Cold Case

8

“Glad to see you got over your cold,” Megan told Leif as she held open the door to her house. He came in balancing a stack of books, topped by her brother’s boots.

“I used the sick time to get what I needed out of these.” He carefully deposited the pile on a kitchen chair. “If your parents are in, I’d like to thank them for letting me borrow all this stuff.”

“Sure,” Megan said. “After we check the books.”

“Check?” Leif echoed. “For what?”

“That you haven’t cut out any of Nikki Callivant’s pictures,” Megan informed him sweetly. “That’s how I understand this obsession with public — or semipublic figures — begins. Clipped pictures pasted up on walls. Little shrines built in the corner of a room. And the next thing we know, Nikki Callivant is bringing in the police to arrest another stalker.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to see you going that route, Anderson. For one thing, I am not going on HoloNews to say, ‘He was a quiet boy. I can’t believe he’d do anything like that.’”

“But I’d never—”

She gave him a 200-watt glare. “I wouldn’t put anything past you — the dumber, the better.”

Leif rolled his eyes. “Thanks for your concern, but I don’t have any personal interest in Nikki Callivant. This is just research to help out Matt.”

“If he’s in trouble with the Callivants, he’s going to need more than just research to save him,” Megan said.

“I’ve already been working on that — which is more than you can say.”

Megan shrugged. “He hasn’t asked me.”

She grinned as Leif struggled not to snap back at her. Instead, he changed the subject. “I suppose you’ve heard how Matt found the guy who was running the sim.”

“Yeah.” Megan shuddered. “Pretty gross.”

“You may not have heard about the threats this Saunders guy made before he died or about the letter he was carrying.” He went on to explain about the list of sim participants, and how they’d found Father Flannery.

“Somebody — probably the hacker who started all the problems — called a meeting of the wannabe detectives. I managed to get my hands on a tracking program, and Matt used it to trace the people’s proxies back through the Net.”

“Just happened to get your hands on that, did you?” Megan mocked.

Leif’s ears reddened. “It was only a little trouble, and it helped out a friend. Matt called me just as I was leaving to make this delivery. He and the priest are going to spend the afternoon paying a few real-world visits to the participants in the sim.”

Megan whistled. “That should be interesting.”

“Especially since one of them all but accused somebody in the group of murdering Saunders,” Leif went on.

He paused when Megan shot him a look. “You don’t think that happened, do you?” she said.

“Considering the blizzard, I’m guessing it was the ice on the streets.”

She nodded. “Even if he’s just looking for the hacker in the group, Matt’s going to need more than a list of suspects. He’s too—”

“Honest?” Leif suggested when she hesitated.

She shrugged. “Close enough. I was actually thinking along the lines of straightforward and naive.”

“I was wondering if you wanted to come in for a subtle bit of help,” Leif said.

“How?” Megan asked bluntly.

“Maybe we can come at this from the Callivant side. P.J. Farris has these tickets for a Junior League formal. Nikki Callivant’s supposed to be there, with several other members of her family—”

“You are obsessing on her!” Megan accused.

“No, I’m not,” Leif replied, “ ’cause I’m not going to be there. My folks have grounded me, remember? But I still think Nikki is our closest connection to the family. She’s our age, and while she doesn’t hang in any of our circles, I expect she’ll talk with P.J.”

“A Callivant and a senator’s son. Yeah, that might work.” P.J. tended to kid about the fact that his dad was in the Senate—“the honorable member from the great state of Texas!” But between his stunning good looks and his political connections, P.J.’d have no trouble catching Nikki Callivant’s attention. Megan looked suspiciously at Leif. “And where do I come in?”

“Well, P.J. could use a date—” He hurriedly put up his hand before Megan could explode. “And I don’t think it would be a bad idea to double-team Nikki. At worst, you could play good cop/bad cop with her.”

“With P.J. playing the good cop,” Megan growled. “Well, I don’t have to worry about pushing any buttons with Nikki-baby’s temper. I’ll just mention your name.”

“Glad to be of service,” Leif said with an ironic smile. “Both for the button — and for finding you a way to get some use out of that gown you bought for the winter formal.”

Matt had just enough time after getting home from school to have a glass of milk. Then Father Flannery was at his door. “I had to rearrange my schedule for this,” Flannery said. “I certainly hope we’ll be able to catch all these people in one afternoon.”

“Let me finish this note to my folks, and then we’ll be off,” Matt promised.

The priest hadn’t been surprised when Matt called him this morning. Matt suspected that Flannery knew what he had done at the meeting of the suspicious sleuths. Why else had he made sure that Milo Krantz had been marked by the virtual champagne?

While he scribbled on a piece of paper, Matt reached into his knapsack and handed over a printout. The list was simple — proxy, real name, and address.

“I put them in order of nearest to farthest,” Matt said.

Father Flannery grunted as he read. “There’s certainly enough ground to cover.”

“First on the list is Harry Knox, aka Milo Krantz,” Matt said. “He’s close by.”

“Then the pair pretending to be the Slimms — on the edge of Georgetown, and the fellow proxied up as Lucullus Marten in Virginia.” The priest watched as Matt attached his note to the refrigerator with a magnet. “No time like the present, I suppose.”

Although their first stop wasn’t all that far away, getting there meant crossing an invisible line — the border of the beltway. Named for the ring of parkways around Washington, these suburban towns had once been prime real estate. But that had been years ago. As conditions had improved in Washington, “urban problems” moved to the outer towns, who soon didn’t have the police, social services — or the tax base — to handle them.

The town where Harry Knox lived didn’t even have the funds to take care of its streets. Huge patches of ice still hadn’t been cleared away. They looked like frozen lakes surrounded by a treacherous terrain of cracks and potholes in the pavement. Father Flannery had to drive carefully to keep from skidding his way to their destination.

Once it had been a “town house development,” homes for the young professionals — would-be “beltway bandits.” The place had been put up quickly, and now its shoddy construction showed. Tiles on the roofs were cracked or gone. Patches of brick were discolored, as if the walls had caught some skin disease. Some windows even had plywood in them instead of glass. The original homeowners had obviously been replaced by renters. A forlorn air of decay hung over the place. On what had once been lawns, children’s footprints had scuffed away the thin coating of ice and snow to reveal bare dirt.

Most of the original address plaques had disappeared, replaced with glued plastic numbers or tacked-up cardboard handwritten signs. The doorway Matt and the priest sought didn’t even have that. They had to guess they had the right place, counting up and down from the neighbors’ numbers.

The doorbell didn’t ring. Matt gently eased the storm door open — it looked ready to fall off in his hand — and knocked.

“Gimme a minute!” a female voice yelled from inside. Shortly afterward, the inner door opened, and Matt was confronted by a woman in a housecoat. She carried a baby in one arm. A two-year-old peeked from behind her left leg.

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying any,” the woman said. Her eyes fastened on Father Flannery’s Roman collar. “And that goes double for holy rollers.” She paused for a second, and then a sickening smile spread over her fleshy features. “Unless, of course, you’re here about our financial problems. I’ve applied to several churches for help. It’s all I could do, until the lawyers make my husband do the right thing.”

“That would be Harry Knox?” Father Flannery said.

“It was,” the woman said. “I threw him out of here weeks ago, and he hasn’t been back. The divorce should be a done deal. I’ll get the real estate, he keeps the truck and pays to keep us going. But until the checks start coming—”

“Do you know where Mr. Knox is?” Matt interrupted.

When she saw that there wouldn’t be an immediate handout, Mrs. Knox’s flabby features tightened. “What do you need to bother with Harry for? This is where the money’s needed.”

“There are things we have to check,” Father Flannery put in diplomatically.

“His mail’s been going to a truck stop out Fairfax way.” The woman spoke angrily. “Place called O’Dell’s. I suppose he’s livin’ it up with some waitress or something.”

Catching the change in mood, the infant and the two-year-old began to whimper.

“Shut up, the two of you!” Mrs. Knox snapped at the kids before returning her attention to her unexpected guests. “You go see him and do whatever you got to do. What I need is money!”

Before Matt or Father Flannery could say anything, the door slammed shut in their faces.

Both were silent as they got back into the car. The priest started the engine, and they pulled away.

“Fairfax. That’s on the other side of D.C.,” Matt said.

“Which will probably make it last on our list,” Father Flannery said. A moment or two of silence passed, then he spoke up again. “I haven’t read many Milo Krantz stories. Wasn’t he a confirmed bachelor?”

“A lot of the old-time detectives were woman-haters,” Matt agreed. “Like Lucullus Marten.”

“But not like Monty Newman,” the priest said with a smile.

Matt shrugged. “The way I read it, Monty liked women too much to settle down with just one. And if what we just saw is typical, he made the right choice.”

They left the beltway for a southbound parkway that finally led into Rock Creek Park, the steep, tree-filled valley that cut Georgetown off from the rest of Washington. Then Father Flannery’s car was gently bouncing along the narrow, cobblestone streets, that, along with the eighteenth-century houses, gave Georgetown so much of its charm.

Even the growth of telecommuting and virtual tourism hadn’t managed to thin the traffic clogging those streets, however. And parking, especially near Georgetown University, remained an aggravating problem. Matt and Father Flannery faced a stiff walk before they finally reached their destination, a dormitory on the university campus. Leif’s tracing program had followed both Mick and Maura Slimm to the student housing here. In real life they were Kerry Jones and Suzanne Kellerman, a pair of college sophomores.

Father Flannery’s collar went a long way toward getting them past the resident assistant, and soon they were in Kerry Jones’s dorm room. There were two guys in the room, the lanky redhead who answered their knock and the blond young man sitting cross-legged on an unmade bed. The old flatfilm poster taped up over his head was a giveaway clue — it heralded the opening of That Slimm Fella, the first Mick and Maura movie.

Jones was a blond guy with a cheerful face, penetrating blue eyes, and patchy fuzz around his chin — a failing attempt to grow a beard. He was built like a football halfback, rather than Mick Slimm’s elegant but lethally wiry form.

The young man’s eyes sharpened with recognition when he saw Matt. “Can you give us a few minutes alone?” he asked his roommate, who shrugged and went out the door.

“So,” Jones said, “you tracked me down. Grab a seat — wherever you can. If I’d known I’d be having visitors, I’d have neatened up the place a little.”

The room was decorated in Early Poverty: beds, desks, and dressers obviously provided by the university — sturdy, utilitarian furniture built to survive successive classes of college students. The computer-link couches were reasonably high-end, but then Matt’s own research into college choices told him that most schools provided reduced-rate equipment which students could buy.

Father Flannery sat on one of the couches — the one without the scattering of books and papers — while Matt perched on the roommate’s bed.

“So, you’re Kerry Jones,” Matt said.

“That’s me,” Jones cheerfully admitted.

“And, according to our information, Suzanne Kellerman is at class right now,” Father Flannery said.

“Okay.” Kerry Jones spread his hands. “You found us. Big deal. Neither Suze nor I think the situation has changed since the big meeting. We don’t see any reason to join in the defensive alliance your fat friend suggested.”

Jones turned to Father Flannery. “Is that what you look like with your fat suit off?” He pointed to the Roman collar. “Or is that a new disguise you’re wearing? Pretty sleazy trick to squeeze your way into the dorm.”

“I am a priest,” Flannery said stiffly. “My parish is about a mile from here. And I’m not Marten. I’m Spanner.”

Kerry Jones looked a little shocked. “Sorry, Father. I didn’t expect to be playing out the Van Alst case with a priest. Not to mention a priest whose proxy uses brass knuckles.”

“I never—” Flannery began.

Matt decided to step in before Jones managed to side-track their talk into a discussion of the sim.

“We’ve got a different mystery to deal with right now — and I hope there’ll be no need for brass knuckles.”

Jones’s face twisted with impatience. “I know I’m not the nimrod who went hacking into the Callivant files. And Suze has even less reason. I’m the one who got us signed up for the sim — for obvious reasons.” He pointed to the poster over his bed, then to the desk beside the window — the one with the more elaborate computer console and the one neat part of the entire room — the ranked racks of computer datascrips climbing the wall. “I’m an old-time film buff. Each scrip contains a flatfilm movie — most of them mysteries. Suze is a…good friend.”

Girlfriend, Matt instantly translated.

Jones shrugged. “She must like me, because she puts up with watching stuff from my collection. The Slimm movies are our favorites. Suze thought it would be cool to come in as Maura, doing the whole thirties thing, being witty and wearing gorgeous gowns—” He grinned. “As soon as I assured her that everything wouldn’t be in black and white.”

“Are you sure she’ll still like you when that law firm starts putting pressure on her?” Matt asked.

“Suze is pre-law, and she pretty much knows what they can and can’t do,” Jones replied. “We don’t even know if Saunders got his letter off. Even if he did, we’ve got the best defense. We’re innocent.”

“And that’s enough for you?” Father Flannery burst out. “You don’t want to find out who’s behind all this trouble?”

Jones looked about to say something, then swallowed his words. “Look, Father,” he finally said. “This is no game. In real life, I leave the investigating to the professionals. The cops think that our pal Saunders died in an accident. If the Callivant lawyers want to find the hacker, let them hire somebody to do the job. Suze and I have nothing to hide. They can’t find any evidence of something we never did.”

His lips curled dismissively. “And if Ol’ Fatso is right with his paranoid fantasy about the forces of darkness gathering against us…well, it’s like I said before. Suze and I can guard each other’s backs.”

Matt wanted to wipe that arrogant smile off the college kid’s face. “Fine — as long as the next ‘accident’ doesn’t take out the two of you together.”

“Like that’s really going to happen…little boy,” Jones sneered.

Matt didn’t answer. He merely pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Anyway, I’m going to leave a copy of my real name and Father Tim’s and the rest of the group’s — just in case. If anything happens to us, you ought to know about it.”

That jarred Father Flannery. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Look, if one or both of them are responsible for the hacking, they’ve got the list already,” Matt pointed out. “If not — well, I think we should be pushing the free flow of information among the innocent.”

Kerry Jones looked at the folded piece of paper as if it were about to bite him. “I don’t know what Suze would say about that — it’s a violation of privacy.”

Matt shrugged as he and Father Flannery got up to leave the room. “Hey, I’m just leaving it there,” he said. “I’m not forcing you to read it.” And with that he and Father Tim headed off to contact the next name on the list.