I think for a moment “What about ‘Key Man’?”
“No,” she mutters. “That’s a business term.”
Was it? I’d never heard of that.
“You’ll be the ‘Locksmith.’ It’ll mean something to my father.”
I don’t know what that’s in reference to but I like the name.
“And add the word ‘reckoning.’”
No reason for this is offered either, but since it’s her circus, I say, “Okay. Oh, how about if I write it in the victims’ lipstick?”
Thinking, as I just was, of influencers.
“Perfect. Now, evidence.”
“I said I’m careful.”
“I don’t mean that,” the schoolmarm snapped. She explains she wants me to steal some underwear and knives from the two victims.
Of course, to plant at the third crime scene, the one with the body or bodies.
“And I want everyone in the city to know about you right away. Post a picture of the newspaper in the apartment. Include her address. Reporters on the police beat’ll see it and take up the story from there. Can you post anonymously?”
“I’ll use one of the image board chans. It’ll go viral from there.”
“Good. And I’m going to get you some car keys too. An Audi. You can use that to drive around. Just remember to wear gloves when you do. Or wipe it down.”
She disappears into the bedroom. This time when she returns she’s holding a thick envelope. “Two hundred thousand. A down payment.”
The cash isn’t as heavy as I would have guessed. Where to go? Silicon Valley, possibly. Huge need for content moderators there. Or maybe Manila. I could live like a king, and I suspect the police there are less than diligent about break-ins and eviscerated bodies.
Joanna helps me up. She cuts the string binding my wrists, and I sit on the very nice couch. Then she steps away and grips the pistol.
I hardly blame her for being careful. I was going to knife her to death, after all.
“Any questions?”
“Can I have that?”
I’m looking at a small red and black plastic object sitting in a metal basket filled with iPhone chargers, earbuds, pens, pencils, aspirin packets.
“The keychain?”
“Yes.”
It depicts the Tower of London and seems to be a cheap souvenir. I love the Tower.
She lifts it from the basket and sets it next to my wallet.
“Oh, and one other thing. Don’t delete any more of Verum’s posts from ViewNow.”
“I won’t.”
“You can leave.”
I gather up my brass knife and other possessions. Then down the long hall and out, closing the door to apartment 2019 behind me.
Part Five
Skeleton Key
[May 28, present day, 11 A.M.]
62
A clatter outside the door. Voices, but hushed.
In the den that served as his home office, Averell Whittaker glanced at the closed door. Perhaps Joanna had dropped by. She did that some. It wasn’t the maid’s day. Maybe his niece and the security guard, Alicia Roberts, were making tea or coffee.
His eyes returned to the sales contract he was reviewing. Eighty pages, plus addenda. And this was just one of a dozen contracts for disposition of the equipment, the vehicles, the computers... endless.
How hard it was to do the right thing. You couldn’t just push a button and turn the Whittaker Media empire into a do-gooding nonprofit foundation.
But he’d get it all done in his time left. He was so energized about the project. It would scrutinize print and broadcast stories in the U.S. and abroad and flag the ones it found inaccurate, after a rigorous review by fact-checkers. It would expose threats to reporters (which had multiplied exponentially in recent years). It would have a legal defense fund for reporters jailed or threatened. It would report ties between politicians and corporate interests and media companies. It would examine the FCC and other governmental entities to make sure that the regulations and laws did not limit First Amendment rights. And it would champion minority education in journalism.
But, as often, his mind soon wandered to his son.
It seemed inconceivable that he was the psychopath the police said he was.
Yet there was no doubt about his son’s resentment for him. An idealist all his life, Kitt never liked the brand of journalism that Whittaker Media hawked.
Of course, that alone wasn’t enough. It was also his father’s neglect.
But how could I do otherwise? Fifteen-hour days keeping the business going, weathering the storms all media is subject to. A world Kitt didn’t want and was unsuited for. He was collateral damage.
And, of course, there was that terrible incident with Mary’s passing.
Dying without her husband by her side.
3/2/17.
He thought: But it was so important for the family. I had to buy the TV station, and it had to be done that day, or the option would have lapsed and...
He gave a hollow laugh. Even now I’m making excuses.
And, yes, I did it for the family... but mostly I did it for myself.
He looked out over the vast city, today muted by a milky complexion, the vast, bristling horizon foreshortened.
And now his son was a criminal... and, the police said, a threat to him and others.
At least in making his statement to — and about — his father, he’d done nothing more than upset several people. Whittaker prayed the police would find him before he actually hurt someone.
Or himself.
Oh, Kitt. I’m sorry...
He heard another scrape from outside.
Who was there?
He stood and, assisted by his cane, hobbled across the carpet. How he hated the accessory, a sign of dependency, a sign of weakness.
Pushing through the doorway, saying, “Hello, who’s—”
Averell Whittaker froze at the sight of the tableau before him.
“Kitt!”
His son sat in a wheelchair. The young man’s head lolled and he stared straight ahead. He seemed drunk or drugged. Behind him, gripping the handles, was Martin Kemp. The baby-faced man was swallowing and looking typically uncertain. And on the floor just inside the living room lay the Alicia Roberts her throat cut. Ample blood was drenching the blue and gold rug Mary had bought in Jordan so many years ago.
“No...”
Then he heard a sound from behind him and as he turned, his niece stepped forward and shoved him down the low stairs that led to the living room. He stumbled and fell hard onto the marble, crying out in pain.
63
“My shoulder,” he moaned. “It’s broken...”
Whittaker climbed unsteadily to his feet and, grimacing, struggled to a chair. His head drooped and he was breathing heavily. “The pain...”
Joanna paid no attention to her uncle. She looked toward Kemp. “Is she dead?” She was impatient.
“Well, I mean...” He gestured at the still body, the soak of blood.
She scoffed. “Check and see? All right?”
“They’ll... won’t I leave fingerprints on her?”
Joanna closed her eyes briefly in irritation. “Why would you not check to see if someone who’d been stabbed was alive or dead? Wouldn’t everybody do that? If your prints weren’t there, that would be suspicious.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
He bent down over the woman, pressed his fingers on her neck. “There’s no pulse.”
“Check her eyes.”
He hesitated.
“It’s not a horror movie, Marty. She’s not going to possess you with her gaze.”