Virtually Dead

by Peter May

  “Excuse me.”

  She turned. Her face seemed strained. Her eyes bloodshot.

  “I’m looking for Jack Mathews.”

  She nodded toward the stretcher being wheeled up the ramp to the water ambulance. “You just missed him.”

  Michael glanced back in dismay as Janey caught him up. “Wassup?”

  “Looks like the late Mr. Mathews has just departed.”

  “Oh.”

  A young man had detached himself from the group heading for the house and was making his way back toward them. He was around Michael’s age, wearing beautifully tailored grey slacks and an open-necked white shirt with short sleeves. His skin was smooth and evenly tanned, his light brown hair bleached in places by exposure to salt water. He had startlingly white teeth and eyes completely hidden behind a pair of large wrap-around sunglasses.

  “Can I help you?” Even although he stood a good four feet away, Michael could smell the alcohol on his breath.

  Michael said, “We’re from the Orange County Forensic Science Service. We had been hoping to speak to Jack Mathews about the murder of his daughter.”

  “Well…” The young man pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You’re timing could have been better.”

  “So I understand.”

  “Does that mean you have news of Jennifer’s killer?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “So what did you want to speak to him about?”

  “I’m sorry, you are…?”

  “Richard Mathews.” He looked around and tossed a hand vaguely in the direction of the house. “Jack’s son. Which I guess makes me the proprietor. If only by default.”

  Michael heard the bitterness in both his tone and his words.

  Janey said, “We wouldn’t have disturbed you at a time like this if we’d known.”

  But Richard Mathews didn’t seem to be in mourning. “Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”

  “We were wondering about your sister’s involvement in Second Life.”

  He stared at them implacably from behind his shades. “Second Life, huh? So I guess you know the whole sordid little story, then.”

  Yes,” Michael said, having no idea what the story was or how sordid it might be.

  Richard removed his glasses and squinted at them in the sunlight. “Well, I guess the money’s beyond my reach now, anyway. At least for the moment. You’d better come in.”

  Michael and Janey exchanged glances as Richard Mathews led them up a short flight of steps to a portico leading to the main entrance. She shrugged and pulled a face, evidently no wiser than Michael. They followed the young heir to the Mathews fortune into a large salon furnished with eighteenth-century French antiques arranged around priceless Oriental rugs. He went straight to a glass drinks cabinet, and filled a crystal tumbler with pale Scottish malt.

  “I won’t offer you one. I know you people don’t drink on duty.” He turned toward them and took a slug of whisky. “He’d have been really pissed, you know, to think of me inheriting.”

  “Is there no other family?” Janey asked.

  “My mother’s been dead for years. My father doted on Jennifer and thought I was a drunk and a waster.” He smiled. A small, bitter smile. “I didn’t mean to be. It’s not the way I started out. But it’s funny how, in the end, you seem to live up to other people’s expectations of you.” He sucked in some more whisky. “I’ll have to sell the place, of course. Just to pay the death duties. And I suppose the rest of the money will be sequestered until such time as legitimate inheritance can be proved.”

  Michael tried to maintain a neutral expression, so as not to betray his ignorance. “What money is that, Mr. Mathews?”

  “The cash in Jennifer’s Second Life account, of course. His goddamned tax-free lump sum that he didn’t want anyone to know about. Least of all me.” He moved toward the window, sipping his whisky, turning his back to them, perhaps to hide his anger and disappointment. But he couldn’t keep it out of his voice. “She told me about it, you see. Rubbing my nose in it. There always was a spiteful side to her. Like father, like daughter. And no amount of expensive therapy could ever remove that nasty little character trait. She knew how pissed off I’d be. Daddy salting away money in a secret account for her so she wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it. Very smart. And in a way, I can’t blame him. You pay taxes on your money all your life. Several times over. And then they tax it again when you’re dead.” He turned back toward them, and they saw the fire of hurt and jealousy in his eyes. “But it should have been equal shares. We came from the same loins.”

  He drained his glass.

  “So anyway, tell me. Because she didn’t. Exactly how much did he manage to stash way in Linden dollars before she was murdered?”

  Michael stared at him, the seeds of understanding beginning to sow themselves for the first time in his mind. “I have no idea.”

  “Well, you must know how much money there is in her account, surely?”

  “There is no money, Mr. Mathews,” Janey said. “In fact, there is no account. And not even a record of it.”

  ***

  They headed in silence back across the channel to the boat rental yard, sunlight dancing on the swell of the dozens of boats, large and small, that plied in and out of the harbour. The breeze had got up again, and Michael felt the hot wind tugging at this shirt. He closed his eyes for a moment, turning his face up toward the sky to feel the sun on it.

  “Hey, I’d be happier if you kept your eyes on the road, Mr. Driver.”

  Michael opened his eyes and looked at Janey. “Someone’s bumping people off for their money, Janey. Secret money that’s hidden away in Second Life accounts. Money that no one’s ever going to report missing, because it shouldn’t be there.”

  “Two swallows do not a summer make, Mr. Kapinsky.”

  “Eh?”

  “Two murders, Mike. That’s all.”

  “That we know about. There could be others.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to go back inworld and try to track down Jennifer Mathews’ avatar.”

  “You think there might be another dead AV, like there was with Maximillian Thrust?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “And where would that lead us?”

  “I’ve no idea. But what else am I going to do? Whoever killed them is still in there, as well as out here. Someone, somewhere, must know something. Do you have those notes we took on her account?”

  She slipped a folded sheet of paper from her back pocket and handed it to him. He held the tiller steady with his thigh while he opened it up. Quick Thinker was the AV name she had used. And she had joined at least a dozen different Groups.

  “I gotta go back to work,” Janey said. “If it’s a quiet afternoon I’ll see what I can find out about Mathews’ and Smitts’ RLs. See if I can find anything to connect them, apart from SL.”

  Michael nodded. “Thanks, Janey.” But he wasn’t very sanguine. He glanced at the time. Eighteen hours of his twenty-four had already gone. Seconds, minutes, hours ticking away, slipping like sand through his fingers. If he didn’t find this Second Life killer in the next six hours, he was as good as dead himself. He looked up and saw his two minders waiting for him on the landing stage. Dark suits and sunglasses, and murderous intent.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Chas logged into SL and rezzed in the offices of the Twist of Fate Detective Agency. There was something oddly reassuring about being back in the virtual world. A sense of escape, of safety, no matter how illusory that might be. The serenity of the fish that swam endlessly from one side of the fish tank to the other without ever needing fed was, in a way, comforting, as if for all its impermanence this world had also a sense of something enduring. And in the persona of Chas, he felt a greater sense of optimism. That there was more he could do in here than he ever could out there.

  He checked his Friends List to see if Doobie was online and saw that she was. He sent he
r an IM.

  Chas: Hey, Doobs. I need some help.

  Almost immediately he was offered a teleport to Bahia Tiki and Zen Beach Store. He accepted and rezzed on a wooden boardwalk laid between houses on a vast stretch of sandy beach. Doobie was standing, arms folded, looking at a wooden signboard outside a sprawling teak house with thatched roofs and a red cloth canopy over the main entrance. The sign read: P. Cana House (Dominican Republic). And underneath, a list of features. Fireplace. Mod and Copy. 103 prims. Adjustable Blinds. Lockable Door.

  Doobie: What do you think?

  Chas: What do I think about what?

  Doobie: The house. Just 2300 Lindens. And a nice big deck area for sitting out on.

  Chas: You’re not thinking of buying it?

  Doobie: Of course. Why not?

  Chas: Well, what would you do with it?

  Doobie: Live in it, of course. I’m fed up with my old place, and the land will support a few more prims. So this would make a nice change.

  She turned toward a packing trunk half buried in the sand beside the sign. Text hovering above it read, Barbados/P. Cana Furniture.

  Doobie: A full kit of furniture for another 2600. I’m sorely tempted.

  Chas: I didn’t know you had a house here.

  Doobie: Lots of things you don’t know about me, Chas Chesnokov.

  He paused for a moment to look at her now that she had fully rezzed. She was wearing the tiniest of red bikinis, top and bottom connected by a series of gold chains. She stood on high heels that gave her an extraordinarily sexy, animated walk, stilettos clicking as if on terracotta tiles, even when she was walking on sand. Her dark, red-streaked hair tumbled luxuriantly across square shoulders, and her skin seemed shinier than he remembered, more tanned.

  Doobie: Come and have a look inside. Tell me how I can help you while we’re viewing it. Oh, and if I don’t respond straight away it’s ’cos my mouth’s full of coffee. Hard to drink and type at the same time.

  Chas: Damn, Doobie, I could murder a Starbucks right now! Didn’t get my fix today.

  Doobie: LOL. Wouldn’t have taken you for the Starbucks type, Chas.

  Chas: I’m an addict. Doobs. There’s one on the island right down below where I live. I’m in there every morning. Free wifi now, too, for regulars. So no excuse ever to be offline.

  He followed the sway of her hips up a short flight of wooden steps to the deck. Potted plants and multicoloured loungers peppered the terrace. Doobie went straight inside. Fronds and flowers grew in a circular plot of earth bounded by a stone wall, and a palm tree sprouted up and out through an open-roofed area of the entry hall.

  Bamboo walls gave way to a bedroom off to the right and a dining room through wooden arches to the left. More arches led through to a long living room where settees and armchairs were gathered around a log fire burning in a stone hearth.

  Doobie: What do you think?

  Chas: It’s nice. A bit dark, though. Be nicer if the wood was a lighter tone.

  Doobie turned toward him.

  Doobie: You’re right, Chas. I probably wouldn’t have thought of that till I’d bought the damned thing, and then got depressed once I was sitting in it. So what’s happening?

  Chas: I’m in trouble, Doobs. Big trouble.

  Doobie: Connected to the murder of Maximillian Thrust?

  Chas: Thrust was the AV of a real-life accountant called Arnold Smitts. He worked for the mob.

  Doobie: Oh, my God, Chas.

  Chas: He must have been laundering or hiding money for them. There was more than three million dollars in his account when it got erased. That money got transferred twice after that, the second time ending up by some mistake in my account. But his employers think I stole it.

  Doobie: Just give them it back, then.

  Chas: I can’t. I used it to pay off my home loan.

  There was a long silence.

  Doobie: I keep wondering why the words fucking and stupid come to mind.

  Chas: I know, I know, I know. I was in desperate trouble financially, Doobs. But the money’s not lost. Just tied up in my house. Trouble is, they want it back by tonight, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that.

  Doobie: So what do you think they’ll do?

  Chas: Oh, they’ve made it perfectly clear what they’ll do, Doobs. They’re going to kill me.

  Doobie: OMG!

  Chas: But here’s the thing. Smitts wasn’t the only one to get bumped off for his money in Second Life. A young woman called Jennifer Mathews was murdered the day after Smitts. Her father had been using her account to hide money from the taxman. And it’s gone, too.

  Doobie: Not into your account again?

  Chas: No, not this time. But I thought maybe if I could track down her AV, figure out what she maybe had in common with Maximillian Thrust, that might lead us to the SL killer.

  Doobie: And therefore the RL killer.

  Chas: Exactly.

  Doobie: A bit of a long shot, Chas.

  Chas: I know. But what else am I going to do? Will you help me, Doobs? There might be a dead AV lying somewhere, just like Thrust. Some clue that might help. I don’t know. I’m clutching at straws here.

  Doobie: What was her AV name?

  Chas: Quick Thinker.

  Doobie: Hmmm. Didn’t think quickly enough, obviously. Let me take a look.

  Chas: You can’t. Her account was erased. Just like Arnold Smitts’ account.

  Doobie: You know what Groups she was in?

  Chas: Some of them.

  And he reeled off the ones that he and Janey had noted from the file.

  Chas: DJ Badboy’s Fans, MANO-SAV INC, Pink Parts, SL’s Black Label Society, The BDSM Forum…

  Doobie: That’s interesting.

  Chas: What is?

  Doobie Littlething: The BDSM Forum. I know a number people who’re into that. Let me see who’s online right now, and I’ll fire off a few IMs.

  Chas: Sure.

  While Doobie’s animation override took her through a series of thoughtful poses as she composed and sent her IMs, Chas took the opportunity to explore the house. A long table of aged mahogany stood on a glowing orange carpet in the dining room, beneath three basket-woven lampshades. Windows with retractable blinds gave out on to views all along the front and side of the house. The bedroom had three picture windows and a large colourful bed beneath sloping thatch.

  Chas glanced back to see if Doobie was looking. But she seemed engrossed, and he clicked on the bed hoping to see a menu for its sex animations. But none appeared. Hovering his mouse over it told him that it was a simple Barbados bed. Not a sex bed. He felt mildly disappointed. Janey had aroused his curiosity.

  Doobie: We’re in luck.

  Chas went back through to the sitting room.

  Doobie: One of the girls in the BDSM group knew her quite well. Apparently she used to dance at a joint called the Twisted Shemales Club.

  Chas: Shemale?

  Doobie Littlething sighs.

  Doobie: She. Male. Transsexual, Chas.

  Chas: But she wasn’t a transsexual. Not as far as I know.

  Doobie: Doesn’t matter. Some people like to role-play in SL. Sometimes the more extreme the RP the better they like it. Easy enough for a girl to buy a penis and play out the role of a shemale. After all, it’s the fantasy that counts, not the reality. Hang on…

  He saw her head turn left and right, looking up and down the screen, following the movements of her cursor. Then,

  Doobie: Okay, I’ve got me a teleport to the club. I’ll TP you when I get there.

  And she disappeared, this time in an explosion of coloured light radiating out from a central point. It had barely faded before Chas’ TP invitation arrived. He accepted immediately, and was sucked into the time and space continuum of Second Life that delivered him seconds later into a sex mall immediately outside the Twisted Shemales Club. As the mall began to rez around him, he saw a store selling XXX DVDs under the heading Boys will be Girls. Another w
as called Ass Hole, opposite which a clothes store sold Star Panties for large breasted women with dicks. Outside the entrance to the club itself an enormous poster pasted to the wall displayed a voluptuous shemale bending over, baring her ass to the world. Twisted Shemales Club open 24/7. We offer you a nice and friendly atmosphere, our girls are wonderful, and open-minded. Feel free to walk in and get to know us if you haven’t already.

  Doobie had not waited for him, but gone straight inside. Chas followed, passing between two blue columns and a transparent veil that allowed him to pass right through it without hindrance. He found himself in a large, square room with a panelled ceiling and a dazzling, flashing dance floor that was liberally scattered with poseballs.

  On the far side of the room, stools were set all along two low stages that flanked a central bar, and customers sat watching what appeared to be women sliding provocatively up and down gleaming dance poles. There were blue tip jars placed in front of each dancer, most of whom were in various stages of undress. Chas joined Doobie in front of one of the dancers and immediately received an IM from her.

  Doobie: LOLOL. I’ve had half a dozen propositions already. They’re all so disappointed when I tell them I don’t have a little package tucked away between my legs. This girl knew Quick, though.

  Chas looked up at the dancer. Her name was Lashing Vollmar. She wore a long-sleeved black top that just covered her breasts and no more, the skimpiest pair of denim hotpants he had ever seen, and impossibly high-heeled red shoes. Her auburn hair was partially tied back in a knot behind her head, leaving strands of it to loop down on either side of her luminous orange sunglasses.