by Frankie Bow
“His spell?” Sherry scoffed. “What are you talking about?”
“Okay. You found out that Glenn and Kathy were having an affair. But what I can’t figure out is, why didn’t you just walk away? What am I missing here?”
Sherry stared at me. Her lips trembled for a second, and then she lost it.
“What are you missing?” She was laughing so hard that people were starting to stare.
“What’s so funny?”
“Dr. B.,” she gasped. “I thought you had it all figured out. You’re not even close!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“SO I DIDN’T GET ALL the details right. Maybe you can explain it to me?”
I was a little stung by Sherry’s slur on my powers of induction.
“Sure.” She took a gulp of her Seven and Seven. “I’ll tell you how I figured it out. So Glenn hadda leave for a business trip. Remember, before the race? I came to see you in your office? You know it’s all cause of you that me and Dave met to begin with. Remember?”
“I can’t take the credit for that. Anyway, Glenn?”
“Yeah. So his business trip was him going to collect payment for a job. But he came back early. And he was pretty pi—he wasn’t too happy. Cause he went all the way out there, he wouldn’t tell me exactly where, though. Somewhere on the mainland. Glenn told me he did the job and was supposed to get paid, but the guy didn’t wanna pay him. That’s all he would say. It put him in a real bad mood, though.” Sherry leaned in and lowered her voice. “So the day he came back, he was rushing around and didn’t unpack right away. He left his bag in his workroom and went right back out again. So I’d just took a shower, and I’d ran outta deodorant. I thought no big deal, I’ll borrow some of his. I went and looked in his travel bag. I saw a file folder there, and maybe I shouldn’t of, but I looked inside.”
“And that’s when you found the photos of Kathy?”
“Yeah. Two of them. One of them looked like one I’d posted online. Where our crew is rigging the canoe. So I’m the one who took the picture and posted it, and now he has a copy of it. How weird is that, huh? He had another picture of her too, a headshot. It looked like it was from a driver’s license or something like that. Kathy had dark hair in that one. And not only that. I found a printout of one of my emails. It was the announcement from when Kathy died. Now if youda been me, what would you do?”
“I would have been frightened,” I said. “I’m not sure what I would have done.”
“Well, I was mad at first. Like, who does he think he is, going through my stuff?”
“The nerve,” I agreed.
“But then it hit me. I’d just read that article, the one I turned in with my paper. Did you read it?”
“Yes, I did. The one about how you can use a wireless device to hack someone’s pacemaker remotely. Or their insulin pump.”
“Exactly. Well, Kathy had an insulin pump. And you know Glenn, he was always playing around with his electronics. You know, I didn’t really think about how he was always screwing around with that stuff. I was like, yeah, boys and their toys, whatever. But after reading the article, and finding Kathy’s pictures and death announcement in his bag—he wasn’t playing around. Kathy was dead, and he’s the one who did it. He figured out a way to get the job done without getting his hands dirty.”
“Glenn?” I exclaimed. “Your Glenn? I mean—”
“Yeah. I told you he was into electronics, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I admitted.
“He was helping me write up my business idea. Remember?”
“I do remember.” Sherry had told me Glenn was good with electronics. And, having met Glenn in person, I had dismissed it.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” she said. “I haven’t talked to anyone about it, though. Don’t tell Dave. Poor kid, he’s such an innocent.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. So now you didn’t kill Kathy. You’re saying Glenn killed Kathy, by hacking her insulin pump.”
“You thought I killed Kathy?” Sherry stared at me.
“No, I didn’t think you killed anyone. I never thought you did.” That wasn’t quite true, but it was all I could think of to say. “So you figured it out when you read the article about hacking the insulin pump, and saw the photos of Kathy in Glenn’s suitcase, and the email.”
“Uh-huh. And I figured his ‘job’ had to do with that. Someone hired him to get rid of Kathy Banks. Made me wonder what she did. Mess around with the wrong woman’s husband, probably.”
“So the last time I talked to you, back in Mahina, why did you tell me you’d killed Kathy?”
“I didn’t tell you I killed Kathy. Why would I tell you that?”
“Well, you told me I’d figured out how you did it. I asked you if you’d used your insulin—”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. And I did.”
I shook my head. “I’m still confused.”
“I didn’t use the insulin on Kathy,” Sherry said. “I used it on Glenn.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“GLENN KNEW.” SHERRY sipped her Seven and Seven. “I don’t know how he knew, but that night when we came home from the race? I could tell something was different. You know that diet us paddlers were doing? He’d never been real supportive of it, but that night he said to me, hey, baby, don’t forget your injection. You don’t wanna let yourself get fat just cause the race is over.”
“He said that?” Grounds for justifiable homicide right there, as far as I was concerned.
“And when I opened the medicine cabinet, I saw my things weren’t exactly how I left them. He’d done something to the needles. I could tell.”
“So what did you do?”
“I made up some story about how I wasn’t gonna do my injection right then, cause I’d switched to doing them in the morning. That bought me twelve hours. I was so nervous I didn’t sleep that night. I watched Glenn till it started to get light out. Then I got up and grabbed five of my insulin pens. I use the 31 gauge, they’re real fine. They slip in nice and smooth. I gave him all five, one after the other. I shook him awake, and we went out for our morning run like always.”
“You were smart. You made sure not to have a body in the house. He’d probably be hard to move.”
“Look, sorry Dr. B, but it was him or me, you know? It was self-defense.”
“No, I understand. You didn’t think you could go to the police?”
“I thought about it,” she said. “I did. But they wouldn’t of done anything. What could they do? It was safer to take care of it myself. I mean, Glenn didn’t think twice about blowing up Kathy’s insulin pump. I knew I was next, and I didn’t have a lot of time. He’s a professional, Dr. B. I didn’t know him at all. His whole pretty-boy act, that was for this job. And now I think about it, I’m pretty sure Glenn Anderssen wasn’t even his real name.”
“You can call me Molly. You’re not my student anymore.”
“Dave calls you Aunty Molly.” Sherry grinned. “Can I call you that?”
“Please don’t.”
“So anyway, Glenn? We were out on the trail about two miles from home when he passed out. And I’ll be honest, I felt bad for a second. But I remembered what he did to Kathy, and how he used me. I was disposable to him. I was just there to help him finish the job.”
“It must have been more than that. He didn’t have to start a relationship with you. If he’d wanted to, he could have just befriended Kathy directly. She wasn’t averse to male attention, from what I could tell.”
“No. No, I was thinking about this. No, he couldn’t. Cause the boyfriend is always suspect numero uno when something bad happens. Right? No one ever suspects the friend’s boyfriend. He hadda get close to someone who wasn’t his mark.”
“Oh. I see your point.”
“Same reason I hadda leave town. They find Glenn, if anyone gets suspicious, who are they gonna look for first? The girlfriend.”
“Did you hear they found him?”
&
nbsp; Sherry went a little pale. “They ID’d him?”
“Yes. It was in the County Courier. It said they didn’t suspect foul play.”
Sherry drained her glass.
“I didn’t mean anything to him.” She looked around for someone who could bring us more drinks. “You know what? If he’d of gotten paid when he was supposed to, he probably wouldn’t of come back at all.”
She was probably right.
A waitress came over.
“Evening, ladies. Sisters’ night out?”
“She’s visiting from Hawaii. Can we get another round?”
“Aloha and welcome to California!” the waitress smiled and left to get our drinks.
“So anyway, when Glenn went down, I said, you know, kinda loud, ‘Hang on, baby, I’ll go get help.’ In case anyone could hear. I turned around and ran back home, got dressed, and went up to school. That’s when I saw you in the parking lot.”
“So when I talked to you that morning, you’d already...”
“I was on autopilot. It didn’t hit me till later, everything that happened. You know, I thought I had it all set up. I was gonna finish up my college degree, finally. I was back on my beautiful island. I had a great guy, or that’s what I thought. And I had the paddling. When all this happened, it made me feel like the elevator doors opened and I’d stepped in, but the elevator wasn’t there. Know what I mean?”
“Sherry, why did you say, if it weren’t for me? When I saw you in the halau. What did you mean?”
“If it wasn’t for you? Oh, yeah, right. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been reading those blogs and stuff, that’s for sure. The thing about the wireless insulin pump hacking thing was still in my mind when I found the photo of Kathy. Kinda rang warning bells for me. Otherwise, I probably would’ve said something right to Glenn’s face, like, hey, what’s Kathy’s picture doing in your suitcase? Who knows what he would’ve done then? But thanks to you I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.”
“That was smart.”
“You know, Glenn was always telling me about how wireless stuff wasn’t secure. He said I shouldn’t use the Wi-Fi at the coffee shop unless I wanted everyone seeing all my private email and stuff. That’s why he liked keeping things on paper. I guess he’d know, huh? Hey, Dr. B., can I ask you something? I mean, Molly?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know who hired Glenn to kill Kathy? Who wanted her dead?”
“There was no such person as Kathy Banks. Her name was Karolyn Beckenbauer.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I GLANCED BACK AT THE restaurant entrance, hoping Davison would take his time shoe-shopping.
“Karolyn Beckenbauer worked in the admissions office of one of the branches of your former college. She started to notice they were doing things like steering students to take out loans from their affiliates, misrepresenting the terms of the loans, paying recruiters by headcount, all kinds of things they weren’t supposed to be doing. You know, what they did to you, they did the same thing to all of their students. Their whole enterprise runs on collecting student loan money, and whether or not you get an education out of it isn’t a concern for them. They pocket the money, and you’re on the hook to pay it back. So Karolyn made copies of the training materials, the employee manuals, internal emails, everything. Then she went to the Feds. That’s when she first appeared in the news, as a whistleblower.”
“Whoa.” Sherry’s eyes widened.
“Now, right as the trial was getting underway, Karolyn Beckenbauer died in a traffic accident. That’s what the news reports say. Pat thinks she was actually put into witness protection. That company, the holding company for all those for-profits, stood to lose billions in federal aid they’d collected over the years. Of course they’d want to keep her quiet.”
“So ya think she had a bunch of plastic surgery like the mob guys do?”
“I don’t know. There is something different about her. I didn’t even believe it was the same person at first. What do you think?”
I pulled out my phone and brought up the photo of Karolyn Beckenbauer from the news article announcing her death. Sherry took the phone from me and held it at arm’s length.
“Oh yeah. This is different from the picture I saw in Glenn’s folder, but yeah. There she is with the dark hair.” She squinted at the tiny picture. “No, no plastic surgery. Her face is the same. She’s not wearing any makeup here, and her hair is kinda blah. She got some kinda major makeover, huh, with the frosted hair and everything?”
Sherry handed my phone back to me.
“Looks like she made the most of her new life,” Sherry said. “I bet Karolyn Beckenbauer never had a chance to do the things Kathy Banks did.”
I hoped if ever I were given a chance at a fresh start, I would use it for something more worthy than making people redo their paperwork and flirting with their husbands.
“So anyway,” I continued, “one month after Karolyn Beckenbauer supposedly passed away, Kathy Banks started working in our Student Retention Office. It would have been a perfect assignment for Karolyn. She already knew how to do that kind of administrative work, and our university is about as remote and off the beaten path as you can get.”
“So how did Pat figure it out?”
“That facial recognition website. Emma and I started with your picture of Kathy Banks, and that’s how we found Karolyn Beckenbauer. You know, without that picture you posted, we could never have discovered Kathy’s real identity.”
“So Kathy was in witness protection. That explains how come she never let us take her picture.”
“That must be why Emma couldn’t find any team photos with Kathy in them. It must be one of the rules. You don’t want the bad guys to track you down just because—”
Because someone carelessly posted your photo online, I stopped myself from saying.
“They musta really wanted to get rid of Kathy,” Sherry said. “Setting Glenn, or whatever his name was, up here with a house and spending money, musta cost them a lot.”
“I’m sure paying Glenn’s expenses was a lot cheaper than having to give back billions of dollars in financial aid.”
Sherry fumbled in her purse—auburn suede with long, swinging fringes—and pulled out a box of tiny mints.
“Man, I’m dying for a smoke. Remember when you could smoke in a restaurant?”
She offered me a mint, and I took it. Who knows, that minestrone may have had some hidden garlic in it, although I had detected no flavor.
“Now it makes sense. Here I’d thought how strange it was she was such an important witness in this major trial, but she ended up falling victim to this quotidian love triangle. I knew there was more to the story.”
“I wonder if Glenn found her picture online,” Sherry said. “On my page. Cause I didn’t know how to work the privacy settings. Otherwise, how would they of tracked her all the way to Mahina?”
Sherry rested her forehead in her hand.
“He probably used that software to find her. You and Emma started with Kathy and found Karolyn, Glenn coulda started with Karolyn and found Kathy. It was me. I was the one who gave her away.”
I shrugged, not sure what to say.
“That’s how he did it.” Sherry seemed near tears now. “Glenn saw from my pictures that me and Kathy were paddlers, and he probably started hanging out down on the Bayfront on purpose. The Bayfront is where I met him.”
I felt a shadow fall across our table. It was Davison, back from his shopping trip.
Sherry sat up quickly and dabbed her eyes with the cloth napkin.
“Hey doll,” Sherry said. “You did good, huh?”
Davison was carrying plastic bags from a sporting goods store and a video game shop, as well as a large white paper bag printed with a black and white photo of what looked like half-naked Hitler youth.
“The brave hunter has returned.” He leaned over and kissed Sherry on the mouth.
I still had one more thing to do. This was go
ing to be a little tricky. I waited for Davison to come up for air.
“So Dave,” I said, “sorry you couldn’t join us for a drink. You’re turning twenty-one this year, though, right? When’s your birthday?”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s November thirteen.” He moved closer, rested his hand on the back of my chair, and grinned down at me. “I’m a Scorpio. You shoulda figured that out, Aunty.”
I scooted forward in my chair to break contact between his hand and my back.
“November? Are you sure? I thought it was December. December thirteenth, right?”
“No, Aunty, it’s November.”
“I’m sure you said December,” I insisted.
“I’ll prove it. Look, here’s my driver’s license.”
He set his bags down on the floor, pulled out his wallet and handed me the rainbow driver’s license.
“Oh, you still have your Hawaii ID. You should get your California one if you’re going to live here. But that’s such a nice photo of you. Sherry, have you seen this?”
Davison had been too cool to smile when they took his picture. It looked like a mug shot. I handed the license to Sherry.
“Cute, huh?” I managed to say. Davison seemed pleased rather than inconvenienced. Of course he did. First he had been proven right about his birthdate, and now here I was gushing over his photo.
Sherry glanced at the driver’s license, smiled, and started to hand it back to me. Then she grabbed it back.
I held my breath.
“Hang on,” she said. “Your name is Davison Gonsalves? You’re Davison Gonsalves?”
“Yeah?” He seemed confused. “But I like to be called Dave.”
She sat still for a long moment, gazing at the drivers’ license in her hands. She uttered a remarkably apropos expletive and handed Davison’s license back to him. She wasn’t looking at him. She was glaring at me.
“So, you and Donnie, huh? You’re together?”
I tried to think quickly. Now Sherry knows. But does Sherry know that I know? Not necessarily, but it’s possible. I shouldn’t overdo the fake surprise, in any case.