The Match

Chapter Twenty

Chris Taylor waited for the full Boomerang animal menagerie to log into the secure video conferencing. The Giraffe came in first, followed by the Kitten and the Alpaca. A minute later, Polar Bear appeared. That made up the quorum. When they began this venture, they all agreed to a number of rules to protect their identities, the group in general, and their work. They also made rules about a quorum — that is, five out of six of them had to be present to discuss anything. If two couldn’t make it, you just postponed the meeting.

“Let’s wait a second for Panther.”

They waited far longer than a second. Chris sent out another reminder. Again for reasons of safety, no one in the group could directly message another member. All messages had to go to the entire Boomerang menagerie.

“Panther isn’t responding,” Giraffe said.

“They didn’t respond to the earlier call,” Kitten added.

The group all identified as they/them, not so much out of true gender or politics, but because it was one more layer of protection. Chris had no idea of the real genders. This could be a group of him and five females or him and five males or any other combination under the sun. He had no idea where they lived other than Kitten telling them they went by Central European Time, so as to facilitate scheduling meetings when they were all awake.

“No reason to panic,” Polar Bear said. “We only got Lion’s message today.”

That was true, but Chris did not like this. He did not like this at all. It would be one thing if one of the others was missing. He’d be worried, yes, but of all people to be a no-show, the Panther?

“We have the quorum,” Giraffe said. “Do you want to tell us what’s up now or do you want to wait for Panther?”

Chris thought about it. “I would be happier if Panther especially was here.”

“Why especially?”

“Because this involves them.”

“How so?”

Then, thinking more about it, Chris said, “I’m going to screen share something with all of you.”

He brought up an article from page one of the Hartford Courant. There was a large headshot of Henry McAndrews in his blue uniform. The headline above his smiling visage read:

Polar Bear spoke first. “Henry McAndrews. Why do I know that name?”

“He was a case file,” Chris said.

“Victim or perpetrator?” Giraffe asked.

Chris hit another button on his computer. “I just sent you all the file. Panther presented the case. McAndrews was a perpetrator.”

“My God, what punishment level did we give?”

“None,” Chris said.

“I don’t get it,” Giraffe said.

“Here’s the quick refresher. Panther presented the case of a reality star being trolled online.”

“Oh right,” Polar Bear said. “The PB in PB&J. My daughter is a fan—” Polar Bear stopped, probably catching themselves giving something personal away. “I’m familiar with the show.”

“Peter Bennett,” Chris said. “He was involved in a reality-show scandal and as usual, the internet exploded with hate and vitriol to the point that the guy’s life was ruined. There are rumors he committed suicide or maybe he faked it, whatever.”

“I remember,” Kitten said. “But hadn’t Peter Bennett been a sleazebag too?”

“Probably,” Chris said. “He was outed on a podcast for cheating and maybe even roofying women. No proof or anything. Just an accusation. But we all decided, correctly in my view, that we had more deserving victims who needed our attention.”

“We passed on him?”

“Yes.”

“And if I remember, Panther was unhappy about that,” Kitten said. “The Panther suggested the lowest storm — just give the McAndrews guy a Category 1 even. Teach him not to be such an asshole.”

“Did we know the troll was a cop?” Polar Bear asked.

“We didn’t get that far because we decided not to go forward,” Chris said. “Would it have mattered?”

“I guess not.”

Silence.

“Hang on,” Kitten said. “We’ve all had plenty of cases that didn’t move ahead to the punishment stage. It’s part of what we all signed up for. Are you suggesting now that the Panther went rogue?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Chris said.

“McAndrews was a city cop,” Polar Bear said. “I would imagine he made his share of enemies. So maybe his death is just a coincidence. Maybe it has nothing to do with us.”

“Maybe,” Chris agreed with zero enthusiasm.

“The headline says, a ‘gangland’ slaying. Maybe that’s what this was. Or maybe, hell, this guy was a serious troll.”

“So?”

“So maybe he trolled someone else and they went after him.”

“Right,” Giraffe added. “Or maybe it was a routine break-in. Or maybe, like Polar Bear and Kitten are implying, this McAndrews was just an asshole with a gun, a badge, and the kind of psycho inferiority complex that made him a troll.”

“Right,” Kitten chimed in. “We know Panther would never betray our trust.”

“Do we?” Chris asked.

“What?”

“We don’t know any of us,” Chris said. “That’s kind of the point. And I would agree with you normally. I would think that there was an excellent chance that the murder of Henry McAndrews had nothing to do with us. In fact, an hour ago, I figured there was a sixty-to-seventy-five-percent chance that Boomerang had zero involvement in his death.”

“So what made you change your mind?” Giraffe asked.

“Come on, Giraffe.” It was Kitten with their British accent. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“What?”

Chris handled it. “Panther isn’t here. He’s” — he stopped himself and went back to the neutral identification — “I mean, they are our only no-show.”

“Panther has never missed a meeting before,” Giraffe added.

“In all the times we’ve met,” Polar Bear said, “the entire group has attended. Except that one time when Kitten let us know they wouldn’t be there.”

“Exactly,” Chris said. “It was Panther’s case. And now Panther isn’t replying to our messages.”

Silence.

“So what do we do?” Giraffe asked.

“We have a very specific protocol in place,” Chris said.

Polar Bear: “Are you saying we break the glass?”

“Yes.”

“I agree,” Kitten said.

“It seems extreme,” Giraffe said.

“That’s my take too,” Polar Bear said. “We promised to break the glass only in the direst of emergencies. All of us have to agree. It can’t be four out of five.”

“I know,” Chris said.

This had been Boomerang’s top-level security from the start. None of them knew the others. That was a huge part of it. If one was caught, they couldn’t sell out the others, even if they wanted to, no matter how much pressure was put on them to turn. There was no way to track each other down.

Unless they “broke the glass.”

All of their names were in a secure file with every protection known to man implemented. Each member of Boomerang had created their own unique twenty-seven-digit security code. If all five put in their codes within ten seconds of the others, the five animals could see the name of the sixth member of Boomerang. That was the only way. All five had to put in their individual codes at the same time — and even then, they would only get the identity of the sixth member.

“Let’s go through this step-by-step for a second,” Chris said. “We have a past target, Henry McAndrews, who has been murdered.”

“He wasn’t a past target,” Polar Bear said. “He was a potential target. In the end, we chose not to proceed.”

“I stand corrected. A potential target. His case was presented to us by Panther, who is currently not replying to our messages. There are several possibilities, including several possibilities which can be boiled down to this: It’s a coincidence. We deal with a lot of people who are acting rashly. The fact that one is murdered is no guarantee it has a connection to us.”

“That was the argument we half-heartedly made,” Kitten said, “before we remembered that Henry McAndrews was brought to us by our one missing member.”

“Correct. I think for the purposes of this discussion, let’s put the coincidence possibility to the side. Let’s say that Henry McAndrews’s murder is directly connected to us. More to the point, let’s say the murder is directly connected to Panther’s disappearance.”

“Whoa, that’s a little strong,” Polar Bear said. “Disappearance? We don’t know that. Has it even been twenty-four hours? Look, we are all very engaged in the tech world. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. I don’t know about you, but when I need a break — and that happens — I go cold turkey. I go on a boat out on the water where I don’t have any mobile service or internet. There is a chance, a decent chance, that Panther has done the same.”

“Without telling us?” Kitten countered. “And by coincidence, they choose to do so at this very moment?”

“So you think what, Kitten? That Panther murdered a police chief because he bothered some pretty-boy reality winner?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Chris stepped in. “I think what Kitten is saying — or at least, what I’m saying — is that we need to find out what happened here.”

“By outing Panther?”

“By getting Panther’s name, yes. This way, we can check on them and make sure they’re okay.”

“I agree,” Kitten said.

“I’m against it,” Polar Bear said. “For a lot of reasons.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“First, sorry, it’s still too early. If it were me, if I were Panther in this scenario, I would not want you to out me. So I’m hard-pressed to do it to Panther.”

“What else?”

“If you’re right, Lion, if this is directly connected to Panther, then I can only see two possibilities. One, Panther was so incensed by our decision not to punish this McAndrews that he took matters into his own hands. I know, I know, I’m supposed to say ‘they.’ For all I know, Panther is a woman. But I find it awkward so let me just speak this way, okay? So that’s one possibility, right? That Panther lost his mind and killed McAndrews and now he’s ghosting us.”

“Okay.”

“Except that’s pretty damn unlikely. Sure, Panther pushed for us to okay a low-level hurricane on McAndrews, but he didn’t seem super upset about it. If he had, if Panther really pleaded for us to punish McAndrews, I think we would have relented. But he didn’t. So why would he go and kill him?”

“Fair point,” Chris conceded.

“Then let me take it another step. If Panther did decide to kill McAndrews and ghost us, well, he knows that we might break the glass. We would get his real name. We would be able to track him down. So ghosting us makes no sense.”

Chris nodded. On the screen, he could see the Lion’s head nod too.

“So what does that leave us?” Polar Bear asked. “Well, one possibility, maybe the most obvious one, is that the Panther was careless. Maybe this Peter Bennett was able to trace down the Panther as their contact.”

“Impossible,” Chris said. “We have too many security layers in place.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t infallible. There is a reason we set up breaking the glass and all these protocols. Because we knew that there was a chance someone might come after us. We set this up so that if that happened — and maybe it has now — we could keep the rest of us safe. So let’s say someone got to Panther. I don’t know how or why. But they got to him. Let’s say, worst-case scenario — Panther has flipped or he’s hurt or he’s dead. If so, by rushing to his aid we may be exposing ourselves to greater harm.”

They all considered Polar Bear’s argument.

“What you’re saying makes sense,” Chris said, “but a man has been murdered. I still vote for getting Panther’s identity.”

“I agree with Lion,” Kitten said.

“Me three,” Alpaca said.

“I’m still on the fence,” Giraffe said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Polar Bear said. “It has to be unanimous, and sorry, gang, but I want to wait another day or two. Let’s give Panther a chance to reply. Let’s give the local police a chance to solve the murder. Waiting a few days won’t matter. We aren’t in danger if we don’t act.”

Chris was not so sure. “You’re officially blocking us from breaking the glass, Polar Bear?”

“I am, yes.”

“Okay,” Chris said, “that’s final then. Let’s all stay in touch and keep an eye on the McAndrews case in the meantime. Alpaca, maybe take a look at what Panther came up with. Maybe there is someone in that file we think is good for the crime.”

“On it.”

“How long do you want to give this, Polar Bear?”

“Forty-eight hours,” Polar Bear said. “If we don’t hear anything from Panther by then, we break the glass.”