Virtually Dead

Chapter Nine

A phalanx of police and forensics vehicles was parked in the street at the foot of the steps leading to Janey’s bungalow. This suburban street ran parallel to the highway that followed the line of the ocean, but several streets back and well up the hill. There were more vehicles than he would have expected. Several unmarked cars and only one patrol car. Three forensics vans were drawn up side by side, which was unusual. But, then, maybe not, given whose address this was.

The van hadn’t yet arrived to remove the body, which gave Michael fleeting hope that perhaps it wasn’t a fatality after all. He grabbed his gear from the trunk and leaped up the steps in twos, breathless by the time he reached the wooden veranda that ran along the front of the bungalow.

Two uniformed cops stood smoking just outside the front door. They turned as he hurried up the last few steps on to the veranda. “What’s going on?”

“Looks like murder, Mike.” The cop regarded him grimly.

“Who?”

The officers exchanged uneasy glances. “You better go take a look.”

Michael felt sick now as he hurried into the house. He had been here often. Everything about it was familiar: the worn carpet, the scuffed kickboards, the smell of stale cooking that came from the kitchen. The hall seemed to be full of people, but he was barely aware of them. He heard someone say, “Take it easy, Mike.”

He turned into the doorway of the sitting room at the front of the house. Someone had already rigged up lights, and the scene was thrown into sharp contrast by the glare. More people congregated here. Faces he recognised, some half obscured by surgical masks. The deputy coroner was crouched over a body, and stood up as Michael came in. A silence fell on the room.

The body of a young woman lay twisted in the middle of the floor, hair fanned out across the carpet. She wore jeans and sneakers, and her white tee-shirt was soaked in blood. It was Janey.

Michael felt his legs almost give way beneath him. A wave of nausea rose from his stomach. Someone grabbed his arm. And he knew there was no way he could take photographs of her. He had known Janey for nearly fifteen years. They had started the same week at the FSS offices at Santa Ana. She was a couple of years older than him, and they had become good friends. Not in any sexual way, although it had been clear from the start that she found him attractive. There was, however, nothing attractive about Janey except her personality. But few men had got to know her well enough to find that out. Her hair was a straight, mousy brown, plain cut, usually drawn back in an untidy ponytail. She had a thin face with a nose like a blade and eyes set slightly too wide behind her thick glasses. She had a boy’s figure, with no waist, and an almost flat chest. There was nothing very feminine about her. She wore no make-up, and Michael had never seen her in a skirt, only jeans and sneakers and, when she was working, a pair of plain, dark-blue pants. Almost from the start her co-workers had dubbed her Plain Jane. Except when Michael was around. Everyone knew he had a soft spot for her.

The DC stepped toward him and took his arm. “Better take a look, son.” And he led a numbed Michael across the room to the body. “Seems like someone left us a message.”

Michael saw a blood-stained note pinned to her chest, but he couldn’t read what it said, and in a moment of bizarre incongruity remembered that he had misplaced his reading glasses. Slowly he crouched down and glanced at her face. There was a peaceful serenity about it, and he thought for the first time ever that there might actually be something quite beautiful in its plainness. Something like a smile rested on her pale lips.

He turned his head to look at the note and had to screw up his eyes to read it. Welcome back, it said. And Janey sat up, lips stretched back across her teeth in a roar of mirth. Michael let out an involuntary exclamation and teetered backwards, stopped from falling by the steadying hand of the DC.

For a moment he was incapable of grasping what had happened. He could hear laughter ringing in his ears, and Janey reached out to place both her hands on his face, amusement and sympathy in her eyes all at the same time. “Oh, my poor baby, I’m so sorry.” But she didn’t sound sorry. She could hardly stop laughing. “Welcome back to the fold. This is your party, Mike.”

Suddenly music was blasting out, and more people were crowding into the room. Someone put a bottle of beer in his hand. “Hey, Mike. Time to get drunk.”

There must have been a hundred people or more in the house now, and more still arriving. Loud music pounded out across the hillside from open windows and doors. None of the neighbours was going to call the police, since half the police force was already here.

Someone had taken a video of Michael’s moment of zen, when Janey had sat up and startled the hell out of him. It was playing on a loop on Janey’s widescreen TV, and everyone coming in crowded around to look at it and laugh. It had taken Michael some time to see the funny side, and he was still not sure that he did. “You cruel bastards!” he had roared at the assembled, only to elicit more laughter.

He sat now in Janey’s big leather armchair in the corner of the room, a beer in his hand. He had lost count of how many he’d had. Someone was going to have to drive him home. Janey had changed out of the red-dyed tee-shirt and was draped across the arm of his chair, leaning against him, an arm around his shoulder, a beer in her free hand, swinging one of her legs like a child. She’d had more than a few herself. “You don’t know how good it is to have you back, Mike. I really missed you, you know that?” And he remembered telling Angela just the day before how he intended quitting as soon as his contract was up. A contract he’d signed less than a week ago. He felt a stab of guilt. But Janey was oblivious. “Hey,” she said, suddenly sitting upright. “Nearly forgot. I found some pics on an old memory stick that I took of you and Mora just after you got back from your honeymoon. Forgot I even had them. Wanna see?”

Michael had thousands of pictures of Mora, but there could never be enough. He was excited by the thought of new ones. Fresh images, new insights. “Yeh, I would, Janey. Can you give me copies?”

“Of course.” She jumped up. “Come on through to the den.”

He followed her through the partying crowd to a small room at the back of the house, where she kept her computers and all her media equipment. She had a video projector in here for watching movies that she projected onto the far wall, and a state-of-the-art, five-speaker sound system. She unlocked the door to let them in and closed it behind them. A small desklamp burned on the desktop next to two computer screens, and she dropped into a chair in front of them.

“You can never have enough screens,” she said. “I’d have eight or ten, if I could afford it. Different stuff running on each one. So that whatever I wanted access to, all I’d have to do is turn my head.”

Michael took in the comfortable recliner strategically placed for watching projected movies and picking up the best sound. The fact that there was only one spoke volumes about Janey’s social life. Michael felt a surge of pity and affection for her. She was, he knew, a lonely soul. And she deserved better. He pulled up a chair beside her at the desk as she opened her iPhoto software from the dock at the foot of her screen. All of her most commonly used programs were lined up along the dock. As she scrolled through them, magnifying each in turn, he noticed the green hand/eye of the Second Life logo.

“Second Life,” he said.

She turned to look at him. “You’ve heard of it?”

He smiled. “I’m going in.”

Her face broke into a girlish grin. “You’re kidding me. I’ve been in SL for over a year.”

He looked at her blankly. “Why?”

She laughed. “I love it! That’s why. I probably spend 90 percent of my nonworking, nonsleeping time in there. It’s totally addictive, Mike.” She paused and her smile faded a little. “What are you going in for?”

He avoided her eye for a moment. He hadn’t told her about being in therapy. “I’ve been seeing a therapist, Janey. To help me get over Mora’s death. It’s been a lot harder than I ever imagined.”

She put a hand over his and squeezed it. “I know.” And after a moment, “But what’s that got to do with SL?”

“My therapist has been experimenting with virtual group therapy sessions in Second Life, and she’s talked me into trying it.”

“Wow. Cool. Michael, you’ll love it.”

But Michael was still doubtful. “I don’t know, Janey.”

“Mike, you will. You haven’t been in yet?”

“No, I just set up my AV tonight.”

Her face flushed with excitement. “Oh, God, then you gotta let me help you. You’re going to go in there and walk into walls and wave your arm around like an idiot. It’s easier if you have someone to take your hand and walk you through it.”

He grinned. “Like you.”

“Exactly like me. What’s your AV name?”

“Chas Chesnokov.”

She repeated it aloud, as if trying it out for size. “Hmmm. I like it, Chas. I’m Twist O’Lemon.”

He laughed out loud, and it felt good to be laughing again. “You’re what?”

She grinned. “I know. Stupid, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter. Just call me Twist. Oh. My. God. Mike, this is so exciting.” She put a hand on each of his shoulders and made him look at her. “Now, this is what you do, okay? As soon as you’re in, you send me an IM, and I’ll take it from there.”

“What if you’re not online?”

“Well, if I’m not at work, chances are I will be.”

He looked at her. “What do you do in there all that time, Janey?”

Her grin widened. “Oh, you’d be surprised what you can do in Second Life, Mike. But I think you’ll be even more amazed when you find out what it is I do. It’ll be my little surprise.” She swivelled back toward her screens. “Okay. Mike and Mora.” She double-clicked on an iPhoto folder and selected the slideshow option.”

Immediately, Mora’s face filled the screen. Smiling, enigmatic. Those soft brown eyes. And Michael felt the pain of losing her all over again.