Michael glanced back in dismay as Janey caught him up. “Wassup?”
“Looks like the late Mr. Mathews has just departed.”
“Oh.”
A young man had detached himself from the group heading for the house and was making his way back toward them. He was around Michael’s age, wearing beautifully tailored grey slacks and an open-necked white shirt with short sleeves. His skin was smooth and evenly tanned, his light brown hair bleached in places by exposure to salt water. He had startlingly white teeth and eyes completely hidden behind a pair of large wrap-around sunglasses.
“Can I help you?” Even although he stood a good four feet away, Michael could smell the alcohol on his breath.
Michael said, “We’re from the Orange County Forensic Science Service. We had been hoping to speak to Jack Mathews about the murder of his daughter.”
“Well... ” The young man pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You’re timing could have been better.”
“So I understand.”
“Does that mean you have news of Jennifer’s killer?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“So what did you want to speak to him about?”
“I’m sorry, you are... ?”
“Richard Mathews.” He looked around and tossed a hand vaguely in the direction of the house. “Jack’s son. Which I guess makes me the proprietor. If only by default.”
Michael heard the bitterness in both his tone and his words.
Janey said, “We wouldn’t have disturbed you at a time like this if we’d known.”
But Richard Mathews didn’t seem to be in mourning. “Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”
“We were wondering about your sister’s involvement in Second Life.”
He stared at them implacably from behind his shades. “Second Life, huh? So I guess you know the whole sordid little story, then.”
Yes,” Michael said, having no idea what the story was or how sordid it might be.
Richard removed his glasses and squinted at them in the sunlight. “Well, I guess the money’s beyond my reach now, anyway. At least for the moment. You’d better come in.”
Michael and Janey exchanged glances as Richard Mathews led them up a short flight of steps to a portico leading to the main entrance. She shrugged and pulled a face, evidently no wiser than Michael. They followed the young heir to the Mathews fortune into a large salon furnished with eighteenth-century French antiques arranged around priceless Oriental rugs. He went straight to a glass drinks cabinet, and filled a crystal tumbler with pale Scottish malt.
“I won’t offer you one. I know you people don’t drink on duty.” He turned toward them and took a slug of whisky. “He’d have been really pissed, you know, to think of me inheriting.”
“Is there no other family?” Janey asked.
“My mother’s been dead for years. My father doted on Jennifer and thought I was a drunk and a waster.” He smiled. A small, bitter smile. “I didn’t mean to be. It’s not the way I started out. But it’s funny how, in the end, you seem to live up to other people’s expectations of you.” He sucked in some more whisky. “I’ll have to sell the place, of course. Just to pay the death duties. And I suppose the rest of the money will be sequestered until such time as legitimate inheritance can be proved.”
Michael tried to maintain a neutral expression, so as not to betray his ignorance. “What money is that, Mr. Mathews?”
“The cash in Jennifer’s Second Life account, of course. His goddamned tax-free lump sum that he didn’t want anyone to know about. Least of all me.” He moved toward the window, sipping his whisky, turning his back to them, perhaps to hide his anger and disappointment. But he couldn’t keep it out of his voice. “She told me about it, you see. Rubbing my nose in it. There always was a spiteful side to her. Like father, like daughter. And no amount of expensive therapy could ever remove that nasty little character trait. She knew how pissed off I’d be. Daddy salting away money in a secret account for her so she wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it. Very smart. And in a way, I can’t blame him. You pay taxes on your money all your life. Several times over. And then they tax it again when you’re dead.” He turned back toward them, and they saw the fire of hurt and jealousy in his eyes. “But it should have been equal shares. We came from the same loins.”
He drained his glass.
“So anyway, tell me. Because she didn’t. Exactly how much did he manage to stash way in Linden dollars before she was murdered?”
Michael stared at him, the seeds of understanding beginning to sow themselves for the first time in his mind. “I have no idea.”
“Well, you must know how much money there is in her account, surely?”
“There is no money, Mr. Mathews,” Janey said. “In fact, there is no account. And not even a record of it.”
They headed in silence back across the channel to the boat rental yard, sunlight dancing on the swell of the dozens of boats, large and small, that plied in and out of the harbour. The breeze had got up again, and Michael felt the hot wind tugging at this shirt. He closed his eyes for a moment, turning his face up toward the sky to feel the sun on it.
“Hey, I’d be happier if you kept your eyes on the road, Mr. Driver.”
Michael opened his eyes and looked at Janey. “Someone’s bumping people off for their money, Janey. Secret money that’s hidden away in Second Life accounts. Money that no one’s ever going to report missing, because it shouldn’t be there.”
“Two swallows do not a summer make, Mr. Kapinsky.”
“Eh?”
“Two murders, Mike. That’s all.”
“That we know about. There could be others.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go back inworld and try to track down Jennifer Mathews’ avatar.”
“You think there might be another dead AV, like there was with Maximillian Thrust?”
“It’s possible.”
“And where would that lead us?”
“I’ve no idea. But what else am I going to do? Whoever killed them is still in there, as well as out here. Someone, somewhere, must know something. Do you have those notes we took on her account?”
She slipped a folded sheet of paper from her back pocket and handed it to him. He held the tiller steady with his thigh while he opened it up. Quick Thinker was the AV name she had used. And she had joined at least a dozen different Groups.
“I gotta go back to work,” Janey said. “If it’s a quiet afternoon I’ll see what I can find out about Mathews’ and Smitts’ RLs. See if I can find anything to connect them, apart from SL.”
Michael nodded. “Thanks, Janey.” But he wasn’t very sanguine. He glanced at the time. Eighteen hours of his twenty-four had already gone. Seconds, minutes, hours ticking away, slipping like sand through his fingers. If he didn’t find this Second Life killer in the next six hours, he was as good as dead himself. He looked up and saw his two minders waiting for him on the landing stage. Dark suits and sunglasses, and murderous intent.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chas logged into SL and rezzed in the offices of the Twist of Fate Detective Agency. There was something oddly reassuring about being back in the virtual world. A sense of escape, of safety, no matter how illusory that might be. The serenity of the fish that swam endlessly from one side of the fish tank to the other without ever needing fed was, in a way, comforting, as if for all its impermanence this world had also a sense of something enduring. And in the persona of Chas, he felt a greater sense of optimism. That there was more he could do in here than he ever could out there.
He checked his Friends List to see if Doobie was online and saw that she was. He sent her an IM.