Undercover Genius

by Rice, Patricia

  “Should I chase out the ones that flew upstairs?” Emerging from her room in time to dodge wings, Patra asked this a little too eagerly.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it unless you want to be transferred to Uganda to write about tribal mating habits,” I warned. If Graham was capable of snickering, I think I heard him, but the spider in our attic lacked humor. He didn’t lack the ability to do exactly as I predicted.

  “So Patra, did you finally catch the two-timing creep?” EG asked, deliberately deflecting any return of the conversation to her. She wielded information like a lethal sword. Family trait, I fear.

  “Old news, baby. I have better things to do than put up with men. Does this place have any food? Airplane fare is not what it ought to be.” Relieved of explaining themselves, or even apologizing, both EG and Patra took off in the direction of the cellar kitchen. Mallard had better pray that he was back in his realm or his pristine counters would be coated in grease and flour before he returned.

  I waited until they were out of hearing and hit the intercom on my desk. “Need help battling bats?”

  “Only the old ones. Your sister has trouble on her tail. Find out what she’s doing or get rid of her, and don’t let any of her acquaintances past the door.”

  My eyebrows shot up, but I’d learned not to be surprised by how much Graham knew, even if he never strayed from his lair.

  “I’ll extend the web on the door,” I told him, before hastening after my sisters and food.

  I didn’t know what it was like to have a real family in a real home, but I didn’t mind finding out.

  * * *

  “Norfolk,” Nick announced without preamble later that evening after I answered his ring. “I’m waiting for customs to give me clearance to sail up the Chesapeake. How would you like the toad delivered — rolled up in a rug or by the police?”

  “With seventy-six trombones and champagne,” I suggested, putting my feet up on my desk drawer. It was nine on a school night so EG was in bed, and I’d been working. I could take time for a little exultation. “Smooches and do you have a favorite pervert you want waiting on the doorstep when you arrive?”

  Unlike Graham, Nick understood humor and knew I was bouncing with excitement.

  “All good. I was thinking of tying him to an anchor and dropping him overboard until we’re cleared for entry.” A spate of obscenities erupted in the background. “He’s been a real charmer since the drugs wore off.”

  “Oh, goodie. The cops are gonna love a jonesing lawyer. I’ve been in touch with his bail bondsman. Give me your destination, and they’ll be waiting to take him off your hands. Oppenheimer filed our embezzlement charges, so there won’t be any more bailing out for Reggie boy. And I mean it, Nick, you’re my hero. The sky’s the limit. It’s celebration time.”

  Patra peered around the corner, and I gestured for her to come in. A celebration was merrier with more than one. My basement office didn’t have the elegance of upstairs, but I preferred solid dirt and concrete around me. It offered privacy — until Graham had bugged it anyway. I’d moved a few old leather wingbacks in here to make it cozy. She settled into one and waited.

  “I doubt I’ll get back before morning,” Nick said. “A bed that doesn’t sway and a pitcher of mimosas will do it. Smooches back at you for the bondsman. I really wasn’t looking forward to taking a taxi with a foul-mouthed carpet.”

  I laughed, nearly giddy with triumph. “Do you have the passcode for his account? A judicious fund transfer before his debtors latch onto it might be in order.”

  “The bastard swears Max was broke and all he owned was the house, so all that’s in the account is what he got out of Graham. And he’s blown half of that on the yacht and drugs. We’re not buying the house back on that, Ana.”

  I tried not to let my disappointment show. “It’s okay. You’re back. One thing at a time.”

  Graham had only given us until we brought Reggie back before we had to pack up and leave. If we filed a lawsuit, he’d heave us out personally, even if he had to use a wheelchair to do it. I’d never seen him outside his computer chair. Of course, I’d never seen an elevator either — another reason to call him spider.

  I was a little more somber by the time I hung up. I’d really hoped for millions. Patra looked expectant.

  “Nick found the thief?” she prompted when I didn’t immediately explain.

  She’d apparently been apprised of all our activities — not surprising given that we were raised to spy on everyone, including and especially family.

  I held up my finger as a signal to wait, dialed our friendly bondsman, who promised me a reward. My civic duty done, I turned back to Patra. “We have the creep, but we don’t have proof that Graham bought the house illegally. Without clear-cut evidence, we have to go through the courts. We have no way of buying the place back from him.”

  “But you mentioned a bank account. We’ll get some money, won’t we?”

  So, I’m the one with a hang-up about the house. I can see where the others would rather take the money and run. We’d had little access to cash in our lives. The prospect of dividing up half a million would cause mass drooling.

  “We have to pay our lawyer out of those funds. We’re suing grandfather’s law firm and paying accountants to research the embezzlement. Don’t count on wealth anytime soon.”

  She looked disappointed. And nervous. Her long fingers locked together as if to keep the manicured tips from tapping. I recognized the Magda-ism.

  “Are you ready to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked.

  “You know about my dad?” she asked, casually studying the windowless cellar I’d claimed for my own.

  Patrick Llewellyn had been a world-renowned and respected journalist. Magda had actually married him and consented to calling their daughter by the shortened Patra in his honor. Although knowing our mother, she had probably apologized to the Queen of the Nile for the corruption of her name.

  Patrick had died reporting atrocities in some war zone. I’d have to count back the years to remember which one. Patra had still been in college, and he and Magda had long since been divorced.

  “What should I know about your father?” I asked warily. I’d liked the guy, but that didn’t mean I’d trusted him any more than our mother’s other conquests.

  Patra tapped a long nail against the wooden lion’s head grip of the chair. “He wasn’t shot by enemy fire.”

  “They did an autopsy? In a war zone?” I exclaimed. “Why?”

  “I think because Magda demanded it. She never told me why. I didn’t even know about it until recently, when his executor gave me the last of his effects. Dad was writing a book, and the executor finally gave up trying to sell it for Dad’s estate.”

  She lapsed into brooding silence.

  “Don’t tell me — a tell-all about the power behind the power,” I said dryly. “Conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen. Our grandfather was after textbook manipulators feeding fascist propaganda to kids. Don’t question EG on that unless you want an earful. Magda is off on her own power trip, and so is the spider in the attic.”

  Patra looked irritated. “My dad may have died because of what he was working on. This isn’t a joke. He was shot.”

  “Just as EG’s dad was framed for murder so he wouldn’t talk. Yeah, power attracts nastiness. Did you plan on fixing the world? Have you already attracted nastiness?”

  I’d just spent an uncomfortable few weeks disentangling Senator Tex, EG’s dad, from a consortium of power brokers who may have murdered our grandfather — or hastened his demise, since he hadn’t been well. I was hoping Reggie the Snake might enlighten us more on that front.

  I was in no hurry to pick up where a famous investigative reporter had got himself killed.

  Polished, ultra-cool Patra literally squirmed in her chair. She ran her long fingers through her chestnut locks and didn’t meet my eyes. “You’ll make me leave if I tell you.”

  Shit. “I’m never going to escape M
agda, am I?” I asked with resignation.

  Only a sibling would understand my reaction. Patra looked miserable. “I just talked to a few publishers I knew, gave one of dad’s recording to a few people. Dad’s material is old, but it’s pretty explosive. I just wanted to see if there was any interest in my researching his death as a finish for the book.”

  “And?” I raised an expectant eyebrow, although my dinner was already curdling in my gut.

  “Someone set fire to his papers and destroyed my apartment.” She sank deeper into the chair if that was possible.

  “Someone deliberately burned you out?” This was why grandfather had left us this security-laden fortress, and why I would fight to the death for it. My family required armed encampments for safety. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “If the papers were burned, what can you hope to accomplish by pursuing a book your executor couldn’t sell?”

  “The papers they burned were mostly transcripts of Dad’s recordings. I’d made audio files of the old tapes and stored them in the cloud, along with a scan of his research files. The thieves couldn’t touch them,” Patra said with a mulish expression I recognized well. She handed me a CD. “I’ve made copies of his more dangerous stuff. Just listen to this one.”

  I popped the disk into my old un-networked Dell, verified the intercom had been turned off and the talking lamp unplugged so Graham couldn’t hear us, then hit PLAY.

  * * *

  “My party is prepared to support the general’s request to escalate,” an unaccented, arrogant American baritone said.

  “The weapons lobby backing you?” a cynical, less grammatically constrained American voice asked. “Or the oil industry? Or both?”

  “Unless we want terrorists controlling the world’s oil supply, my request for escalation is the only solution,” a crisp, commanding voice said. “But the media will raise hell unless we have all our ducks in line.”

  A bored Brit drawl intruded. “The Arabic station is ours. We can feed a propaganda frenzy whenever it’s needed. Just be certain all your pawns are in place, because once the rioting starts, there will be no stopping civil war.”

  The arrogant American responded. “We’ve acquired newspapers in France, Greece, and Germany. These things take time — and caution. The American media will take longer to convince, but we have officials in place who can pull the right strings, and our own mouthpieces to start the shouting. We’ll be ready.”

  “Freedom of the press isn’t all it’s cracked up to be over the pond, is it?” the Brit asked mockingly.

  “Everything can be bought for a price. But there are still a few obstacles,” the authoritative one said. “That’s what I brought you here to talk about. You have a wild card in your deck who needs to be dealt with. He’s been snooping where he shouldn’t — ”

  * * *

  The voices on the CD quit speaking after a knocking sound in the background. I reached over and ejected the disk.

  “A general is talking about manipulating governments and bringing down a foreign regime through propaganda and the media!” Patra said in indignation. “They’ve bought the media — TV stations, newspapers, radio! Just to keep oil companies and weapons manufacturers afloat. Millions of people died for their greed! I think this reflects part of the conspiracy my father was writing about. If Dad taped this, and anyone learned about it, they may have had him killed. I need to hire someone with voice recognition software.”

  Danger, Will Robinson was the first idiocy leaping to my mind.

  I didn’t need any more conspiracies on my plate. Rich politicians monopolizing the textbook industry had nearly cost me EG and had almost certainly ended our grandfather’s life. Greedmeisters buying up international media to put their own puppets into place — probably in oil rich countries — was business as usual as far as I was concerned.

  So I rolled my eyes at Patra’s suggestion. “You want the kind of fancy software they have on woo-woo shows where the cops compare voice patterns to identify the baddies? Not happening, babe. No database.”

  “They can do a spectro-analysis of the voices in that file. All we need to do is provide recordings of potential suspects for comparison. Once we find matches, we can positively identify the speakers through science,” she said stubbornly. “I sent a copy of that file to an analyst recommended by a friend of mine, and he’s pretty excited about it. He thinks I’m on to something.”

  “But the analyst needs money for the analysis,” I finished for her, beginning to see the light.

  “Yeah, but all the men I want to record are here in D.C,” she said with more excitement. “We can do this, Ana. We can prove some pretty powerful men are manipulating the media for their own immoral purposes, and they killed my dad to cover up his findings!”

  Ah, the innocence of youth. Did I have any right to burst her bubble with my apathetic cynicism? I gave up fighting for causes long ago — probably before I was EG’s age, since my father had been killed when I was four. Survival was the name of my game.

  Except I was learning that family was why we needed to survive, and I knew her pain. “How much?” I asked in resignation.

  She named a sum that left me sputtering and glad EG had a scholarship to her private school.

  As reluctant as I was to do it, for the kid’s sake, I had to roll out the big guns. “And if your thieves discover you still have evidence, will they come burn us down too? Or just put a period to your existence?”

  Instead of moping, Patra sat up straight, donned her best Magda superficial smile, and tapped her pretty chin. “What, little ol’ me? How could anyone think I’m dangerous? I’m too dumb to use a smart phone.”

  Three

  We both stayed up too late. Patra made copies of her audio file, then started researching the names of every VIP who might have been in the vicinity when her father died. Back then, Patrick had apparently been slipping in and out of Mideast war zones by way of any country he could bribe his way through. With no date or location for his tape, Patra had her work cut out for her, but she was like a pit bull on her quest.

  Our best guess was that the power moguls on the recording wouldn’t have done the shooting. Our only real clue was that one spoke English with a hoity Brit accent, two others were American, and one was a general.

  Neither of us had spent much time in the States. We couldn’t identify regional inflections, but one of the American accents sounded professionally blended by a good speech therapist. My bet was on a politician, but I was prejudiced that way.

  I spent the evening researching our options on the voice analysis. Even though I could buy software and save money, I concluded if we wanted a professional job, we would have to pay professional prices. But we might be able to sort out the unlikely suspects and narrow the speakers to be analyzed, thus reducing cost. Patra emailed her friend Bill with the go-ahead for spectrum analysis on the voices we already had and told him we’d give him comparisons as soon as we could.

  I sent him a down payment out of the family account we’d established a few weeks ago with Nick’s gambling winnings. There are only so many casinos on the eastern seaboard, and he’d be banned from them all if he took any more hauls like the last. I doled those funds carefully. Our family had learned at an early age about the dark undersides of life. Even if we had to eat peanuts for dinner, we always kept an emergency stash.

  I was accustomed to long hours with no sleep. Patra had jet lag. She eventually dragged off to bed and left me to arrange an automatic fund transfer emptying Reggie’s offshore account into the fake business account I’d set up a few weeks ago to catch a money launderer. Ah, the irony! I now knew how to launder my own money.

  Since it was legally inherited, I wasn’t hiding anything from the feds. I had to hide it from Reggie’s creditors, of whom there were many, most of them unsavory.

  I’d darned well let the lawyers work out inheritance taxes on embezzled funds. We now had half a mil at our disposal, although technically, it needed to be divided amon
g all of us. I was still thinking of it as the house fund, since the house had been left to all of us, too.

  I was up in the morning in time to see EG off to the alternative school we’d found for her. The school encouraged the use of iPads instead of ancient encyclopedias for research, provided a variety of resources, and satisfied EG’s genius level of world knowledge. No more complaints about right-wing propaganda and textbooks that ignored Darwin. That didn’t mean she didn’t complain, but we’d eliminated her legitimate problem with her other schools and now merely dealt with her conjured ones.

  Since Nick still hadn’t put in an appearance, I refrained from mentioning his arrival before school. EG would want to stay home and have one of our celebration parties. I figured Nick would prefer to crash first.

  The intercom in my office sat ominously silent when I returned to my office. As careful as I was, I had little hope of hiding anything from Graham for long.

  I loved this house with its connection to a time when I’d felt secure. If Graham already knew we’d found our lawyer, he could be plotting our imminent departure. A man who had never had the human decency to come down and introduce himself was capable of anything.

  I’m not much at suffering in silence, but I wanted to see Nick safely home before confronting our resident ogre about our continued residency.

  Organizing my files on Broderick Media, I concluded I ought to read Patrick Llewellyn’s notes in case there was anything pertinent to my project. Patra’s father had worked for a legit news organization and not Broderick’s sleazy tabloids, but he still might have some interesting insights into the competition.

  I hesitated before opening Patra’s files on my computer. Graham had access to anything I did on the Whiz, the fancy computer he’d bought for my use and networked to his. Patra hadn’t given me permission to share. If I loaded her files into my non-networked Dell, I’d have to use my mobile device to follow links, and it didn’t have the power of Graham’s spooky satellite accessibility.