by Conell, Zach
“What now?” Cillian asked as the door slammed shut. He looked around. They were standing on an almost square patch of concrete of about fifty square feet in size, partially covered with snow and surrounded by concrete walls of close to three times Cillian’s height. The place was dimly lit by a streetlight standing somewhere above; he could see part of the post beyond the top of the wall opposite the door. Cillian wondered why an emergency exit would lead to a closed, concrete cell like this. What a safety hazard.
“Now we climb,” Rose stated calmly.
“How do you plan to do that?” Cillian couldn’t imagine how it would be possible for them to climb these walls that seemed to be about as smooth as Rose’s legs.
“Up there.” She pointed to a fire escape ladder attached to the wall with the emergency exit in it, close to the corner on their right. But as she looked at the ladder, a concerned expression crossed Rose’s face. “Shit!” she exclaimed, walking toward the corner. “It seems much higher than I remember. I don’t think you can reach it.”
Cillian estimated that the lowest bar hung well over ten feet above the ground, which was indeed higher than he, a six-foot-tall man, could reach when jumping straight into the air. But Rose wasn’t aware that he had another option. When he tried a running jump—it was more like a three-step jump, as the place was too small for a proper run—he missed the bar by about ten inches. Yes, that will do, he thought as he turned to Rose.
“I’m sure I can get it, but I need you to move out of that corner,” he informed her as he took position in the corner diagonally opposite to the ladder.
“Sure, but how…” Rose sounded a little puzzled as she moved back to the door.
Cillian took three rapid steps forward and jumped up. Instead of reaching for the ladder directly, he planted his right foot on the wall below the ladder and pushed himself off to the left, before swiftly planting his left foot on the other wall—substantially higher this time due to his upward momentum—and pushing himself back toward the lowest bar, which he easily managed to grab on to this time. However, the ladder gave way instantly. A shrill yelp of terror escaped Rose’s throat as she observed the ladder and Cillian drop about five feet down before coming to a sudden halt. To her amazement, the unlicensed PI managed to place his feet securely on the ground as the ladder was coming down, bending his knees fast enough so as not to break his legs.
“You know,” Cillian said as he stood up straight again, while sending Rose a victorious grin, “it’s even simpler than it looks.”
“That didn’t look simple at all” was the astonished reply.
“All right, so there’s room for improvement,” Cillian stated in a semiserious voice as he let go of the ladder, the lowest bar of which hung now at about his height. “In my defense, I haven’t done this in a while. Come here, I’ll give you a leg-up.”
“I find it hard to believe you can do it all,” said Rose, who had regained her composure by now. She made use of Cillian’s offer and began climbing the ice-cold ladder.
“To tell you the truth, I got really into parkour when I was a freshman at university.” Whether it was a consequence of the adrenaline still rushing through his body thanks to his little stunt, or of the fact that he struggled to keep himself from looking underneath Rose’s skirt as she made her way up the ladder above him, he suddenly felt a strong urge to open up to this beautiful stranger and offer her a glimpse into his soul.
“Why was that?” She sounded sincerely interested.
“Well, I had a difficult time making friends, and I needed a distraction from my journalism studies. Plus, I actually thought it might come in handy someday if I needed to chase a corrupt politician or a crooked businessman for an exclusive.”
“I don’t think someone like that could ever be bothered to run away.” Rose laughed. “You would just be offered a bribe.”
“That would never work. I am unbribable.” It was the truth. Cillian had decided at an early age that he would rather end up as a penniless reporter trying to get truthful stories printed in an obscure newspaper than as a wealthy tycoon selling lies to the masses. There were too many powerful people who fell into the latter category as it was.
“Glad to hear that, Mr. Cantor,” Rose said as she was about to reach the top of the ladder. “That’s exactly the kind of person I need for this job.”
Chapter Five
About half an hour later they were strolling eastward along the Chicago Riverwalk, in the direction of Lake Michigan.
“What exactly happened back there?” Cillian asked, breaking the silence they had maintained since their rushed exit from Asgard. “Why did the power in the bar suddenly go off like that? And why did we need to leave in this, let’s say, unusual manner?”
Their hurried escape from the bar might have been exciting in some way—Cillian could not deny that—but he didn’t feel like playing Tarzan and Jane in the urban jungle just for the fun of it. He wanted answers.
Rose carefully scrutinized their surroundings. They were walking underneath the Well Street Bridge over which an “L” train was just passing. Rose remained silent until the loud clickety-clack sound of the train began to die away. Then, without looking at Cillian, she started speaking in a low, unsteady voice betraying her grief.
“You were right about my father’s smartphone being on him when he died. If he did not die of heart failure—and I have reason to believe he didn’t—he was probably murdered for discovering something certain people didn’t want him to know. And if that was the case, the killer is likely to have searched his office and his body to see if my father contacted anyone before his death to share his knowledge or ask for help. He or she—the murderer, I mean—” Her voice almost broke as she said the word “murderer.” “—He or she would have certainly found his phone and discovered the message he sent you the night before. I mean, it’s child’s play to unlock a smartphone, and this person certainly knew what he or she was doing. Even though you didn’t respond to my father’s message, the killer might have tracked you down to see if you knew anything.”
Like you did? The thought came as a surprise to Cillian. But it was true, he had to be careful with this woman. Up until this point she had not given him any concrete reason to trust her. All he had to go on so far was the sorrowful look he could read in her gray-blue eyes.
“Considering that,” Rose continued, “I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the murderer was monitoring your movements and would therefore try to follow you to Asgard.”
“I’m pretty sure I would have noticed that,” Cillian declared, sounding slightly offended.
“You probably would have, if you had been consciously checking to make sure no one was on your tail, but I doubt that you did, as you had no real reason to be so suspicious.”
She had a point there. Cillian had to admit that he hadn’t been very attentive to his surroundings on his way to Asgard. He had been so curious to get there, that he had rather let down his guard. Rookie mistake, Cillian scolded himself.
“Anyway, I chose Asgard because I knew about the rather concealed emergency exit. And more importantly, the bartener is an old friend of mine from high school. She had agreed to switch off the power briefly, short enough so as not to arouse general suspicion, but long enough for you and me to get out of the place without anyone seeing us leave, or CCTV capturing our escape. It was stupid of me not to check the fire escape ladder beforehand. But luckily you happened to be somewhat of a…”
“Monkey?” Cillian proposed cynically.
“I was going to say acrobat, but sure, whatever works for you,” she teased.
“But what about your friend, the bartender, how much does she know?” Cillian was all business again.
“Tiffany? Practically nothing. I told her that you are my new lover who is being stalked by his jealous ex-girlfriend. Hence the need for us to escape through the back door.” She actually winked at him.
“And she bought that?” Cillian asked in disbelief
.
“I don’t think she fully believed me, but she was kind enough not to ask any questions. I guess she understood that I must have had a very good reason to come up with a story like that.”
“I understand,” Cillian said, feeling a little reassured now that at least one part of the mystery had been uncovered.
“But how did you know about the text your father sent me? If you say he had his phone on him when he died, how did you get a hold of it?”
“I didn’t” was her uninformative answer.
It seriously annoyed Cillian that after finally revealing something to him, she seemed to have immediately reverted back to her old cryptic ways. As if she had lifted up one tiny corner of the veil of mystery for him, only to throw a thick blanket over the rest of it straight after.
“No more riddles, Rose,” he said sternly. “I’ve been patiently playing along with you, but I’ve gotten pretty tired of you keeping me in the dark. Either you tell me all you know, or I walk. It’s up to you.”
Cillian could see that his outburst had affected Rose, as the skin of her face had turned even paler than before. She avoided his sidelong glance as they walked on in silence. After they had passed underneath the DuSable Bridge, locally known as the Michigan Avenue Bridge because it carried this famous avenue across the Chicago River, she stopped and looked around. Having ascertained that they were all alone, she turned toward Cillian with a sigh.
“Fine,” she said coolly. “I’ll try to be more forward. I hacked into my father’s phone. Well, technically I hacked into SS7. I’m fine to explain what that is so I don’t come across as purposefully vague again, but I must warn you that the specifics are rather boring and hardly relevant. The short version is that cell phone networks are connected to a set of protocols known as Signaling System No. 7, SS7, which is riddled with security vulnerabilities. Simply put, if you know what you are doing, it is relatively easy to break into SS7, which can then enable you to gain access to all kinds of information about a certain phone number, like data on incoming and outgoing calls and text messages as well as the location of the phone. You can even record live calls.”
“Wow, that’s messed up,” Cillian said in amazement.
“I know, that’s why I never planned to use it. However, after I discovered there was something fishy about the circumstances of my father’s death, I wanted to get access to his phone to see if he had reached out to someone. And that’s when I learned about the text you just read. By the way, I’m sorry about contacting you on your landline like that, but I didn’t want to call your cell phone and risk the murderer finding out about it the same way I found out about my father’s text to you. I’m sorry if it creeped you out.” There was a regretful smile on Rose’s face.
“It most certainly did, but I’ll be fine.” Cillian nodded reassuringly. “I just have two more questions. First, just a technicality, but about the supposed killer, I was wondering… you kept referring to a ‘her or she.’ What makes you think it could be a woman?” Cillian wondered.
“What makes you think it wasn’t?” Rose shot him an irritated glance.
“I don’t mean it that way,” Cillian replied defensively. “It has nothing to do with sexism; I’m just talking biology here. I mean, if the murderer was able to physically overpower your father, wouldn’t…”
“Who says my father was physically overpowered?” Rose interrupted him. “I have seen him…” She suppressed a sob. “I mean his body, this afternoon. I was asked to identify him, as his sole next of kin. I only saw his head and neck, but there wasn’t a scratch on him.”
So he wasn’t beaten to death, or strangled, Cillian concluded to himself. He didn’t want to upset Rose more than she already was by saying those words out loud.
“But this brings me to my other, far more fundamental question…” Cillian hesitated.
“Why do I think my father was murdered?” Rose filled in the blank.
“Yes. I mean, why don’t I believe the coroner’s report? Especially when you’ve seen that his body wasn’t harmed? What kind of ‘evidence’ do you have to contradict the official story?” Cillian hoped he hadn’t sounded sarcastic.
“Can we sit down for a minute?” Rose asked, pointing to a round metal picnic table standing a little to their left underneath some snow-covered trees. “I know it’s freezing, but it will make it easier to explain everything.”
“Sure,” Cillian said, walking to the table and wiping the snow off their seats with the sleeve of his coat. After they sat down, Rose took a small tablet computer out of her purse and began looking something up as she talked.
“One reason for my skepticism is that just two weeks ago, when my father had his yearly medical checkup, his doctor told him he was in great shape and that he had an exceptionally strong heart for someone of his age. I know this because my dad proudly texted one of his colleagues about it. I found that text the same way I found his message to you. That makes his alleged heart failure without a clear cause seem rather unexpected, to say the least. But the evidence I mentioned before is this email, which he sent to me this morning, probably shortly before his death.” She handed him the tablet. Cillian began reading the message carefully:
Dear Rosalie,
I’m sorry for not getting back to you earlier, but my schedule has been rather crazy this week, so I didn’t have an opportunity to look at your research paper until just now. I found it very interesting to read, and while I of course cannot judge the technical parts due to my lack of knowledge in the field of computer science, I really liked some of the metaphors you used to explain certain key concepts of your paper.
As you will see in the attached file, I have only made one small literature recommendation, which I think could be very insightful if you take care to look into it.
Alles Liebe und bitte grüß mir deinen großen Bruder in der Bibliothek,
Papa
“I don’t understand it,” he said, after reading the email once more. “How is this evidence of anything?”
“Please bear with me,” Rose replied, getting up from her seat and walking around the table until she was standing next to him, with one hand on his shoulder and the other pointed to the screen. “I’ll try to explain.”
“Please do,” Cillian responded, trying to ignore the slight pressure of her hand on his shoulder. It kind of troubled him that it felt so pleasant to be touched by her, even indirectly, through the layers of his clothes and her gloves. He didn’t want this kind of distraction in his life.
“To begin with,” Rose said, “I believe the entire first paragraph is taken from an old email which he sent me about three years ago, after I had asked him to look at a paper for my computer science studies. I can’t be sure if it is identical, because I can’t retrieve the original email, as it was sent to my university email account which was closed after I graduated last year. But this is more or less how I remember it.”
“So maybe he accidentally resent you an old email?” Cillian asked, as the stereotypical image of a scatterbrained professor emerged in his mind.
“I must say that the same thought crossed my mind when I first received his email this morning, because it’s true that my father sometimes gave the impression of being rather unmethodical and all over the place. In fact, he even liked to pride himself on his ‘unPrussian unpunctionality’ and lack of organizational skills. But the irony was that there was always order to his chaos. So once I heard the news of his…” She swallowed the next word.
Cillian understood it was still difficult for her to fully realize what had happened to her father. He had felt the same way for weeks after Amanda’s disappearance, and he sometimes still struggled to accept it as the reality of his life rather than a gruesome fever dream he couldn’t wake up from.
“I just knew that the email couldn’t be a coincidence,” Rose continued. “And when I read it more carefully, I discovered his real message, a very deliberate one, in the second part of the text. Look, the attached file is e
xactly the same as the original draft of the paper that I sent him at that time—I’m sure, because I still had this file.” Rose opened the email attachment and began scrolling to the bottom of the text document that appeared. “The only difference is that he added this ‘literature recommendation’ as he describes it.” She highlighted a short line of text:
E. A. Blair (1984). The Future of Computer Science. Chicago: University Library Press.
“I’m sorry to say that I’m completely lost,” Cillian admitted after closely examining the text.
“Are you familiar with George Orwell?” Rose asked, ignoring his remark.
“The author? Sure. I actually read quite… Oh, I see,” Cillian interrupted himself. “This book was published in 1984, like the title of Orwell’s most famous book.”
“You almost got it,” she said with a chuckle, “but this line doesn’t refer to an actual publication at all. George Orwell was the pen name of a man called Eric Arthur Blair, so I think this line simply refers to his book, Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
“But why would your father refer to this book in such an enigmatic manner? And how is it connected to his death?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but there’s another clue hidden in the last line of the email,” Rose said as she closed the attachment and highlighted the last line of Erdmann’s message.
“Is that German? I couldn’t understand that line.”
“Yes it is, which immediately struck me as odd, since my father and I never communicated in German. My mother was from America, and we always lived here, so all of us just sort of stuck to English.”