My gaze drifted back to the scaffolding and the vacant windows of the house across the street. The windows were open. Was there one last workman up there?
I jogged down the street to walk on EG’s other side. Graham’s paranoia was contagious.
Ten
I’d always thought of Mallard as built like a brick house, sturdy and thick. He dressed the part of butler in a formal black suit, starched white shirt, and black-on-black embroidered vest. He’d been my grandfather’s employee in my childhood, so my suspicion that he’s former CIA had no foundation other than family instinct. My grandfather was not a kindly old businessman, appearances to the contrary. Paranoid Graham was his protégé. Mallard was more like their aide-de-camp than any butler I’d met, and I’d met a surprising number over the years.
“Hanging out on street corners these days?” EG asked with suspicion as I approached.
“Talking to Oppenheimer,” I said cheerfully, working on that normal childhood routine. Unfortunately, in our family, normal is relative to the politics of a third world country. “Have you decided which features you want on your iMac before we place the order?”
“All of them,” she demanded, as expected. “If we’re rich, we shouldn’t need to cut corners.”
“We’re not rich, you only get a very small percentage of that money, and you need to learn to budget for college. You have no need of a giant screen, extra speed, or more than one drive. You’ll have to decide if you’d rather have more memory for programming, or high-end graphics for gaming. You can’t have both.”
This discussion got her in the front door without further questioning of why we were walking her home. Not that I had any answers for that either. I sent her upstairs to consult my laptop and make her wish list fit my bottom line. Then I followed Mallard to his downstairs hideaway, conveniently placed at the other end of the low-ceilinged cellar from my office.
“What’s up?” I demanded, strolling into the cellar kitchen and catching him grating cheese as if he hadn’t just behaved more oddly than my family on a good day.
“Nothing, of course. It’s a lovely autumn day and I strolled down to the corner for a breath of fresh air.”
“You should respect my intelligence. You were not down at the pub. You always smell of cigars and beer when you come back from there. You’re not carrying shopping bags. And your timing was too convenient. If my sister is in danger, I want to know about it.”
Mallard did not appear the least perturbed by my analysis. “If you lie down with snakes, expect to get bit. I saw no reason why a child should be put in harm’s way.”
“Fine, then I’ll check out that vacant house across the street on my own.”
“Ana, I would not advise —”
I wasn’t taking advice from someone who refused to answer me in clear English. I jogged up the back steps into our narrow, walled backyard and slipped out the rear garden gate into the cement yard of the block building behind us. I waved at Graham’s camera. Being able to envision the man I was waving to ought to halt my mischief, but it only made me more reckless. I’d kissed Superman and survived. I could do anything.
Or maybe I was daring him to leave his lair. My mind is as warped as anyone else’s.
I trotted past the ugly building to the street behind us. I hurried up to a corner, where I blended into a crowd getting off a bus. I followed the crowd past our street, to the alley behind the houses across from us, a round-about route that was almost a complete square.
The alleys behind the staid old Victorians on either side of our street really weren’t meant for modern vehicular traffic. A horse and buggy might rattle down the cobbled dirt, but it would rip the heck out of a Porsche’s undercarriage.
The vacant building was easy to locate. All the windows in back were boarded. A workman had propped open the cellar door with a can of paint, presumably to let in some fresh air. The French doors on the deck had been boarded up. I had no choice but to enter downstairs.
I’d spent the better part of my life exploring on my own, without supervision. No sense in changing my habits, although now that I knew Graham wasn’t immobile… It freaked me out. I admit it.
Entering from the bright outside, I lingered to let my eyes adjust. I smelled cigarette smoke and fresh paint, but in the light of one dangling dim bulb, I didn’t see anyone lurking in the cellar. Unlike my basement office, this underground floor was essentially unfinished. It was a dismal coal cellar with the remains of an ancient kitchen, which had been reduced to a pantry for storing canning jars or whatever.
The stairs were in about the same place as our house. I took them slowly, using the sides to avoid squeaky treads. I could hear workmen cursing and joking. Sounded perfectly normal. I should have just turned around and left, but my obsessive need to protect my family wouldn’t allow it.
I located the voices in the front room, so I stayed in the back, taking the servants stairs up. My theory was that anyone spying on us would choose an upper story. Maybe I could see what Mallard or Graham had seen from this height.
I was wearing cheap Keds, so my soles were soundless as I explored the second floor. The racket of power saws and drills drowned out the squeak of boards under my feet. My real problem was the scaffolding. I needed to look out the windows but didn’t want to end up staring a startled painter in the face.
So I steadied myself on the second-floor hall wall and peered into each bedroom as I passed, checking things out. I spotted no workmen, inside or out. I saw no telescopic rifles or lurking men in black.
Starting to feel a trifle foolish, I took the back stairs up to the third floor. This would have once been nursery, children’s rooms, and servants’ quarters. In our house, Graham had turned this story into offices and his suite and the gym. Looked like construction had knocked out a lot of the walls up here, and it was being reconfigured into open family space. I studied the area cautiously. Still no workmen, but I could tell this was where the outside crew had been working on windows. Modern thermal panes were being installed, carefully crafted not to change the exterior appearance.
I could continue to the attic or abandon my ridiculous search.
I’m damned thorough and not in the habit of quitting.
I opened all the closed doors, finding nothing more than closets, plumbing, and construction garbage that needed hauling to a Dumpster. I really didn’t know what I was expecting to find.
Idly wondering if we could buy an unfinished house for a million and rejecting the idea in favor of stubbornly wanting our grandfather’s life for my siblings — possibly over Graham’s dead body — I took the stairs to the attic.
I was truly off guard by the time I stepped into raw unfinished storage space, or I wouldn’t have let the lurker catch me so easily. As it was, he came up from behind and tackled me as I was turning to the dormer windows. He was twice my weight, so I went down.
He clambered back up, apparently intent on escaping, but I had questions. I kicked at his ankles, caught my knee around his leg when he faltered, and yanked, unbalancing him. Yeah, I know, it would have been smarter to let him go, but I react badly to surprises. And I didn’t like the humiliation of getting caught.
I grabbed a handy two-by-four and came up swinging. He was still intent on running. I disabused him of that notion by aiming at his well-padded midriff.
I connected just enough to make him grab his belly with a whoof.
I could have broken his kneecaps, but it had finally dawned on me that this wasn’t a dangerous muscle man but a middle-aged, out-of-shape idiot. He’d probably been as surprised as I was and had taken me down by accident. That really irked.
The binoculars around his neck upped my irritation. “Who sent you to spy on us?” I demanded.
“Bird watching,” he gasped, bent in half and holding his flabby abdomen.
“Fine, then show me your ID and I won’t call the cops.” Like I had any more right to be here than he did, but in my experience, idiots respond to authority.
&n
bsp; “Not hurting anyone,” he protested, still gasping for air.
“Trespassing, stalking…” I groped for more crimes, but he held up his hand to stop me.
“We investigate all new employees,” he said, hauling himself upright by using the stair rail. “Standard procedure. No reason to be hostile. I have permission to be up here.”
“Yeah, they think you’re bird watching. Who is ‘we’ and what new employee?” Although given my research, I’d already worked that one out. I just wanted to hear him admit it.
“Broderick Media,” he coughed up, giving me a cross-eyed scowl. “Patra Llewellyn. Who the hell are you?”
I leaned on the two-by-four and studied the cretin. He didn’t look like an arsonist out to burn Patra and her papers. Even if he did, I couldn’t heave him out a window without evidence. There were drawbacks to living in civilization. “Broderick sent you to spy on Patra? I ought to whack you upside the head just for that alone. What kind of creepy company is that?”
He looked alarmed at my tone. “We’re very cautious in our new hires. The world is full of terrorists who would love to bring down one of the most powerful pillars of the free press.”
I’m not sure how he said that with a straight face. I couldn’t keep the smirk off mine. “Free press? Is that what you call spinning propaganda these days?” So, if I couldn’t whack him physically, my suppressed anger issues went verbal. Who knew?
He indignantly dusted himself off. “All patriots must be cautious in these troubled times. I don’t need to stand here and argue. I’m here legitimately and can leave anytime I wish.”
I bowed and indicated the stairs. “Please do. And don’t come back or I won’t be so polite.”
He scampered. I watched out the window as he appeared in the side yard, followed by another man who looked more like the thug I’d been expecting. Interesting.
I was more accustomed to taking out bad guys with trickery than using toys. So I was a little late in remembering to pull out my phone. By the time I found the camera app, I had to really zoom in to snap a couple of pathetic pics.
Since EG’s little kidnapping episode, I was wary of thugs in alleys, even if they called themselves reporters. I watched this pair head for the Metro and out of sight before studying our house across the street from this fresh perspective. Mallard kept all the downstairs draperies closed. I liked my second-floor windows open except at night. Nick and Patra’s rooms overlooked the back yard. The other bedrooms on that floor were closed up. EG’s turret was draped in heavy black. The kid wasn’t dumb.
I checked Graham’s third floor lair, but he existed in a dark computer room at the back. The front rooms had shutters. They could have spy holes for all I could tell. Trying not to think about Graham over there, staring back, I hurried down the stairs, no longer trying for silence. If the workmen allowed in nerdy birdwatchers, then I was the neighborhood pigeon lady.
I slipped out through the cellar but directly crossed the street without taking my earlier roundabout circuit. Since it was a crisp, sunny October day, I cut through the side walkway to admire the garden and descend into Mallard’s domain. He was busily whacking up a naked chicken with a short-handled ax.
“Thank you for looking out for EG,” I said, proving I had no fear of angry men with sharp instruments. “I’ll try to meet her from now on.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said stiffly. “I will continue to meet her. Your grandfather would have wanted it that way.”
“We can’t pay you,” I pointed out. “Unless you want us to pay your tab at the pub. We could do that.”
He almost smiled. “You’re more like him than you realize.”
“Probably not in a good way.” I clicked my camera roll so he could see the photos I’d taken. “The trespasser claimed to be from Broderick, but I’m not certain about his pal in the alley. Living with my family is a twenty-four-hour security problem.”
Mallard studied the photos, then nodded. “Dinner will be at six, as usual.”
I didn’t know if we’d ever earn his respect, but I was satisfied with his dinners.
I returned to my office to put faces to the names on Broderick’s employee list. Let’s see how Birdwatcher took to being cyber-stalked.
Eleven
I put on my blazer and pretended to look normal when I went upstairs for dinner.
Waiting for the rest of us, Nick gazed admiringly on the resplendent meal Mallard had laid out. Once I arrived, Nick took his chair at the head of the table. No one had nominated him as master of the household. He simply assumed the position as his birthright, just as I took the other end as eldest.
EG propped a textbook next to her plate. No one objected. We knew she could listen and read at the same time.
Patra stacked crisp new file folders next to her place, but she was happily filling her plate with lemon chicken and risotto and not inclined to part with any findings as yet.
“I mentioned to the senator this afternoon that Patra is applying at Broderick,” Nick said after sampling the chardonnay. “Tex is a conservative, so I thought he’d approve.”
Patra merely lifted an elegantly arched eyebrow and continued chewing. I was the only one considering the implications of Nick speaking to the senator about a war-mongering media conglomerate. Tex had been a reluctant part of Top Hat for a while. Nick was thinking conspiracy.
“Did Tex offer to call Broderick and personally recommend Patra?” I asked, just to prevent Nick from dropping the topic to dig into his repast.
“Au contraire, he recommended the CNN position in Atlanta. Our prosy senator ranted about BM being a dangerous collusion of oil magnates and the military industry hiding behind the social reform of Righteous and Proud. EG may have inherited some of her pessimism from him.”
“It’s called intelligence, dumquat,” EG said from behind her book.
“Intelligence that predicts doom and gloom creates a society motivated by fear,” Nick warned her. “No positive action comes from fear.”
“Military industry?” I derailed EG’s derailment of the topic. “I thought he was into oil.”
“Makers of guns, tanks, and military equipment,” he clarified. “Broderick likes all rich men.”
“Old news,” Patra said with an airy wave. “Broderick would be emperor and own gladiators if he could. Soldiers are nothing more to him than avatars in a video war game with bigger and better booms. Irrelevant to my position.”
“But not irrelevant if your father was against war and had evidence to prove Broddy was corrupting news to foment revolution in order to enrich his military and oil buddies,” I corrected. “Motive is half the puzzle. The men on that recording are just the sort to support Broderick Media. It’s a lead of sorts.”
“I met David Smedbetter today. I’m pretty sure he’s in my father’s files. I listened in on their boys’ club but heard nothing conclusive and haven’t found anything else interesting,” Patra said in disgust. “I’m still looking.”
The name Smedbetter meant nothing to any of us, but I added it to my to-do list. I needed to get back to the de-coding software and find another speech analyst, but unless I uncovered something, I saw no reason in raising her hopes. “You do realize your new boss is spying on you, don’t you?”
Patra shrugged. “That’s to be expected. I spent the afternoon at the library, so they must have been bored.”
I produced the cell phone images and showed them to her. “Broderick has to know who your father is. You’d better play total innocent or you’ll end up like Bill,” I warned.
“Now who’s a pessimist?” EG asked, not lifting her gaze from her reading material.
Patra studied the images and shook her head in non-recognition. “These creeps are way off base. I’m providing entertainment like the gladiators,” she said mockingly. “I have an interview with Rhianna.”
I tried not to let my eyebrows soar off my face. Patra was damned good if she’d wormed her way through the actress’s security i
n one day.
Patra blithely continued as if she hadn’t accomplished the impossible. “She remembers daddy with fondness and has promised to help his little girl contact any other entertainers looking for a little publicity. Why should the poopmeisters suspect me of anything?”
“Because you’re a Maximillian, and Broderick hated your grandfather as well as your father,” the candelabra said.
I sighed and resumed eating. Even though he made my hormones sing hosannas, Graham still had a way of dampening any convivial conversation.
“Keep your enemies close works both ways,” Nick said cheerily.
Perspicacious, Nick, I realized. Graham was doing a damned good job of keeping us close. I studied the expensive dinner on the fancy dinnerware that we’d simply accepted as our birthright, just as Nick had taken the head of the table. Technically, none of this was ours.
“I’m working for Graham to cover the costs of our rent,” I said, derailing the topic even better than EG rather than discuss enemies. She even glanced up from her book to watch me with interest. “I think we need to start paying for our food. Maybe the two of you could throw a hundred each a week from your salaries into the kitchen kitty.”
“Socialism,” Nick muttered ungratefully, but he cast a considering look at the silent candelabra as he said it.
“Fair enough,” Patra conceded, “but if I’m staying in D.C., I’m finding my own place.”
“Good luck with that,” Nick and I both said in concert.
After that, we returned to the business of eating. We’d never really gone without, but we’d shared enough meals of ants and grubs and porridge to appreciate good food when we had it.
I sat down with EG after supper to order her new Mac. It was Friday night, so Nick had a hot date. And even Patra, who had just arrived in this country, was heading out. I was the non-social introvert in our family of cuckoos, so I got to babysit.
After we completed our order, I let EG play with my Dell in my basement office while I used Graham’s Whiz to hack into Broderick’s personnel files, looking for the sneak I’d caught across the street. As I suspected, company paranoia required photo IDs. They had enough info in their employee files to order up birth certificates if they suspected someone hadn’t been born on the right side of the border.
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