The Match

Chapter Fifteen

Wilde got rid of the car back at Ernie’s. Ernie would do whatever he needed to make sure the car could never be traced. When something like this went down, that usually entailed stripping down the vehicle for parts. Ernie wouldn’t ask Wilde for details, and Wilde wouldn’t ask Ernie. Safer for all parties.

Rola picked him up. He handed her the flash drive. Then he filled her in as she drove him away in a Honda minivan loaded up with child safety seats. Her face grew grim as he spoke.

“This flash drive,” she said. “I better do the full analysis myself.”

“You can do that?”

“If it’s not too complicated, yeah. Don’t get me wrong. I trust my experts. They understand discretion.”

“But you don’t want to put them in that position.”

“Not when there’s a dead body.”

Wilde nodded. “Fair.”

“Still, we can’t be the bad guys here. If we find something that can help the police locate the killer, we turn it over to them, right?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it’s your cousin?”

“Especially if.”

Rola veered toward the Route 17 exit. “You could sleep at my place tonight if you want. I have great internet.”

“I’m good.”

Ten minutes later, she put on her blinkers and pulled onto the shoulder in a pitch-black area. Wilde kissed her cheek, got out, and disappeared into the woods. There was nothing more to be done tonight. He would go back to his Ecocapsule and get some sleep. He was about a hundred yards from it when his phone buzzed. It was a text from Laila:

Wilde typed back a reply: Did you talk to Matthew?

He smiled in the dark and started in the direction of Laila’s backyard. He didn’t really worry about Darryl. That was her concern, not his. He didn’t worry about doing the right thing by Laila by staying away or any of that because, really, how patronizing would that be to Laila? He was transparent with her, and she understood the situation. Who was he to “rescue” her from making her own decisions, even when he questioned the wisdom of them?

Nice rationalization.

Laila met him at the back door. Matthew wasn’t home. They headed straight upstairs. Wilde stripped down and stepped into the shower. Laila joined him. At seven in the morning, after the longest stretch of sleep he’d had in eons, Wilde blinked his eyes open and saw Laila sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out the window into the woods off the backyard. He stared at her profile and said nothing.

Without turning toward him, Laila said, “We will have to talk about this.”

“Okay.”

“But not today. I still need to figure out a few things.”

Wilde sat up. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No.” Laila faced him full-on, and when she did, he felt the thud in his chest. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

He didn’t. Not really. Some people like to talk things out. It helps them find solutions to problems. For Wilde, it was the opposite. He found that he often learned more by keeping it internal, letting the pressure build until the answers rose to the top. To mix metaphors, when he started talking things out, it felt like a balloon losing air.

Still, he understood the value in bouncing off another human being, especially one as insightful as Laila, not to mention the fact that he could see it would bring her some measure of joy or satisfaction. He told her what he could about Peter Bennett, leaving out last night’s corpse discovery.

“Occam’s razor,” Laila said when he finished.

He waited.

“The most likely answer is that your cousin was distraught over this scandal which cost him his marriage, his fame, his life in his eyes — and ended it.”

Wilde nodded.

“But you don’t buy that explanation.”

“I don’t know.”

“Whatever happened to Peter Bennett, it probably relates to his being a reality star.”

“Most likely.”

“And I imagine your knowledge of that world is somewhat limited.”

“You have a thought?”

“I do.”

“And that is?”

“Let’s get you educated on the subject.”

“How?”

“Matthew and Sutton will be here in an hour.”

“You want me to leave?”

“No, I want you to stay. They’re the ones who are going to educate you.”

All four of them — Wilde, Laila, Matthew, Sutton — spent the next several hours streaming episodes from the PB&J season of Love Is a Battlefield.

Sutton watched Wilde. “You hate this, right?”

He saw no reason to lie. “I do, yes.”

It would be hackneyed for Wilde to note that the series was inane, repetitive, manipulative, dishonest, scripted, and even abusive — almost no contestant got out unscathed, without being mocked or ridiculed or made to look evil or heartbroken or deranged — but there was often too fine a line between hackneyed and truth. Wilde had tried to watch the show with an open mind and low expectations, understanding that he was far from the target audience, but Love Is a Battlefield was worse and even more destructive than he had imagined.

Matthew and Sutton held hands while they watched. Wilde sat in the chair to their right. Laila moved in and out of the room.

“My father thinks it marks the end of civilization,” Sutton said.

Wilde smiled at that.

“But the thing is, we get it,” Sutton said. “Parents watch and think, ‘Oh, these contestants are such horrible examples for our children, blah, blah, blah.’ But it’s the opposite. They’re lessons.”

“How so?” Wilde asked.

“No one wants to be like these car wrecks,” Sutton said, gesturing toward the screen. “It would be like watching a crime show and worrying that you’ll start wanting to murder someone. We mostly watch these people and think, ‘Oh, I’d never want to be like them.’”

An interesting point, Wilde thought, though it hardly redeemed the awful voyeuristic appeal of the show. On the other hand, the contestants clearly knew what they’d signed up for, and Wilde was not in the judging business. If it didn’t cause harm, who was he to turn up his nose at it?

Then again, were lives harmed?

Wasn’t plucking unknown young people, often overly emotional and volatile people, and throwing their gas-soaked bodies into this fame tinderbox of a show asking for trouble?

Did this TV show destroy Peter Bennett?

Love Is a Battlefield’s plot points were about what he’d expected, though ridiculously heightened, but it did help to watch a few episodes to get the full flavor. There were a lot of players (the show wisely put their names on a bottom scroll) and tons of manufactured drama, but in the end, it came down to a simple story we have seen many times. Jenn had to choose between two men. One was the dangerously sexy “Big Bobbo.” That was what the blowhard Bob Jenkins called himself on the show — Big Bobbo — always referring to himself in the third person (“Big Bobbo digs a round ass, girls. None of that flat-ass stuff for Big Bobbo, ’kay?”) during the inane “interviews” that were intercut into the drama. The other choice was the handsome, sweet, kind Peter Bennett, sculpted here as the perfect boy to bring home to meet Mom and Dad. Originally, Peter was portrayed as the “too safe” choice for Jenn, but eventually, based on the audience reaction too, the show lost any semblance of nuance: Big Bobbo was the evil, faux-charming, smarmy villain, while hero-knight Peter was Jenn’s path to true love and fulfillment, if only she could see the truth.

The endless teasers, especially as the series wore on, made it look so much like Jenn was going to select Big Bobbo that you knew there was no way she wouldn’t end up with Peter. Still, the producers wrung every molecule of “suspense” out of the Final Battle, including a “fight” scene with tons of smoke in which it looked as though Big Bobbo had won, only for Jenn to cast him aside for the “winner of her heart,” Peter Bennett.

Cue the strings.

“Big Bobbo’s family was a total hoot, right?” Sutton said. “His mom got cast in Senior Battlefield.”

“Senior? So that’s...?”

“Pretty much the same show but with senior citizens. Those home visits are pretty wild. Did you see Peter’s brother Silas? The guy didn’t say a word the whole time. Just kept tugging down on that trucker hat. He became kinda famous as a grouch. Anyway, his sisters seemed nice, but none of them had any star potential. But Big Bobbo’s mom? She’s a hoot.”

“How upset was Big Bobbo by his loss?” Wilde asked.

“Not very,” Sutton said. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Big Bobbo.”

Wilde shrugged.

“Anyway, Big Bobbo was immediately cast on the spinoff show Combat Zone.”

“A spinoff show?”

“It’s basically all the most popular losing contestants thrown together on some island and they start hooking up. Lots of spilt tea and drama. Anyway, Big Bobbo was constantly on the Front Lines with various women. He made both Brittany and Delila fall in love with him, and then he slayed them at the Firing Squad — in the very first episode. Both of them. I think it was the first time the show ever had a double slay.”

Wilde kept his face expressionless. “And Jenn and Peter?”

“They became PB&J,” Sutton said, “maybe the most beloved couple in the show’s history. I know you think the show is dumb and so do we, but we have watch parties where we sit around and comment and laugh and... we just get it, Wilde. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“There’s one other thing. It may be a personal belief on my part, but I think it’s true.”

“What’s that?”

“Yes, it’s manipulative and edited to tell a specific story and all that, but the contestants can’t deceive the audience forever.”

“I’m not following.”

“Your cousin Peter. I don’t think it’s just an act. He really is a good person — and Big Bobbo really is a douchebag. It isn’t merely role-playing. After a while, no matter how much they try to hide who they really are, the camera somehow exposes their true self.”

Wilde felt his phone buzz. It was a one-word text from Hester:

He excused himself and headed outside. He’d checked online to see if there had been any reports on a murder in Connecticut or anything on McAndrews. So far, there had been nothing. He called Hester back. She answered on the first ring.

“I’m going to give you the good news first,” Hester said, “because the bad news is really bad.”

“Okay.”

“I reached Jenn Cassidy’s agent. Jenn is in town for some promotional thingy and agreed to meet with me.”

“How did you get her to agree to see you?”

“Honey, I work on television. That’s all Jenn’s agent needed to know. They think maybe I’ll do a positive profile on her or something. Doesn’t matter. I’m meeting her. I can ask her about your cousin Peter. That’s the good news.”

“And the bad news?”

“The murder victim in Connecticut was indeed Henry McAndrews.”

“Okay.”

“Henry McAndrews,” Hester said again, “as in ‘former assistant chief of the Hartford Police Department Henry McAndrews.’”

Wilde felt his stomach drop. “He’s a cop?”

“Retired and well decorated.”

Wilde said nothing.

“One of their own is dead, Wilde. You know how this is going to go.”

“Like I said, I have no interest in protecting a killer.”

“Correction: cop killer.”

“So noted,” Wilde said.

“Oren is really upset.”

“Tell me what they know so far.”

“McAndrews has been dead at least two weeks.”

“Was he reported missing?”

“No. Henry and Donna were separated. He was using that house, and she stayed in Hartford. They’ve had no contact.”

“Cause of death?”

“Three gunshots to the head.”

“What else?”

“That’s about it. The media will pick it up soon. Wilde?”

“What?”

“You can talk to Oren. Off the record.”

“Not yet, but have him tell the cops to search McAndrews’s computer.” Something in Wilde’s head clicked. “I’d also like to know what McAndrews was doing in retirement.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, was he working? Was he just living off his pension?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“If his murder is connected to my cousin—”

“Which seems likely, no?”

“Maybe, I don’t know, whatever. But what was McAndrews doing? Was he just a typical anonymous trolling fan — or was he hired to troll?”

“Either way, you know who is going to be a prime suspect?”

He did. Peter Bennett.