Cold Case

13

The lobby wasn’t exactly bustling. But there were enough people walking past Matt to the visitors’ desk, getting oversized passes, and boarding the elevators for the floors above.

Matt, however, had nowhere to go. The hospital clerk had just turned down his request for a pass. After all my research, Matt thought, that’s one bit I never thought to check.

He’d spent every free moment in school today working the Bradford Academy computer system, trying to get more information about the fire that had burnt out Oswald Derbent’s home. Along the way, he’d picked up the fact that Derbent had been brought to the burn unit at George Washington University Hospital.

So, when classes ended, instead of going home, he headed in the opposite direction, south and east to Foggy Bottom. Here was the hospital, there was the visitor’s desk — but passes were only for family members.

You should have thought of that, Matt accused himself. Derbent’s situation is worse than critical.

He wanted to do something, not just head back with his tail between his legs. But a get-well balloon or flowers seemed like a pretty empty gesture.

The last thing Matt expected was a hand on his shoulder. He nearly jumped out of his skin as he whipped around to see Father Flannery.

“I thought it was you,” the priest said.

“My school isn’t all that far away.” Matt shrugged, feeling awkward. “When I learned that Mr. Derbent was here — I thought maybe I could visit him. But they wouldn’t let me in.”

Flannery nodded. “My collar cut no ice with them, either. But they gave me some information.”

He sighed. “Derbent is in one of the hyperbaric oxygen modules — that’s the best hope, given the severity of his burns. If they can keep his condition stabilized long enough, they’ll try for synthetic skin grafts. But they aren’t optimistic.”

Matt nodded. Derbent wasn’t a big man, and he was no kid.

“There’s a small chapel.” Flannery nodded off to one side. “I was in there praying for him.” The priest hesitated, then went on. “Before that, I was visiting with Mrs. Knox.”

“Those — both — were kind things to do,” Matt said.

“As we said before, they come with the job.” Flannery looked embarrassed. “The poor woman is a wreck. She has no idea whether her husband was keeping up his insurance, and there’s still no money coming in. There are children to be fed, and a roof to be kept over their heads—” The priest shook his head. “I gave her some advice, suggested some places she could go. She was almost pathetically grateful. She talked a great deal — I suppose she was glad to have a friendly car.”

He grimaced. “But it seems I haven’t quite shaken off the influence of Spike Spanner. I asked some questions, too.”

Matt sighed. “And did you dig up any clues?”

“I suppose you’d call it something more like background information. It seems Hard-Knocks Harry was a bit of a dreamer,” Father Flannery said. “He talked big, but never accomplished anything.”

“He wound up with that big rig.”

“Financed with a legacy from his uncle,” Flannery said. “When he wasn’t on the road, he was synched into his computer. After his juvenile brush with the law, Knox apparently fancied himself as quite the outlaw. He liked sims about hacking. He and the missus apparently had some arguments about it. She didn’t want him leading the children astray.”

“So he decided to be a great detective instead?” Matt asked.

The priest nodded. “But that wasn’t the kind of reform Mrs. Knox had in mind. She’s a bit of a technophobe. Computers give her the creeps. She complained about her husband lying around, connected to what she called a ‘soulless machine.’”

“Maybe she had a point,” Matt suggested.

“If she went too far in one direction, Knox went too far in the other. He was determined to solve the fictional Van Alst case. In fact, he hinted that it might lead to real-life benefits.”

Matt paused for a second. “The hacking.”

“The widow Knox doesn’t know about that,” Flannery said, “and I didn’t tell her. But it sounds like he may have been behind it.”

“Well, we’ll certainly never find out.” Matt shrugged.

Now it was the priest’s turn to pause.

“We might,” said Father Flannery. “The arguments over Hard-Knocks Harry’s virtual life ended with his wife throwing him out of the house.” He glanced at Matt. “She also disconnected his computer.”

Matt stared. “What?”

“She had some muddled fears that he’d fool with financial records, cut her out of bank accounts or something. That way, she figured she’d have an untouched version of their accounts.” Flannery smiled at the expression on Matt’s face. “I told you, she’s not the most sophisticated person when it comes to computers.”

“Sophisticated?” Matt echoed. “You’d have to work pretty hard to be that ignorant. Didn’t she ever learn in school—”

“It was a different era,” Flannery said. “A good school was one that had one computer per classroom.”

Matt silently shook his head.

“Anyway,” the priest went on, “Mrs. Knox asked me where she could get help sorting out what’s in her former husband’s computer. Family accounts, records—”

And maybe a few terabits of contraband information about a certain incident in Haddington, Matt silently finished. “Did you look?” he asked.

The priest shook his head, looking a little more uncomfortable. “I honestly told her that I’m not all that technically inclined.” He hesitated, finally going on. “Then, I may have bent the truth a little. I reminded the widow of my first visit, with you, building you up as quite the computer wiz. Mrs. Knox is very eager to meet you again — for your professional opinion. Can you handle that?”

Matt smiled. “If I can’t, I’ll be sure to bring along someone who can.”

As soon as Matt got home, he put out a call to his Net Force Explorers crew, inviting them in for a virtual meeting that evening. After dinner he whipped through his homework, then leaned back on his computer-link couch and synched in.

Matt entered his virtual work space, a black marble “desktop” floating unsupported in the midst of a starry sky.

One nice thing about veeyar, he thought, suddenly remembering Kerry Jones’s dorm room. You don’t have to tidy it up when you have company.

Leif Anderson popped into existence on the other side of the desktop. “This is a nice setup,” he said, folding his legs so that he was floating in a modified lotus position. He glanced down toward a distant galaxy. “Must be hard on people with acrophobia, though.”

“I have a special sim for those visitors — it’s a precise re-creation of the inside of my closet.” Before Matt could say anything else, Megan was beside him. She ignored the stars, checking out the icons arranged on the desktop to spot any new programs she might want to borrow.

Megan was telling him he ought to upgrade his virtmail system when David Gray appeared.

“You’re late!” She delighted in announcing to the usually punctual David. “That burn leg of yours is slowing you up even in veeyar!”

“It’s not the burn leg, but the cane.” David made an annoyed noise. “Especially when you have two younger brothers playing with it. I was stranded at the dinner table until my mother restored order.”

Andy Moore appeared after that story, so he had no comments. And, since he was always late, nobody had a comment about that.

Matt waited until everyone was comfortably seated or sprawled in midair, then started talking. “Last night,” he finished. “I had a meeting with the people — the few who are left of them — from the mystery sim I told you about. I wanted to get them up to date on some stuff I had learned, to keep the flow of information going.”

“Better watch out with that line,” Andy warned. “It sounds like the old hackers’ motto: “Information must be free!”

Ignoring the comment, Matt went on, “I thought maybe we should do the same — you know, share information. If I run over stuff you’ve heard before, I apologize. I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

His friends listened quietly while he summarized the case, paying special attention to what Captain Winters had said about the arson investigation, and what the sim participants had said when they’d gotten together.

“I’ve also got a piece of new business.” Matt then recounted his meeting with Father Flannery, going on to cover the Widow Knox and her disconnected computer.

“If she just unplugged it, she probably screwed up the operating system,” Andy said. “Any flash memory would certainly be gone.”

“But the long-term memory files should survive.” As Matt hoped, David’s eyes had a techie’s gleam. The idea of reconstructing someone else’s computer appealed to him.

“The widow is hoping for financial statements and family records,” Matt said.

Andy snorted. “Which anybody with half a brain could get off the Net.”

Matt leaned forward. “Knox was thrown out of the house. He didn’t expect that. So there may be other stuff tucked away in the computer’s fixed memory.”

“You mean if he’s the hacker who started all the trouble,” Leif said.

“But the lawyers are still all over you and your simmates for hacking,” Megan pointed out. “To me, that sounds like the hacking is still ongoing. So how can he be the hacker?”

“What?” Andy asked. “You think there’s more than one?”

“I have no idea anymore,” Matt admitted. “But I’ve got a chance to look in this guy’s system legally—”

“Which is more than anybody else would give you,” Andy cracked.

“And I’ve got the communications code for the Widow Knox and could give her a call. I could use some help.” Matt turned to David. “That is, if you’re willing to lend your technical expertise.”

“We’ll have to get at the computer physically,” David said. “Maybe Saturday—”

“In the afternoon,” Megan broke in. “I have a judo class in the morning.”

Matt glanced at her.

“Oh, I’m going,” she said before he could say anything. “This is something I want to see.”

That was more help than Matt had counted on, but he saw he’d never win an argument with Megan. So he shrugged and said, “Okay. I’ll make the call and see what happens. Does anyone have anything to add? Is there anything we’re missing?”

Andy pointed to Matt’s desktop. “You’re missing a call right now.”

The tiny, sculptured ear that represented Matt’s virtmail account was flashing with an urgent intensity.

“Not a call,” Matt said. “A message.” He reached down and activated the program. The display that popped into view was framed in flames — a visual metaphor for hot news.

Megan, typically, craned her head so she could read over Matt’s shoulder. “Who’s Dave Lowen?” she asked, frowning. “The name sounds familiar—”

“He’s a character in the Lucullus Marten stories.” Matt’s frown was even deeper as he looked at the sender’s name. “Marten uses the guy if Monty Newman is busy, or if the job requires a special finesse.”

Megan gave a bark of laughter. “The message is addressed to Monty Newman. Whoever it is mustn’t know you’ve retired.”

“Oh, I think they know, all right,” Matt said as he read the rest of the message.

Even Lucullus Marten never tried to solve a forty-year-old mystery. Here are a few points you might want to consider:

Who was the first officer on the scene?

How long did it take for Walter G. to be questioned?

When was his car impounded?

What happened to the car?

“I can tell you the answer to number one,” Megan said. “So can Leif.”

Leif nodded. “The cop was Clyde Finch, who went on to become head of the Callivants’ personal security — and thanks to his seventeen-year-old daughter, also became Nikki Callivant’s great-grandfather.”

“Sounds like he could have done a better security job on his darling daughter,” Andy cackled.

“Looking past that…you really have to question the guy’s capacity for the job,” David said. “The world is full of Secret Service and FBI alumni who would kill for a gig like guarding the Callivants. How does it wind up going to a small-town—”

“Flatfoot?” Andy suggested, earning a dirty look from the cop’s son.

“I think we agree that Mr. Finch should be looked into,” Matt said hurriedly. He glanced at Leif, who shrugged.

“I’ll take a crack at it,” he promised. “And I think I know the answer to the second question. From what I’ve read, Walter G. Callivant wasn’t questioned until three days after the body was discovered. He’d suffered some sort of collapse and was in a sanitarium.”

“Convenient,” David snorted. “I bet the cops really took the gloves off — a rich kid surrounded by a phalanx of shrinks.”

“Not to mention lawyers,” Andy said.

“How about the next question?” Megan put in. “When did the cops get their hands on Walter G.’s car?”

“That I don’t know,” Leif admitted. “Although, according to what I’ve read, the police technicians gave it a clean bill of health when they finally saw it.”

“After how many trips through the car wash?” Andy asked.

“The found no blood or tissue residues, and that sort of stuff is harder to wash away than you’d think,” Leif said. “The medical examiners estimated that Priscilla Hadding had fallen — or was pushed — from a moving car. Her leg got hung up on something — probably the car door — and she was dragged for a bit.”

Megan shuddered. “Ugly.”

David nodded. “But it absolutely would have left traces of evidence on the car.”

“So why is the question being asked?” Megan demanded. “Our new virtmail pal seems to think it’s important.”

“‘Deep Throat,’” Leif muttered.

She whirled on him. “What?”

“Just a name from another old scandal — but political instead of social this time. Somebody was troubled by the way an old President had gotten himself reelected and passed on some information to a couple of journalists. It worked. The president had to resign. And the reporter’s nickname for the leak—‘Deep Throat’—became a part of history.”

“Well, our version of ‘Deep Throat’ would have to be pretty old to be troubled about something that happened forty years ago,” Megan said.

“Maybe his conscience finally started getting to him,” Andy suggested with a grin.

Leif shook his head. “More likely, this is the hacker, rubbing our noses in what he’s found.”

“Weren’t we just saying that we thought Knox was the hacker?” David asked.

“Virtmail from beyond the grave,” Andy said in a hollow voice.

“I don’t know who this is, but he or she is certainly playing with us,” Matt growled. “If two of those questions could be answered just by looking in books about the case—”

“How about the last one?” Megan cut in. “What did happen to Walter G.’s car?”

“It was a classic Corvette—1965,” Leif said. “A lot of people were turning to older cars in the 1980s because government regulations were adding all sorts of antismog equipment to the new ones. It took awhile before the technology got good enough so that the power drain wasn’t noticeable.”

“What a terrible idea! Antismog devices!” Megan said sarcastically.

“It wasn’t much fun at the time, if you wanted to drive a fast car,” Matt said.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to track down what happened to the Walter G.-mobile,” Leif said. “All we need is the vehicle identification number—”

He shut up when he saw Matt shaking his head. “I may not know about scandals, but I do know about cars. The V.I.N. system didn’t come into play until 1981. We won’t be able to trace the car that way.”

“That means a quiet visit to the dead files of the D.M.V.,” Leif began, then cleared his throat. “Oops, I didn’t say that. And nobody needs to hear about it from anybody in this room.”

“No witnesses,” David agreed.

“So we’re batting.500 in the ‘Deep Throat’ trivia game,” Andy said. “We had answers to about half of the questions.”

“Your ear’s blinking again,” Megan announced.

Matt activated the program again. A similar message to the previous one appeared.

As the kids watched, an image began to appear under the words. It was a reproduction of a faded flatfilm color photograph — a young man sitting behind the wheel of a low-slung antique car, grinning through the convertible’s windshield.

“Computer!” Matt shouted. “Can you find the original source of that message?”

The computer displayed the name of a big and anonymous commercial remailing firm.

“Never mind, then. From the details available in the displayed image, can you project the make of the car?”

The computer was silent for a moment, then responded, “Probability, eighty percent or better.”

“Then enlarge the image, restore the colors, and add the car.”

Beneath the driver’s smiling face, a quick procession of ghostly cars flickered into and out of view. Matt’s hobby was virtual automobiles, and his computer had a vast collection of makes and models in its databases.

Finally the ghost car began to solidify. The faded colors grew more vibrant. The grinning young man now sat in a bright red sports car.

“Closest match — model 1965 Corvette Stingray,” the computer announced.

“Callivant’s car?” Andy asked. “Is that Callivant in the driver’s seat?”

“No.” Megan leaned forward. “Put on forty years of weight and wrinkles, take the hair away…and you’ve got Clyde Finch.”

“Finch!” Leif took a harder look, then began to nod. “You’re right. You know, we really do need to find out more about him.”

“Maybe,” Matt said. “But that’s not the person who interests me right now.”

“Who, then?” David asked.

Matt reached out as if he were trying to catch the image projected from the computer console. Of course, his fingers simply slipped through the hologram. “I want to know who the frack sent us this picture. Right now I have about as much chance of getting hold of him as I have of grabbing this image with my bare hands.”