Dark Justice

by Kristi Belcamino

  “Please don’t,” he said.

  “Don’t what?” I snapped.

  “Be like this.” He grabbed his keys off a small table. “I’m going to go get us some food for dinner.”

  “Be like what?” I said angrily. “You’re the one who brought up all this bullshit, James, not me.”

  He sighed loudly. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged. “Go get us some food. I’m starved.”

  I made my way to the kitchen and stuck my head in the refrigerator. I found an open bottle of white wine and grabbed it.

  Who opened a bottle of wine and didn’t finish it? Probably Soprano Sally.

  I poured a glass and took a sip. I was holding my breath, dying for him to leave. But he kept watching me. Was he suspicious? I downed the glass of wine and poured another.

  “Since I’m stuck here, I hope you don’t mind if I get shitfaced? Be sure to get more wine while you’re out.”

  There, that should convince him.

  My skin was practically crawling with the intense desire to get the fuck out of his apartment. I felt like a fool. His attitude had tarnished what had just happened.

  Then he made a move I hadn’t expected: He put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes with his palms. I stared. What the fuck?

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He shook his head. My anger disappeared. “What is it?”

  He exhaled loudly. “I’ve always hoped deep down inside that we could be together again someday.” His voice was so sad that I reached for his hand. He clutched mine tightly. He wouldn’t look at me. “But at the same time, I know we can’t. I put all that shit on you just now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but my voice was soft. “You did.”

  He wasn’t done, though. “I want you in my life always, but we both know that if we tried to make it work as a couple, we would drive each other crazy. It’s just who we are.”

  “I’m not disagreeing,” I said.

  “Tonight happened because I knew it would be the last time before…” he trailed off and an icy finger of fear rippled through me.

  “Before what, James?” Before I was sent to prison for life? Before what?

  “Nicoletta is pregnant. I’m going to propose.”

  I closed my eyes. There was the knife through my heart.

  “Gia?”

  I opened my eyes and stared at him coldly.

  “Big deal,” I said. “This was your last fling. You’re making too big a deal over it.”

  “Don’t be like this,” he said.

  He was looking at me with such uncertainty that I leaned down and hugged him tightly.

  “James. What do you want me to say? Congratulations on being a daddy again. Hope you like being married to Madame Butterfly?”

  “Stop.”

  “You and me? Nothing can ever take away the love we have for one another. I will love you until the day I die,” I said. “But you’re right, we just aren’t good for one another. We need to make sure this never happens again because it makes things way too damn complicated.”

  “I love you, Gia. I just can’t be with you,” he said. “I swear, if I would’ve known you were coming back to San Francisco…”

  “Please don’t,” I said.

  He looked at me and slowly nodded.

  “Go get us something to eat,” I said. “And then find the killer because I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to live together. We both know what’s going to happen.”

  James opened his front door. But then he paused.

  “Gia? That video?”

  I swallowed.

  “I know how it looks,” I said. “I swear it wasn’t me.”

  I looked in his eyes and realized that he didn’t believe me.

  I’d thought I couldn’t hurt anymore on this night. I was wrong.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I want to believe you. I mean, I do believe you. But the video. It’s you. It doesn’t make any sense. Gia, I swear you can tell me anything. Even if you did it, we can get you help. We can figure this out. You just need to tell me what really happened that night.”

  My heart broke. He really didn’t believe me. He waited and then his face filled with disappointment. He was waiting for a confession I didn’t have to give.

  Finally, he looked away. “Thai?”

  “Sure,” I said and kissed his cheek like the Judas I was. I turned away before he could see my face.

  “No offense,” he said. “But I’m going to set the alarm before I go.”

  I nodded without turning around. His suspicion and distrust made it easier to betray him.

  As soon as the door closed, I raced to the bedroom. I found a thick black hoodie and some oversized military boots. I tugged them on. I found a backpack in the corner and quickly packed it with a few spare clothing items and one of James’s guns from a shelf in his closet. I slung the straps over my back and raced toward the sliding glass doors leading to his deck.

  Outside, I peered down on the street. It was too far to jump without breaking both my legs, but the deck on the floor below was closer. If I hung over the edge and dropped to that one I would be closer to the street. Still too far to jump…although…

  I pulled myself over the edge and jumped to the deck below with a soft thud. I remained in a crouch for a second, eyes glued on the empty and dark apartment. When I realized nobody was home, I tried the sliding glass door. Unlocked. I crept through to the front door, holding my breath. Somebody could still be home in the dark apartment sleeping or something. But I made it to the front door and slipped out. Then I raced to the back stairwell and ran down the other two flights to the street. I cracked the door and looked out. James was long gone.

  I stepped out into the cold night air and took a deep breath.

  Here we go.

  Thirty-Four

  “I find it next to impossible to believe that Ms. Santella murdered anyone, much less Maxwell Carlton,” the mayor said into his phone as he paced the deck of his Russian Hill apartment.

  The district attorney was spouting some nonsense in his ear about motive—something to do with Carlton and Gia both wanting to buy the hotel.

  “Nonsense,” Anthony Ferraro said. “I spoke with the owner a few minutes ago. Carlton made an offer and was immediately turned down. The owner has already agreed to sell to Ms. Santella and her partner. It wasn’t about the money. Herr Janson is richer than dirt, Chief. He doesn’t care about money. He wanted to sell the hotel to someone he likes. And he doesn’t like—or didn’t like—Carlton. In fact, he suspects him of embezzling from the hotel.”

  Ferraro paced more as he listened to the DA go on.

  Finally, he said, “My point is that there is no motive. Ms. Santella is an intelligent and quite rational woman. She wouldn’t murder someone because they made an offer to buy a hotel she was already buying. The whole idea is utterly absurd. Even you have to admit that.”

  After another ten minutes arguing and getting nowhere, the mayor finally said, “Don’t fuck this up, Woodman. Like me, you serve at the will of the people.”

  He hung up.

  “I’m still baffled how that idiot ever got to the position he is in,” he said to the small dog at his feet. “You’d do a better job, Rascal.”

  Ferraro picked up the phone again.

  “Chief Sandoval, please.”

  When the chief got on the phone, there was the slightest moment of awkwardness before they both got over it. They’d dated briefly the previous summer and then decided to be friends instead.

  “What can I do for you, Anthony?”

  “I don’t think Gia Santella is your perp.”

  “Strange that you’re not the only one who has told me this lately,” the chief said lightly. “I don’t suppose your doubt has anything to do with the fact that she looks like an Italian movie star?”

  “Does she?” he asked, immediately regretting playing dumb.

  “There’s a video of her k
illing Maxwell Carlton. What would you like me to do about it? I’m not an attorney, Anthony. I simply deal with facts. My detectives gathered enough evidence to convince Judge Proctor to issue an arrest warrant. What do you want me to do?”

  “Your job,” the mayor said. “She’s not your perp. That means someone else out there is walking around scot-free.”

  “Anthony, my hands are tied.”

  “Thanks anyway,” he said and hung up. So much for parting amiably. He was pretty sure he’d just royally pissed her off.

  The mayor had one more call to make. The Attorney General for the state of California. Merilee Conley. Another former girlfriend and lover. Thank God, he always ended his relationships on a good note.

  “Merilee? I need your help. A woman I know is being framed with a video I would stake my life on not being her. But I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It’s her. What the hell?”

  Merilee had an answer—a ready answer. It was called Deepfake technology. She quickly explained it to the mayor.

  “What can I do about it?” he asked.

  Thirty minutes later the mayor had a game plan to try to help Gia Santella.

  He shook his head. He didn’t know why he was going to put his neck on the line for a woman he barely knew, but he’d never felt more compelled to do anything in his life.

  Thirty-Five

  Sorry, not sorry, James.

  As soon as my feet hit the pavement, I ran.

  My first stop was to buy three burner phones. I knew the camera in the store would capture my purchase, so I headed straight to the Tenderloin to buy them.

  James and Dante and anyone else who knew me would think I retreated to my old neighborhood, but I had no plans to stay in the TL. Too obvious.

  Instead, I headed for the docks. I knew there was a homeless community there.

  I needed a vehicle to sleep in.

  As soon as I got the first burner phone up and running, I dialed Tony.

  “I need a van. No windows. I’m on the run. A murder rap. I didn’t do it.”

  He didn’t even hesitate.

  “I’ll have a van for you in the parking lot of El Mercado’s Burritos in the Mission. Key will be on top of the passenger side rear tire. 0700.”

  Then he hung up.

  I had an hour to kill.

  I pulled my hair back in a tight ponytail and pulled my hoodie up until most of my face was obscured. I headed to Chinatown. I walked the streets, ducking my head to avoid any CCTV cameras.

  Aware of the possibility that every camera in the city would eventually be searching for my face, I walked with my head down and hopped a bus headed toward the Mission.

  I snuck into a bodega and bought a bag of food that wouldn’t go bad—canned beans, tuna, bottled water, and some beef jerky. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to have to hide out.

  I’d lay low in the city—maybe pay someone to use my ID to get out of town. My only hope was to stay in town and figure out who was framing me. If I ran, I wouldn’t be able to prove my innocence.

  Speaking of, I needed help.

  While I hid in the alley near the bodega I dialed Danny. He didn’t pick up. He was probably still asleep. I left a message.

  “I’m on the run. I’ll call you in four hours.”

  That should give me enough time to settle into my new home at the homeless camp.

  The van was where Tony said it would be. Of course. That guy was salt of the earth. I could count on him during the apocalypse. If he said he’d do something, you could count on it.

  I drove over to the homeless camp and parked in a spot near the underpass. I knew the cops didn’t come down there very often. During our dinner, the mayor had said helping the homeless was one of his top priorities, and that was one reason he told the cops to lay off this camp until the city had a better option for these people.

  Once I was parked, I dialed Danny.

  “Any luck? How do we fight back against this type of technology?” I asked.

  “If you know what to look for, you might be able to tell a Deepfake,” he said. “There’s a whole list of stuff to look for. Are they blinking naturally, making weird faces, is their posture weird, are their movements jerky or disjointed? Is the lighting weird, like with shadows or their skin tone? Is the hair weird? Like you can’t really recreate frizzy hair. When they smile, are their teeth just a line of white without individual teeth? Is it blurry? Are the voices weird or out of synch with the movement of the mouth?”

  “Are all these things enough to prove its Deepfake?” I asked. “Like will this hold up in court?”

  “I don’t know. I know the first thing I did was slow down the video so I could look at it better. The problem is, it was filmed in the dark, so I couldn’t really zoom in on things that might show it was fake. Our best bet is going to be if I can find the video’s digital fingerprint through block chain technology. That fingerprint can help us show the video is fake. But it’s going to take time.”

  “I’m back in court on Tuesday. And I’m not going to show.”

  “Didn’t James vouch for you?”

  I ignored this.

  “What are my options? Besides finding the killer myself?”

  Danny was silent for a second.

  “I don’t think this video would hold up in court.”

  “That’s it?” I said. “My future depends on that: ‘I don’t think?’”

  “I’m pretty sure I can prove it’s a fake. Then there is no case, right?”

  “I can’t wait for that. I’ll be in touch soon,” I said and hung up.

  Thirty-Six

  The van was what I liked to call a Kidnapper Van. In other words, it had no windows in the back. The only windows were the front windshield and the windows on the driver’s side and passenger side.

  Tony knew what I needed. There was a curtain you could pull that was right behind the seats so you had complete privacy in the back of the van.

  Although the outside of the van was beat-up—dented with patches of bondo—the inside wasn’t as bad. It was equipped as a temporary mobile home:

  A thin twin mattress was on the floor with a military-style sleeping bag neatly rolled on top of it. There was something that I could only describe as a chamber pot with a screwed-on lid. Gross. But maybe necessary. Gallon-sized water bottles lined one wall, held back with a webbed strap. A milk crate held military rations. But the best part was the laptop. It was inside a case that looked like it would survive a drop from a twenty-story building. An index card taped to the top of it gave the log-in information and explained how to connect to a satellite Wi-Fi network. Sweet. A small box held two more burner phones that had not yet been activated. A duffel bag held some changes of clothing—thick woolen shirts, socks, and sweaters. A heavy wool pea coat lay on the bed too.

  I had no idea how Tony pulled it all together so quickly but suspected this was all part of his own bug-out kit.

  It was nearly dawn and I still hadn’t slept. I was exhausted. I unrolled the sleeping bag and then leaned up against one cold wall of the van, pulling the laptop on my lap.

  I logged in and started digging around, looking for information on Deepfake. But then I realized it was a waste of my time. Danny was handling that. I needed more info on our suspects. Right now, every person who was at that first gala fundraising meeting was a suspect. Someone there had targeted me that night.

  I went down the list of names. For each name, I logged into search engines that only existed on the Dark Web.

  After I researched the first five names, I didn’t feel like I was any further along than when I’d started. One guy who had made his billions on a Silicon Valley start-up had a little bit of a sketchy background. He was dishonorably discharged from the military about fifteen years before for an incident involving “friendly fire.” After digging deeper, I found that he’d lost his shit and accidentally shot up a home with women and children in Afghanistan. When one of his fellow soldiers had stumbled on the scene and tried
to intervene, he’d turned and “accidentally” killed the man. Holy fuck. He could be the guy.

  The entire thing had been covered up in the interest of “national security,” allowing him to go on with his normal life. And apparently become a billionaire. What a joke. This guy was clearly unstable. I thought back, trying to remember any interactions I had with him. The only impression I had was that he was super arrogant, quiet, and talked to my chest instead of my face. Ew.

  He was my best suspect so far. But what was his motivation? Maybe he was just a nutjob? But the murders were too methodical to be crimes of passion. There had to be a motivation. What would someone gain by killing members of the gala fundraising committee? Was he Jewish and offended by the opera like so many others? Maybe he was killing in protest?

  I still needed to make my way down the list. I yawned and stretched. I wish I had a coffee maker in the van. Outside, I could hear the low murmur of voices. I got up to stretch more and peeked out the curtain. I could see a few fires in trash cans. It was just starting to get light. Dark figures huddled around them, and smoke poured out of them in plumes. I had a chill all the way down to my bones. I’d finish up and crawl into the sleeping bag. It would keep me warm. It was made for extreme cold.

  Back on the bed, I decided to search Nicoletta Marchese.

  After I waded through all the press clippings about her illustrious career, I had to admit I felt a bit jealous. She was a really accomplished opera singer. It explained a little bit about why she was such a diva. In fact, looking at the press on her, I was surprised she wasn’t even more of a bitch. People adored her. She was sweet and attentive to her fans. She gave extravagantly to charity, and she’d had her heart broken two years ago by another opera singer she was engaged to. He ran off with a Brazilian model a decade younger. The press had covered the break-up ad nauseam, painting her as a sweet woman who had been wronged.

  It made me question whether I was right to disapprove of her relationship with James. Maybe she really cared about him. Maybe she was really looking for love and had found it with him. I frowned. I just didn’t buy it. As much as I wanted to believe that she might be good for James, something stopped me. It was gut instinct. I listened to that. I’d learned over the years that ignoring it was only at my own peril.