Duty and the Beast

by Chelsea Field

  I reminded myself to focus on the job, to compartmentalize. That’s what Connor would do—without an ounce of trouble, no doubt. Somewhat reassured, I slid onto the tan leather seat and offered a cautious smile. “So maybe I boasted too soon about my efficiency in closing the case yesterday.”

  “Yes,” Connor said.

  My chest tightened. Was his monosyllabic response Connor being his typical self? Or was it heavy with meaning?

  After the longest pause in the history of the world, he added, “My ego is duly soothed.”

  His tone was as dry as the California desert, but for Connor it was downright playful. And for him to even make an attempt at humor was significant. My next breath came easier.

  “Excellent. Then perhaps you and your ego could fill me in on what’s happened? What has Hunt told you?”

  “That someone has come forward and is claiming we’ve got the wrong guy.”

  Shock swept through me. “What? Who? Why?”

  I sensed Connor’s amusement in his slight shift of tone. “That’s what we’re going to the station to find out.”

  “Right. Thank you for sharing your insight with your humble lead investigator.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We drove in silence for a minute while I grasped for something else to say, then resolved to keep quiet. I didn’t want to broach any of the relationship topics I’d been mulling over; I’d save them for the letter. The atmosphere in the car was comfortable—amazingly so considering our last conversation. I wouldn’t risk disrupting it.

  “The dog has a name now,” Connor volunteered.

  My hopeful heart leaped. He genuinely seemed to be working at reaching out. Maybe he had been thinking about the same things as me. “Do tell.”

  “I want to make it clear that I had no part in this decision. Mom and Maria had been pushing me to choose a name, but I refused, so they took matters into their own hands.”

  “Well, now I really want to know.”

  “Petal.” He announced the name with all the enthusiasm a teenager would muster for the word “homework.”

  “Oh, that’s a… cute name.”

  “Yes, if she were an old lady’s dog, it would be perfect. I’m sure they chose it primarily to embarrass me.”

  I wouldn’t put it past the pair of them. Although being older ladies themselves, maybe they just liked it. “Embarrass you how?”

  “You know, if I take her for a walk and have to call out her name, or when I’m trying to find her a new home and telling people about her.”

  “Serves you right for refusing to choose a name. In my experience, going against the wishes of your elders never ends well. Count yourself lucky they didn’t call her Barbie or Fluffy Wuffy Ruff Puff.”

  “Or Schnookums?” Connor suggested. It was the term of endearment I’d chosen for him early on in our acquaintance just to annoy him. It had worked.

  Now he shrugged. “Her name will be someone else’s problem soon enough.” Another minute passed. “She loves those treats you gave me by the way.”

  Imagining Connor being persuaded by Petal’s beseeching puppy-dog eyes into giving her treats made me smile. I couldn’t wait to meet her.

  When Connor began to speak again, my hopes rose further. He rarely offered so much in the way of unprompted personal conversation.

  “I’ve been wanting to say… I mean, maybe it’s obvious, but you’re welcome to continue hanging out with Harper and Mom without any awkwardness on my part. They’re on your side anyway.”

  Oh. The sentiment was sweet, but the words punctured my ballooning optimism. He was extending an olive branch. But it wasn’t the kind of thing you needed to say to someone you were planning to get back together with. And what did he mean they were on my side? Harper might be hoping we’d work it out, but that was because she didn’t know about Richard Knightley yet. Mae mustn’t have mentioned to Connor that she’d given up on me after learning about my “new boyfriend.”

  Realizing I needed to say something, I cast around urgently for a response that wouldn’t reveal his words had had the opposite effect on my feelings than he’d intended.

  “Thank you. I saw Harper last night, actually.” Crap, I hadn’t been planning to mention that.

  Connor was blissfully unaware of the trouble he was causing me. “I’m glad. She doesn’t have many girlfriends who are good for more than a fun night out. What did you get up to?”

  Double crap. “Oh, you know. Had some girl time. Talked about boys.” I tried to keep any odd inflections out of my voice, as if we’d just met for a meal rather than confronting her angry, violent ex. To be fair, we had talked about boys, and since we were both girls, you could feasibly classify it as girl time.

  I was saved from having to dig myself in any deeper by our arrival at the 27th Street Community Police Station. Time to focus on the case that apparently wasn’t over after all. Yep, I was sure I’d be able to compartmentalize.

  We found Hunt at his desk where I noticed there were three fewer cookies than yesterday. No wonder Etta needed more already.

  He was not in a good mood. Actually, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him in a good mood. He skipped the niceties and went straight to scowling. “I knew having a guy voluntarily confess to double homicide on a high-publicity case was far too convenient.”

  Hmm, how come he hadn’t mentioned it to us then?

  He pushed back from his desk. “The second guy suspiciously coming forward to volunteer information is in the box. You may as well watch while I speak to him.”

  I’d learned “the box” was cop lingo for the interview room. He led us to the same one where we’d spent so many hours yesterday.

  “You don’t trust today’s volunteer,” Connor observed. “Any reasons for that?”

  Hunt ran his fingers over his mustache. “This guy makes my whiskers itch.” And with that informative explanation, he stepped into the interrogation room. Connor and I entered the adjacent viewing room—or viewing closet as I’d overheard an officer affectionately call it—and looked through the one-way glass.

  The stark walls and run-down furniture were the same, but the man waiting on the uncomfortable chair was nothing like yesterday’s interview subject. Damon Wood was as black and handsome as Stanley Cox was white and shabby. Wood was in his midthirties, with short-cropped hair, intense eyes, and a body in excellent shape, the latter made clear by a close-fitting T-shirt.

  Hunt explained that he’d be recording their session and switched on the recorder.

  Damon sized up the device and shook his head. “You know you can get much better audio recorders than that, right? Better quality sound. Better microphone configuration. More playback options. Automatic backup in case of SD card failure or corruption—”

  “That’s fantastic”—Hunt interrupted—“but you said you had information relevant to the Isaac Anand and Richard Knightley case. Let’s stick to that, shall we?”

  Damon shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He leaned forward. “I obtained a copy of Mr. Cox’s confession—”

  “How?”

  “That’s not important. What you need—”

  “How did you obtain the confession, Mr. Wood?”

  “Will you just listen? There are bigger things at stake here—”

  “Then answer my question so we can move on.”

  Damon let out a beleaguered sigh. “If this is how you run your investigations, like a dog seizing a bone without noticing the dinosaur skeleton it’s attached to, there’s no wonder you need my help. You need to learn to prioritize.”

  Hunt was unmoved. “How did you get a copy of the confession?”

  It was hard to tell from our vantage point, but it appeared the pair of them had a staring contest.

  Hunt must’ve won, or Damon merely concluded that Hunt would never hear what he had to say if he didn’t answer this question. He dropped his gaze. “Hypothetically let’s just say the police department should hire better tech experts to make their sy
stems harder to hack. Although I can understand it must be hard to attract the best of the best when you have limited funding and are situated next door to Silicon Beach and Silicon Valley where a tech-savvy teenager can turn millionaire overnight with the right start-up.”

  This time Hunt did react. A flush crept up his face. “Are you confessing to hacking the LAPD database?”

  “No. I’m not confessing to anything. I’m trying to tell you that the murderer of Isaac Anand and that other dead guy is still out there, and the man in your cells is just a patsy. But if you’re not going to listen, I’ll go elsewhere. Since I walked in here as a concerned citizen looking to help you with this case, you can’t keep me here.”

  Hunt leaned back in his chair. “Actually, I can now you’ve given me reasonable cause to suspect you of a cybercrime. And this inferior recorder here picked all that up.”

  Damon facepalmed. “Well, frack me. No wonder you guys never catch anyone.”

  I shifted to get more comfortable. This questioning session was going to take a while. Hunt did the same, keeping quiet to see what his interview subject would say next.

  “The point I’ve been trying to make since I first walked into this station at least three-quarters of an hour ago is that I read the confession and Stanley Cox’s method all checks out except for one noticeable omission.”

  “What’s that?”

  Now that Damon was able to talk on his preferred subject, some of his frustration leaked away. “He needed a hard-wired connection to the system to do any of it. Isaac wasn’t stupid. You couldn’t touch his AI system without being in the house on a specific computer or having a hacking device connected directly to it. Since I doubt the murderer was on the premises at the time—I mean, even you guys should’ve been able to figure that out—I’m guessing you’re looking for a hacking-purposed microcomputer that would be about the size of a double adaptor or a large dongle. Probably plugged into the back of one of Isaac’s computers where it would be out of sight and connected via an Ethernet or USB port.”

  If what Damon was saying was true, it did seem like a strange thing for Stanley to leave out of his confession. But did the police know about it already and have an explanation, or was this news to Hunt too?

  Hunt gave no indication either way. “What’s your interest in this case, Mr. Wood?”

  “Let’s see. How about not letting someone get away with double murder?”

  “I’m sure you’re a true saint, but let’s not waste any more of each other’s time than we have to.” Hunt sounded bored. “What prompted you to obtain”—he put steel into the word—“a copy of the confession?”

  Damon smiled. “Let me give you a brief lesson on the reality of the tech industry. I’ll try to keep it simple. I mean, no offense, but your average beat cop is to us what the Amish people are to you.”

  Funny how when someone said “no offense,” what followed was almost always offensive.

  “The frontier of technological development is both cutting edge and cutthroat. It advances so rapidly that regulations can’t be made fast enough, let alone methods to enforce them. Stealing. Espionage. Using malware to hinder the competition. You name it. This kind of stuff is going on all the time. In most cases, we don’t bother to call you in because you wouldn’t understand the finer points of what’s happening anyway.”

  Hunt yawned to demonstrate his lack of interest. “That doesn’t answer why you’re so invested in this particular case.”

  “My point is, I spend a lot of my time keeping track of those shady dealings, and I don’t normally involve the LAPD except for an occasional anonymous tip that you guys tend to ignore. But this one involves murder, so I foolishly thought you’d be interested in my game-changing expertise. Hell, I even thought you might be appreciative.”

  “So you’re the self-appointed cyber police?”

  Damon smiled wider. “Something like that.”

  “Did you know Isaac personally?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  The smile fell off Damon’s face. “No. I’m here so you arrest the right damn person for this! How many times do I have to tell you? I feel like I’m teaching my ninety-year-old grandmother how to send an email, except this time she forgot to put her hearing aid in.”

  Hunt remained calm and quiet. “Did you know Richard personally?”

  “No.”

  “What was your relationship with Isaac?”

  “A casual friend.”

  “Do you have any theories on who might want him dead?”

  Damon massaged his neck. “Finally you’re getting to the important questions. I don’t know anything concrete, but I heard rumors that he achieved some big breakthrough recently. He was respected in his field, so those kinds of rumors attract attention. Some of it can be bad attention.”

  “Be explicit, Mr. Wood.”

  “Someone might’ve murdered him to steal his breakthrough and keep it secret.”

  “Any ideas on who that someone might be?”

  “As I said, I don’t know anything concrete, but when one of your guys is feeling motivated enough to do something proactive on the case, tell them to look at Tony Callahan.”

  “Who’s Tony Callahan?”

  “I’ll let you Google him yourself. I’ve got better things to do with my afternoon, and I know you’ll be verifying everything I say, so as you said earlier, Officer, let’s not waste each other’s time any more than we have to.”

  Hunt stood up. “That’s Commander to you, and we’re not finished yet. Are you going to sit tight for a little longer, or do I need to formally arrest you on suspicion?”

  Damon rolled his eyes and slouched down into his chair. “Of course I’d love to stay.” He gestured at the grubby walls and the table chipped and worn from countless hours of interrogations. “The decor in here is so nice after all. I really like what you’ve done with the place.”

  10

  We met Hunt in the hallway, where he accosted the first officer he saw. “I need Stanley Cox in the second interrogation room. Now. And see if Officer Mendez is around to talk tech with a witness on the Anand-Knightley case.”

  Connor waited for the policeman to scurry away before saying, “I assume that means we didn’t know about the killer needing a hard-wired connection?”

  Hunt frowned. “The tech team was still working on identifying the origin of the hack, and the job’s priority status was downgraded after Cox’s confession, so Wood could be right. Mendez will be able to confirm either way. Then I can arrest the bastard for hacking our system.”

  Connor nodded but said, “He only admitted to doing it hypothetically. I’d ask you to reconsider.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m sure you figured out he knows more than he’s letting on. If we arrest him, he’ll clam up and be cut off from his network, so we won’t learn any more. If we let him go and keep tabs on him, he might lead us to something he’s trying to hide.”

  “And if he commits a crime after we let him go?”

  “Then you’ll have more evidence than you have on him now. If this guy is as tech smart as he seems to think, he won’t have left any hard evidence for you to find with a warrant, and his one line about hypothetically hacking the police database isn’t going to be enough to make the charge stick.”

  Officer Mendez—a policewoman I recognized from the crime scene as the person who’d been talking to the AI security system—strode toward us, and Hunt grunted. “I’ll think about it.”

  He gave Mendez a rundown of Damon Wood’s claims and asked her to delve into the tech details of it. Then he went to the second interrogation room where Stanley Cox was now waiting.

  Stanley didn’t look too worse for wear after one night in jail, but then he hadn’t been in good shape to begin with. His clothes were still shabby and rumpled, and he had neither lost weight nor gained hair.

  Unless you counted the gray stubble on his jaw anyway.

 
; Hunt took one of the two empty chairs. “Mr. Cox, I hope you’re enjoying your stay at our fine establishment.”

  “Free room and board with food and company included, what’s not to like?”

  After my own jail experience—spending a night on a hard, narrow bed with a cellmate who snored like a malfunctioning jet engine and threatened to kill me for my breakfast grits—I could think of a few things not to like.

  Hunt’s mind was elsewhere. “Give me the details of how you hacked into Isaac Anand’s security system. We know what you did when you were in there, but how’d you get in?”

  “I’ve already confessed to the double murder. What do the details matter?”

  Hunt’s expression hardened. “You’ve been very cooperative so far. Don’t stop now.”

  “That’s exactly it. I have been very cooperative. I spent over three hours yesterday answering your endless questions, and I don’t want to do it again.”

  Oh dear. As if Hunt wasn’t in a bad enough mood after discovering this high-profile case was no longer resolved. Now his second interview subject was giving him as much attitude as the first.

  Worse, Stanley’s reluctance to talk gave credence to Damon’s claims.

  “Then answer the question and you can get back to your cell.”

  Stanley frowned. “I don’t appreciate your tone.”

  “Don’t mess with me, Cox. I’m not in the mood.”

  “Since I’m about to go to prison for the rest of my life, I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

  Hunt banged his fist on the table, making Cox and I jump. “Answer the damn question. How did you hack into Anand’s security system?”

  “I’m not saying another word until I have an attorney present.”

  “It’s a bit late to start being close-mouthed now. We have your full confession on tape.”

  “I know. But while we’re waiting for an attorney to be appointed to me, I can at least return to my cell for a while. You interrupted a fascinating conversation with my cellmate.”

  Hunt stood up, his posture rigid. “We’ll get you an attorney, but you’ll be waiting right here for however long it takes them to bother showing up. I’ll tell them not to hurry.”