Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue by Barbara Paul Page A

part of our agreement that we never release her name to the news media.”
    â€œCan you put a percentage figure on her accuracy?”
    â€œEasy,” grinned Delgado. “One hundred.”
    â€œA hundred per cent accurate?”
    â€œThat’s right. The way she explained it to me, it’s all pretty automatic. Either that red glow is there or it isn’t. She doesn’t have to evaluate anything, make judgments. Just yes or no.”
    â€œBut how do you know she’s right all the time?” Gilbert persisted. “If she says somebody is lying, and he says he isn’t—isn’t that just a matter of deciding which one to believe?”
    A flicker of irritation crossed the Sergeant’s face. “We don’t take anybody’s word for anything. Shelby Kent’s say-so isn’t evidence. But when she tells us a suspect is lying, then we know where to look for evidence. She’s saved us a helluva lot of work by steering us away from one line of investigation and toward another. She takes the guesswork out of it, you understand?”
    â€œSo all she does is save you a little time and effort.”
    â€œHey, don’t sneer at that, man! And no, that isn’t all she does. Lotsa times we’d have missed out altogether if it wasn’t for some lie she uncovered. And every time— every time—we got the evidence we needed. I’m telling you, she never misses.”
    â€œNever misses.” I’ll take vanilla .
    â€œAll right, believe it, don’t believe it, what do I care? What do you want to do, read all the case records?”
    â€œYes,” said Kevin Gilbert stubbornly.
    â€œEric,” said Shelby, “I’ll go with you to California, I’ll live in California, I’ll even pretend to like California. But don’t ask me to give up my police work.”
    â€œCome on, Shelby, I’m not asking you to give up some career you’ve spent years preparing yourself for. This whole lie-detecting business—it’s a fluke, and you know it. Is it worth breaking up our marriage for?”
    â€œWould you ask me to stop singing if I happened to be born with a great voice? That’s a fluke too.”
    â€œNot a valid analogy. Won’t you even try it?”
    â€œTry pretending I can’t do something I can?”
    â€œMaybe we can find some other way to use your gift, something that won’t put you in the public eye.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike I don’t know what. But we can look for something. Or don’t you think the marriage is worth the effort?”
    Shelby was silent a moment. Then: “Yes, I think it’s worth the effort. Oh hell, Eric—maybe you’re right. I don’t know, let me think about it some more. I don’t want to give up the police work, but I don’t want to give you up either. Why should I have to choose? It’s not reasonable, what you’re asking me to do.”
    â€œI know,” he said gently. “But I’m still asking.”
    â€œYes, Shelby was down last week,” Dr. Wedner said. “We were running some new neurological tests. What is it exactly you want to know?”
    â€œI want to know how reliable her ability is,” Kevin Gilbert said.
    â€œOne hundred per cent,” said Dr. Wedner. “You cannot tell her a lie without her knowing it, and she never mistakes the truth for a falsehood. She’s foolproof. I’ve never tested another aura reader who even approaches Shelby in accuracy.”
    â€œYou mean there are others like her?”
    â€œThere are other aura readers in the world, but none of them can read the same aura Shelby reads. She’s the only one who can detect lies. But there are others who can spot physical illness by seeing auras the rest of us can’t see. We’ve tested about a hundred of these people, and the mean for the group is sixty-four per cent accuracy. Still a