Undercover Genius

by Rice, Patricia

  “Magda,” Nick and I said in unison.

  Patra slid into her seat and unfolded her linen napkin. “Whatever works,” she agreed. “If men are too stupid to change, why should women, when we have them by the…” She threw EG a look and cut off that particular Magda-ism. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I doubt it.” The candelabra finally spoke.

  Patra’s fork fell out of her hand. She hastily chased it under the table.

  “But if you insist on emulating your notorious mother,” Graham continued in that deep voice that always rattled my gonads, “at least go in with a knowledge of the power brokers and questions only they can answer. Ask Ana for the document.”

  The speaker gave that infinitesimal click that said it had gone dead again. The Wizard had turned to other interests.

  “If I land this job, I’m hunting for an apartment,” Patra announced, taking a clean fork from the buffet. “I don’t know how you live with that nut job.”

  Nick and I smirked. Just let her find an apartment with a better location and amenities than this place. On a reporter’s salary, she’d be lucky to find a leaky cellar and live off ramen noodles.

  “And welcome to slavery, twenty-first century style,” I said. We could move out anytime we liked. I just refused to do so.

  I got up and ran downstairs to see what Graham’s nocturnal messages had delivered to my office.

  Flipping on the Whiz, I printed out a document that had appeared overnight in Graham’s networked folder on Broderick Media, not my private one on my personal computer.

  Before taking anything to Patra, I skimmed down the sheet. I recognized half his list of names as stockholders and upper management at BM. Further down the list was local editorial staff for the Washington edition of the newspaper, which was pretty much the same personnel for the local broadcast station. Congress had severely limited the objectivity of the fourth estate when they’d allowed media conglomerates to buy up all the journalistic real estate in major cities.

  Graham had added lovely touches like “Ted Tuttle, married with a Vietnamese manicurist mistress,” and “Bernard Black, silent partner in Virginia casino.” He didn’t have to add No Jews, Muslims, or people of color. Not a Cohen or Jabal on the list. And as expected, only two females, pretty far down the tree. Broderick had worked hard to earn his reputation as a crooked, conservative, sexist bigot loved by all for his money and power.

  At the end, Graham had appended suggestions. For Patra’s consideration: determine if wire-tapping, cell phone surveillance, and hacking still encouraged. Ask if Paul Rose is still a favored candidate and indicate your enthusiasm. Mention your involvement with the Righteous and Proud and ask if they’d be interested in human interest stories on members.

  Broderick Media was the official mouthpiece for the stick-up-their-ass Righteous and Proud. Graham might as well tell her to join Al Qaeda for White People. I crumpled up the suggestions and flung them at the wastebasket before whacking the intercom keys. “I am not involving my sister in your paranoid conspiracy theories.”

  “Then send her home,” he grumbled.

  He knew perfectly well I wouldn’t do that, no matter how much I’d like to consider it.

  * * *

  With all my chickies out of the house, I settled down to my own work, but disentangling the corporate web around Broderick Media did not hold the personal appeal of learning what might have got poor Bill Bloom killed.

  Let me make this perfectly clear — I am not a sleuth, not of the detective/trained investigator sort. I’m a hired researcher, yes, a virtual assistant with international connections, but not a cop. Just think of me as a rat terrier who sinks her teeth in and keeps shaking until something useful falls out.

  Bill Bloom was my starting place, if only because he’d told Patra he had information just before he died. I needed his telephone records. Logic said if that information had got him killed, then he must have told someone about it besides Patra.

  I could have eventually cracked police files, but why bother when Graham’s extensive spy network could go directly to the phone company? And probably already had. I shuffled through our networked computer files and found the records without tapping anyone. Graham had been snooping and had left the results where I could find them, should I look. The spook was always testing me.

  Not knowing exactly when Bill had identified any of the voices, which is what he’d said he’d done, I arbitrarily chose the entire day of his death. Bill had been a busy little beaver that day. The day prior hadn’t been quite as active. Using the reverse directory, I determined that he’d made three calls to a Carol Bloom — his mother, if last name and gender were any indication. His on-line statistics had revealed he wasn’t married, and until recently he’d lived with Carol Bloom at the address for that number. Carol was old enough to be his mother since she’d owned that house for decades.

  Moving on… He called his dentist, two men who were listed as friends on his limited Facebook profile, three companies who might be clients, a female name not listed on Facebook — and just about every media outlet in the city.

  Looked like Bill had been doing a little investigating of his own. On the assumption that he was looking for comparison voice clips and not giving out secrets, I focused on his last call — a local independent news website that called itself Intrepid News.

  I scrolled through the website to be certain they didn’t have any late breaking news about Patra’s tape or anything relevant, but they hadn’t even reported Bill’s death. Apparently uninhibited by advertisers, the on-line rag played a pretty heavy left wing game.

  If I was political, I’d probably call myself liberal because I’d lived in countries where men can legally kill women as if they were roaches, and that kind of chauvinism scared the heck out of me. I didn’t want anyone dictating what I could do as a female, particularly not narrow-minded sexist morons — which was how I identified conservatives, since I’d never had money and knew nothing about the economy.

  The liberal website Bill had phoned seemed quite gleeful in pointing out any laughable faux pas of the conservatives. They’d even caught a clip of a leader in the R&P movement stating that our founding fathers were all good Christian men. Check that out on Google some time. Even with my limited education, I knew better. Half the men signing the Declaration of Independence didn’t belong to churches, and the better known among them called themselves Deists, intelligently disassociating themselves from the religious turmoil of the old countries they’d fled. The only thing those good old boys had in common with the R&P were that they were white and male.

  I found the Intrepid News phone number and called but only got voice mail. I left a message letting them know of Bill Bloom’s death, in case anyone was interested, then asked for a return call at a number I could pick up on my computer. Fiber optic was my friend.

  Then, overcoming my scruples about snooping through my sister’s room, I ran upstairs to locate the files Patra had lifted from Bill’s apartment.

  Eight

  Patra’s perspective

  Patra cruised past Broderick Media’s lobby security with the free pass of an appointment with executive vice-president David Smedbetter. She recognized the name from her father’s papers. Broderick liked to hire ex-military men, and Smedbetter had once been in the army.

  His office confirmed her interview, and she was directed to the third floor.

  The reception area she entered from the elevator featured a world map with out-sized pins indicating headquarters in every English-speaking country and smaller pins for bureaus with foreign correspondents. An enormous vase of artificial flowers occupied the coffee table by the area’s one sofa. The dust on the flowers suggested that they had been there since the office’s initial opening.

  Patra smiled confidently and refused to take a seat as directed. She was impatient to have this interview over, and an annoyed receptionist would get rid of her sooner than later. Pacing the lobby, Patra admired each a
nd every ancient photo, the trophy display, and the dusty flowers again. A bespectacled male wandered in and nearly tripped while ogling her legs. Word spread quickly, and the lobby turned into a busy intersection, until the receptionist nagged someone into removing her. Patra bit back her grin of triumph.

  She ought to be ashamed of her sexist tactics, but she was entering a world that only saw a woman’s body and feared her intelligence, so she merely gave them what they wanted. Ana might think she was a spoiled little college girl, but Ana hadn’t been around when Patra had started touring the media outlets in every country Magda dragged her through. She knew damned well what was what.

  Following a beauty queen secretary through institutional corridors, Patra smiled at heads lifting from cubicles and offices along the way. She counted two women in the cubicle farm, none in the offices.

  The secretary left her with a Human Resources drone, who had her fill out enough forms to complete Wikipedia. Half way through, an executive assistant arrived to tow her to Smedbetter’s office. Patra sat in another reception area occupied by still another secretary while she finished filling out her forms. Just as she was wondering if she ought to invent a few more addresses for her nomadic teen years, the secretary signaled that the Great Man would see her.

  Smedbetter hadn’t given up his Army background. With military-buzzed iron gray hair and bull-like shoulders, he looked like he had a steel pipe up his spine. He studied her with a vague air of suspicion when she entered, but her skirt must have done its trick. He picked up her application and took his time examining it.

  She tried not to yawn while he inquired, in a boring monotone, about her education and experience. She began swinging her leg impatiently by the time he reached her BBC credentials. He glanced over his reading glasses occasionally, so he wasn’t oblivious to her looks. Finally, she decided it was time to take the bull by the horns.

  “The BBC is a great place,” she acknowledged with a dismissive wave, “but it’s so my daddy’s kind of place, you know? They’re still analyzing wars and bombs when everyone knows the real battlefield is socio-economic. Corner the oil market, and you win. I really want to work with an organization that understands this.”

  Smedbetter scowled and raised his graying eyebrows. “You have extensive experience in foreign countries.”

  “Naturally. My father was a foreign correspondent.” Who hadn’t taken her with him anywhere, but impressions were everything. “I have international contacts, but I was hoping for an assignment in the states for a while, because this is where the action is.”

  Smedbetter’s phone rang, and he lifted a finger to indicate that she wait — as if she had any intention of walking out. Patra fiddled with the V-neck collar barely concealing her best push-up bra and hid her smile as her interviewer glazed over and began nodding without speaking. No wonder these toads feared women if they were so easily led by the balls.

  The VP hung up and made a few notes. Patra obligingly put both feet on the floor and her hands in her lap.

  “Your credentials have already been approved by upper management, Miss Llewellyn, congratulations. You can start Monday at nine in the entertainment department, if you’ll check in with Human Resources, they’ll show you around. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

  He stood up dismissively. Patra rose and held out her hand to shake. Had she been interested in a career move, she would have laughed in his face and told him where to shove his offer. Entertainment, her foot and eye. They wanted her to hack celebrity phones for gossip for Broderick’s scandal sheets.

  But they were also putting her in a position to hack their internal files, and that’s what she wanted. This was Friday. Next week, she’d have them by the short hairs. She accepted Smedbetter’s finger-smashing handshake and sashayed back to the corridor.

  Voices from a meeting room down the hall drew her like an ant to sugar. Pretending to be absently checking over her employment papers, she leaned against a wall and listened.

  “Look, we’ve got her where we want her. All we have to do is tap her phone. Leonard is a schmuck. Why haven’t we retired him yet?”

  Patra raised her eyebrows. She was pretty certain that sounded like Broderick, The Man, himself. Whose phone? She listened harder.

  “Leonard’s got useful connections,” a different voice replied. “And he knows where too many bodies are buried. Let’s just see if she knows anything or if that damned twerp sent Smit’s files to anyone else.”

  “Now that he’s had a chance to size her up, I’ll set Smedbetter to locating Smit’s files. Billy Boy, have we got anything on the girl’s family? C an we have her discredited if she still has copies?”

  Billy Boy — Broderick’s son and next in line to the media estate. And if they were talking about her family, they could find enough to discredit a few presidents, kings, and prime ministers. Might make for good reading.

  Someone closed the meeting room door. Damn. It sure had sounded like they were talking about her. That pretty much verified this interview had been the set-up she’d suspected.

  Who was Smit?

  * * *

  Sitting in my basement office, flipping through the file folders Sean had lifted from Bloom’s apartment, I decided they were mostly old client files. I set aside a few on politicians talking to local crime bosses like Salvador DeLuca. That could make interesting reading. I returned the rest to their sack.

  The disks Patra had smuggled out in her purse weren’t helpful since I didn’t know speech analysis. They were all carefully labeled audios of people I didn’t know. We needed a new analyst, but I was reluctant to add another corpse to the count if we were the reason Bill had died. Maybe I’d look for labs in Seattle.

  I was glad we’d made copies of Patra’s recordings because Bill’s copies weren’t here.

  Which led to the interesting question — if we assumed Bill’s death was related to Patra, had he been killed to prevent telling Patra what he’d discovered? So now did the Bad Guys think we’d been rendered harmless?

  Anyone who knew our family knew better than that.

  I checked the time. I had a few more minutes before I needed to tune in to my on-line English lit class. Now that I had a home and a little money, I’d resolved to take the classes I’d always wanted. My watch confirmed I had ten minutes to spare.

  I called the Intrepid News website again. This time, I got a harried female.

  I adopted the alter ego I used on my fake business cards. “Hello, I’m Linda Lane, a friend of Bill Bloom’s. I’m trying to finish up some of his cases after his tragic death yesterday.” I paused, hoping for a lead to follow from the person on the other end.

  “Bill?” the voice asked in shock, apparently not having heard the voice mail I’d left earlier. “Bill’s dead?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break the news to you. To whom am I speaking?”

  “Sorry, this is Carla. Bill and I go way back. We worked together on some projects in college and keep in touch. How did he die?”

  “A hit and run accident on Dupont last night. The cops suspect a drunken driver.”

  A telling silence followed. I waited.

  “You worked with Bill?” she finally asked, sounding wary.

  “Yes, and he was on a fascinating new case, which is what makes this more tragic. He could have put his name in headlines.” I dragged out the bluff, hoping she’d take the hook.

  “He said something about working on a death threat,” she said even more carefully. “I sent him some audio clips. I keep a file of asinine things politicians say.”

  “That’s what I needed to ask you,” I said sympathetically, hiding my eagerness. “Bill filed those clips under their names, but I have no idea which names in all this mess are the ones you sent. Do you have a list?” That was such a blatant stupidity I feared she wouldn’t fall for it, but it was the best I could invent on the spur of the moment.

  “I just sent copies…” Her voice trailed off as she apparently h
unted through her computer. “Here’s the email. Don’t you have a copy of it?”

  Stupidity number one and she’d caught it already. “I don’t have his email password, just his networked files.” Damn, but I was getting creative.

  “Oh, of course. I can’t believe he’s gone, a human life, poof, just like that. You don’t think . . . that his death had anything to do with these files?”

  “Who would know he had them besides you?” I asked blithely. “And yes, it’s quite frightening to recognize our mortality. Makes me want to live every minute as if it’s my last.” I’d lived like that most of my life, but my version meant avoiding the dangers of living. “You could just forward the email to me, if that’s easier,” I suggested.

  “Okay, I guess,” she said dubiously. “Are you finishing up all his cases?”

  I gave her my Linda email address. “I hate for his clients to think he left his office in this state. I’m just doing what I can. I don’t know what else to do. It’s not as if he cares about the help from where he is.”

  “Do you know his mother? I’m sure she appreciates what you’re doing,” Carla said. “I guess I better send a sympathy card.”

  “We were just computer colleagues. I never had the pleasure. But that’s a thought. I’ll send a card, too. Anyone else I should send a card to?” I was just fishing for information. I could see her email with the attachments in my box already.

  “He has a brother and sister, but I don’t think they were real close. Bill was a lot more open-minded, and they’re… kind of midwestern-minded,” she finished lamely, probably realizing she didn’t know my level of open-mindedness.

  “Righteous and Proud people?” I said cheerfully.

  “White and Proud, more like it,” she said bitterly. “My mother’s Hispanic and I wasn’t allowed at his family’s table.”

  Crikey. That wasn’t proud, that was stupid, but I only had a few more minutes before class, so I wasn’t getting into human behavior. “It takes all kinds, I guess. Thanks for the information!”