The next three files were variations on the first two. I called Virgil.
The Kid was sleeping. I stood over him in his darkened room, the only light the diffused glow of nighttime Manhattan. It flowed around the edges of the blinds and echoed off the ceiling. There was just enough illumination for me to see the line of miniature cars on the shelf over his bed, spaced with alarming regularity in a pattern only he could see. I could see my son’s shape beneath the “Mickey and the Gang Super Soft” blanket and the sheet that wound around him like a mummy’s shroud. I listened to the comforting sound of his breathing. Relaxed. For the moment, he was safe from the nightmares.
“I’m sorry, Kid,” I began. “You were trying to tell me something and I didn’t get it. I wish I could promise you that it will never happen again, but we both know that’s not true. I’m going to screw up again. I’m sorry for that too.”
His breathing continued, soft and regular.
“You’ll get your iPad back tomorrow. I need it to play those files for the cops, so they can get that bad man. You did well, son. I’m proud of you.”
I thought of telling him that his father was an idiot, but decided he could figure it out on his own.
Virgil would have the detectives at his office by the time I got downtown. It was time to go.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. There wasn’t anything else to say other than, “Good night, son.”
Masi and Menendez thanked me, but they were going to take the Kid’s iPad with them. He might get it back after the trial. That wasn’t going to work. I’d made a promise. I made a note to stop at the twenty-four-hour Apple store on the way home. Would the Kid tolerate a new — different — machine? I could only try.
“Does this get the ex-husband off the hook?” Virgil asked. “What’s his name?”
“Dieter,” I said.
“I can’t say,” Masi answered. “He and the girl were hiding out at a friend’s house in Sag Harbor. He seemed genuinely surprised — and upset — when we told him about the girl’s mother.”
We were all gathered in Virgil’s office again. It was late, coming on toward Tuesday morning. Everyone was exhausted but Masi. The conversations we’d been listening to on the Kid’s iPad had her pumped.
“It sounds to me like he was blackmailing her,” Virgil said. “But over what, I can’t imagine.”
I could. All it ever takes is one mistake. Somehow Sybil had once made one and Dean had caught it.
“Once she started feeding trades to Dean, she was stuck,” I said. “She couldn’t admit to that kind of ongoing fraud. The Feds would have destroyed her. She couldn’t get out and she couldn’t go on. The only way to survive was to keep feeding the beast.”
“But she threatened to do just that,” Masi said. “She told Dean she was going to turn herself in. He couldn’t afford to let that happen.”
“So he killed her,” I said.
“We’ll pick him up now,” she said. “I’ve asked for two uniforms to meet us at the Park Avenue address. Thanks again for your help.”
This time both of them shook my hand before they left.
Virgil was played out. “So why did she do it?” It was Virgil’s blind spot. His father, brother, and sister had all become crooked, but Virgil never fully understood the motives of a cheat. “And why the sudden attack of conscience?”
“She was a parent,” I said. “Maybe she just wanted to be able to look her kid in the eye without having to blink.”
The Apple store was humming at one in the morning. It was a typical New York crowd of downtown hipsters, punks from Alphabet City, grad students, professionals, zombies, and vampires.
“Are you being helped?”
An Apple acolyte stood before me. She was twenty-something, dark-haired, round-faced, and as coolly indifferent as a robot.
I told her what I wanted and tried to describe the apps the Kid used.
“Sure. We can get him the latest version of Angry Birds,” she said.
“Can you get him an older version?” I said. “He doesn’t do well with new.”
“I can get someone to help you with that.”
“It’s important. He uses this one other app all the time these days. It records and plays back sound bites and...” I tailed off as the realization hit.
“You all right, mister?” she wanted to know.
“No. I’m not,” I said. I never had gotten around to erasing that file of Skeli and me.
© 2018 by Michael Sears
Smoke Screen
by Bill Pronzini
MWA Grand Master Bill Pronzini has won, or been nominated for, virtually every award in the mystery genre. His latest book, Give-a-Damn Jones (Forge, 2018) is from a field related to the mystery, the Western. Set in 1890s San Francisco, the Carpenter and Quincannon series also contains elements of both mystery and Western. Here’s the latest case.
When Sabina pointed out the news story in Tuesday’s edition of the San Francisco Morning Call, a report of the death of Judge Rupert Shellwin in the locked study of his Rincon Hill home, Quincannon expressed scant interest. Murders committed in seemingly impossible circumstances were his specialty, to be sure, but the prominent jurist’s demise was attributed by his family physician, Dr. Mortimer Phipps, to coronary thrombosis. Nothing in the death by natural causes of a criminal-court magistrate he hardly knew, in or out of a locked room, piqued his interest in the slightest.
He changed his mind later that breezy April day. Or rather, he had it changed for him by the slender woman in black mourning dress, hat, and veil who appeared in the Market Street offices of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. She identified herself as Margaret Shellwin, the judge’s widow, and announced that she had “serious reservations” about the nature of her husband’s abrupt exit from this world.
“Reservations, Mrs. Shellwin?” Quincannon asked. “Meaning what, exactly?”
“Rupert was only forty-three and in perfect health. He had no history of heart trouble whatsoever.”
Sabina said gently, “Sudden heart failure is not uncommon in seemingly healthy middle-aged men.”
“I know, but I can’t help feeling that Rupert’s death was not... natural.”
“Have you any reason to suspect foul play?”
“Yes. Three days ago he received a letter threatening his life.”
“Signed or anonymous?”
“Anonymous, but he was sure he knew who sent it.”
“And who would that be?”
“A man named Jorgensen. Rupert sentenced him to prison six years ago on a charge of manslaughter. Jorgensen swore his innocence throughout the trial and vowed revenge at the severity of his sentence. He was released from San Quentin nine days ago.”
“Do you have the letter?”
“No. Rupert destroyed it.”
“Did he show it to you? Or tell you exactly what it said?”
“No, he only mentioned it.”
“Was he concerned that the threat might be genuine?”
Mrs. Shellwin shook her head. “He wasn’t a fearful man. But I was concerned, very much so.”
Quincannon asked, “Did he have any other enemies who might want to harm him?”
“None that I know of. But a judge as stem and strict as Rupert was always has enemies...”
“Do you doubt the medical diagnosis?”
“Dr. Phipps was my father’s physician for many years before Rupert and I were married, and his judgment has always been sound.” The widow lifted her veil long enough to dab at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Quincannon had enough of a glimpse of her face to tell that it was attractive and cameo pale. “Isn’t there some way for a fatal heart attack to be induced?”