Cyber Genius (9 page)

“Everybody from the president on down!” he practically
shouted. “Rumors don’t cut it. I need facts.”

I shrugged. I couldn’t clone myself, so I needed his help as
much as he needed mine. If I fed him just enough, we could work out a trade. “That
takes time and work. You can tag along with me, or you can hang around the
hotel restaurant and see if the missing chef’s fellow workers will spill
anything about him.”

“The puffer fish chef is missing? How do you know that?” he
asked in good journalist fashion, not giving away whether he was just curious
or disbelieving.

“The same way you would if you’d bother with tedious detail
instead of hanging out on street corners trying to catch Graham flying through windows.
He’s an agoraphobic recluse, not Dracula.” Well, some days he liked to be Batman,
but that was an inside joke involving EG’s interest in bats and my scorn of
Graham’s superhero tendencies. The man
is
capable of laughing at himself.

We’d reached the Metro station. I grabbed EG before she
could disappear into the crowd. “You go one way,” I told Sean, “and I’ll go the
other. We can keep in touch,” I suggested, hopefully.

He glared at the time on his phone and shrugged. “Can’t
hurt. I’ve only got two more hours to make the story my own, so find something
relevant.”

“Keep me informed or you get no more goodies,” I warned.

He saluted and jogged off for the southern side of the
track. EG and I headed north.

“Who are we spying on today?” she asked in satisfaction.

“We’re just casing a neighborhood,” I said airily. “We
should know what’s available should we ever have to move.”

“You’d nail yourself to the door before you let that
happen,” EG said, mimicking my insouciance.

“What kind of books are you reading that such a thought
would enter your head?” I asked in mock horror.

“There hasn’t been anyone good since Machiavelli, but I
think he was more into poison than nails. It was easier to poison people back
then.”

I tried so hard to keep her out of the family business... I
handed her my phone. “See if you can find consignment stores nearby. Be normal
for a while.”

With delight, she took off her gloves and grabbed the phone.
She was still punching when we arrived at the stop closest to the address I was
seeking.

“There are two stores north of the Metro,” she reported as
we stepped into an icy wind and pulled our gloves on again. “We need to go
right.”

“Not yet.” I’d made a mental map of street names before we’d
left. In the bad old days before we carried computers in our pockets, I’d
learned to memorize my surroundings. One never knew when it would be necessary
to escape irate merchants or rabid camels.

Chef Kita’s potential address was in an area of colorful
turn-of-the-twentieth-century buildings. They weren’t much more than boarding
houses, but in this exclusive neighborhood, they had been upgraded in a manner
no slum had ever seen.

In celebration of the rainbow nature of the community, some
houses sported pink trim, others flaunted blue shutters or orange bricks,
anything to brighten the boring facades. Nick had chosen to live on a more
sedate street in acknowledgement of his diplomatic position, but his place
wasn’t too far away.

Kita’s tenement was a little less spiffy than the others.
The chartreuse paint was peeling around the windows. The burgundy-covered porch
was streaked with what might have been mold or dried egg for all I knew. The
potted geraniums were dead—not promising, although I was pretty sure geraniums
didn’t like November.

A FOR LEASE sign adorned the lower floor window. I’d already
researched ownership and knew the landlord lived in one of the apartments.
Judging by the mailboxes and doorbells, there were two tenants—only the
landlord’s was labeled.

“Step back and keep an eye on the windows over the porch,” I
told EG. She did as told—without question. Amazing.

I tried the blank bell just for the heck of it. No one
looked out the empty downstairs window. I glanced at EG and she shook her head.

I tried the second bell and was rewarded with a “Who is it?”
from the intercom. Nice. So Graham wasn’t the only who wired old houses for
sound.

“Hi, this is Patty Pasko.” I’d given up my Linda Lane alias
after I wore it out in my last escapade. My new ID showed Realtor on the
business card, although I’d also set up other websites and mail drops with
matching business cards, depending on my needs of the moment.

Apparently, introverts do better with assumed identities.

“I’m a Realtor looking for an apartment for a client,” I
told the intercom.

Bingo, the magic words. The landlord said he’d be right
down.

Dave Scoggins could have been called the Gray Man: less than
six-feet tall—which still had him towering over me—with graying hair, gray
beard shadow, and sweater and slacks that could have been gray or oatmeal or dead
mouse. He blinked through wire-rimmed spectacles at seeing equally
mousily-dressed me. Oops. Realtors tended to be a lot spiffier.

“I was just on my way to the zoo with my niece and saw the
sign.” I smiled and nodded at the window. “Is the apartment empty?”

EG was playing kid, spying into the front windows.

“The last tenant never actually moved in,” he said in
disgust. “He skipped out on the lease. I can show you the rooms, if you’d
like.”

“He paid a deposit and didn’t move in?” I asked in surprise.
“How odd.” I entered the high-ceilinged hall. An old walnut staircase—battered,
never painted or refinished—led straight up along one side of the house. The
first floor apartment door was on the left.

“He only paid the deposit, not the first month’s rent. Asian
fellow, said he’d just moved to town and had a new job. He promised to pay the
rent when his furniture arrived.” Dave rattled the key in the knob and opened
the unpainted walnut front door. “His credit record was clean, so I gave him a
key.”

“Did you ever see him again?” I asked, pretending to study
the spacious front room that we entered.

“I thought I heard him come and go a couple of times, but he
was quiet. People like to measure windows and clean up and stuff before they
move in, so I didn’t think anything of it.” He opened the next door and glanced
in.

EG bounced in after us, poking around into cabinets and
disappearing toward the back of the house. I didn’t know how much she could
learn, but I let her at it. I followed Scoggins to the next room. Judging by
the double closet doors, it was intended to be a bedroom.

“Closets, nice,” I said casually. “Not too many of these old
houses have double ones.” I opened a door.

A body rolled out.

Scoggins screamed. I rushed to the door and prevented EG
from running in.

Thinking fast, I took another good look at the corpse—male,
Asian, wearing bloody whites—then pushed EG back toward the front door. “I’m
sorry, Mr. Scoggins, I can’t involve my niece in this. My sister would take off
my head. You’d better call the police.”

I’d lived in war-torn countries. I’d seen dead bodies, some
far worse than this. My stomach still churned as I pushed EG out the front
door. Mr. Kita had apparently been in that closet for a while. He was no longer
stiff. The blood on his chef whites had dried to an ugly brown.

Let me repeat—I am a virtual assistant, not a detective, not
by a long shot. My innate and well-honed survival instinct prevented any desire
to play detective. Someone else could cover the forensics. My only goal at this
moment was to keep me and EG away from the cops.

“What happened?” EG asked anxiously as I nearly dragged her
back toward the Metro.

“We will not be questioning Mr. Kita in this lifetime,” I
said as we turned into the more commercial district. “Consignment stores. Let’s
shop now.”

“He’s dead?” EG asked eagerly. “You found a body?”

“You’re gruesome. Every living being deserves respect. We’re
not insects to be cruelly stamped out if we get in someone’s way.” I was
working up a pretty good hate on the killer. My usual reverse bigotry, I
supposed. Kita had been a cook, a worker bee. I could sympathize with him and
his family far easier than with Stiles and his gazillions, and I was angry.

I yanked out my cell and texted Graham, then Sean. In the
information business, it was necessary to trade for value, so I trusted Sean to
give back as good as I gave. And someone else needed to be working on this
besides me.

Repeating the mantra,
I
am not Magda,
I will not desert my
family,
I turned off the phone. I’d promised EG shopping, not murder and
mayhem, and I would see that she got it—even if she behaved as much like a
vulture as our mother. Kids can be cruel unless they’re taught better.

Which made me wonder about my mother’s upbringing.

EG was irate that I hadn’t let her close to examine her very
first dead body. I simply dragged her into a store and showed her purple. She
was absorbed in no time.

Kids are easy. Adults—particularly the freaking weirdoes I
hung out with—were a real pain.

Nick arrived before we got through the first store. Nick is
blond, tall, gorgeous, and better dressed than I’ll ever be. I narrowed my eyes
at his approach and removed a leopard-spotted fur hat from a rack, pulling it
down to my eyebrows.

“Very Russian,” he concluded, producing a matching pair of
fur-lined boots from the rack below. “Why is Tudor texting me and not you?”

“I told you we were headed this way.” I deliberately pulled
an ankle-length black wool coat off the coat rack. Women’s size medium, it
would cover the boots if I wore them. I would look like a demented bag lady.

“You didn’t tell me you were hunting dead bodies. Did EG see
it?” He didn’t have to stand on his toes as I did to find EG scouting the kid
clothes.

“No, she did not, although the little shark keeps begging to
go back and look.” I didn’t argue when Nick dragged the ugly coat off of me and
stuck it back on the rack. He left me wearing the Russian leopard hat. “Did the
landlord call it in to the police?” I asked.

“He did,” Nick acknowledged. “I just passed the place and the
cops are all over. Will they find your fingerprints?”

I cringed and showed him my gloved hands, for once grateful
for my thin Irish skin. I couldn’t remember if EG had taken off her gloves
after we’d entered the apartment. “EG was into everything. Scoggins will say he
found the body when he was showing the rooms. No big deal.” I hadn’t even given
him my business card. I debated changing my ID again in case he actually
remembered the name I’d given him.

“Tudor says Graham is fuming. Do you intend to go back or do
you want to hide out with me for a while?” Nick asked cheerfully, producing a
size small, camel-colored cashmere three-quarter coat that matched the boots
and hat perfectly. He’s good like that.

In gratitude for his understanding, I even accepted the
offering. The coat fit, it was warm, and even though the hat and boots called
notice to me—which I hated—I didn’t want to shop more.

“I’ll go back, but I promised EG shopping. Help her find
some other color besides purple, please.” I re-directed our male fashionista to
the youngling.

While they shopped, I reluctantly turned my phone back on
and opened Sean’s message first.

SCORE! It read. DEAD BODY=STORY

Glad I’d made someone happy, I opened Graham’s e-mail.

Adam Herkness awake.
He knows I was there.

Well, swell. The police would be on our doorstep, toot
sweet, as they say in the cartoons.

Ana works her Magda genes

Focusing on “normal” for EG’s sake, I steered the
conversation away from dead bodies and let her chatter over our purchases on
the ride home. She mocked my Russian faux leopard hat. I wrapped my wool scarf
around her mouth.

Mostly, I enjoyed my half siblings. It’s keeping them out of
trouble that turns me into a nagging harridan. But for this little while, I
could pretend disaster didn’t consistently loom on our horizon. We actually
laughed as a normal family does as we walked up to the house.

I sent EG upstairs with our packages, ordering her to do her
homework. I headed down to the basement. Mallard intercepted me in the hall
between my office and his kitchen lair. A frown wrinkled his wide forehead
clear to his balding scalp, giving him a look not too different from a
bloodhound’s.

“The police have indicated a desire to interrogate Mr.
Graham,” Mallard said in his professionally disapproving tone. “He is not
available.”

So much for normal.

Mallard-ese wasn’t quite the same as butler-speak, one of
the many reasons I’d concluded he was former CIA. Each word often contained
layers of text I could choose to decipher—or not.

“All right, give me a second,” I said. A few of Mallard’s
wrinkles relaxed while he waited.

I hadn’t even had time to see if Graham’s information on the
Maximillian bank account was legit, but I trusted him under these
circumstances. Graham knew I had enough information on him to fry his hide if
the files were fake. So this was where Girl Friday earned her maybe-millions.

“How long before the cops arrive on the doorstep?” I asked,
all brain cells fully engaged.

“A car has been dispatched. I expect them momentarily,” he
replied.

His tone was as formal as ever. If he was relieved that I
was stepping up to the plate, I couldn’t tell.

“All right, perform the grandiose butler act for them,” I said,
thinking aloud. “If they get insistent, allow them into that mortuary you call
a front room. I doubt they have a warrant, so you know the routine. Tell them
you’ll see if the lady of the house is available. Stall and give me a few
minutes.”

His bushy brows drew down in disapproval. His lips curved up
in the corners. I took that mixed reaction to mean I was on the right track.
Seeking approval from a butler was deranged, but I’d never had a real father
figure.