City of Endless Night

19

After the big hullabaloo in Maplewood — all the neighbors, D’Agosta had noticed with a certain gratification, had been plastered to their windows — they had taken Paine down to 1PP and he was now comfortably ensconced in a small conference room, where he had become a most cooperative and friendly witness. The official setting seemed to loosen his tongue, and he had gone into great technical detail about the Cantucci system. They were now moving on to Sharps & Gund itself.

“I was the senior man on the Cantucci install,” Paine was saying. “A lot of the people I have to deal with are difficult, but Cantucci was a royal pain in the ass. There was a lot of stuff he didn’t like — cosmetic stuff, mostly, such as the placement of cameras or the color of the CCTV monitors — and he just about nitpicked us to death. He was the kind of guy who didn’t want to sully himself by dealing with the low-level people like myself. He always took his complaints right to Mr. Ingmar, every little thing. It drove Ingmar crazy that Cantucci would only talk to him, calling him up at all hours of the day and night and treating him like his lapdog. Ingmar really came to hate him, and even talked about firing him as a client, except that the man owed us a lot of money. They had a shouting match once, on the phone.”

“What about?” D’Agosta asked.

“Money. Cantucci wasn’t paying the bills. Said he wouldn’t pay a dime until the install was completed to his satisfaction.”

“And did he pay in the end?”

“Not totally. He chiseled Ingmar over the final bill, finding fault with every little thing and deducting for it. I think we got about eighty cents on the dollar. I’m pretty sure Ingmar took a loss on the job.”

“What was the total?”

Paine thought for a moment. “I’d guess around two hundred. Plus a monthly fee of two grand.”

D’Agosta shifted position, consulted his notes. He was now getting to the heart of his questions. “Would Ingmar have been capable — did he personally have the knowledge — to bypass the security system the way the killer did?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Who else at Sharps and Gund would have sufficient skills to do what the killer did, in circumventing the system?”

“My install partner, Lasher. Possibly the guy who heads the IT department, maybe the chief of programming and design. But I really don’t think either of them knew how the Cantucci system itself was laid out or had access to the technical lockbox.” He paused, considering. “Really, Ingmar and Lasher are probably the only two, other than me of course.”

This is good, D’Agosta thought. Really good. “You and Lasher were the techs who responded to and performed the repair that had apparently been rigged, staged for by the killer?”

“I was the guy, but Lasher had been fired by that time, so I went with another techie.”

“Which is?”

“Hallie Iyer. She still works for the company.”

“Would this Ms. Iyer have enough knowledge to circumvent the system?”

“No. No way. She’s pretty junior in the firm, hasn’t been with it more than a couple of months.”

“Tell us about your ex-partner, Lasher,” said D’Agosta. “The one who helped you with the original install. What kind of guy was he?”

“He was a strange one. Man, he gave me the creeps — not from day one, though. It came on kind of gradually. At first he was really closemouthed, didn’t say a word, but as we worked together more he sort of let down his guard. Oh, I can see why Ingmar hired him — he knew his stuff, no doubt about that — but he talked some strange shit.”

“Such as?”

“That the Apollo moon landings were faked, that the jet contrails you see in the sky are actually chemical trails the government is spraying on people to brainwash them, that global warming is a Chinese hoax. Unbelievable crap.”

Pendergast, who had been silent, broke in. “How did a fellow with these views pass Sharps and Gund’s allegedly CIA-level vetting system?”

Paine laughed. “CIA-level? Is that what Ingmar told you?” He shook his head. “Ingmar hires on the cheap, no benefits, long hours, no overtime, a ton of travel. The only vetting he does is to make sure you don’t have a criminal record, and even then he’d probably hire you because you’d come cheaper. Lasher seemed normal at first, but then he got weirder and weirder.”

“Anything in particular?” D’Agosta asked.

“It was mostly about women. A total creep. No social skills, asked them out on dates right in front of the whole office. Always angry, too, making disparaging comments, telling stupid jokes, bragging. Lot of talk about big tits — you know the kind.”

D’Agosta nodded. He knew the kind.

“He should’ve been fired the first time it happened. Ingmar tried to ignore it but eventually had to do something about it. He would have lost some of his valuable female employees otherwise. But it was probably Cantucci’s constant complaints that actually got Lasher the ax.”

This Lasher was looking better and better. And they still had a decent window before Singleton’s thirty-six-hour deadline passed.

“You know where Lasher lives?” asked D’Agosta.

“Yeah. West Fourteenth Street. At least, he lived there when he was fired.”

Time to wrap up this interview. “Agent Pendergast, you got any more questions?”

“No, thank you, Lieutenant.”

D’Agosta rose. “Thank you, Mr. Paine, a squad car will take you home.” He walked out of the room with Pendergast. Once the door was shut, D’Agosta said: “So what do you think? We’ve got two suspects, in my view: Lasher and Ingmar himself.”

Pendergast did not respond, and D’Agosta couldn’t read his face. “I mean, this guy Ingmar, he’s got the means, the motive, and the ability.”

“Oh, Ingmar was never a suspect.”

“What do you mean? You called him a ‘person of interest’ right to his face.”

“Only to intimidate him. He wasn’t behind the killing.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“For one thing, he would not have needed to break into the van to exchange the cell phone circuit board — he could have substituted the board in the office. Breaking into a van on a city street is a risky business, and there was no guarantee the two men would have both left it unguarded.”

“Lasher could have done it in the office, too.”

“No. Lasher had been fired prior to the service call.”

“Right, right, but I still think Ingmar is a suspect.”

“My dear Vincent, if Ingmar wanted to kill Cantucci, why would he do it in a way that would damage his own company? If Ingmar wanted Cantucci dead, he would have done it outside his home.”

D’Agosta grunted. He had to admit that made sense. “So that leaves Lasher as the only suspect? Is that what you think?”

“I think nothing. And I would advise you to think nothing, either — at least, not until we have more evidence.”

D’Agosta didn’t agree, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to argue with Pendergast. In the ensuing silence Curry, looking up from his phone, said: “Lasher still lives on West Fourteenth Street.”

“Good, let’s send a team over there right away for a voluntary prelim. Nothing in-depth, just see if he’s a viable suspect, if he has an alibi.” He turned to Pendergast. “You want to go? I can’t, got a ton of paperwork.”

“I, unfortunately, have a previous engagement.”

D’Agosta watched his black-clad frame leave the office. He hoped to God his guys would come back with just enough to get the media break that Singleton and the mayor so desperately wanted by the end of the day — otherwise he’d never hear the end of it.