Brainy-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

“That sounds like a line to me.”

  “I kind of thought so, too, but he gave me expensive presents so I didn’t say anything.” She paused. “Plus, his wife weighed more than his Bentley, so I couldn’t blame him for fooling around. He loved to watch himself doing it, so he put a camera behind his ceiling mirror and made a videotape recording whenever he had sex. Old guys can’t do it that often, so maybe the only way he could get it up was with kinky sex.”

  “Good to know, but I’m not sure how I’ll use that in this story.”

  I punched in the password Molly had discovered and hit enter. From what I could see flashing on the screen, this was his business computer.

  “What about the other two computers?” she asked.

  “Good question. The killer only copied this one.”

  The screen saver on the computer to my left was a fancy sports car. That computer also had the same password, so I opened the files. I found exotic car information and sections on watches and art.

  Shutting it down, I turned to the computer on my right. This screen saver was a brick mansion. I turned to Molly and shrugged.

  “I saw that picture in the Robb Report,” she said. “It’s La Grand Reve in Winnetka. You can buy it for twenty-eight million.”

  I opened that computer and scrolled through the first few files. I found information about ultra-expensive homes around the world. I shut it down and sat back.

  “This would fit with the background on Zhukov,” I said. “He grew up poor in Russia and always had pictures on his desk of expensive items he wanted.”

  “I wonder if he was going to buy one of them?”

  “Good question. I’ll check into that. Maybe that’s where some of his investor’s money went.”

  “What’s next?”

  “We need to download the details from these computers.”

  “Do you have one of those little things you can stick into the computer to copy stuff?”

  “A flash drive?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t know I would need it, so I don’t have one with me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Come back tomorrow night.”

  27

  On Wednesday afternoon, my mommy assignment was to fill out Carter’s list of ingredients for him to prepare dinner when he came home from work.

  I took the girls to the Paulina Market on the corner of Cornelia and North Lincoln. It’s an old world meat market with new age offerings. Most of the time I stop at Whole Foods, which is closer to our front door, but Kerry loves to pull the “take a number” out of the large pink plastic pig’s head which stands inside the front door at Paulina’s.

  It was sleeting, so I drove the van and then pushed the girls in their tandem stroller into the store. I found a surprise in the line when I entered. I tapped him on the shoulder.

  Detective Tony Infantino turned around to face me. “How could you lose a freaking body?”

  Sixteen years ago, he was the first real love of my life. He is a movie-star-handsome, third generation, Italian Chicago cop, the first one of his family of cops to make detective. He still isn’t married, but he doesn’t lack for female companionship.

  “You’ve been talking to Janet,” I said.

  Tony pulled his number out of the pig’s mouth and then inched forward in the long line. He wore a double-breasted camel hair topcoat with a dark brown cashmere scarf around his neck. The bright lights in the market glittered off his highly polished, brown, Italian leather boots.

  “She’s my partner,” he said. “Hard not to talk about stuff like that when you’re riding around together.”

  Macy was asleep in the stroller. I pulled Kerry out of it and lifted her up to the pig’s mouth.

  “Okay, Kerry, it’s your turn,” I said. “Pull hard.”

  “Yes, Mother,” she said.

  A term she picked up at preschool.

  She grabbed the ticket and pulled as hard as she could. When I tried to help, she pushed my hand away. She succeeded and turned to me. “We have number twenty-eight, Mother.”

  More knowledge from her expensive preschool.

  I put her down, and she ran directly up to one of the meat counters. She turned around and impatiently stared at me. “Come on, Mother. We need to order.”

  “Not your turn yet, kid,” Tony said.

  “She thinks that when she pulls the ticket out that means we’re next.”

  “Whatever. All’s I know is I’m in front of you guys.”

  I took Kerry by the hand and pushed Macy in the stroller as we toured the store while we waited for our number to be called. Tony followed us.

  “I haven’t had a chance to call Janet yet, but I know how the killer got rid of his body,” I said.

  “You know where the stiff is?” he asked.

  “No, but at least I know how it was removed from the building.”

  “You still don’t have it.”

  “Yes, Tony, I still don’t know where the body is, but I do know Zhukov was murdered. I saw the bullet hole in his forehead and there was blood on the carpet of his elevator.”

  “Somebody’s blood, but doubt it was his.”

  “It was his.”

  “Then how’d the dude fly to Brunei the day after you claim he was murdered?”

  What?

  28

  “And how would you know this?” I asked.

  “Janet had one of Frankie’s boys access United’s computer records,” Tony said.

  Frankie is Janet’s husband. We don’t know exactly what he does, but he can get things done, a great perk when we need help with our stories.

  “His guy says the flight records show that yesterday, Alexis Zhukov boarded a United flight at 10:50 a.m. from O’Hare going to Shanghai,” he continued as he as he looked at his watch. “That means dude landed in Brunei a couple of hours ago.”

  “Did United check his passport too?”

  “According to the computer check Frankie’s guy ran, they did.”

  “What about the security camera recordings from the airport? Did he check those?”

  “His guy is working on that.”

  “But you’ll have it.”

  “Maybe, but not sure we need it.”

  “You’re convinced that Zhukov flew to Brunei.”

  “Yep.” He paused. “Until you come up with something new, we’re not gonna work this anymore.”

  “Maybe I can convince you to reconsider if you have your lab guys analyze something for me.”

  He held up his hands. “Not again. You asked me to do this before, and I got in trouble for doing it.”

  “But you became a media star because of it.”

  For the first story I worked on with the Hamlin Park Irregulars, I’d begged him to analyze a trash sample for me. The results led to him being hailed in the press as a hero when he gunned down a bad guy at O’Hare.

  It wasn’t the last time I’d made a request of him like that. Without him helping me have access to the Chicago PD lab, I wouldn’t have been able to write any of our other stories.

  He sighed. “Okay, what do you want analyzed?” he asked.

  “Bed sheets for DNA,” I said. “I have them in the van. I’ll give them to you when we leave.”

  “Done, but one other thing.”

  I waited.

  “Be careful with these Russian guys.”

  “Why?”

  “Russians make the Italian Mafia look like the cast of La Cage Aux Folles. Don’t screw with the Russians, understand me?”

  I ran my fingers through Kerry’s hair and patted her head. I was going to have to be careful if I decided to pursue this story.

  29

  On Wednesday night, after we had a family dinner, I told Carter that Cas and I were going to XSport Fitness for a yoga seminar after I cleaned up the dishes. He did his daddy part and put the girls to bed.

  Instead of going to the seminar, I went back to Zhukov’s office building. I knew the system,
so entering was fast even though I had a new accomplice. Cas Johnson walked in beside me.

  She is about six inches shorter than me and muscular, with a square jaw, olive skin, and dark brown eyes. She wears her black hair either in a ponytail, or tight bun. Today, she was bun girl. She is married to Joe and they have two kids; Luis, seven, and Angelique, six.

  Cas was trained as an RN but now works part-time as an exercise instructor at XSport Fitness, our neighborhood exercise facility where the Irregulars go to work out. My choice of her was easy. She is fit and tough and isn’t afraid of anything. She carries a Taser and her version of pepper spray, a can of Raid Wasp and Hornet aerosol. If we got into a mess, she would have my back — as she’s done before.

  We put on latex gloves as we rode up in the elevator to Zhukov’s office. The room was dark, and since it was cloudy, there wasn’t any light coming through the windows. I turned on the flashlight from my backpack and used it as I walked to the middle of the three computers. After I entered the password, I slipped in the flash drive.

  While the files were being downloaded, I showed Cas what I’d discovered the first two times I’d been there. She was impressed with the kitchen and bathroom, but she was stunned by the couch/bed and mirror above it. The polar opposite of Molly and her husband, Greg, Cas would never have considered having a mirror over her bed. Neither would her husband.

  She stared at the ceiling. “You want to know what’s strange?”

  The computer continued to make soft downloading noises.

  “On the drive down here, you told me how Molly discovered the bed and that the old guy she hung out with was kind of kinky,” she continued.

  The visual of Molly and an elderly man having sex would be forever burned into my brain. “The one who gave her gifts,” I added.

  “Yes. Molly told you he had a mirror like this, but also that he had a camera behind it.”

  “She said he got off by watching them have sex.”

  The computer clicked off. I removed the flash drive and shut down the computer. When I glanced up, she was gone. “Cas? Where are you? It’s time to go.”

  “I’m in the bathroom.”

  “You can go later. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I don’t have to go. I’m hunting for something.”

  I joined her in the bathroom. She had already turned on the lights.

  “What?”

  “The recording machine for the camera.”

  30

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “The last time you were here, did you check in the bathroom for a recording system?” Cas asked.

  “I did search, but only for clean sheets. I didn’t look for a recording system.”

  “If what Molly told you about old guys is correct, there has to be one in here.”

  Whoa.

  “You might be right.”

  I pointed my flashlight out of the bathroom door toward the bed/couch and the ceiling mirror. Then I opened the door to the toilet room, which was separated from the main bathroom, and stepped in. There was no cabinet where Zhukov could have hidden recording equipment, but I heard a noise and watched as the toilet seat rose up.

  “I’ve never had a toilet lid greet me before,” I said. “That’s cool.”

  “Toto,” Cas said.

  “I hope that’s the brand name and not something that has to do with sex with old guys.”

  “The toilet’s from Japan. Feel the seat.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do it. It’s heated.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Trust me.”

  I felt the seat. It was heated.

  There was a horizontal row of buttons in a frame beside the toilet.

  “Okay, toilet expert,” I said. “What are all these buttons for?”

  Cas began pointing. “This one cleans your front with warm water. This cleans the back. This is for drying.” She paused. “You ought to try it.”

  She walked out and shut the door. When I turned around to sit down, I saw myself in a mirror on the opposite wall.

  “Cas, come back in here a sec’. Have you ever seen anything like this?” I asked, pointing at the mirror.

  “Molly said old guys are kinky.”

  She left. I sat down on the warm seat.

  It was heaven.

  31

  After I finished using the toilet, I decided to try the “front cleaning” button. A gurgling sound was followed by a gentle flush of warm water, which cleaned the just-used area of my body. I discovered an “oscillate” button so I pushed it. The gentle stream of water began to slowly move back and forth. I shut my eyes and began to plan how I was going to con Carter into buying a toilet like this.

  I pushed the “dry” button, and a whisper of warm air began to dry the same area. There was one other button, but it was unmarked. I pushed it. There was a soft hum as the mirror I was facing slid into the wall, exposing a TV.

  Aha. There you are. Thank you, Molly.

  The screen flickered on. I saw a man wearing a suit staring up at me.

  Jumping off the toilet seat, I instinctively covered up my private parts.

  “Check this,” the man said, pointing my way.

  He looked into what I knew was the mirror on the ceiling in Zhukov’s office, but it felt like he could see me and was talking to me. The room lights were on.

  Uh-oh!

  I pulled up my pants, but my hands trembled and it was hard to do. A taller man, also wearing a dark suit, joined the first. He, too, seemed to stare directly at me. “I heard Zhukov was a little bent,” he said. “Guess this is part of it. I wonder if there’s a camera behind the mirror.”

  “If there is, we might want to find it in case there are any recordings of his activities,” the first man said.

  This should have been a quick visit so I’d left my backpack and gun in the van. I had to warn Cas so we could find a place to hide.

  As I opened the door from the toilet room, I heard a third man speak but I couldn’t see him on the TV screen.

  “I think you better wait until Zhukov’s company lawyer arrives,” he said. “I called him when you guys showed up.”

  “Before you became head of security, you were with the Chicago PD, right?” the shorter man asked, as he glanced over his shoulder.

  “I was, so you probably know that none of us like the FBI.”

  The two men moved away from the bed/couch, so they were no longer visible on the screen.

  I need to see what’s going on.

  “We get that a lot, but you have in your hand a legal warrant to remove the items indicated.”

  “The hard drive from his computer.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And any records in his office.”

  “Why don’t you stop being an obstructionist, and let us do our job so we can go home to our families?”

  “I didn’t think anyone in the FBI had a family. I presumed you spent all of your time screwing the local police out of cases.”

  I tiptoed into the main bathroom. Cas turned around and shrugged her shoulders. I put my index finger to my lips.

  “Do not say anything,” I whispered in her ear. “There are men out there,” I jerked my head toward the office, “from the FBI.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Wait in the room with the toilet. You can hear what’s going on in there.”

  She went in. I stayed in the main bathroom area and opened the door into the office a crack so I could see what was going on. The two men in suits stood by Zhukov’s desk. A third man dressed in a blue shirt and work pants was in front of the three computers. The security guard was out of my line of vision to my right, so I couldn’t see what he was doing.

  I fingered the flash drive in my pocket and said a prayer of thanks that I’d already removed it and shut down the computer.

  The two men went through Zhukov’s desk. The third man worked on the computer’s hard drive. The shorte
r agent slammed a drawer shut and stood up.

  “What’s in there?” he asked, pointing at the door I was hiding behind. That question made it difficult for me to breathe.