Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018

The Honest End of Sybil Cooper by Michael Sears

Michael Sears is the author of four thrillers in the series to which this story belongs, the latest 2016’s Saving Jason. “If someone had told me one of my favorite new series would he about a disgraced Wall Street trader turned financial wrongdoings investigator,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s reviewer said, “I would not have put money on it. But Sears’ Jason Stafford series is so compelling you’ll he turning pages even fall you balance is your checkbook.”

“Jason! Come here, please,” the love of my life called. Skeli’s voice, though controlled, revealed a nervousness bordering on panic.

Skeli rarely succumbed to panic, though there were, and had been, any number of instances that might have warranted such a response. There was my career investigating financial fraud, which had often led me into life-threatening situations; our daughter, two months past her first birthday and frighteningly mobile; and there was my beautiful eight-year-old son, Jay, a.k.a. the Kid, whose life was always in a state of chaos. I was betting on the last of these.

“Coming,” I yelled before rinsing the last bits of shaving cream from my face and racing the length of our apartment to the kitchen table where Skeli was feeding Tessa, and Jay was, one hoped, feeding himself the scrambled eggs (no spots!) which were the only food he allowed on a Saturday morning.

“What can I do for you? How can I help?” The scene before me was ordered and surprisingly peaceful, but I knew that cataclysms could be lurking just beneath this tranquil surface.

Skeli shot a quick glance in my direction and smiled. I was wearing a towel around my waist and nothing else. It was an appreciative and alluring smile — one that recalled our few moments of stolen privacy that morning — that disappeared even as it registered. There were important matters that took precedence.

“Sit down and listen. I want you to hear something.”

I sat. I listened. Hearing nothing — our apartment building had once housed musicians and opera singers and had been built with extremely thick walls — I raised both eyebrows and widened my eyes in the facial expression universally indicating the question, “Well?”

Skeli pointedly looked at my son and then back to me. I nodded and waited.

The Kid and I had a date for a Yankees game that afternoon. It was a working date for me and I would have appreciated another few minutes in the bathroom to make sure I looked my best. Virgil Becker, my employer, had asked that we join him and a baker’s dozen top traders and salespeople — and their children — in a skybox. The only reason I would have been included in such an august group was because Virgil suspected one or more of them of some kind of unlawful dealing. He had not provided me with any clues or even hints. I was going in blind, which made me uncomfortable. But I was going to a Yankees game.

The Kid finished eating his eggs and swallowed all of his meds, washing them down with the thimble-sized glass of orange juice. This was not normal, but hardly cause for concern. Quiet celebration, perhaps, but not panic. He was now staring intently at his computer tablet. He gave it a swipe and frowned, apparently waiting for a video or sound bit to reboot.

Skeli shot me a message with her eyes. The moment was upon us.

“Mmmm,” Tessa said around a blueberry, while reaching for another. Without constant monitoring, she would have continued stuffing berries into her mouth much faster than she could possibly chew and swallow them. Coughing blue explosions often followed. Skeli moved the bowl just out of reach.

Sound began to emanate from the computer and Jay giggled. His laughter overrode the audio loop at first and I couldn’t make out what he had recorded. The giggling crescendoed.

When the Kid came to live with me, after the divorce and my ex’s remarriage, his only method of communication involved echolalia, using advertising jingles and other sounds he picked up while listening to his grandmother’s radio. Joining forces with his teachers and his behavioral therapist, I (we) struggled to get him to use words — and it had worked. The more recent intrusion into his life of his half-sister had created a new set of symptoms and the return of others that we all thought were well in the past. The repetition of sounds and words that amused him was one of the least offensive of these traits, so we all ignored the condition as long as he was still communicating with words. The tablet had a recording app that he used to entertain himself and whoever else might be around. There was one loop — of my father muttering and cursing under his breath as he tried to work the TV remote — that both the Kid and I found to be most enjoyable.

The Kid stopped giggling and I could hear the sounds clearly for the first time.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Oh yes,” Skeli said.

A woman softly moaned. In pleasure. A bed rocked rhythmically. It wasn’t raucous or particularly loud. The participants probably thought they were being extremely quiet. There was a gasp and the rocking stopped. A moment later, the woman made a different sound. A hum. Or possibly a purr. The audio came to an end and the Kid giggled once more. He swiped the screen again and waited for the loop to restart.

I knew the participants. Intimately.

“What will we do?” Skeli asked.

“Cold showers?” I said.

“No, you idiot. What are you going to do about that audio loop.”

The rhythmic sounds started up again. The Kid giggled.

“Put it up on Facebook?” I said.

“That would be funnier if you actually had a Facebook account.”

“I’ll erase it.”

“When? Before you get to Yankee Stadium? Please.”

“I’ll think of something,” I said. We both saw this quite clearly as a cowardly stall tactic. Skeli, thankfully, didn’t push it. I had no idea of how to get that tablet without a full frontal assault that would leave the Kid in tears and me with bruises, bite marks, and multiple scratches. And a guilty conscience. I would have to resort to stealth or subterfuge.

“Why am I here?” I said.

This was not an idle question. Virgil had welcomed the kid and me, introduced me to the few there who didn’t already know who I was, offered us food and drink, and then promptly ignored us. What he had not done was give me some scent of which of these big hitters in attendance I was supposed to be tracking.

“Don’t go all existential on me, Jason. Enjoy the game.” Virgil smiled, his long face tanned to a deep mahogany from a summer of weekends on Nantucket, and patted me on the back.

“You know something,” I said.

“Rumors. Rather, a rumor. Singular.”

“There’re always rumors, Virgil. This is a waste of time.”

“I thought you liked the Yankees.”

“You suspect something. Or someone.”

“How’s your daughter?”

I had trouble reading people when they asked that question. Did they mean had she shown any signs of developmental problems? Was she going to be like her brother? Or were they simply being polite and making conversation? Were they genuinely concerned, having heard about her TTNB after birth and the week she spent in the hospital receiving oxygen and antibiotics while Skeli and I held hands and prayed for the day we could take her home? Virgil was neither a gossip nor a ghoul. Therefore he was either being polite, or was showing unaffected concern. Either deserved a civil response. I would bury my curiosity for the moment. He would tell me why I had been invited when he thought it important for me to know. Meantime, I would keep my eyes open.

“She’s doing fine, thank you.” I raised my glass of seltzer in mock toast. “And thanks for the invite.”

“We’ll talk,” Virgil said. He continued to circulate.

The Kid was sitting in the lounge area, paying no attention to the game or his surroundings, while catapulting Angry Birds across his iPad screen. The fact that he never got beyond the first level didn’t bother him at all. He had plugged in a pair of earbuds and was bobbing arrhythmically to the digital soundtrack. At least, I hoped that was what he was listening to. My good intentions to wipe the offending file had been overwhelmed by cowardice.

The party consisted of twelve of the firm’s big producers and their progeny — a surplus of boys ranging from Jay’s age up through a few acne-spattered early teens. There was one girl, who I guessed to be about ten, sitting in the front row and fully engrossed in the game. I realized I knew her — or knew who she was. Her mother was one of those extremely rare people in my life — an old friend.

Few of the boys were capable of matching the young girl’s focus. They talked loudly, climbed over the rows of padded seats, and only occasionally looked up at the television monitors on the wall. Their fathers huddled in groups of threes and fours, discussing golf, golf courses they had recently played, and professional golfers they had met at charity fund-raisers.

Sybil Cooper, the only woman in attendance and the mother of the young girl, was the only person, other than Virgil, I would have chosen to spend any time with. We had known each other since before my fall from grace, and she treated me as though I had never spent three years in prison. I had chosen her to handle the Kid’s sizable portfolio and she’d been doing an excellent job.

“How are you, Sybil?” We shook hands. “Don’t ask me about my golf game, please. I don’t play and with any luck I never will.”

She grinned briefly. “The day I retire I’m flying to Hawaii, where I will drop my clubs in that volcano and good riddance.”

“Ginny seems to be the only one watching the game.”

“She’s a sports nut. Like her father.”

“Ah.” The divorce had not been one of those purported to be amicable. It was more average. In other words, a freaking horror show.

“He’s here,” she said.

“Here? In New York?”

She looked haunted. “Here, as in at the stadium. He’s a weekend stalker. Ginny told him we were coming East, so he had to come too.”

I knew something about exes and bad divorces. “That’s a little over the top.”

“He’s relentless. I have a restraining order against him in California, but he says it’s invalid here. I don’t know. I can’t compete,” she said, “so I don’t try. How long do these things last, anyway?”

“You could be here for three hours. Four, maybe.”

“God give me strength.”

“The Kid’s here,” I said gesturing with a slight nod of my head. He did not like to be pointed out.

“My favorite client. How is he?”

I thought for a moment before answering. “He is a challenge. And I need that.”

Sybil noticed a florid-faced man approaching. “I need a glass of wine,” she said, brushing past him with a stiff smile.

“You used to have a house out East.” Dean “Dean-o” Harris enjoyed pulling obscure memories out of the air, like a magician releasing doves. I knew his secret. He kept files on his smartphone. “Where did you play? Shinnecock Hills? Sebonack?” This may have been a subtle dig, if Dean-o had been capable of anything subtle in his life, as the courses he mentioned did not cater to mere mortals. The line on the membership application for net worth had ten spaces, and you were expected to use them all. Millionaires and Lotto Winners Need Not Apply.

“I never played the game,” I said. “I guess I was always too busy working.”

Dean laughed. It was a good belly laugh, only partially fueled by the beaker of Bombay Sapphire in his right paw. “You’ve got it all backwards, Jason. The golf course is where all the serious money is made.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He drifted off, no doubt to harass some other unfortunate. Sybil saw him coming and insinuated herself into a clutch of men by the bar.

The Yankees scored and the game came to a halt as Toronto called for a relief pitcher. I sat with the Kid for a few minutes, watching over his shoulder as he battled the video game, until I heard him grinding his teeth. I was stressing him. Hovering. He would begin to growl soon. I got up and fixed myself a sandwich from the mounds of cold cuts provided.

My mouth was full of smoked turkey, gouda, brown mustard, and ciabatta when Virgil swung around again.

“Have you seen anything interesting?” he asked.

Sybil trying to avoid Dean-o didn’t qualify. Most men and all women would have done the same. I shook my head rather than try to talk around the sandwich.

He sipped the beer he was holding and grimaced. Virgil was working hard at being “one of the guys,” but he wasn’t a beer drinker. “Monday morning I meet with the analysts to give them a briefing on third-quarter results, which are due out in another two weeks. I can’t afford to be blindsided by fraud revelations while I’m trying to demonstrate that the firm is finally back on track.”

“Still, you won’t share any hints?” I managed to swallow before asking.

“If you don’t see it, there’s nothing there.” He was gone again, pressing flesh, and fixing eyes with an intensity that made you believe that every word that came from your lips was gospel and he a mere disciple. It was a skill, probably taught in elite prep schools. For all I knew it was heartfelt — the real Virgil Becker. But if it was an act, it was a very good one. Virgil could charm the devil if there was money to be made.

His unspoken message to me, however, was clear. He sensed a problem, but needed my skill set to back up his suspicions. Forcing me to look in any one direction would create a bias he could not afford.

I topped up my seltzer and took my sandwich to the far side of the lounge where there was an unoccupied couch and coffee table and an unobstructed view of the room. And it was a remove from the rambunctious kids and their backslapping fathers. I took my time finishing my lunch and kept watch.

Not much happened. The men drank too much and the noise level increased. There was more laughter. The groups were fluid, as the traders and salesmen drifted back and forth.

The Kid looked up from his game and caught me watching. For a rare moment our eyes met. Somehow I knew that he saw what I was doing and understood. Dad’s working. His eyelids fluttered briefly and he went back to tossing birds.

I watched some more, wishing that I was watching the game instead. I checked the scoreboard occasionally. Yanks were up four. When had that happened? I was wasting my time watching overpaid people consume free food and drink.

Then I saw it. The swirling cocktail party revealed a minor mystery. The pattern repeated. I’d been wrong. A few minutes later when Virgil next looked in my direction I smiled. Grimly. We met at the bar.

“Yes?”

“Harris and Sybil Cooper,” I said.

“Aaaahh.” He was torn, glad that I had identified the problem, and disappointed that there was more than his imaginings here.

“I thought Harris was just being a pest — as per usual. But it’s bigger than that. There’s serious bad blood there.”

Dean Harris and Sybil Cooper were two of the lions in distressed debt. Failed or failing companies. Beyond junk bonds. Harris worked out of New York and Sybil in L.A. but they worked the same side of the street and spoke daily. Harris was paunchy, red-faced, and always on stage. An entertainer, much beloved by his clients. Sybil was a cold, thin brunette who rarely smiled, but held doctorates in both mathematics and economics. She was impatient, strongly opinionated, and usually right. Her clients didn’t love her, but they all wanted to hear what she had to say. She was the only woman there and was used to it.

Their investors made similar trades in extremely illiquid securities. There had never been any hint of outright collusion, but it wouldn’t have mattered. They used the same research, relied upon the same publicly available information, and did not profit one hundred percent of the time. By all accounts, they were legit.

“Whenever they’re in the same group, they don’t say a word to each other. But every so often they meet up in a corner of the room and then they’re waving fingers in each other’s face and looking like they’d love to smack the other one upside the head. But if someone joins them, they drop it and act like best buds.”

“What do you think?” Virgil asked. “No idea, boss. You’d think they were married twenty years and hated each other.”

“I need to know before the meeting Monday morning.”

I’d be working on Sunday. Skeli would be disappointed.

“I’m on it,” I said. Maybe we could fit in a stroll in the park before I headed off.

Virgil must have heard some reluctance in my voice. “Is there a problem?”

“Sybil’s a friend. And a colleague. She’s my son’s F. A.” Financial advisor.

He nodded. Friendships could be hard to maintain when your job required you to be suspicious of everyone. “And?”

“I’m hoping that I turn up zilch.”

“I don’t pay you to be ingenuous.”

I didn’t point out that he paid me because I had an ironclad contract and he had to deliver the green whether I showed up in the office or spent my days watching my daughter play in the sandbox at the Elephant Playground.

“I want you to go over all their recent trades,” Virgil said.

The securities those two focused on tended to trade by appointment only. A few buys and sells a week would be a lot. “I’ll call you at home as soon as I’m done.”

“Good. I’ll ask the two of them to come to my office before the meeting. We’ll do this together and bring in Legal or Compliance later.”

“If we need them,” I said, still hoping that their behavior had something to do with the eraser on Dean-o’s golf pencil, or his foot-wedging ability.

“No,” he said with a sigh. We all knew the temptations, but it was sad to see a colleague succumb. “There’s something there.”

We had a plan. Now I could watch the rest of the game in peace.

“A hundred bucks says the next pitch is a strike,” Virgil said, looking up at the television screen rather than at the field outside.

Across the room, the Kid giggled. I froze. He was still wearing the earbuds.

“Excuse me, Virgil. Damage control.” I ran.

The Kid saw me coming and my conflicting emotions must have been easy for even him to read. Anger, guilt, embarrassment. He jumped up and held the tablet to his chest. I couldn’t get to it to stop the program without a fight, and I couldn’t risk that.

“I want you to turn that off, right now.” My voice was strained and coarse. I sounded like a death-metal singer the morning after. “Now.”

He looked for a place to run, but I had him blocked. He hugged the machine tighter and began rocking — stimming. On the edge of losing control. The room had gone dead quiet. All eyes were focused on our little drama.

“Now!” I said. I tried using urgency rather than volume to make my point. It didn’t work. He pulled away. I reached for the iPad. He lurched to one side. My fingers found the ear-bud cord. He lurched again and the cord came free in my hand.

The volume was up. The background noise was momentarily still. The room filled with the unmistakable sounds of Skeli and me enjoying ourselves in a most primitive manner.

I froze in horror, my back to the room, and watched my son try to suppress his giggles. Outside there was the crack of bat meeting ball and the crowd roared its approval.

“That’s got to be a home run,” Sybil said in a deadpan delivery.

The laughter almost drowned out the crowd. Yankees lead, 5 to 0.

Skeli was not happy. A few hours’ work on a Sunday was going to cost me a foot massage, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Rose, takeout from Gallagher’s Steakhouse, and a quartet of dark chocolate chip cookies from Levain Bakery across the street. And a walk in the park.

“Do you think Virgil is right? Is Sybil dirty?”

“I want to say no, but my heart’s not in it. I’d believe anything of Dean Harris. If you told me he was a pedophile, a mass murderer, and Harvey Weinstein’s wingman, I’d say, ‘Sounds about right.’ I want to think better of her, but I just don’t know. So far we’ve got no evidence. Virgil heard a rumor, and I watched a weird fight unfold.”

Skeli put a hand on the back of my neck and kneaded the tight muscles. I tried to relax into it, but my mind was already at work.

“So, go,” she said. “I want you with me when your head is clear and you can focus on being a dad.”

“I’ll take the Kid,” I said.

“Really? You don’t have to.”

“He can play games at the office as well as here.” It was a stunning fall day, with temps in the mid seventies and mere wisps of cirrus clouds frozen on a Celtic blue background. Children romped. Beautiful young women jogged. Brown-skinned men played soccer, their faces set in deadly earnest. Couples clung or gently touched as they strolled. And my son fired Angry Birds across his iPad screen while sitting on a rock.

“Did you ever get rid of that tape?” she asked.

“Sure,” I lied.

She laughed. “You are such a terrible liar. Did anyone ever tell you that before?”

I sighed. “I used to think I was good at it. I’m out of practice.”

“Well, go, and hurry back.”

“Goodbye, my love.”

“And don’t forget the cookies.”

The Kid nestled himself into a pretzel shape in the spare chair in a corner of my office and quietly played his game. In minutes I was deep into the trade history of Sybil Cooper. My friend.

Out of necessity, I had become a better trade auditor over the last few years. I no longer required a newly minted M.B.A. sitting next to me to understand the columns scrolling in front of my eyes. But I was still a plodder. A tortoise. Slow and steady.

As I had surmised, there were few trades. Sybil was not an active trader, always on the lookout for a quick buck, buying and selling for tenths of pennies on the dollar. Her approach was deliberate, research driven, and always with a long-term outlook. Her clients depended upon her for that. She occasionally made trades for her personal account, but there was no indication that she did so to the detriment of those clients. She did not “front-run” — buying in advance and with foreknowledge of a customer’s intent to purchase — or “dump” — unloading a personal position at a profit on an unsuspecting client. Her last trade had been a client purchase of fifty million dollars face value of bonds of an electronics retail chain that had been in bankruptcy proceedings for the last year. The actual value of the trade was around three mil. The debt traded at a steep discount of about six cents on the dollar. If the company could somehow squeak through and begin making money again, the client could easily earn five, ten, or even fifteen times the initial investment. A more likely scenario was that the judge and creditors would agree on a value somewhere close to six cents. It was a risky trade and not for the faint of heart, but if that magic number turned out to be seven cents on the dollar, the client would still have earned a seventeen-percent return. Risky, yes, but legal, as far as I could see.

The one thing that the trade history did not reveal was intent. Each buy or sell was a fact. A data point, nothing more. I needed to pry open the story behind the facts.

Having learned little, I turned to Dean Harris’s account. And that’s where I found the connection.

In the week before Sybil’s last client trade — the electronics-store bonds — Dean-o had purchased those same bonds for his personal account. Two days before Sybil’s client bought them, Dean-o had sold his position. The firm had been the buyer. I could see the whole scenario. Sybil must have told Dean about the prospective trade. He bought up the bonds in advance, paying five to five and a half cents. He had put up more than three million of his own money. That was a big bet even for a man who took home seven-figure bonuses every year. A sure thing bet. He knew what Sybil’s client was willing to pay. Sybil could not have gotten away with it herself. Trading in those bonds in her personal account just before making a big sale to a client would have been a huge red flag for the Compliance watchdogs. But it wasn’t illegal for Dean to trade — unless, of course, he had prior knowledge. Collusion. Insider trading. Front-running the client.

Dean had cleared almost half a million dollars on that trade alone. I’d only examined three weeks of trades. How many times could they have done this over the past year? It added up quickly. And they’d both worked for the firm for more than ten years.

It was an old scam. Near foolproof if the game was limited to two players. If neither one ever talked, there would never be a reason for an auditor to compare the books. Most fraudsters blow it by bragging or bringing on a friend or two to join in the fun. Then the rumors start to fly. And once an investigator is pointed in the right direction, it’s easy to find the evidence. And it’s easy to explain to a jury.

I felt sad. Sybil didn’t deserve to end her career this way. I didn’t know what had driven her to get involved in this, but I understood the temptation. Easy money. But like Rickie Lee Jones sang, there ain’t no such thing.

It was time to call Virgil and give him the bad news.

My cell phone rang. A number I didn’t recognize. I thought about letting it go to voicemail, but at the last moment I hit the talk button.

“State your business,” I said.

“Jason? Is that you? It’s Sybil. Do you have a minute to talk?”

Synchronicity? Or was Sybil aware of Virgil’s suspicions and trying an end run? Either way, I had to be careful.

“Can it wait? I’m on another call.” Was I really a terrible liar? I hoped not.

“I think it’s important.”

“Your ex? Do you need security? The firm uses off-duty NYPD for these kinds of situations. They won’t hurt him, but he won’t be annoying you anymore.”

Her laugh was forced and nervous. “No. I can handle Dieter, though he is being a royal pain. He’s been hanging around the lobby like a ghoul. No, this is something you have to hear, even if you don’t like it.”

“Hold on just a sec. Let me finish this other call.”

The Kid spoke. I had forgotten he was there. “Pants on fire.”

I would have preferred if he had not noticed my conversation. I should have known better. He heard everything. And he hated lying.

“You’re right, Kid. I will try to do better.” Usually, the Kid is the one who avoids eye contact. This time, it was me, though I didn’t have his excuse. It was cowardice, pure and simple. “Sometimes I cut corners when I shouldn’t. It’s an old bad habit.”

He grunted.

I let Sybil sit on hold for ten seconds while I put my thoughts in order. I needed to record this call. I opened the app.

“Okay, Sybil. I’m back. What’s up?”

“I want to meet with you and Virgil. Before the press briefing tomorrow.”

The Kid spoke again. “How do you cut a corner?”

A complete question, without resorting to jingles or cartoon characters. “Very good. Excellent question. Can we talk about this when I get off the phone?”

“Jason? Are you there?” Sybil asked.

“Sorry. I was just talking to my son. Do you want to tell me what this is about first?”

“Is there anyone in Legal you can trust?”

“The guy who runs Compliance is a good guy. Hal Morris. He’s fair. Now what’s going on? It sounds serious.”

“Tomorrow.” She was gone.

“Why cut a corner?” the Kid asked.

I went out into the hall and closed the door. I should have done that before taking Sybil’s call. Asking the Kid to sit through another phone conversation without an answer might blow up in my lap. And answering his question might take the rest of the afternoon.

“So she knows you’re on her trail.” Virgil listened to the whole story before stating his takeaway.

“I don’t think so. I think she’s coming in to blow the whistle — on Harris and herself.”

“We tape the meeting,” he said.

“No question.”

“And I want a lawyer present.”

After we hear her out, I thought. We had to give her a chance. “Hal can handle it. He won’t overstep and spook her.”

“If what you say bears out, she’s going to jail. Both of them will.”

“Let’s just hear her side before we call in the Feds. Deal?”

“Yes. But let your FBI buddy know we may need him.”

Through the thick door, I could hear the Kid giggle.

Sunday night bath was always easy. The Kid loved to sink below the surface, holding his breath for three or four minutes at a stretch. Once, it had terrified me, but now I understood how much it helped calm and center him. I sat on the toilet and read to him from one of his car books, all of which he had memorized, so he knew immediately when I tried to skip ahead. And I had to keep reading even when he was submerged. He might not have been able to make out my words, but he knew the rhythms.

This night was different. The Kid knew something was up with me and his computer. I’d been eyeing it all evening, overplaying my hand. At one point during our takeout steak dinner, I had managed to slide it off the table and into my lap without being seen. For a moment, the Kid had behaved as though he didn’t miss it. Then he howled. His plate of green beans and grilled cheese flew across the room. He cried out like his skin was on fire and banged his head on the table. My only hope of diverting him was to return the damn computer.

Skeli sipped her champagne. Her favorite. She did not call me an idiot, but only because she is a woman of great restraint. Even I knew that I was an idiot. On the other hand, I had remembered the chocolate cookies.

A dreary quiet descended as I cleaned the floor and started another sandwich for the Kid. Only Tessa was unaffected. She continued to eat her turkey meatballs and broccoli, ignoring her brother’s outburst and the pall that followed.

“No. You may not bring your iPad into the bath,” I said.

The Kid made that sound that a puppy makes when you step on its tail, only he managed to make it last. I was frayed, preoccupied, and not at my best. The Kid reverberated my anxiety. We were trapped in an echo chamber together, each attempt at communication repeated umpteen times, creating an impenetrable wall of mistrust. I wanted to scream, “Just give me the damn thing!” And no matter what I actually said, that was what the Kid heard.

He was naked and clutching the tablet to his skinny chest. Eight years old, and yet no taller than an average first grader.

“Skeli,” I called. “We need help.”

I could hear Tessa fussing. She did not like being changed. When the Kid was that age, I was too involved in the insanity of my job — and a half-billion-dollar fraud that I was running — to pay much attention. Skeli and I were committed to doing things differently.

“Come finish getting her dressed for bed,” Skeli replied.

Given the alternative, I tried the Kid one more time. “Please. Can we put the machine down and have a nice bath? A nice warm bath with bubbles.”

He snarled. “You don’t get to just walk away. I’ll kill you first.”

“What?” I exploded. I held back from repeating the question. I knew what I had heard. “You may not speak to me what way.”

“I’ll kill you, bitch.”

The Kid was way too young for this over-the-top, hormone-driven teenage behavior. It could not be allowed. If I ever heard him talk to Skeli that way I would have a hard time holding my temper.

“You’re grounded, bud. No bath. Get your pajamas on and get into bed. And give me that damn computer.” I whisked it out of his hands and he began to scream. “You will get it back when you show you can control what comes out of your mouth.”

I was angry. We both knew it. But I had to show enough control for both of us. The Kid came at me, teeth gnashing, fingers curved like claws. I sidestepped him, grabbed him one-armed around the waist, and carried him to his room. I tossed him on the bed, a game we often played that usually made him laugh maniacally. He screamed again, then turned over and began to sob.

“When you’re ready to say you’re sorry, you can knock on the door. Until then, you will stay right here.

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” He spit the word out over and over, angry, hurt, and not the least bit contrite.

“Good night,” I said. I stepped out and shut the door.

Skeli was waiting in the hall, Tessa in her arms. “Are you all right? What was that all about?”

“I don’t really know. I certainly triggered something. He threatened to kill me.” I didn’t mention that he had called me “bitch.” I’d been out of prison longer than I’d been in, but the word still carried weight. I tried to shake it off. “We’ll get over it. I’ll talk to his therapist tomorrow.”

“Well, somehow you got the computer away from him.” She smiled and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Let me get her settled and I’ll give you a neck massage.”

I hid the iPad in my office on a shelf behind a row of books — all Library of America collections that I had picked up at the Strand — and poured myself two fingers of Widow Jane. I thought about pouring a third finger, but held off. As bad as the evening had been, it was a sure bet the next morning was going to be worse.

Hal Morris and I met Virgil in his office at six-thirty. Hal had been a U.S. marshal, but after working with him on a case in the Southwest, I had asked Virgil to hire him as head of Compliance. If you were guilty of anything, he was the man who might scare you into a confession. He didn’t say much, and the only thing he admitted to being frightened of was riding the New York City subway.

“She called this meeting,” Virgil said as the clock ticked toward six thirty-five. He quite clearly meant, “Where the hell is she?” but he had too much class to say it out loud.

Virgil’s office was utilitarian. There were plenty of chairs, as he often held meetings there, but they weren’t very comfortable. If offices spoke, his would have said, “We’re all very busy people, so let’s get this over with and get back to work.”

“Traffic? Problems with the daughter? Her ex was hanging around the hotel lobby. Who knows? She’ll be here.”

The analysts’ briefing was scheduled for nine. The press conference was set for nine-fifteen. Everyone would have a break to watch the opening on the NYSE, then the sales meetings would get under way at ten. We had plenty of time, but I could understand Virgil’s impatience. It was a tightly scripted morning.

“Ten minutes,” Virgil said. “Then you call your friend.”

I had a long history with a special agent at the F.B.I., but neither of us would have characterized it as friendship.

“Fifteen?” I countered. Never take the first offer.

“No,” he said.

His desk phone rang. He hit the speakerphone button and spoke. “Becker.”

“Mr. Becker? This is front-desk security calling. Sorry to bother you so early in the day, but there are two NYPD detectives here who want to come up.”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “And they want to talk to me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do they say what they want?”

“No, sir, but they’re from Homicide.”

Sybil Cooper was found dead in her suite by the maid who had gone in to do the evening turndown. The daughter was missing. Detectives Masi and Menendez had been up all night working the case and wanted “background” information. Virgil and I filled them in, answering as many questions as we could. In return, we got to ask one or two.

“How did she die?” I asked. I wanted to ask, “Did she suffer?” but forced myself to maintain a professional veneer. We were talking about someone I knew and cared about; Sybil was not merely a body.

Masi wore her hair cropped short and had hooded, tired eyes. She was in charge, and while she didn’t flaunt it, there was no question about it either. Menendez sat back and tried to make himself comfortable in his chair. The effort was pointless.

“Multiple blows to the head and neck,” Masi answered. “We’re thinking a curved object. A bar or a pipe. The perp probably brought it with him and took it away when he left.”

Premeditation, I thought. Murder, not manslaughter.

“You’re sure it’s a he?” Virgil asked.

“There’d be video,” Hal interjected. “The corridors, the lobby, the elevators.” He turned to Masi. “Do you have him?”

“We will,” Menendez answered. He was wearing a striped shirt with a paisley tie. He either thought of himself as daring, fashionwise, or he was unmarried. I would have bet the latter.

“I spoke to her yesterday,” I said. “She told me her ex-husband was stalking her. But she didn’t sound afraid. Annoyed, maybe.”

“Where were you yesterday evening?” Menendez asked.

As a general rule, I try to avoid talking to the police. Living a life of perpetual suspicion, dividing humanity into perps and marks, and constantly being faced with the collateral damage of sociopaths tends to make one an uncomfortable companion. Their job was tough too. And, having once been to prison, I would always be, in their eyes, an ex-con. Unreliable at best. Most likely a liar. As a witness, I would be willing to sell my testimony to the highest bidder. But always a suspect.

“Home,” I said.

“Alone?”

“With my family,” I answered.

“We can check that.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Virgil cut us off before we got to slapping each other and saying things like “Am too!” and “Are not!”

“Are you sure it’s the husband?”

Masi nodded. “Pretty sure. At this point, he is a person of interest, but your man is right. We have him on video. We’ve matched the face to his California driver’s license. We have him leaving the hotel with the daughter a little after five.”

“It’s been an ugly custody battle,” I said. “But the daughter wouldn’t sneak out with her dad if her mother was bleeding out on the floor upstairs.”

“No,” Masi said. “We think he came back. Alone. We’ve got a man delivering a large bouquet ten minutes later. He’s very careful to keep the flowers covering his face, but he fits the body type. We can see Ms. Cooper let him in. Five minutes later, he comes out. Still carrying the flowers.”

“Same issue. Different problem,” I said. “There’s no way Sybil would have let her daughter take off with Dieter like that.”

Masi shook her head. “They had a two-bedroom suite. When we came in, the other door was closed and the television was on. Ms. Cooper might never have known the girl was gone.”

“Any sign of the two of them?” Virgil asked.

“We’ll find them,” Menendez said.

“They’re not on a plane,” Masi said. “We think they’re still in the area.”

“Let me know if there’s anything the firm can do to help,” Virgil said. “I can’t imagine what that would be, but the offer is real.”

Masi stood up and shook hands across the desk. Menendez moved toward the door without any ceremony. Hal extended his hand and Masi took it. I didn’t wait to be snubbed. I opened the door and ushered them out.

“What now?” Virgil looked exhausted. He had two hours to recover and get pumped for the morning’s meetings. I was exhausted too. A friend’s murder will do that to you.

“We’ve got Dean Harris in...” I checked my watch. “Seven minutes.”

“I can’t,” Virgil said. “I want a massage and a sauna and a double espresso. You two handle him.”

“What do you want us to do?” I said.

Virgil turned to Hal. “If we have to make good on all the front-running trades how much are we on the hook for?”

Hal looked surprised. “I’d need a week to dig them all out.”

“Millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds?”

“Okay. Tens, maybe. Not hundreds.”

“I agree. Put a freeze on his accounts. If he resigns quietly and cooperates with an internal investigation, we will allow him to withdraw enough cash to pay legal bills and reasonable family expenses. Next, draft a letter for my signature to the SEC describing the situation and pledging our full cooperation.”

It would be difficult to prove a conspiracy with only one of the actors available. But that didn’t mean Dean-o would get a pass.

Virgil continued. “Jason, I want you to borrow some people from accounting and start pulling out all of the trades that might qualify as front-running. Every one.”

“How far back? There’s got to be a statute of limitations.”

“All the way back to when they first began working here. I want full disclosure. Understood?”

“Very good,” I said.

“But no matter what, I want that son of a bitch out of the building in one hour. Or less.”

Monday nights were tough on all of us. Tessa was cranky because she’d been deprived of her mother all day. Her mother was cranky because, as much as she loved her work, it took her away from Tessa four long days each week. The Kid did not transition well in the best of times — vacations could be difficult — but Mondays were the worst.

“I don’t care what happens. I don’t care what happens.” He must have muttered the phrase a hundred times through dinner.

“Do you know what this is about?” I asked.

Skeli shrugged. She and Tessa were bonding over chicken soup.

I wanted some sympathy about my day, but there was no chance I was going to get it. The fact that I knew I didn’t deserve it did nothing to lift my spirits.

Sybil’s death still hadn’t fully penetrated. I’d pay for it later. Grief will out. Neither of us had a world of friends. Each loss was like losing a limb.

And the session with Dean Harris had been particularly unpleasant. Hal Morris was a dependable, steady, honest man, but he wasn’t much of a talker. That left me in the position of firing a man who didn’t work for me, and negotiating his cooperation in his own discharge. It was a challenge, and if Dean-o had not hated me before, he certainly did now.

At first, Virgil’s one-hour deadline had felt like an impediment as Harris lied and denied, explaining the trades with long-winded fabrications. But once he was convinced that we had the evidence, the tables turned. And when, forty-five minutes in, I called security and asked for two officers to escort him out, there was total capitulation. He bluffed, raged, and cajoled, but in the end, he cried.

Which was a fair description of my session with the Kid when I got home. He wanted his computer back, but refused to show any remorse for his threats and curses. He told me, “This has gone on long enough,” and once screamed, “Don’t make threats,” when I told him that I was keeping his iPad until he showed some real contrition. I felt like a bully, not a parent. We were at a stalemate. But as much as I wished it was over, and that my son could accept some responsibility, I also admired his tenacity. He had a lot more guts than Dean Harris.

We got both children into bed, Skeli taking the Kid, and I took care of the dishes while Skeli sank onto the couch and continued her binge-watch of Game of Thrones. I had tried one episode with her and bowed out. The show was too much like work.

My home office was less a man cave than a nook, or wall recess, but it was recognized by the family as my space, where I was allowed some privacy. I poured myself a thimble-sized portion of bourbon — tomorrow was going to be no easier than today had been — and dug out the Kid’s iPad from behind the row of black books. I opened it and went to work. It was time to find and remove the offending clip.

The recording app was simple to use, even for an adult. One click opened it and a second dropped a file menu. The Kid had hundreds.

Hundreds. How awful a parent was I that I had not realized that all this was there? I poured a heftier dose of bourbon and began to search.

None of the files were named, they were identified by a series of sevendigit numbers that must have been generated by the app itself, with the largest files listed first. There was no way to identify which of these was the object of my search. I began to open them at random.

There were a lot of files of dogs barking. Someone sneezing. Someone snoring — possibly me. I found a short loop of Skeli saying, in a terribly annoyed voice, “Stop that.” It was funny if you played it three or four times in succession. It was a side of her I rarely got to see.

It was impossible. A random approach would take me forever. I went back to the menu and worked my way through commands until I found a Sort by Date button. I hit it. The most recent recordings were listed first. Now I could see that they were all dated. I needed Saturday. There were seven, all of varying lengths. All were audio only. I clicked on the first.

The crowd at Yankee stadium was chanting “Let’s Go Yan-kees.” Much too late in the day. I should have skipped to the last Saturday entry, as that would be the first that morning. I went to swipe the screen back to the previous page with the list of files, but stopped when I heard a familiar voice.

It was Sybil. “This has gone on long enough.”

Armies of multiped mini monsters whisked across my shoulders and down my arms. There was a chill in my back. The voice of my recently deceased friend leapt out of the machine and strangled me. I was choking and at the same time tears were collecting at the corners of my eyes. I hit the pause button.

Was I going to be able to do this? It was all too soon, too raw. I had been able to avoid my grieving with constant activity, doing what I did, what I was good at. Investigating. But faced with the all-too-real sound of her voice, I was defenseless.

Breathing came easier. I felt my pulse return to something more like normal. I had to do this. For her. For the Kid. I started the file and listened to it repeat.

Then came Dean Harris’s voice, rumbling in the background. I couldn’t make out the words. Only the tone. He was angry. “Don’t make threats.” Sybil again. “I don’t care what happens.”

I opened the next file. “You can’t do this, bitch.” Slightly slurred with Bombay gin, but dripping with venom, it was undeniably Dean. He went on. “You don’t get to just walk away. I’ll kill you first.” In the background I heard the crack of a bat and the roar of the stadium crowd. The file stopped playing and a smiling clock face appeared as it reloaded.

The next three files were variations on the first two. I called Virgil.

The Kid was sleeping. I stood over him in his darkened room, the only light the diffused glow of nighttime Manhattan. It flowed around the edges of the blinds and echoed off the ceiling. There was just enough illumination for me to see the line of miniature cars on the shelf over his bed, spaced with alarming regularity in a pattern only he could see. I could see my son’s shape beneath the “Mickey and the Gang Super Soft” blanket and the sheet that wound around him like a mummy’s shroud. I listened to the comforting sound of his breathing. Relaxed. For the moment, he was safe from the nightmares.

“I’m sorry, Kid,” I began. “You were trying to tell me something and I didn’t get it. I wish I could promise you that it will never happen again, but we both know that’s not true. I’m going to screw up again. I’m sorry for that too.”

His breathing continued, soft and regular.

“You’ll get your iPad back tomorrow. I need it to play those files for the cops, so they can get that bad man. You did well, son. I’m proud of you.”

I thought of telling him that his father was an idiot, but decided he could figure it out on his own.

Virgil would have the detectives at his office by the time I got downtown. It was time to go.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. There wasn’t anything else to say other than, “Good night, son.”

Masi and Menendez thanked me, but they were going to take the Kid’s iPad with them. He might get it back after the trial. That wasn’t going to work. I’d made a promise. I made a note to stop at the twenty-four-hour Apple store on the way home. Would the Kid tolerate a new — different — machine? I could only try.

“Does this get the ex-husband off the hook?” Virgil asked. “What’s his name?”

“Dieter,” I said.

“I can’t say,” Masi answered. “He and the girl were hiding out at a friend’s house in Sag Harbor. He seemed genuinely surprised — and upset — when we told him about the girl’s mother.”

We were all gathered in Virgil’s office again. It was late, coming on toward Tuesday morning. Everyone was exhausted but Masi. The conversations we’d been listening to on the Kid’s iPad had her pumped.

“It sounds to me like he was blackmailing her,” Virgil said. “But over what, I can’t imagine.”

I could. All it ever takes is one mistake. Somehow Sybil had once made one and Dean had caught it.

“Once she started feeding trades to Dean, she was stuck,” I said. “She couldn’t admit to that kind of ongoing fraud. The Feds would have destroyed her. She couldn’t get out and she couldn’t go on. The only way to survive was to keep feeding the beast.”

“But she threatened to do just that,” Masi said. “She told Dean she was going to turn herself in. He couldn’t afford to let that happen.”

“So he killed her,” I said.

“We’ll pick him up now,” she said. “I’ve asked for two uniforms to meet us at the Park Avenue address. Thanks again for your help.”

This time both of them shook my hand before they left.

Virgil was played out. “So why did she do it?” It was Virgil’s blind spot. His father, brother, and sister had all become crooked, but Virgil never fully understood the motives of a cheat. “And why the sudden attack of conscience?”

“She was a parent,” I said. “Maybe she just wanted to be able to look her kid in the eye without having to blink.”

The Apple store was humming at one in the morning. It was a typical New York crowd of downtown hipsters, punks from Alphabet City, grad students, professionals, zombies, and vampires.

“Are you being helped?”

An Apple acolyte stood before me. She was twenty-something, dark-haired, round-faced, and as coolly indifferent as a robot.

I told her what I wanted and tried to describe the apps the Kid used.

“Sure. We can get him the latest version of Angry Birds,” she said.

“Can you get him an older version?” I said. “He doesn’t do well with new.”

“I can get someone to help you with that.”

“It’s important. He uses this one other app all the time these days. It records and plays back sound bites and...” I tailed off as the realization hit.

“You all right, mister?” she wanted to know.

“No. I’m not,” I said. I never had gotten around to erasing that file of Skeli and me.

© 2018 by Michael Sears