Vito looked around the table. “Daniel and Susannah Vartanian. Opinions?”
“They were genuinely shocked to learn that Simon was still alive,” Thomas said. “But it was curious that they didn’t ask questions about how we’d found their parents.”
“Maybe they thought we wouldn’t tell them,” Jen said.
Nick shook his head. “I would have asked. Especially with the news coverage we’ve gotten on this case. It’s no secret that we found a shitload of bodies up there. Even covering the area with a tarp, we’ve had flyovers and aerial shots on the news and Daniel has been in Philly for a few days now. If it’d been me, I would’ve wanted to know if my folks were part of that big graveyard. But the Vartanians didn’t even ask.”
“I might have asked,” Jen said. “Then again, maybe I wouldn’t want to know.”
One corner of Liz’s mouth lifted. “We did get some good news. Greg Sanders’s ex-girlfriend showed up last night for his memorial service. She’d been hiding from his creditors. All that damage to her apartment was done by people to whom Greg owed a lot of gambling debts. Mr. Sanders said he’d pay his son’s debts to keep Jill safe.”
“Cleaning up after Greg even after death,” Vito murmured. “I wonder how much Simon’s father was cleaning up after him versus covering his own ass. What else?”
“Analysis on the Claire Reynolds letters,” Jen said. “The handwriting expert I talked to said he was ‘reasonably sure’ the same person had signed both letters.”
“Oh,” Vito remembered. “We got handwriting samples from oRo-Van Zandt’s and his secretary’s. You can get the expert to compare them to the signatures, too.”
“Will do. Now, regarding that letter requesting Claire’s records, from a Dr. Gaspar in Texas? There is no such person. The address itself was a veterinarian.”
Liz tilted her head, puzzled. “Did they receive Claire’s records?”
“Don’t know, I’ll call today. The lab ran a check on the ink. Same ink on both letters. Of course it’s the same ink that you’d find on a million other pieces of paper across the city, but it is the same brand name, same printer model. It’s something.”
“Prints?” Vito asked.
Jen scoffed. “On the resignation letter? Tons. You’ll probably never sort them out. But on the doctor’s letter, only a few sets. Who would have touched it?”
“Pfeiffer and his receptionist. We’ll get them printed and eliminate their prints.”
“I’ll run them through as soon as they come in,” Jen said.
“Did you get Sophie to look at that brand on the Sanders kid’s face?” Nick asked.
Vito frowned. He’d dropped that ball. “No, things got too crazy that night with her hearing the tape. I’ll ask her today.”
“Did you run a check on that student who asked her about branding?” Nick asked.
“What student?” Liz wanted to know.
Vito’s frowned deepened. “No. With all the oRo commotion yesterday, I didn’t. Sophie said one of her students mentioned branding a few days ago, but she also said he was a paraplegic in a wheelchair.”
“Give me the guy’s info,” Liz said. “I’ll run a check. You track down Simon.”
“Thanks, Liz.” Vito focused on organizing his thoughts. “The only people who we know have actually seen Simon other than his victims are oRo employees, specifically Derek Harrington and Jager Van Zandt, and they’re both gone.”
“And Dr. Pfeiffer,” Katherine said. “If Claire crossed Simon’s path through the orthopedist, then Pfeiffer’s seen him, too.”
Vito’s smile was sharp. “You’re right. We’ll need a court order for Simon’s medical records. Names we should request? I doubt he signed in as Simon Vartanian.”
“Frasier Lewis,” Nick counted on his fingers. “Bosch, Munch.”
“Warhol, Goya, Gacy…” Jen shrugged. “All the paintings the Vartanians said Simon had on his walls and under his bed as a kid.”
Nick was writing the names down on his notepad. “We also need to find that second blackmailer. If she was involved with Claire, she might know if Claire knew where Simon lived. Maybe Claire followed him home from the doctor’s office one day.”
“So we look for that newspaper photo,” Vito said.
There was a knock on the door and Brent Yelton stuck his head in. “Can I come in?”
Vito waved him in. “Please. What do you have?”
Brent sat down and set his laptop on the table. “I’ve gone through Kay Crawford’s computer with a fine-tooth comb. She’s the model that Simon didn’t get his hands on. I found the virus he’d planted. It’s what I thought-a time-delayed Trojan that’s activated by an e-mail reply. The drive I was using when I replied to her original e-mail from ‘Bosch’ was wiped this morning, so it’s about a day delay.”
“Any response to our acceptance of his job offer?” Liz asked.
“Nope. Nor has there been any activity on her résumé on UCanModels’ site. He seems to have lost interest in her, which is good for her and bad for us.”
“She’s alive,” Vito said. “That’s more than we can say for the others.”
“Speaking of the others,” Brent said, “I have something to show you. I got a call from the computer forensics guy that works with those two NYPD detectives.”
“Carlos and Charles,” Nick said.
“Carlos and Charles?” Liz laughed. “That’s almost as good as-”
“Yeah, yeah, Nick and Chick.” Vito rolled his eyes. “We thought of that already. So what did the computer guy tell you?”
“Not what he told me as much as what he gave me.” Brent turned his laptop around so Vito and the others could see. “Cut scenes they found on CDs in Van Zandt’s desk.”
Horrified, they watched. “It’s Brittany Bellamy,” Vito murmured as the girl in the scene was dragged to an inquisitional chair. They watched in silence, listened to the girl’s screams until Brent reached forward to cut it off. “It gets a lot worse,” he said, his jaw tight. “Warren Keyes is on the second CD, getting stretched on a rack and then…”
“Disemboweled,” Katherine said grimly.
Brent swallowed. “Yes. Bill Melville is on the third CD, but his isn’t a cut scene. It’s game play. The player is the inquisitor and fights Bill, who’s a knight. The action is incredible. The game physics are some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
“Would the guy who did the game physics,” Vito said, “the one Van Zandt lured away from another company-would he have worked with Simon to produce this?”
“Not necessarily. The beauty of a game engine is that it’s like this repository of movement. Running, jumping, jabbing-it’s all programmed in, like a framework. The artist decides the character’s attributes, height, weight, and the game engine takes all the movements in its brain and creates the action figure that moves the right way. A light person moves spryly, while a heavier person clomps. The artist will then create a face in another program and import it to the action figure’s form. It’s like building a moving person from the skeleton out. Once the game physics guy designed the engine Simon could have worked independently, especially with his knowledge of computers.”
“That’s amazing,” Jen murmured, then blinked, embarrassed. “Sorry. I get sidetracked by the techie stuff. So is Bill killed with a flail?”
“Yes and… yes. In the main version he’s hit and buckles at his knees. Boring. But if you use this…” Brent held up a sheet of paper. It was a copy of a smaller sheet with numbers written on it. “It unlocks an Easter egg. A ‘gift’ from the programmer to the gamer. This Easter egg shows Bill Melville getting the top of his head knocked off.”
“Just like he was really killed,” Katherine murmured.
“Let me see that paper,” Nick said and frowned down at it. “This wasn’t written by Van Zandt. If you compare it to the note he left us, the writing is different.” He looked over at Vito. “We could be looking at a genuine copy of a Simon Vartanian original.”