

"I'm sorry, but I needed to get to the office. Besides, everything seemed to have settled down by that point. I figured Jacy could fill you in."

"He did, so it's all right. We were just worried that something was wrong."

"No, everything is fine. Actually, the reason I was calling was to see if you still wanted me to continue with the case."

"Absolutely. In fact, I just got off the phone with the last of the council members, and for once everyone is in complete agreement. We would like you to extend your investigation to clearing Jacy's name."

"Even Wallace is in agreement?"

"Yes, he agreed immediately. I think the murder shook him up quite a bit."

"Hmm. Well, okay. I'll get started right away."

"Thank you, Killian. This means so much to us."

"You're certainly welcome."

I hung up and turned to Novak, who'd been listening to every word. "I'm in."

"So I gathered. What are you going to do first?"

"I think I want to visit the site of the murder and see things for myself."

Novak nodded. "Be careful."

"Aren't I always?"

"Right, and I'm the Jolly Green Giant."

Why did everyone assume I was careless?