by Matt Doyle
What makes the third photo useful is that it also shows the near edge of a small glass table in the background, displaying the bottom of a heavy-looking book. Zooming in shows the open page as number eighty-four, and the visible part of the bottom line reads, “…popularised by Clement Burch during the dawn of the modern…”
I wave Lori over and show her the close-up section. “Do you know what would have happened to the book?”
“I tidied up after the police were done. It’ll be back on the shelf.”
“Okay. Do you remember which one it was?”
Lori shakes her head. “No, sorry. Is it important?”
“I don’t know. It could give us an idea of what he was doing on the day that he died. That may point us to who, if anyone, he was meeting with, which might give us a lead on someone who saw him that day. Or he may have just been reading for the hell of it, or trying to fix something of his own. Without looking, though, we won’t know for sure.”
Lori stares at the screen for a moment. Her brow wrinkles, and she looks over her shoulder at the crowded bookshelves. “It looks like a pretty big one. Less than half his books are even near that size. We have the page number and the last line, so…”
My phone buzzes, and a generic ringtone blares out from the handset. It’s an annoying little jingle, but it gets my attention far quicker than anything I could customise the phone with. As far as I’m concerned, using a favourite track just risks you either getting sick of the song or ignoring the call so that you can listen. Having something that you struggle to bear makes you more likely to pick up quickly.
I pull the handset out of my pocket, look at the screen, and sigh. “See if you can find the book,” I say to Lori. “I’ll take this outside.”
Lori nods, but her expression is full of suspicion. She’s right to be suspicious. I’ve been waiting for this call since last night; I just didn’t think that it would come this soon. I tap the little green Accept button on the screen and stroll calmly from the room and towards the front door.
“Hey,” I say.
Captain Hoover’s voice comes through the handset speakers, his moustache audibly bristling against his own phone. “You want to tell me why I’ve just had Inspector Bergesson on the phone telling me that we let you question Devin Carmichael?”
“Probably ’cause I questioned Devin Carmichael last night,” I state, my voice neutral.
“Funny, Caz. Real funny.”
“You know what I’m working on.”
“Yeah, I do. That’s what confuses me about this. I told you that it was an open-and-shut case. Sad as any sob story, but for most people, it’s just another Addict that checked himself outta the hotel without meaning to.”
“Devin admitted to killing him.”
“Shit,” Hoover sighs, drawing the word out. “And you’re still working the case?”
“Yep.”
“You know what Devin being involved means, Caz. What exactly do you think that you’re gonna get outta this?”
“Ten thousand,” I say, smiling to myself. “That, and I’m gonna prove who hired Devin to take Eddie Redwood down and personally dump all the evidence on your desk.”
Hoover groans and asks, “And then what? Huh?”
“What do you mean, ‘and then what’? C’mon, Hoove, you know how it works. I give you the evidence, and you make the arrest. You’re about the only guy there that I know would act on it, even with Devin’s involvement.”
“And what if I told you that I’d been ordered to leave this case well enough alone?”
My breath catches, and a sudden chill runs down my back. “Seriously?”
“Real fucking seriously, like on my badge seriously. You know me, Caz. I’d love to help you out here, but I can’t.”
I narrow my eyes. Hoover swearing is never a good sign. It means that he’s been shit on from a great height, and he ain’t happy about it. “You wanna tell me why?”
“You ever heard of a single damn case where Devin’s killed someone and the client got as far as the court? Me neither. The higher-ups reckon that if we take one that way, then we’ve got to open them all up. That wouldn’t just mean giving the bad guys a tough time, that would mean sending half my staff down with them.”
I slump back against the wall and lift a weary hand up to my head, pushing my hair back. “Diu.”
“Pretty much sums it up,” he replies. When I don’t say anything in response, he asks, “So what’re you gonna do?”
I glance over towards the window that should lead into the room I left Lori in and close my eyes. “Keep working the case. My client’s pretty cut up. Maybe proving who hired Devin…maybe that’ll be enough to give her some closure.”
“I hope so,” Hoover says, and I can hear the sincerity in his voice.
“For what it’s worth, I used the second warrant at the Monitoring Office. Am I still good for the third?”
“Technically no, ’cause you haven’t filed it yet. If it happens to come across my desk, though…it’s easy to miss something small like a date, right? But don’t go thinking that we’ll be able to give you a fourth on this one.”
“Thanks, Hoove.”
“Don’t mention it. Just try to get it all wrapped up ASAP.”
He hangs up before I can reply. With most people, I take that as pretty rude, but I’ve learned over time that Andrew Hoover isn’t one for good-byes. I slip my phone back into my pocket and head back to the living room, bringing myself to a stop in the doorway. Lori is bent over the glass table, skimming through the pages of an open book and, when she hears me coming, looks up in silence, her expression asking if the call was about the case.
“I went to visit Devin Carmichael last night,” I say. “He confirmed that he was hired to kill Eddie.”
Lori nods, but her expression remains unchanged. She’s smart enough to realise that something else is going on here.
“I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t want it to affect you while we were here. The thing is, the PD just had an earful from the higher-ups about me questioning him. You remember when I said that the higher up you go, the more corrupt they get? Well, Captain Hoover is about as high as you can go and still know that you’re dealing with a good cop. He’s not untouchable, though.”
“Was that who was on the phone?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re not going to do anything, even if we prove who killed him, are they?”
“No.”
“So what happens now?”
“That’s up to you. You could decide to leave things as they stand. You’ll know that you were right, and I’ll waive the rest of my fee ’cause I didn’t finish the case.”
“And if I say that I want to carry on anyway?”
Something in her tone says that she’s already made up her mind. There’s a resolute edge there, almost making it a challenge. She may as well have just said, “Don’t think for one moment that you’re walking away from this one just yet, Cassie.”
I smile. “Then we’ll find out who hired Devin Carmichael to kill your brother.”
“Good,” she says, and taps the pages of the book that she’s opened up on the table. “I found the book.” I walk over to stand beside her and she continues, “It’s a manual for a couple of linked virtual systems; SnapDragon Suite, Light Break, and NSX.”
“NSX…Nine Seconds Transfer?”
“That’s the one. My bank uses it, and it’s quicker than its name makes out.”
“Okay, but what are SnapDragon and Light Break?”
Lori flicks to the front of the book and runs her finger down the index list. “Looks like SnapDragon is a data capture suite and Light Break…” She shakes her head, and flips a couple of pages. Any book where the index runs into the double figures is way too long for me. Finally, she says, “I think it’s some sort of security software. It looks like most of the book is about how the three systems interact and what problems they can cause for each other.”
�
��So what was the page that Eddie was reading?”
Lori flicks back to the first page of the index again and says, “Uhm…historical problems with the SnapDragon Suite that occasionally turn up in newer versions.”
I walk over to the bookshelves and skim through the titles. “Looks like he has one more book on SnapDragon, one on Light Break, and one—no, two more on NSX. I don’t suppose he used any non-Virtual machines?”
“Not that I know of. Even knowing he didn’t buy the…Flash7?” she says, looking at me to make the name of the drug a question. I nod and she says, “Even then, he was still a Virtual Junkie. As far as I know, he did all his computer work in the virtual environment.”
“The newer headsets are all locked by retinal scans, so we won’t be able to just log into his account and see what he was up to. If he’d had a tablet or something like that, we could have unlocked it.”
“Couldn’t we get his headset unlocked too? There must be people who can do that. I mean, you hear about them having problems all the time and locking users out.”
“Manufacturers and the original seller offer unlock services, but they’ll only unlock someone else’s gear for two reasons. The first is if the police require it for an investigation. If Hoover hadn’t already been given his orders, I could have tried to get him to sign off on it, but there’s no way that he’ll do it now.”
“What’s the second reason that they’d do it?”
“If they’re wiping it for resale.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. There are other ways to figure out what he was doing, or at least who he was meeting with. Do you know the Industrial Park near Main Street?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I asked the Monitoring Office to do some research on Eddie’s last month online for me. They should be done by now, so if you’re up for taking a trip, our best bet is probably to head there, then back to my office.”
Lori gently shuts the book, the weight of the hardback cover making a quiet thud despite her controlled movement, and places it carefully back in its spot on the shelf.
“Let’s go,” she says, and walks purposefully out towards the front door.
Sixteen
THE DOORS TO the Virtual Monitoring Office slide open, and Mr. X looks up from his desk. With me walking in front, he spots me first and gives me his usual pleasant smile. Once Lori steps out from behind me, his mood seems to stick, but his face changes completely. His eyes light up, and his eyebrows arch into a relaxed curve. The corners of his mouth drop down a little and move out to the side, letting his mouth open wider and fall into a smile that I wouldn’t have known was more natural than the one I normally see if I hadn’t seen it grow out from the other. I guess what I was getting was professional courtesy. Good to know.
“Oh,” Mr. X says, not even trying to hide his surprise. “Hi, Lori.”
“Hi, Jer,” Lori replies. “How are the kids?”
“Same as ever; messy, funny, and full of opinions that they’re too young to have.” His face becomes serious then, and his voice takes on a quieter, almost soothing tone. “And what about you? How are you holding up?”
Lori shrugs. “Better, I guess. It’s a long road, you know?”
Jer, which I’m guessing is short for Jeremy, nods. “Well, if there’s anything that I or Nicole can do to help, let us know. The spare room’s still available if you want to get away from it all for a while, and you know how much the kids love Ink.”
Lori smiles. It’s not the full-faced playful smile that she’s been giving me, but rather a quiet smile, full of gratitude and familiarity. “Thank you,” she replies. “I’ll be fine, though. If you’ve been helping Cassie figure out what happened to Eddie, then you’re helping me plenty.”
Jeremy relaxes back into his chair a little, and taps his chin a few times with his index and middle finger. “Is that right? You know, I didn’t even check the names you put on the request forms. I wonder…” He lets his gaze drift to the ceiling for a moment, then drops it back to me and gets to his feet, drumming his hands on the desk in front of him. “You know how to fill in the receipt forms, right?”
I nod.
“Good,” he says, placing his tablet on the desk and swiping through the screens. “If you could start going through those, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jeremy trots off towards the main office without waiting for a response, leaving me to sigh and start signing and dating on the relevant lines. I make a lot of requests from this place, so I pretty much know where to jump to on instinct now, and with no policy changes having taken place recently, I don’t need to bother reading through the terms and conditions either. In the same way, I know exactly how much they’re gonna charge me for both the printed summary and the USB stick containing the full version of the requested data.
“So Ink’s kid-friendly then?” I ask without looking up from the screen.
“Sure,” Lori replies. “She looks all tough and scary, but she’s just a big house cat, really.”
“Only without the arrogant strutting or the ‘I meant to do that’ attitude when she does something wrong, right?”
“Oh, I’ve done all that before,” Lori giggles. “If you’re playing a character, you’ve got to play it well.”
I glance up at her and realise that she is both completely serious and not in the least bit embarrassed by the fact. “All the world’s a stage,” I say. “And one woman in her time plays many parts.”
“Yup. It’s just that some of us play more than one part at once.” She grins.
I finish signing the payment details page just as Jeremy makes his return to the desk. He pulls a brown envelope out of a drawer. The name “Miss C Tam” is scrawled along the front in blue marker pen. From the envelope, he takes a small USB memory stick, and places it on the desk. Next, he grabs a blue marker pen from the pot next to him and draws a large dot at the tip of the stick. Finally, he takes another memory stick from his pocket, places it in the envelope, and drops the memory stick from the desk into his pocket in its place.
I raise a curious eyebrow at Jeremy, and he says, “We had a bit of an issue with staff accidentally giving out the wrong memory sticks to customers, so we started marking our copies with blue dots. See, your copy contains the data requested, and nothing else. Our copy has the requested data in one folder, and some other folders with all sorts of linked data, such as brief profiles of relevant people, their most common log-in points, and so on.”
“So which one did you just put in the envelope?”
“Well, they’ve both got blue dots now, so who knows? If you happen to have accidentally ended up with the unedited office copy, though, I’m sure that you’d return the stick to us at your earliest convenience, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re not going to get in trouble for this, are you?” Lori asks, a tinge of concern in her voice.
“Of course not. The audits run monthly, and ours was yesterday, so as long as the stick gets back to me before this time next month, I’ll be able to drop it back into filing and no one will be any the wiser.”
“It’ll be back before then,” I assure him. “If I copy anything useful, will that show up in the audit?”
“Not a chance,” Jeremy says. “It’ll show up if you edit anything, though, so don’t make any changes to the documents on the stick.”
“Okay,” I say, taking the envelope. I stop myself as I’m leaving and turn to Jeremy again. “Sorry, but why are you doing this?”
Jeremy smiles at me, his genuine smile this time, and replies, “Because Lori Redwood has helped my family more than she’d ever admit. You just make sure that you use that to get her whatever she needs to get through this.”
I nod, but don’t return the smile. Hey, if we’re playing roles today, I’m sticking with professional and hard-ass. Lori, on the other hand, not only returns his smile but leans across the desk, and gives him a tight hug. “Thanks, Jer,” she whispers.
Jeremy pats her back and whisp
ers back, “Don’t mention it.”
And with that, we make our way out of the building, a little heavier on data than I expected to be. I wait until we’re almost at Lori’s car before I glance at her and say, “You must have done something pretty major to help Jeremy and his family if he’s willing to give us all this in return.”
Lori hops in front of me and rests herself against the door to the driver’s seat. “Nuh-uh,” she replies, giving me that playful smile again and waggling one raised finger. “That’s his business. You’ll get nothing out of me, copper.”
I roll my eyes and say, “Fair enough,” then walk around to the passenger side.
Seventeen
THE DOOR TO my office creaks if you move it too slowly. I could fix it easily enough, but I choose not to. The reason for that goes all the way back to my high school days, when all the other girls were scared of me. See, the popular girls all liked to talk, especially if it was behind someone’s back. They knew that what they said would get back to the target eventually, and a lot of the time, they set it up to make sure that happened. If harsh words didn’t cut someone down, the ringleaders were confident that they could take their target in a fight. That was part of how they picked their victims; focus on the weak and only go for the stronger ones when they’re already down.
Case in point, Stacy Woods. She was the self-proclaimed queen of the school, and in her mind, she was the toughest bitch to walk the planet. Even without her muscle, and by that I mean two tall girls with big mouths, she intimidated those around her with sheer attitude and the promise of scratching your eyes out with her ridiculously long false nails. I was the daughter of a cop. To call what they did fighting seemed ridiculous to me. It was bullying, pure and simple, and it was cowardly beyond belief. The school knew what was going on but didn’t seem to be doing anything about it, at least in the eyes of those of us out in the battlefield that was our teenage lives. So, I took matters into my own hands.
I spent some time making myself look like the sort of person that Stacy would go for. I was already taller than most, a little chunky, and of a mixed heritage, so she had plenty to pick on. Throw in some carefully planned bouts of emotion, and I soon became her new plaything. Her words washed over me, but I turned on the tears whenever I knew that she was in earshot. Finally, after a solid month of this, I snapped and challenged her to a fight.