Death Match

TWENTY-SEVEN

Except for the fact it was safely inside the Wall, the space could almost have been one of the conference rooms Eden used for class reunions. Chairs had been pulled away from the far side of the oval table, leaving a single seat at its center. Another half dozen were arrayed along the near side, with more placed in the corners of the room.

Handerling sat in the lone seat, still wearing his damp windbreaker. He looked around with thinly disguised nervousness. Mauchly sat across from him, flanked by Tara Stapleton and two men Lash didn’t recognize. One wore a physician’s lab coat. A brace of Eden security workers stood by the door. More were stationed in the hall outside. From his vantage point in the shadows, Lash was surprised at how numerous they were. And they were not the affable, approachable guards of the lobby: these were unsmiling men who stared straight ahead, jaws set, small wires leading from their ears to their collars. When one opened his jacket to answer a cell phone, Lash caught the gleam of a weapon.

A videocamera sat on a large dolly, manned by a security tech. A recorder sat in the middle of the table. Mauchly nodded to the cameraman, then switched on the recorder.

“Mr. Handerling, do you know why you’re here?” he asked. “Why we’re talking to you?”

Handerling stared across the table. “No.”

Lash watched the suspect. When he’d first been surrounded, Handerling had been frightened, disoriented. But now he’d had time to think — in the hand-off from the Feds to Eden security, with its resultant paperwork; during the ride back to the tower; in the maze of back corridors they’d taken to reach this room. If he was like other offenders Lash had known, he’d have a game plan in mind by now.

Interrogation was often compared to a seduction. One person wanted something from the other, while the other frequently had little interest in giving it up. Lash was curious to see what kind of seducer Mauchly would make. His heart was racing excitedly in his chest.

Mauchly regarded Handerling with his usual mild expression. He let the silence build. Then at last he spoke again.

“You really have no idea? No idea at all?”

“No. And I don’t think you have any right to hold me here, asking questions like this.” Handerling spoke with a truculent, aggrieved tone.

Mauchly did not respond directly. Instead, he straightened a tall pile of documents on the table beside him. “Mr. Handerling, let me make some introductions before we get started. Here with me is Tara Stapleton of Systems Security, and Dr. Debney of Medical. You know Mr. Harrison, of course. Why were you seeing that woman?”

Handerling blinked at this abrupt shift. “I don’t think it’s any of your business. I know my rights, I demand to—”

“Your rights—” and the word had a sudden staccato bite that brought the room to attention“—are summarized in this document you signed when you joined Eden.” Mauchly took a bound folder from the top of the pile, pushed it toward the center of the table. “Recognize it?”

For a moment, Handerling remained motionless. Then he leaned forward, nodded.

“In this binding contract, you agreed — among many other things — not to abuse your position at Eden through any covert use of technology. You agreed to keep client data compartmentalized. And you agreed to the strict code of moral conduct mandated in our employee charter. This was all explained to you in detail during orientation, and your signature here attests to your understanding.”

Mauchly delivered these words in an almost bored monotone. But their effect on Handerling was significant. He stared back at Mauchly, eyes glittering with suspicion.

“So I ask again. Why were you seeing that woman?”

“It was a date. No law against that.”

Lash could see Handerling was fighting to keep up the facade of an injured party.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

Instead of answering, Mauchly glanced at the documentation before him. “When we approached you outside the bar, the woman — who has since been identified from your telephone calls this afternoon as Sarah Louise Hunt — was heard to call you, let’s see here, a ‘fucking low-life snoop.’ To what was she referring, Mr. Handerling?”

“No idea.”

“As it happens, I think you do have an idea. A very good idea.”

Lash noticed Tara was scribbling on a pad, while Mauchly stared across the table at Handerling. This was standard procedure, one person taking notes while the other kept careful watch on the suspect’s nonverbal communication: nervous gestures, eye movement, the like. But most interrogators liked to get into the faces of their subjects, keep a rapid-fire series of questions going. Mauchly was just the opposite. He let silence and uncertainty work for him.

At last, Mauchly stirred. “Not only do I think you’ve got a good idea what she meant, but there are several others who probably do, too.” He glanced down at the documentation once again. “Such as Helen Malvolia. Karen Connors. Marjorie Silkwood. Half a dozen others.”

Handerling’s face went ashen.

“What do they all have in common, Mr. Handerling? They were all applicants at Eden. All were disapproved, following their psychological evaluations. All for similar reasons. Low self-esteem. Products of broken homes. High passivity factors. In other words, women who could be easily victimized.”

Mauchly’s voice had grown so low, Lash strained to hear.

“These women all have something else in common. In the last six months, they’ve been approached by you. In some cases, it ended with lunch or drinks. In other cases it went well, well beyond that.”

Suddenly, Mauchly lifted the heavy pile of documents and slammed it back down on the table. The action was so unexpected Handerling jumped in his chair.

But when Mauchly spoke again, his voice was calm. “We have it all here. Records of phone calls, from home and the office; credit card receipts for restaurants, bars, motels; data intercepts of confidential Eden records touched from your terminal. And, by the way, we’ve already plugged the security weakness you used to access client data across security frontiers.” Mauchly shifted. “In light of this, would you care to revisit your response?”

Handerling swallowed painfully. Sweat had sprouted along his brow, and his hands clenched and unclenched involuntarily. “I want a lawyer,” he said.

“Your signature on this document waives the privilege of representation during internal examinations of your own malfeasance. The fact is, Mr. Handerling, you’ve compromised the integrity of this company. You’ve done that, and more. You’ve not only betrayed our trust and that of our clients, but you’ve done it in the lowest, most despicable fashion possible. To think you could search out, intentionally, the most pliable victims — pry through transcripts where they reveal their most private hopes and dreams, their deepest wants in a relationship — and then callously exploit those to slake your own craven lusts… it’s almost beyond comprehension.”

An electric silence filled the room.

Handerling licked dry lips. “I—” he began. He fell silent.

“Once our work is completed here, you’ll be remanded — with the indictable evidence — to the custody of the authorities.”

“The police?” Handerling said sharply.

Mauchly shook his head. “No, Mr. Handerling. Federal authorities.”

The look on Handerling’s face turned to disbelief.

“Eden has information-sharing agreements with certain branches of government. You know that. Some data involved is of a classified nature. By covertly manipulating our databanks, you have committed what could be considered a treasonable offense.”

“Treason?” Handerling said in a strangled voice.

“You would be prosecuted in a federal facility, sparing ourselves and our clients embarrassing publicity. And in case you weren’t aware, there is no parole in federal prison, Mr. Handerling.”

Handerling’s roaming eyes shifted back to Mauchly: a furtive, hunted look.

“Okay,” he said. “All right. It’s like you say. I did meet those women. But I didn’t hurt them.”

“What were you doing to Sarah Hunt when we approached, then?”

“I just wanted her to stop shouting. I wouldn’t hurt her. I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Haven’t done anything wrong? Stalking women, misusing confidential and trade-secret information, making false representations — that isn’t wrong?”

“It didn’t start out that way!” Handerling’s gaze swept the room frantically, searching for a sympathetic eye. “Look, it began as an accident. I realized as scrub boss I could exploit this vulnerability I’d discovered, look beyond our compartment, piece together enough data fragments to get full client briefs. It was curiosity, just curiosity…”

It was as if a dam had burst. Handerling began spilling it all: his accidental discovery of the loophole; his timid early probing; the methods he’d used to evade detection; his first meetings with the women. Everything. And Mauchly had handled it beautifully. With a series of baiting questions about lesser crimes, he’d gotten Handerling to bite. And now that the man was talking, it would be almost impossible for him to stop. Mauchly, having unbalanced his victim, would go in for the kill.

Just at that moment, in fact, Mauchly raised a commanding hand. Handerling stopped in mid rant, unfinished sentence hanging suspended in the air.

“This is all very interesting,” Mauchly said quietly. “And we’ll want to hear all about it in due course. But let’s move on to the real reason you’re here.”

Handerling passed a hand over his eyes. “The real reason?”

“Your more serious offenses.”

Handerling looked dazed. He said nothing.

“Would you care to tell us where you were on the morning of September 17?”

“September 17?”

“Or the late afternoon of September 24?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember.”

“Then let me remind you. On September 17, you were in Flagstaff, Arizona. On September 24, you were in Larchmont, New York. You have a hotel reservation tomorrow night in Burlingame, Massachusetts. Do you know what those three addresses have in common, Mr. Handerling?”

Handerling’s fingers gripped the edge of the table, knuckles dead white. “The supercouples.”

“Very good. They are each residences of one of our uniquely perfect couples. Or, in the first two instances, were.”

“Were?”

“Yes. Since both the Thorpes and the Wilners are now dead.”

“The Thorpes?” Handerling said, his voice little more than a croak. “The Wilners? Dead?”

“Come now, Mr. Handerling. This only wastes time. What were your intentions for the coming weekend?”

But Handerling did not answer. His eyes had rolled back, shockingly white in the bright light of the room. Lash wondered if he was going to faint.

“If you’d rather not say, then let me tell you what you were going to do. What you’ve done already, twice. You were going to kill the Connellys. But very carefully, like you’d done before. Make it look like double suicide.”

The room was quiet, the only noise Handerling’s labored breathing.

“You murdered the first two supercouples, in order,” Mauchly said. “Now you’ve been planning to stalk, and kill, a third.”

Still, Handerling said nothing.

“We’ll be doing a deep psych reval on you, of course. But we’ve already put together a theoretical profile. After all, your actions speak for themselves.” Mauchly consulted the papers before him. “I’m talking about your fear of rejection, your shrunken sense of self-worth. Armed with information you pilfered from our files, you knew just how to approach those women you selected and manipulated. Remarkable that, in some cases, you failed, even with such an overwhelming advantage.” Mauchly smiled mirthlessly. “But if these encounters eased your feelings of inadequacy around women, they did nothing to ease your anger. Anger that others could find the kind of happiness you never would. Those others who you’d always envied. Our supercouples were that embodiment for you. They became the lightning rod for your anger, which was actually self-loathing, twisted in such a way that—”

“No!” Handerling screamed: a thin, high keening sound.

“Come now, Mr. Handerling. Don’t excite yourself.”

“I didn’t kill them!” Tears were starting from his eyes. “Okay, so I went to Arizona. I have relatives in Sedona, I was going there for a wedding. Flagstaff was nearby. And Larchmont is only an hour from my house.”

Mauchly folded his arms, listening.

“I wanted to know. I wanted to understand. You see, the files just didn’t explain. They didn’t explain how somebody could be so happy. So I thought maybe, if I just saw them — if I could just watch them, just for a bit, from a safe distance — I could learn… You’ve got to believe me, I never killed anybody! I just wanted to — I just want to be happy, like them… oh, Jesus…” And Handerling dropped forward, his head hitting the desk with an ugly sound, sobs racking his frame.

“No need for dramatics,” Mauchly said. “We can do this with your cooperation, or without. You’ll find the former far less of an inconvenience.” When Handerling did not respond, Mauchly bent toward the physician, whispered in his ear.

But for Lash, the scene had suddenly changed, and changed utterly. The cries of Handerling, the murmuring of Mauchly, drained away to silence in his head. A chill passed through him. Eden could interrogate, could examine, this man as much as they wanted. But in his gut, Lash sensed Handerling was innocent. Not of stalking — he was clearly guilty of abusing sensitive information. And he’d spied on the Eden supercouples. But he was no killer. Lash had seen enough suspects sweated to know when someone was lying, or when someone was capable of murder.

The worst thing was he should have known before. The suspect chart he’d worked up on his whiteboard, the theoretical profile he’d written and Mauchly had just delivered to the room, suddenly seemed as thin as the rice paper woodcuts in Lewis Thorpe’s study. They were full of inconsistencies, false assumptions. He’d been too eager to solve this terrible puzzle before more people died. And this was the result.

He sank deeper into the shadows. A haiku of Bash — o’s kept repeating in his head, eclipsing the wails of Handerling:

It was close to midnight by the time he pulled his car into Ship Bottom Road. He killed the engine, got out of the car, and walked slowly, deliberately toward the mailbox. Something had been tugging at the back of his mind since he’d left the Eden building; something that had nothing to do with Handerling. But Lash steadfastly refused to pay attention. He felt more tired than he’d ever felt in his life.

When he opened the mailbox, his first sense was relief: there was mail today, it hadn’t been pilfered. If anything, he realized, there was too much mail: at least a dozen magazines lay scattered among the circulars and catalogues. There was a gay lifestyles magazine, another devoted to S&M and bondage fetishists; many others. All had subscription labels bearing his name and address. Among the envelopes were another dozen subscription notices with demands for payment.

Somebody had been filling out subscription requests under his name.

He walked toward the house, pausing to dump everything but a utility bill into a garbage can. It seemed Mary English had switched tactics. It was regrettable, but a call to the Westport police might be necessary after all.

He stepped up to the door, put his key in the lock, then stopped. A courier package marked BY EXPRESS — HAND DELIVER and bearing Eden’s logo lay against it. Probably more confidentiality agreements for my signature, he thought bleakly. He stooped to pick it up, tore away one end. Moonlight revealed a single sheet of paper inside, to which a small pin had been attached. He pulled out the sheet.