Mercury Rising (Tin Can Mysteries Book 1)

by Jerusha Jones

  Not surprisingly, some of the conversations were about Ian Thorpe and the investigation into his murder. They were speculative and repetitive, and while I tried to tune them out, a few registered in my consciousness. I heard a lot more women’s names associated with Ian’s—continuing confirmation of his tomcatting ways. And for all the awareness his activism had brought to environmental issues, it seemed he might be remembered most—at least locally—for his promiscuity. A sad epitaph indeed.

  So when I heard the words sensor and readings, my ears perked up. Nothing like a scientific conversation to pique a girl’s interest.

  Except it wasn’t scientific. It couldn’t be—because the speaker was a bedraggled young man in black. I don’t mean to stereotype, but the boy was barely old enough to shave, and scientists generally have a series of letters after their names that requires several years of torture at an institute of higher learning, which also tends to alter their appearance somewhat. Not that the young man was making much effort to sculpt his facial hair. The soul patch under his lower lip boasted five individual black hairs—more like a straggle than an actual patch.

  I also didn’t think he was trying to make a fashion statement with his monochromatic clothing—it seemed more likely that he didn’t own any other colors. Easy to get dressed in the morning when everything matches. His outfit reminded me of how much clearer things were in high school where everyone delineated their affiliations by their appearance, and complex nuances of personality were either explicitly suppressed or so very blaring as to be completely muddled.

  He was crouched low over a table near the wall with two similarly dressed buddies. They all had the pallor and rapidly-blinking eyes of the chronically housebound. Even at a special occasion like this, their default setting was to hunker and lurk at the edges.

  He was still talking, and I caught a few more snippets. “Threshold…alarm…override and send false feedback within certain parameters.”

  Which was mightily intriguing. I waved to Willow across the room, and eventually she realized that I was signaling to her. We pushed through the throng toward each other and met in the middle.

  “Do you know that boy?” I hollered near her ear, trying to surreptitiously point at the young man in question.

  She snorted. “Those geeks? Yeah, they go to my school.”

  “They live in Fidelity?” I squeaked.

  “I can’t help it if we’re not all geniuses and supermodels,” Willow grumbled.

  “I need you to introduce me to the one with the soul patch.”

  This request earned me a look of absolute incredulity. “If I recall correctly, you’re the one who so condescendingly pointed out that Darren is too old for me. You could be Cy’s mother. And that’s just gross.”

  “Not that kind of introduction,” I hissed, steaming at her sudden sense of Victorian propriety. “I need to ask him technical questions, and I need street cred with him; otherwise he’ll just blow me off as some nosy old lady.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  But I could tell the idea pleased her. I suppose there’s a certain amount of cachet in being able to introduce an older, mysterious woman to one of your peers.

  Willow clomped through the crowd and pulled up abruptly at the boys’ table. All three heads popped up, and their eyes took on a desperate quality as though they were searching for crevices to flee into.

  She stabbed a finger at the young man with the soul patch. “Cyrus Watson.” Then she turned and stabbed the same finger at me. “Eva Fairchild. She’s my neighbor, and for some crazy reason, she wants to talk to you.” With a flip of her blue hair, Willow stalked off.

  “Hello, Cy,” I said in my smoothest voice. I grabbed a recently vacated chair and spun it around before the previous occupant could reclaim it. I scooted up to the boys’ table and hunched in with them.

  “Are you into programming?” I asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” he stammered.

  The other boys snickered.

  “Do you do custom jobs—you know, a little on the side?” I asked.

  Cy’s flush deepened and his neck disappeared into his shoulders. “It’s just a hobby.”

  “But I bet you’re really good. Not too many people can do that sort of thing—case out a system, figure out how it works, alter the results, and redirect copies of the reports.”

  “Yeah,” he said warily, his eyes narrowing.

  I pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of my purse and pushed it across the table toward the other boys. “How about if you two hunks get yourselves more to drink?” I said with a wink.

  They almost knocked over their chairs while scrabbling to their feet. They left the table quickly but not without some rather bawdy gaping and punching Cy’s shoulders in a congratulatory manner.

  “I overheard enough to know,” I said once I had Cy’s full attention again, “that you’ve been hacking.”

  “But—” he spluttered. He gripped the edge of the table with white-knuckled fingers, and I was afraid he was going to bolt.

  “It’s okay,” I said quickly. “I realize it’s just a matter of curiosity and testing your skills. A way of learning and improving, matching your wits against the original designers’.”

  Cy snorted softly, but he stayed seated. “So?” he muttered with a surly grimace.

  “So—you’re most recent project—the one with the thresholds and alarm overrides?” I kept my voice low and tried desperately not to sound like a teacher or a mother or any other disapproving authority figure. “Did it also involve mercury readings? Hg on the periodic table?” I added in case chemistry wasn’t his strong suit.

  Cy’s eyes suddenly found lots of other places to look besides at me. “How do you know?” he whispered.

  “I’ve seen one of the batches of results.”

  His eyes grew even rounder, and tendons lifted in his neck. He actually levitated off the chair an inch before I was able to lay a reassuring hand on his arm.

  “Not from you. As far as I know, your bypass is secure. These results were older.”

  Cy seemed to crumple and buried his face in his hands. “I am so in trouble.” The words came out muffled and distorted, and I was afraid he was going to start crying. “It seemed like fun. I found the job on one of those anonymous hacker boards. What the original poster was asking for was so easy I couldn’t believe no one else had signed up for the job yet. The data from those off-the-shelf systems is unencrypted; anybody can see it and play with it. It sounded like a practical joke, like he was messing with his friend’s experiment or something. No harm, no foul?” Cy peeked over his fingers hopefully, as though I might be able to absolve him of his sins, or at least of the consequences.

  “Did he follow through and pay you?” I asked.

  Cy shrugged. “Ten bitcoins. I cashed them out right away. Those things are unstable and get seized all the time. A little risky for a seventeen-year-old.” His voice was tinged with wry humor. “At least a seventeen-year-old with my set of parents.”

  I straightened and let him see my amazement. I didn’t even have to ham it up. “Wow.”

  “No kidding.” Cy leaned forward, eager now. “There’s no rule against taking advantage of a sucker, right? The job was so stupid easy, and it bought me a new desktop with an incredible graphics card and—”

  I held up a hand to stop him since I knew he would vault into language I didn’t understand regarding processor speed and terabytes. “So you thought your client was playing a prank?”

  Cy shrugged again. “Or something.”

  “I think it might be more serious than that. Thirty-five hundred bucks? Some joke.”

  If Cy was surprised that I knew the approximate current value of bitcoins, he didn’t show it. But from the way he slumped in his seat and fiddled with the handle of his mug, I figured he’d also followed this thought trail in his own mind, and it had left his conscience appropriately uncomfortable in spite of the generous remuneration—or quite possibly because of it.

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nbsp; “Look, I can’t make you do it, but I think you need to talk to Detective Malloy of the Fidelity Police Department.” I fished in my purse for the card Vaughn had given me and slid it across the table to Cy. “He’s pretty cool, and he won’t jump to conclusions. But he is investigating a murder. I think the owner of the system you hacked was Ian Thorpe.”

  The name had an immediate impact on Cy. He blanched and blinked and snatched his hand back from Vaughn’s card as though it was covered in slug slime. “No way,” he whispered.

  I nodded. “Which means your client may have had an ulterior motive.”

  “No way,” Cy whispered again, but he stretched his hand back out and picked up the card with trembling fingers. “I won’t be able to go on that forum ever again. My cover will be blown. So much for anonymity.”

  “Not necessarily. You can trust Detective Malloy’s discretion.”

  Willow plopped down in the chair across the table from me. “Anything juicy?” she said loudly, making direct eye contact with me, which served the obvious purpose of treating Cy as though he didn’t exist.

  I grinned at her. The lovely awkwardness of teenagerdom. I’d be willing to bet she had a crush on Cy too. Or probably on any boy who had the potential of displaying kindness toward her, even if his true feelings were masked with churlishness. So much posturing.

  But her interruption was fortuitous.

  Cy needed time to think over his responsibilities, and my continued presence would not be helpful. I could always tip off Vaughn about the possible connection, but it would be so much better all around if Cy would make the decision to come forward himself. I figured I’d give him twenty-four hours. The user records on the anonymous hacker forum were probably safe for the time being, as long as no one alerted the forum administrator.

  So far the only people who would have reason to do that were me, Cy, and Cy’s client. And if the client hadn’t tried to cover his digital tracks yet, he probably wasn’t going to. The average, gullible citizen tends to trust the designation anonymous even when there’s no legitimate reason to do so.

  I pushed to standing. “Juicy, no. Sleepy, yes. I’m so old that I need to call it a night and get home to bed.”

  “Geez. Last time I’m coming to a party with you.” Willow flounced out of her chair and produced an exaggerated hip wiggle as she brushed by Cy.

  The voluminous tulle skirt had a nullifying effect on her efforts, however, so I wasn’t too worried. Cy had other things on his mind.

  CHAPTER 16

  In spite of the excuse I’d given Willow, my excitement for the remainder of the evening was searching my bedroom. I had a feeling Cal had stashed the audio recorder somewhere in my piles of clothes.

  And I was right. He’d found a safe spot underneath a pair of fuzzy flannel pajama bottoms that had little dancing robots printed on them—a Christmas gift from my dad’s fifth wife.

  Norman’s tinny recorded words shot me straight to foaming outrage. “Ooooo!” I spluttered and punched the replay button for a second dose of indignation.

  Cal’s categorization of Norman as a crook was a serious understatement. The guy was running a Ponzi scheme, pure and simple. And from the desperate promises he’d made to Bettina, it was obvious he was under pressure from his earlier investors. He needed new money and fast. There was nothing subtle about his overtures for funds. The problem was he was smooth—smooth enough that from Bettina’s answers she appeared to believe his professed infatuation. At the very least, she hadn’t discouraged him—either romantically or financially.

  Although she had shown a bit of spine in insisting that their next date be on his dime. Not in so many words, but she’d sounded the slightest bit miffed when he’d suggested that she invite him over for another meal. He’d also gone overboard with excessive flattery of her cooking.

  What a moocher. Made me wonder just how hard up Norman was. Could he even afford a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?

  And made me realize there was only one way I could do the right thing on all fronts. I would have to come clean.

  oOo

  Bright and early the next morning, after tossing ineffectually on the mattress for a couple of hours and no sleep, I pounded on the private apartment entrance at the side of the marina office. Roxy answered the door, already coiffed and with a cigarette stub coiling its last vestiges of smoke from between her fingers.

  “I’m in trouble,” I said.

  “How much?” Roxy said, absolutely unfazed.

  I blinked. “It’s hard to quantify, actually.”

  She blew out an exasperated breath. “Inches or feet?”

  “What?” I squinted at her.

  She returned the squint. “Water. Isn’t that why you’re here? Is your house taking on water? How much determines who we call.” She checked the watch on her wrist, dropping ash as she did so, and shook her head. “At the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning is going to cost you beaucoup bucks, no matter how deep it is.”

  Nothing like the possibility of a flood worthy of the word-a-day calendar to put my problems into perspective. “It’s not that,” I said hurriedly. “Relational issues. I sort of need Willow—for moral support.”

  Roxy barked a laugh and wheezed until her eyes watered. “Is that so?” Then she returned to squinting. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  When I nodded, she opened the door to its full width and beckoned me inside with the cigarette hand. “Good luck then. Her bedroom’s at the end of the hall. Sleeps like the dead.” Her face tightened, and she quickly amended, “Like the comatose, actually. Vital signs intact, but no response. Maybe you’ll get better results than I usually do.”

  I tried an old trick I learned at summer camp from my first truly tomboy friend—the amazing and fearless Jeannie Corallo of Queens, New York. I blew hard into Willow’s ear and immediately bent backward out of the way of whatever might come up swinging.

  She bolted upright, hair and eyes wild, thrashing at the covers. “What the—”

  “Good morning,” I said. “I need help.”

  “Aaargh.” Willow flopped back on the bed and pressed a pillow over her face.

  “Want to watch some abject humility in action?” I asked.

  One gray eye peeked around the embroidered rose on the pillowcase.

  I quickly outlined what I’d learned the previous night and stressed the importance of an expeditious confession.

  Willow pushed herself up and sat cross-legged facing me. “What a creep,” she hissed.

  “Exactly. Preys on older, lonely women, I suspect, although I don’t want to word it that way to Bettina. With two of us there, she can’t flip out too badly, can she?”

  Willow shook her head, sending the tangle of blue hair flying. “I don’t think Bettina ever flips out. She’s actually pretty cool. But yeah, you need backup. Just give me a minute.” She climbed out of bed and began rummaging through the closet.

  I waited for her outside, with my arms wrapped around my torso in an attempt to quell the shivering. Even though the days had been sunny, the nights—and early mornings—were getting downright chilly. My breath formed steam droplets that drifted downwind in sparse clouds.

  Willow and I would have to go it alone. Cal hadn’t answered my knock, so I hadn’t been able to ask his opinion. Without his permission, I couldn’t reveal how my ineptitude with a kayak had forced his participation in the matter. But maybe Bettina would respond better if she thought it was a girls-only predicament anyway.

  Willow emerged dressed for combat. No flirty overtones today. Straight up motorcycle boots, ripped jeans, and an olive-drab canvas jacket that looked as if it had come off the clearance rack at the army surplus store. I wholeheartedly agreed.

  We clumped down the gangplank and tromped along the floating walkways—all the way to the very north end. If Bettina hadn’t been awake before, she was now. I pounded loudly on her front door.

  She answered wearing a gigantic gaudy Hawaiian-print shirt backwards on her
scrawny frame and a pair of half-glasses with the thickest prescription I had ever seen. The top shirt button was fastened at the back of her neck, and the crazy coverall hung in loose palm-frond-and-parrot folds over her front.

  “Got the groove on?” Willow asked while simultaneously shoving in front of me and barging inside.

  Bettina chuckled and backed out of the way, motioning to me to follow. “Yes, dear. It doesn’t cure the insomnia, but it slightly redeems the time.” She turned on her heel and led us down the hallway to the spare bedroom.

  Which turned out to be her incredibly organized and glittering jewelry studio. One glance around, and I suspected Willow had had a hand in the setup, which perhaps explained why she was so comfortable making herself at home on the tufted club chair in the corner. She kicked her boots off and tucked her feet up underneath herself with a pointed look at me.

  Bettina had settled behind a sturdy desk that was strewn with pretty peach-colored glass beads in a shallow working tray. A necklace appeared to be undergoing assembly. “You’re out early,” she said brightly, tilting her chin and pursing her lips so that she could peer through the lenses of her glasses at the fine filament end of the necklace string.

  “I have a dreadful, awful, no-good secret to tell you,” I announced.

  Bettina’s brown eyes flew above the half-moons of her glasses and focused on me like laser beams. “Is this about Norman?”

  The breath caught in my throat, but I pushed past it. “Yes,” I said firmly. Then I pressed on even faster, wanting to get out the short version before her defensive hackles got any higher. “I did something I’m not proud of, but in so doing I’ve also learned that he’s a conman.”

  Bettina very carefully and precisely set the necklace down on the felt-lined tray and took an additional moment to slide a few stray beads into place with her fingertips. “Drat,” she finally said. “But I’m not surprised.” She flashed a thoughtful glance at Willow. “I suppose this calls for hot cocoa.”