by Linda Barlow
She opened the heavy backpack and pulled out a slim boxlike machine. “This is it.”
April laughed, partly with delight and partly with relief. Was the mystery about to be solved?
“I haven’t erased anything from the hard disk. Want me to find the files for you? I’m a whizz with computers.”
April wasn’t sure if they should be doing this at all—she should probably phone the police, or certainly Rob, but—
“The battery’s low,” Kate said as she tried to boot up the laptop. “You gotta recharge it pretty often. Never mind, we’ll use the AC.” She rooted around again in the backpack and pulled out a cord with a power pack attached to it. While she attached it to the computer, April plugged the other end into the wall outlet.
The little machine began to whirr. “Okay, now we’re cooking,” said Kate.
As April watched, the machine beeped once then flashed a series of paragraphs and graphics across its silvery screen. Kate’s fingers flew over the keyboard, producing colorful new screens and cute little pictographs.
“Well, I don’t see it,” she said after a couple of minutes. “There’s not much stuff here in Gran’s files. No games or anything. Well, except Solitaire—that comes automatically with Windows. Nothing really fun or challenging, though. I’ve got some great games on the big 486 at home.”
“Anything to do with computers is challenging to me,” April said wryly.
Kate was concentrating on the screen. “It’s a nice machine, though. Not as fast as a desktop of course, but it’s got a color monitor, which is cool. Most laptops don’t.”
April nodded. She was leaning over Kate’s shoulder, trying to figure out what she was doing.
“See, I’m in the file manager. I’m looking for the files to her book, but they aren’t in here.”
“How do you know?”
“I remember the filename. She was calling it Memories. You know, like Memories One, Memories Two, and so on. Probably had a new file for every chapter. There ought to be lots of files here, but there aren’t any. At least none with that name.”
“Maybe she changed the name to something else.”
“Sure. Maybe. Let’s pull up a few and see. We gotta go into her word processor, like this, see? Or we could just view it from DOS, but the text won’t be formatted that way.”
“If you say so,” April said.
“You really don’t know how to use a computer? That’s awesome. I thought everybody could use Windows, at least. It’s easy. Want me to teach you?”
“Yes, but not right now. The most important thing at the moment is to find her autobiography.”
“This all looks like correspondence. Letters and stuff. See the things that say ‘ltr’ as the filename extension? People often use that for letters. Or ‘let’ or maybe the date.”
She pressed some keys and the text of a short letter showed up on the screen. April could see from the inside address that it was to a woman in Arkansas whose name she did not recognize. It seemed to be in reply to a fan letter or something—just the usual “seize your power” sort of stuff.
“Boring,” said Kate. She called up several other letters, but none looked particularly interesting. Still, thought April, she would have to learn to use the machine well enough to read through them all individually, in case there was anything in Rina’s private correspondence that might prove helpful.
“Let me try some of the other directories,” Kate said. “But she doesn’t have much on here. There’s a personal subdirectory—shall I go into that? It sounds familiar—this may have been where the book was stored.”
“Yes, let’s see what’s in it.”
“Hmm. This is weird,” said Kate a moment later. “The directory’s empty. Except for the two base files that always get created when you make a directory.”
“Can you make a directory and not use it?” April asked.
“Sure. You can also use it, then delete the files. I’m gonna try something, okay?”
“You know what you’re doing here, Kate. I don’t.”
“There should be a utility here that will undelete a file if it hasn’t already been written over. That’s just in case you erase something by mistake. Okay, so I’m going to try and undelete files with the names Memories One, Memories Two, and so on. Maybe they’re still here.”
The computer whirred again. Kate tried several combinations then shook her head. “Nope. That’s too bad. Acourse it still doesn’t prove that they weren’t ever here. She could have written over them herself and then deleted those files, which would have been an extra security precaution.”
“But wouldn’t that erase all her work?”
“She would have backed it up, though. You know, on floppies? Portable computer diskettes, that is. You know the kind I mean.”
“Those flexible thin things,” April said.
“Yeah, well in a laptop we use the three-and-a-half-inch square ones. That reminds me, I forgot to check the A-drive. It would be funny, wouldn’t it, if the backup diskette was here all the time. I never use the A-drive. That’s stupid, by the way—everyone should back up their work on a floppy.”
She pressed a button on the side of the computer and probed around with her fingers. “Nope. No floppy.” She looked up at April. “But that’s where the book is, I’ll bet. If it’s not on here and it’s not printed out in a hard copy form, then it’s probably stored on a backup diskette.”
“Why would somebody write a book on a computer then erase it and store it on a floppy?”
“So somebody couldn’t do exactly what we’re doing now. It’s a lot easier to hide a diskette than a computer. I know it was on here. That I’m sure of. I’ll bet if you find the diskette you’ll find the missing manuscript. And maybe Gran’s murderer as well.”
April hugged her. “You may be right.”
“I’ll bet it’s here someplace, hidden. Or if not here, maybe in Gran’s office. Can I help you look for it?” The girl clenched her fingers into fists. “I want to get the guy who did it—I really do.”
“I understand how you feel. But I’d feel a lot better if I knew you were out of it. Safe, I mean.”
She looked up at April with huge round eyes. “You think they’ll try to kill us?”
“Not you, of course not. Not me, either, I hope.”
Kate tightened her grip. “Be careful, okay?”
“I intend to be. Now let’s call your father, okay? He must be worried about you.”
“Let him worry,” Kate growled.
Chapter Twenty-four
“April thinks she knows why Gran was murdered,” Kate announced to her father and Daisy Tulane the next morning at breakfast.
Her father made a face as he buttered his toast. “So does everybody.”
“It’s important to discover the motive,” Kate went on. “You have to analyze the mind of the killer and unlock his—or her—heart.”
“Aren’t you a little young to be thinking about murder, Katey, honey?” Daisy said.
“She’s obsessed with the subject,” her father said apologetically to Daisy. “My daughter, the new Sherlock Holmes.”
Kate scowled at him. He thought she was fooling around. He didn’t believe that she actually knew anything.
“I love a good mystery myself,” Daisy said. “Didn’t April Harrington used to own one of those murder mystery bookstores? I’ll bet she’s the budding detective.”
“She just doesn’t want to be murdered like her mother was,” Kate said impatiently. “That’s, like, a pretty good reason for wanting to solve a crime.”
“Lord alive, why should anybody murder April?” asked Daisy. As usual, she wasn’t eating. No matter what kind of food was offered her, it had too many calories. But she didn’t look anorexic, Kate had decided. Her boobs were too big.
“Because she knows too much,” said Kate. She put a big forkful of blueberry pancakes generously covered with maple syrup into her mouth. She noticed that Daisy watched every m
ove. Eat your heart out, lady, she thought. “The main motives for murder are greed, lust, and keeping somebody from talking to the police. April’s smart. She’s finding out a lot of stuff about her mother. Even more than the police, she wants to nail the killer.”
“You’re being overly dramatic, as usual, Katherine,” her father said.
And you’re being insulting as usual, Dad, she wanted to say, but bit it back. It had been so exciting to help April look for Gran’s manuscript last night! For the first time, she’d felt as if she really might be able to help unmask the murderer.
“Gran was working on this book about her life. But before she could finish it, she was shot. Now the book has, like, disappeared. We think somebody killed her to prevent that book from ever being published.”
Daisy and her father exchanged a quick glance. Kate dug into her pancakes again and waited. They were both paying attention. She loved it when they stopped cooing to each other and listened to her.
“She wrote a lot of books,” said Daisy. She fiddled with her spoon. “What was so special about this one?”
“This was an autobiography, not one of those self-help things. It was about her. Her life, her past, all that stuff. And it told stuff about her clients—maybe some stuff that nobody wanted told.” She looked at her father and added defiantly, “Nobody knew what had happened to the manuscript. But April and I have pretty much figured it out.”
“You have this manuscript?” her father demanded.
“Well, no, not yet,” she said quickly. “But I think April does. Or at least, she will have it soon if she doesn’t already. I gave her this idea, you see, and—” She broke off, wondering if she’d said too much. April had told her not to tell anybody about the missing computer diskette. Especially since they didn’t even know for sure that there was a missing diskette.
At first, Kate had been convinced that Gran had hidden it somewhere in her apartment. That must have been why the place had been burgled and searched. The killer, too, must know about the diskette—or at least about the manuscript.
But she and April had gone through the place one more time last night, without success. The Sixty-second Street apartment was all straight-edged and contemporary and there simply weren’t too many good hiding places.
This morning, though, Kate had had a new idea. She was trying to think up an excuse to search Grandfather’s place as well. Gran had spent some time with her husband, after all, and in that huge, fancy townhouse she might have had more nooks and crannies to hide something in. Especially something as small and thin as a 3-½-inch diskette.
“I haven’t seen Granddad for a while,” she said now, changing the subject, to her father’s obvious relief. “D’you think he’d mind if I dropped over to visit him this afternoon?”
“What a nice thought, Katey,” Daisy said. “He must be lonely with Rina gone. Why don’t you call your father?” she suggested to Christian. “Maybe you could invite him to dinner.”
“Actually, I’d rather go to his place,” Kate said. Then she thought that sounded rude, so she added, “It’s a neat old apartment, built in the Roaring Twenties, or sometime when people were really rich. I could go over there and you two could, like, be alone.”
That got their attention.
Adults were really disgusting, Kate thought.
When Daisy Tulane returned to Dallas the following evening, she was exhausted and demoralized. Her campaign director had faxed her the latest opinion polls. Instead of gaining in the standings against the two middle-aged white males who were running against her in the primary election, she was losing ground. Voters were always suspicious of a woman candidate, especially in the South.
Maybe seizing her own power wasn’t going to work, after all. Maybe none of the masquerades would work, not even the one she was indulging in with Christian.
Ah, Rina, she thought. I was never as good at this as you.
Had she done the right thing? It was so impossible to know. Rina was gone, and she had to move on. She could be a good senator, she was certain. She had so many wonderful ideas and plans, and there was so much to be done…
You must take control of your own life.
That was all she had tried to do. But now they were looking for Rina’s manuscript. And if they found it…
She found the letter atop a neat pile of newspapers on the marble-topped table in the foyer of her home. Because it was marked “confidential” her secretary had left it unopened. It had come in a regular business envelope. Her name and address were neatly printed in ink. There was no return address, but the letter had been postmarked in New York City.
The envelope contained a single sheet of 8 ½ by 11 typing paper. “It’s not over yet,” were the words that were neatly printed in what looked like the same handwriting as was on the envelope. “Others know what you are trying to hide. Soon everybody will know.”
That was all.
But it was enough.
Calmly, Daisy folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. She walked across the foyer to the ornate mirror that hung over a large Chinese porcelain vase (chosen on the recommendation of Christian) in which were blooming a riot of summer flowers. She examined her reflection in the mirror, something she had had difficulty doing for years.
There was no one else there, she assured herself. Nothing lurking around the edges, nothing hiding behind her image, no one whispering her name. All there was was Daisy, cool and collected, in control.
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-five
Gerald Morrow checked into the Plaza Hotel without incident. He was pleased to see that the client had reserved him a suite. Old-World-style–elegant. The sort of place he’d have killed to get into back in the days when he was a young punk lifting cars from the streets of Brooklyn. He smiled. The sort of place he killed to get into now, he thought, smiling.
Morrow—not his real name, of course, and not the name he’d used on the register downstairs, either, but he’d been thinking of himself as Gerald Morrow for this job, since it was the name he’d used last month in Anaheim—went over to the tall window with the heavy brocade curtains and gazed out over the city of New York. There it was, all those noisy thoroughfares, those graceful buildings, those patches of parkland, and all those people spread out below him. Busy little bees, all hurrying about their daily activities. Self important. Believing that they and their petty little concerns mattered.
Fools.
He raised his arm and sighted along it to his outstretched index finger. “Pow,” he whispered, imitating the recoil of a gun. A skyscraper exploded. “Zap,” he said, and a city transit bus burst into flame. “Bang,” he said once more as people everywhere fell to their bellies, writhing and moaning in terror.
“I’ve got the power.” He listened to himself and added, “Maybe I’m a little crazy, but what the fuck.”
Morrow turned away from the window and seated himself on the sofa at one end of the elegant room. He laid his briefcase on the mahogany coffee table and opened it. Removing a slim manila envelope, he opened it and slid out the photograph, which he propped up against a slender vase that contained a single rose.
The client had hired him for another job. He’d been pleased, apparently, with the outcome of the last one.
Another woman. Some shooters didn’t like doing women, but Morrow specialized in women. Unfortunately, there was little demand in this profession for his special talents regarding females, so, like everybody else, he accepted routine contracts on men. But when someone wanted a woman taken out of circulation, they knew who to call. No one did it as thoroughly—or as lovingly—as Gerald Morrow aka Too Many Other Aliases to Name.
This one was going to be a special challenge, though. The client didn’t want the usual clean shooting, fast getaway. “It’s got to look like an accident,” he’d been told. “Even the police have got to believe it’s an accident. We can’t risk anything that looks like a professional hit.”
It cost a
lot more to set up an “accident.” But this was the best kind of murder. No detailed investigation, no trouble with the police. Morrow had arranged several “accidents” and a number of “suicides” as well. He liked them. They were more personal, somehow. They often involved more personal contact with the target, which might be good or bad, depending upon the individual.
He was looking forward to having personal contact with this target.
She was beautiful. But the photograph didn’t do her justice. It didn’t reveal how lustrous her auburn hair was, nor did it show the lively sparkle in her eyes. Those features he remembered, having already seen her once in person.
The eyes were important. He always noticed their eyes. He found it particularly intriguing to watch their eyes as the bullets shattered their bodies. There was the essential mystery of life, death, and eternity—there in that split second when the eyes changed from expressive to empty, living to dead.
If he could understand the eyes, he would understand the soul. More and more he had faith in the soul, and in the afterlife. Something vital vanished at the moment of death—vanished and went… somewhere.
Deep down in his lower consciousness, Morrow knew a spurt of fear. If there was an afterlife, what would it hold for him? Briefly, he remembered images of fire and torment retained from the rantings of a crazy parish priest. He’d been a good Catholic boy. He’d believed in heaven and hell.
Now he believed religion was for fools. If there was anything afterwards it was much more complex and much more exciting than fires for the evil and harps for the good. And hell was bound to be ever so much more exciting than heaven. If there was a hell, he looked forward to it. He yearned to be eternally consumed.
He focused on the photograph. April Harrington—his angel. They would visit hell together. She would be there, of course, despite the look of purity and innocence. All women were bound for hell. Like Eve, their mother, they were filthy with sin.