by D. F. Bailey
“Who looks like a Viking.” Finch began laughing, too. “Or the Norse god, Odin, with hand-carved beads laced into his beard.”
Eve wrapped her arms around Finch and kissed his cheek. For the first time in days they both felt an effervescent buoyancy; the gift of unrestrained laughter. Finch kissed her lips, pressed his body against her and slipped a hand under her blouse.
“Uh-uh. I’ve got to shower, first,” she said. “I can still smell the mould from Justin Whitelaw’s basement cavern all over my body.”
Finch began to caress her tenderly.
“No, I mean it.” She dragged his hand away. “Don’t worry, it’ll be worth the wait.” She kissed him again.
“All right.” He broke away. “Five minutes. Max.”
“Ten. I promise,” she said but before she could reach the bathroom, they heard another knock at the door.
Cursing under his breath Finch went to the heavy oak door and opened it. Before him stood Detective Damian Witowsky.
“Got a moment?” he asked.
※
Detective Witowsky settled into the wingback chair that Sochi had occupied less than five minutes earlier. Finch and Eve took up their previous stations at opposite ends of the sofa and glanced at one another with a sense of foreboding. The zest of their passionate energy dissipated as they studied Witowsky’s etched face. How different their world had suddenly become. Instead of Sochi’s sparkle and wit, they now confronted Witowsky’s edgy grit.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Witowsky confessed to Eve. “It might be better if I talk to Mr. Finch on his own.”
“If this is about Gianna, then Eve can stay,” Finch said. Although Witowsky had been assigned to Gianna’s murder, in the past three weeks he’d done nothing to uncover any new evidence — at least nothing that he’d revealed to Finch or the Bay Area media.
“And what about my phone?” Eve leaned in. “Did you get the guy in the red sports car? The one who shot Dean Whitelaw?”
“Last night. We just published a press release an hour ago. A college kid named Jack Querrey. When he saw the video from your phone he made a full confession. But his lawyer Chuck Zanes — remember him, Zany Zanes? — is claiming justification based on self defense. He cited Article 12 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Witowsky shrugged as if that was inevitable. “No matter what, you know the forensics team will hang onto your phone until the sentencing wraps up and any appeals are exhausted. Could be months. Even then….” His voice trailed off without offering much hope.
“Some things never change.” She slumped against the sofa and turned her head. “So what’s this about?”
“Fiona Page.”
“What?” Eve let out a skeptical laugh. “So you’ve been demoted from homicide to missing persons?”
“Just trying to rebalance the load, Eve. You know what it’s like. Last week the guys in MP couldn’t keep up. Captain asked me to step in for a while.”
Witowsky set his eyes on Finch. “You work with Ms. Page at the eXpress, right?”
“Yeah.” Finch wove his fingers together. Finally Witowsky was getting to the point. “She works a few desks away from me. Maybe you heard.” Will couldn’t suppress the sarcasm in his voice.
The detective narrowed his eyes with a look of scorn. “Yeah, as I was just saying, things are busy. And just FYI, I’ve interviewed everyone else in your office.” He briefly turned to Eve, then back to Will. “Now tell me, when did you last see her?”
“Last Monday. About a week and a half ago.”
“What time?”
Finch raised a hand to the back of his neck as he pondered the question. “Three-thirty, maybe four.”
“What story was she working on?”
“She wanted to interview Justin Whitelaw. Find out what he knew about Gianna’s murder.”
“Where were they going to meet?” Witowsky drew his chest up as if he might finally be closing in on some critical facts.
“Café Claude. Over in the French quarter.”
“Were you helping with the story?”
“No more than normal. Just talking her through it. About how to approach Whitelaw.”
“She’d met him before?”
“Once or twice, but he wouldn’t talk to her.”
“No? Did she have any concerns?”
“Of course. Every reporter has to figure out how to get a reluctant source to open up.”
“So what was her plan?”
Will stalled a moment. “Just to talk him up.”
“At the bar? Make like a hook-up?”
Finch tried to recall their last conversation. “We discussed that. My advice was never to trade sex, or even the hint of it, for an interview.”
“Why was that?”
“What do you mean?”
Witowsky took a moment to ensure that he had Finch’s attention and when he held his eyes, he asked, “Did you have a sexual relationship with Fiona Page?”
Will’s head snapped back as if he’d taken a punch on the chin. “What?” He stood up and stepped to the side of the sofa.
“Damnit, Witowsky. You don’t get to ask that.” Eve spat out these words with contempt. “And you don’t have to answer,” she said to Will.
“No? I suggest you do. Mr. Finch where were you last Monday evening?”
Stunned, Finch tried to calculate his whereabouts. Then it came to him. “In the hospital.” Another memory flashed through him. “Hell, you saw me there with Eve when you confiscated her cellphone!”
Witowsky smiled as he witnessed Finch scrambling to find an alibi that would eliminate him as a suspect.
“Witowsky, you’re a complete embarrassment.” Eve stood and crossed her arms. “Will had nothing to do with Fiona’s disappearance and you know it.”
“Yeah? Well, here’s something I do know. I know that you two have been poking around this case down in the French quarter. Which two super heroes do you think you are? Cat Woman and Clark Kent? We do not need you to screw up another investigation like you did with Gianna Whitelaw. I’m telling you. For the record,” he said directly to Finch, “Back off.”
“That’s enough!” Eve pointed to the door and took a step toward Witowsky. Her voice lowered to a restrained growl. “Get the hell out of here, Witowsky.”
The detective nodded and stood up. He stepped past Finch, who’d been standing next to the coffee table. Then Witowsky turned back to Eve and shook his head as if he still had lessons to teach her. Lessons about power. How to dominate anyone who crosses your path.
“Just routine, Eve. You know that.” He walked towards the door, then paused and swiveled back to her. “Or maybe you forgot. I guess that can happen when you get out of practice.”
Finch marched over to the door and waved Witowsky into the hallway. When he departed, Will slammed the door, strode across the room and punched a fist into the top of the wingback chair. An image of Witowsky’s face rose in his mind. And Finch beating him to a pulp.
“You see what I had to put up with? Five years with assholes like that.” Eve set her hand on his shoulder and sauntered toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take that shower. I’ve got to wash all this slime away. It’s getting thicker by the minute.” She looked back at him. “You all right?”
He waved a hand and sat down again. “I’m fine.”
“Good. If anyone else knocks at the door, don’t answer.”
※
Once he had Rasputin up and running Sochi sat at his computer terminal and toyed with the search parameters which would unlock the password manager on Eve’s data drive. First, he entered the password that unlocked the drive itself: H4-nv34&9_Ee98<-Fi2trJA,
“But we are all creatures of habit,” he whispered aloud. Since the correct password to the data drive was thirty-two characters, he reasoned there would
be a better-than-even chance that the next password also contained thirty-two characters. He set Rasputin to search for a password of exactly that length. If Sochi’s approach were correct, he could save Rasputin days, if not weeks. If incorrect, so be it. He’d simply eliminate all thirty-two character searches on the next pass.
“You see, my friend,” he said to Rasputin once he’d initiated the search, “digital logic may be unassailable. But human habits? Not so much.”
Satisfied that Rasputin’s program was underway and functioning properly, Sochi turned his attention to the mysterious web link on the data drive. Did it provide the key to open the bitcoin wallet? Or was it a rabbit hole that would lead him, Moscow and Arbat into an abyss?
“Only one way to find out.” He swiveled his chair to a second computer, this one wired to the internet, and launched his favorite IP address spoofer, a web browser that allowed him to surf the internet anonymously. No one could link back to him, identify him, his server, or even his location.
He clicked the link and a single text box appeared in the middle of a white screen. Below that a caption stated: Enter your public encryption key. Assume that your adversary is capable of one trillion guesses per second.
Sochi tipped his chair backward and wove his fingers through the mane of hair behind his head. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the screen. Whoever had patched this website together was no tin-hat trifler. Clearly, the programmer believed in three things: simplicity, security, and complete control.
Sochi stood up and walked into his kitchen. He boiled a kettle of water and set a bag of Earl Gray tea into his “thinking mug,” a sixteen-ounce cup his brother had given him on his eighteenth birthday. As his tea steeped he sat on the sofa at the far end of the room and stared at his computer in the distance. You can do this now, he reasoned, or you can do it later. Or you can walk away and never visit this site again. Since there was no information he could gather that would aid his decision, the option to enter the web site now or later presented a false choice. Furthermore, Arbat had granted him three weeks to deliver his end of their bargain, therefore delay was impractical.
The only real choice you have available — to enter now or to walk away — ensures a missed opportunity if you walk away. He nodded his head in agreement. Once again, the logic was unassailable.
Sochi sipped his tea, walked back to his computer and settled in his chair. “And when, my friend,” he asked himself, “have you ever tossed a new opportunity aside?
※ — SIX — ※
FIONA PAGE POUNDED the leg of the bed cot against the bedspring coil. She’d been at it for twenty minutes, enough time to work up a light sweat, enough sweat for her to peel off her blouse so that she could continue hammering with renewed vigor. Today, she decided, she would break free.
In two days she’d made some progress in transforming the tip of the coil into a slotted screw driver that would fit the four screws that held the rack of bars to her cell window. After another five minutes battering the metal she wiped the perspiration from her eyebrows and held the flattened coil to the lower left screw. Almost, she murmured to herself and pressed the tip into the steel groove. To her surprise it fit.
“Gotcha!”
She leaned her weight into the coil and turned the screw ninety degrees to the right. As the screw eased out of the wood frame her heart began to race. Yes, you’re going to make it!
She turned her attention to the lower right screw. A small burr in the slot seemed to block the fit. She scraped the loose material away with the coil and then pressed the tip into the slot. Yes! She turned it one full turn and then studied the top two screws in the frame. Just out of reach. She stood on the edge of the cot and reached up to the top right screw and gave it a full turn.
Then she jumped off the cot and stood on the concrete floor to consider the last screw on the top left. She’d have to pull the cot from the wall, set it next to the sink and climb up from there. “Better to remove it first,” she said aloud, “and then the others one at a time.” Just in case the worm surprised her before she could complete the job.
He’d done that twice already, popped in during the middle of the day. The first time to bring her some disinfectant and a bandage for the cut he’d opened on her face. The second time to rape her.
She tried to think how many days she’d been held captive. Ten, maybe eleven. She wished she’d scratched the passing days on the wall under the cot. She that knew she’d been drugged and that he’d increased the dose as her perception of day and night merged into one long blur. But worst of all was his slow descent into naked brutality. What started with his insane courtship of her had regressed into mute violence as he defiled her day after day.
She pressed her teeth together and felt the pain coursing through her jaw. The pain was good; it enforced a discipline and resolve. She stood up and balanced on the end of the cot and fit the coil tip into the top right screw. “Today,” she whispered, “today you are getting the hell out of here.”
※
Fiona gasped and jumped from the cot to the floor. As the door swung open, she shoved her arms through the sleeves of her blouse and sat on the edge of the cot. No time to button up. In one hand she gathered the front flaps of the blouse together. With the other she tucked the screw driver under her right thigh.
Justin Whitelaw stood at the open door, waited for the spring mechanism to swing the barrier back into place. He listened to the bolt extension as it plunged into the strike box with its dull click. As he tested the deadbolt, he released the deadbolt key which recoiled on the steel cable into the fob on his belt. A look of satisfaction crossed his face and then turned his mouth in a cynical frown.
He wore a navy pinstripe suit. As usual, loose strands of his hair were combed over his bald patch. Premature male pattern baldness, she recalled. The technical terminology for early onset baldness. She’d written a health article about PMPB for the eXpress last month. But why — why? — was she thinking of that now? She tried to shake the thought from her head.
“What day is it?”
A dark look crossed his face.
“Look, I really need to know what day it is. Since I don’t know where I am, you can at least tell me what day it is.”
He sat on the far side of the cot. “Why is your blouse open?”
She couldn’t think of an answer he’d accept and when she didn’t reply, he leaned over and drew her hand away to examine her bra.
“What were you doing?”
She looked away.
“What?” his hand locked around her forearm.
“I was just going to wash up in the sink.” She pulled free of his grasp and sneered.
He nodded. “Take your blouse off.”
“Justin, please.” She felt her eyes welling with tears. “Why don’t we try to make this pleasant. For both of us.”
“How would you do that, bitch?” He pressed his face next to her cheek.
She could smell cinnamon on his breath. As she tried to figure out why he smelled of cinnamon, the hopeless feeling swept through her again. There were no answers. No answers to anything. All she knew for certain was that she had to gather her strength for what was coming. But how?
“I said, tell me how you’d make it pleasant.” His voice rose to a near scream as his hand grabbed her neck. “Tell me how you like it!”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered and slumped onto her side as his right hand pawed at her breasts.
His mouth began to root around the base of her neck and his cheek slipped back and forth against the side of her head. As she leaned back she felt the bedspring dig into her thigh. She pulled the coil free, held the spring in her clenched fist, the sharpened end pointing to the ceiling.
“You really think you can make it better?” he whispered into her ear.
She raised the coil behind his head.
“Make this better?” He thrust his hips toward her to let her know what would come next.
She rammed the
sharp end of the coil into his neck, just below his left ear.
“What?” He let out a gasp, a wisp of surprise in his voice.
She pulled out the coil and thrust the tip into his flesh again.
“Shit!” He tried to wrench away, but this time she clasped her free arm around his shoulder and punched the coil into his neck once more. Then again. And again.
He dragged himself free and staggered to the sink with a hand clasped over the punctures in his neck. “Fuck,” he whispered as he examined the blood in his palm. “What have you done?”
Fiona stood up, took a step toward him, the bedspring coil poised in her hand, a dagger eager for another try at him. “Give me the keys.”
He wiped the palm of his hand over his neck, paused and then examined the blood seeping through his fingers.
“Give me the God-damn keys!” She thrust the coil under his throat and pressed the sharpened tip against the flesh above his larynx.
A look of terror swept through his eyes. He pulled the fob from his belt and passed it to her.
She grabbed it and turned to the door. Which one? A dozen silver and brass keys hung from the fob. She tried one. Another. Finally one fit. As she turned the key in the deadbolt, Justin tackled her, dragged her under his chest to the floor. She lashed away with the coil tip, striking for his eyes if she could find them. When she heard another wail she crawled from under him, pulled the door open and ran into the hall.
※
When Fiona reached the end of the unlit hallway she glanced back at the basement cell. Behind her Justin Whitelaw hobbled through the door, took one halting step forward, then another. He lunged toward her, and stumbled along the corridor with a hand braced on the wall. She choked down a gulp of air, tried one door, tugged on another, swung it open and charged up a wooden staircase and onto the street.
“Help!” she screamed. “Please help me!” She swung about — no cars, no people — north, south? Where was she? The adrenalin pouring through her body propelled her down the street toward the sound of traffic. As her feet pounded against the sidewalk she felt alive. Alive! She would beat this. A fucking survivor!