by Marc Jedel
“About my ants,” mumbled Skye. Engrossed in her reading, she stuck a fork of waffle against her face. Skye flushed as I chuckled, her face sticky with maple syrup.
I handed her a napkin. “That happens to me whenever I try to eat while I’m coding. It might be better to finish breakfast before doing more research.”
Skye dabbed her face with a napkin and then made a more successful attempt to eat her waffle. At the other end of the table, Megan concentrated on her plate as she conducted critical surgery. With careful precision, she removed all the edges of her waffle and swept them with a dismissive wave of her knife to the side of the plate so they wouldn’t contaminate the rest of her improved waffle.
“Megan, what are you doing?”
“Cutting off the crusts. I don’t like crusts.”
“But the whole waffle is made from the same ingredients. It’s all good.”
“Except the crusts,” said Megan with a haughty sniff.
Who was I to argue with such exquisite logic? I reached down to pick up one of the remaining waffles from the plate.
“Megan already licked that one.” Skye couldn’t hit her mouth with her fork, but nothing would happen to the plate of waffles without her noticing.
“What? No, she didn’t. Did you?” I turned to Megan. “Why would you lick a waffle that you’re not eating?”
“To make sure no one else eats something I want,” said Megan.
In my confusion, it almost sounded logical. “That’s gross. You don’t lick things to claim them for yourself.”
“We do in our family,” said Skye and turned back to her reading.
I’m telling on Laney. Giving up on the waffles, I poured some dry Captain Crunch cereal into a mug for myself and sat back down at the table with the girls.
“Oh cool,” exclaimed Skye, still looking at her screen as she reached over to grab some cereal from my mug.
“What’s cool? Tell me,” insisted Megan who held out her hand for some too.
I poured a few into her hand and took a few for myself.
Skye finished chewing. “The Texas crazy ant protects itself against fire ants’ venom by squirting a liquid out of its butt into its mouth and then licks its legs to spread the liquid all over its body like a shield.”
“Eww.” Megan tossed more cereal into her mouth one at a time like popcorn. Fascinated despite the grossness, she asked, “What’s in the liquid?”
Nauseated, I put down the mug. No longer hungry, I might not ever eat again. Between the waffles and the ants, I was licked.
GROUP TEXT TO AMANDA, ELI
MARTY: Maybe I’ve forgotten. Were you two this weird when you were young?
AMANDA: E is still strange
ELI: What are they doing?
MARTY: Megan cuts off crusts from frozen waffles. Skye talks about ant venom
ELI: No fair. You got them frozen waffles?
AMANDA: Could be scarier. Skye could be texting boys
ELI: Or eating ants
MARTY: Thanks for nothing
Skye kept her eyes on her computer until the last second when I told her to grab her stuff for school. While we walked down the hallway, I reminded them to go to Mrs. Kim’s apartment after school. Outside, as we waited for their Rover car, I checked on what they wanted for dinner.
With a serious expression on her face, Skye asked, “Can we please go out for dinner?”
Megan chimed in, also looking grim, “Yeah, I don’t want peanut butter or spaghetti tacos.”
Me neither. “Ok, sure. I’ll figure something out.”
As the prospect of eating more of my cooking faded, their faces turned to smiles.
They got into the Rover car without a problem before I turned back to my apartment. This morning was “ME” time.
I considered my approach. If Laney had used the IRS angle before, she probably did it again when she reached Meghan Emerson for her investigation. I already had my badge. Plus, the prison term for impersonating an IRS agent twice couldn’t be much worse than doing it once. With the fresh new day, I felt more confident about my fake agent skills. Sitting down in my home office, I accessed Laney’s phone with my eye to get Meghan Emerson’s phone number.
I took a deep breath to get into character and called.
A friendly-sounding voice answered. “Hello, this is Meghan.”
“Hi. My name is Marty Golden. I work at the IRS with Laney Tran. I believe she spoke with you recently and I wanted to follow-up on some of your responses.”
“What? Why would the IRS be interested in my harassment claim? Is this a scam?”
14
Thursday Midmorning
I ‘m really not very good at this.
Luckily, Meghan Emerson hadn’t hung up on me yet. I decided to try something radical. I told the truth. “Wait! Don’t hang up on me. I’m really Laney Tran’s brother. I’m not with the IRS. Sorry for lying. Laney’s been in the hospital since Monday and I’m worried. I think someone might be trying to kill her.”
“Those bastards.” Meghan’s voice turned cold.
Her reaction confused and intrigued me. “What do you mean by that?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Ok, ok. I’m just trying to figure out what happened to Laney. How do you know her?”
Meghan let out a breath I hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “She’s the HR investigator assigned for my complaint. We were going to meet again on Monday, but she missed our lunch appointment. Is she okay?”
“Yes. She should be home in a day or two. But I’m worried that she’s still in danger.”
“What about the police?”
“I’m sort of helping them out,” I exaggerated.
“Really.” Meghan sounded unimpressed. I had long experience recognizing skepticism in voices.
“I can explain. I’m trying to figure out what’s happening to Laney. Could we meet somewhere to talk?”
My police connection did the trick. “Well … I suppose … But I’d prefer to meet you in a public place.”
Now I’m confused, intrigued and apparently potentially dangerous. That could be super-agent Marty’s new tag line. “Ok, that’s fine. You pick the place. Can we meet soon?”
Meghan picked Starbucks, the same one where I had my ill-fated meeting with Rollag yesterday. As I’d caught her on her way out the door to work, she agreed to meet there right away.
A short while later, I walked into the Starbucks and looked around. Like yesterday, the place had a steady flow, but not too many people sat inside at nine in the morning. A couple sat on a couch to one side and a young guy hunkered down over his Mac sat at a corner table. He looked like he was coding up the next big social media craze or just going crazy on his social media.
Waiting awkwardly near the cashier, but not actually placing an order, stood an attractive woman with wavy brown hair and hazel green eyes who looked younger than me, but not too young. As I approached, she threw me a wary look. “Are you Marty?”
I nodded, but before I could say anything, Brody, the barista from yesterday, turned around from the coffee machines and saw me.
“John, dude!” He greeted me with a huge grin on his face. “How ‘ya doing? How’re the waves out there? Don’t want no ankle-busters this afternoon. Don’t worry, I’ll get your order going.” He turned back and started whatever mystical steps are involved in pouring a cup of coffee. I still didn’t like coffee, yet now wasn’t the time to make a fuss. And I’d hate to dampen Brody’s enthusiasm.
Meghan frowned as her suspicions returned. I’d already gotten off to a bad start on the phone with my IRS stunt. I approached her with my friendliest smile, hoping I could still salvage this meeting.
“Hi, I’m Marty Golden. Laney’s brother. Thanks for coming,” I said before she’d run out the door.
She stepped back a bit and narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t he just call you John?”
“Yes. It’s a long story. He thinks my name is John, but I’m really Mar
ty.” Even I didn’t believe myself at this point, so I took out my driver’s license and showed it to her. Good thing Meghan didn’t notice the fake IRS badge still in there. “Why don’t you order something and we can talk. My treat.”
Meghan edged back to the counter at an angle and ordered green tea, all without letting me get too close.
We sat down at a table in a corner away from the other guests. As the fishy smell of my shoes wafted up from the ground, Meghan wrinkled her nose and sniffed. Then, a burst of steam gushed out from one of the clanking machines and an overwhelming wave of coffee aroma washed away the rotten fish odor for now.
Gotta clean these shoes. I started speaking in a burst before she could ask about the fish smell. “Thanks again for coming. Laney and I really appreciate it.” Laney might not appreciate me meeting her clients though.
The mention of Laney seemed to relax Meghan a little. “Sure. How is Laney?”
“The doctor said she should be able to come home tomorrow or Saturday. Her face is all bruised and she’ll be sore for a while. She’s lucky it was nothing more than a concussion and some bruising.”
Megan’s eyes widened and her hand covered her mouth. “How did she get hurt?”
I explained the car accident caused by the dive bombing drone.
Meghan’s eyebrows rose higher in surprise. “A drone? I thought that wasn’t possible anymore?”
“I didn’t think so either. I thought it was something weird that only could happen to Laney. But, later that same night someone tried to kill her in the hospital. I think someone may have hacked into the drone and guided it to hit her.” I told her about the elderly woman who’d been killed in the room with Laney’s name on the door sign.
Meghan’s mouth opened as she gasped. “My goodness. What did the police say?”
“They don’t seem to be doing much of anything about Laney. The accident took place in San Jose and the murder happened in Los Gatos.”
“You’d think they would cooperate.”
“Well, I’ve left messages for the first cop, the one from San Jose, but he was off for the last two days on furlough. The second cop, from Los Gatos, probably thought I was crazy. After all, an elderly Vietnamese woman doesn’t look like she might be my sister and the names on the doors were fixed by the morning.”
Intrigued now, Meghan leaned forward. “Didn’t the cop understand the names were swapped?”
“Well, to be fair, he got pretty distracted because the old woman’s family showed up. Maybe twenty people all at once. It was mayhem. They were angry, in mourning, and shouting at the cop. It reminded me of political rallies I went to in college.”
“I remember that kind of mayhem from move-in day in college. Some of the kids brought their whole families to help them move in. Of course, helping might not be the right word to use as it’s almost impossible for ten plus people to fit into a college dorm room, let alone do anything helpful.” Meghan smiled at the memory.
“Before the family swamped him, he told me to talk to the San Jose police about the accident. I don’t think they get a lot of murders in Los Gatos. They were so focused on making sure they got all the evidence from the room, they locked down the whole floor of the hospital.” To avoid scaring her, I left out the parts about the drug gang and my secret agent exploits in the hospital to unlock Laney’s phone.
“Well, Marty, or John.” She paused with a half-smile, as she emphasized the second name. “I can see where you might confuse someone. This story does sound pretty far-fetched.”
I smiled at her use of my new Starbucks name. “I guess it does.” As I remembered why we were here, the grin left my face. “I just got mad that no one took it seriously that the murder could be connected to Laney. I don’t want her hurt again.”
“You must be her big brother,” said Meghan with a bit of twinkle in her eye.
“Yes, I am. And, sure, I still get a bigger kick out of teasing her than I probably should. She’s had a tough time though. Her husband died a few years ago. She and her girls recently moved to California and she’s trying to restart her life.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize,” Meghan said.
I needed to rein myself in. I was enjoying myself more than I should with someone who might be involved in an attempted murder. Meghan didn’t act like someone involved, but I had to be more careful. Switching gears, I asked, “How did you meet Laney?”
“I’m a consultant for the NorCal Water Agency. I do environmental consulting.”
I nodded. I’d certainly heard of the NorCal Water Agency. Who hadn’t these days? Silicon Valley and Hollywood might get more attention from people around the world, but actual Californians spent more time nowadays complaining about water allocation, prices, and hoping for rain than discussing new gaming apps, electronic gizmos, or reality TV stars.
Over the last few years, the state has forced the merger of the hundreds of water districts and companies across the state into a few big agencies to be more efficient, more consistent, and better manage the limited water for everyone. I don’t know if it made things better or worse. In the meantime, the water agencies have become the most powerful organizations on the California political scene in years.
Meghan continued, “I started work on a big project there a few months ago. Their environmental impact analyst left unexpectedly. I don’t know if she quit or got fired. Either way, she left in the middle of the project on short notice.” She let out a nervous laugh. “And, I found out she wasn’t even the first person on this project. I’ve been picking up the pieces and trying to finish the assessment report on time.”
“So, did you meet Laney at work or something?” Impatient to get to the results, I didn’t care about her project, just whether she was involved with Laney’s case.
Meghan’s eyes narrowed. She ignored my interruption and kept going. “Well, recently I started having some problems at work. Not minor stuff, like not getting along with someone or disagreements during a meeting. More serious. It got worse after I talked to my manager.”
Pulled into her story despite myself, I asked, “If it were so terrible, why stick around?”
“I can’t afford to just quit,” Meghan snapped. “Maybe you engineers don’t get how hard it is to get a job here.”
Clearly not. Her neck reddened, rising up to her ears as she spoke. I hadn’t thought about how others don’t have it as easy as engineers. Engineers were in high demand. When I got too frustrated with my work, I moved on to another company.
“Having the Water Agency on my resume will help me get other projects. Everyone knows the Water Agency deals with a lot of environmental challenges. They’re working on all those new water projects, like the desalination plants and other ideas to increase the water supply. After a project at the Water Agency, I could write my own ticket. All California companies have to complete an environmental impact analysis for their projects. I’d be on the short list for everyone.” She ended breathing hard.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” I changed my tack so she’d keep talking. “So, what did you do when the problems started?”
“I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I called the employee assistance hotline one evening to make a complaint. Laney called me back to talk about what happened.”
Finally. “What happened?”
“She was very nice. She met me for lunch at some El Salvadorian restaurant across town and we talked,” said Meghan.
I grew impatient again. Why didn’t she get to the important part? “No, I mean what happened at work? Did they hurt you? Do you think they might have tried to hurt Laney too?” Perhaps I came on a bit too strong because Meghan frowned again.
“You have to understand. This is my first consulting gig in a long time.” Meghan patted the air with both hands as if telling me to slow down.
“Money is really tight.” She hesitated. “I was desperate when the Water Agency called. I don’t know why they called me. I’m not well known.” Shrugging, she
continued, “Who cares? I need the work. I was starting to think about moving out of the area. And I’m good. I can do this. If they’ll let me finish my job.”
I felt sorry for her. They weren’t treating her well.
Unaware that I’d been clenching my jaw, I rubbed it to ease the ache. The stress was getting to me. Maybe Meghan’s situation was connected to Laney, but I didn’t see how. She hadn’t revealed anything that might have put Laney at risk. This was like an elusive computer bug. When I’m tracking down bugs, sometimes I have to give up and start over.
I paused, considering how best to get Meghan to tell me why her first reaction when I called was that “the bastards” had done something to Laney. “I understand you don’t want to go into the details. But, on the phone, you said ‘those bastards.’ You said that as soon as I told you about Laney being in the hospital. Why?”
Meghan hesitated. “I’m not sure I want to go into the details. I just want to finish my project, get paid, and not have them bad-mouthing me around the Valley.”
Brody interrupted our conversation as he walked up with our drinks and a big smile. “Here you go, ma’am. Have a beautiful day.” He handed the tea to Meghan. She looked up and returned his smile.
Pretty smile. Brody turned to me. “Yours is one righteous drink, John. Here’s your Triple, Venti, Half Sweet, Non-Fat, Extra-Hot, Caramel Macchiato.” He only paused for a quick breath before he added, “I can’t hit the surf until later, dude, so hang ten for me today. You have a beautiful day, too.”
“Thanks, Brody. You too.” I shot him a hang ten sign in return.
Meghan and I shared a smile. Brody had cut the tension at our table. Like a puppy, he could brighten up anyone’s day. And the caramel did smell enticing.
“Interesting drink. Do you surf?” She still toyed with a half-smile on her lips.
Hey, I’m legit. Or, I used to be. “Some. Never with Brody. Would you believe that I don’t like coffee? I’m more a tea drinker myself.”
“You seem to have a lot of fake identities. IRS agent, private investigator, and John the coffee drinking, surfer dude. Who is the true you?”
