Virtually Dead

Chapter Fifteen

It was the following day before Michael had the chance to dig out the photographs he had taken at the Arnold Smitts crime scene. He sat in what had once been the darkroom, from the days when they still used film, and scrolled through the digital images downloaded onto his computer.

They brought back very vividly the warm scented air of that California night when morose thoughts had been interrupted to call him out to a murder. He looked at the images of the dead man with a new eye. Here was someone who, like him, had been a denizen of Second Life, and Michael wondered how a bald, ageing accountant, rumoured to have connections to the mob, had spent his time in there. Had he danced, like Chas, with an exotic escort, or chased griefers through Carnal City? Michael found it difficult to imagine that the experiences of Chas’ first few hours in SL had been in any way typical. So what had drawn Smitts to this virtual world? What had there been there for him?

Eventually he came to a shot that included Smitts’ computer monitor. And there it was. The Second Life welcome screen. That now disturbingly familiar green hand and eye. He gazed at it thoughtfully, then made several prints of shots he had not previously turned into hard copy. He slipped them into an envelope and left the darkroom to make his way through an office divided and subdivided into open-plan cubicles where fellow CSI officers huddled over desks and surrounded themselves with personal knick-knacks and family photos.

Janey’s head popped up from one of them. “Hey, Mike.” She smiled, as if at a fellow conspirator. “Will you be ‘in’ later?” Her special emphasis on the word ‘in’ conveyed its meaning clearly enough. He understood why she would not want to confess openly to her coworkers that she spent all her free time in an online virtual world as a private dick.

He nodded. “Maybe tonight.”

“Catch you then, then.” She winked and grinned, and disappeared from view.

Michael found the Hardy half of Laurel and Hardy at his desk in the detectives’ office. He watched Michael approaching with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “I’m busy, Mr. Getty; what do you want?”

Michael stopped by his chair and dropped the envelope of photographs on Hardy’s desk. “That’s a few extra prints I ran off, Ollie. From Smitts’ house.” He saw the Smitts file open in front of the fat detective, spread across an untidy avalanche of paperwork that looked as if it might have been accumulating there for months. “Any progress?”

“Well, maybe there would have been if you guys had come up with something better from the crime scene.”

“Can’t give you what’s not there, Ollie. Did you establish a mob connection?”

“Hah! Turns out the FBI had a file on him as thick as the bible. He was bookkeeping for the Mafia out here for at least twenty years. They’re pretty damned sure of that.”

“How come he wasn’t behind bars, then?”

“A little thing called proof, sonny. You know: evidence? What we need to take to court to get a conviction? Best they could get him on in all that time was a couple of unpaid parking fines. He was squeaky clean.”

Hardy pulled Michael’s prints out of their envelope and gave them a cursory look. “Nothing much new in these.” He tossed them to one side. “Why did you think I’d be interested?”

Michael shrugged. “More’s better than less.” He paused, and then added casually, “I noticed the Second Life welcome screen on his computer.”

Hardy glanced up at him, one skeptical eyebrow raised in surprise. “What would you know about Second Life? Goddamned refuge for sad fucks and perverts.” And then he managed a leering sort of grin. “Unless, of course you’re in there yourself. Which wouldn’t surprise me. And if you’re not, then maybe you should be. I’m sure you’d feel right at home.”

Michael ignored the barb. “I know someone who spends a lot of time in SL.” He paused. “So was Smitts a citizen, then?”

“Well, yeh, as far as we can figure. But, then again, no. Because there is no record of him on the Linden Lab database.”

Michael frowned. “How do you mean?”

“Well, he had an account. An AV called Maximillian Thrust. Jesus, these people give themselves some stupid fucking names! Anyway, that was the name entered on the welcome screen for logging in. And we found mails in his computer forwarded to his email address from IMs and Group Notices issued from within Second Life.”

“What Groups was he in?”

“Aw, jees, I dunno.” He riffled through some of the papers in his file. “Nothing that makes much sense to me. Black Creek Saloon. AAA Club. DJ Badboys Fans. Gurls Rock. Virtual Realty. Whatever the hell any of these might be. But here’s the weird shit. When we asked Linden Lab for access to Smitts’ account, they said there was no such account. And never had been. No record of it in their computers.”

“That is strange.”

“Damn tootin’ it is! Because there’s no doubt he had an account. It’s as if someone just erased all record of it from the server.”