Cyber Genius

by Patricia Rice

  “Lesson one: if you want people to talk, you have to be on their side. Innocent until proven guilty should always be your motto.”

  “You want to give me a clue of how we’re approaching her, if she’s there?” Tudor took in our surroundings with interest, as if he was learning a new video game.

  “By knowing our witness,” I said, turning down a narrower street lined with old junkers, mostly pickups. “She has a teen with an unusual form of multiple sclerosis. He needs a new wheelchair. I think we can find better use for our rainy day fund than paying taxis.”

  Of course, since I was working Graham’s case, I’d probably charge what I was about to do to his account.

  “Taxi drivers have to live too,” Tudor muttered, but even he couldn’t argue too much when it came to a kid with a harder life than his own. Despite his last few years in a posh boarding school, Tudor had lived in slums and seen the catastrophic results of war. He wasn’t completely rotten yet.

  “My name is Patty Pasko, so yours is probably Paul Pasko,” I told him. Tudor had been well trained in aliases under our mother’s aegis and knew what I was telling him without further instruction.

  Locating the building number, we studied the situation. A row of cheap tin mailboxes lined the outside wall. Junk mail stuck out of half of them. A walkway led along each side of the four-story brick structure, and I sincerely hoped Maggie and her son had a bottom floor, because I didn’t see evidence of elevators designed for wheelchairs.

  Door numbers had been left to the whim of tenants, apparently. We located 1G at the front left but the other doors had only empty spaces. I followed the walkway around, looking for 4G.

  I turned the corner to the back of the building. A paved lot was apparently meant to be a patio. A rusted grill, a tattered sunbrella, and a few filthy, dilapidated lawn chairs littered the cracked concrete, along with half a dozen rusting bicycles.

  Tudor studied the junk with disgust. “They don’t have rubbish pick-up here?”

  “They’re renters. Stuff gets left behind. If you don’t have money to buy better, then you use what you find,” I said pragmatically, finding a neat black metal 4G on the first door at the back. “Quit judging.”

  I could hear yelling before I even knocked on the door. Out of caution, I stepped aside after I knocked, motioning Tudor to do the same.

  The door opened, and an old hand-driven wheelchair crashed out, bumping over the threshold, onto the broken patio, and around the corner as fast as the kid could wheel it. I caught a glimpse of a mop of dark brown hair, a tall, skinny boy with bad acne—and no coat.

  “Michael!” someone inside shouted.

  A moment later, Maggie O’Ryan appeared. Graying brown hair straggling from a loose ponytail, she looked weary as she saw us on her doorstep. “If you’re the police, arrest me, please. Jail has to be easier than this.”

  Twelve

  Tudor’s take:

  Tudor grimaced when Ana ordered him to go after pimple-face, whose name was apparently Michael. Not having any good excuse not to, he jogged out to the street and found the tosser making for the Metro. It was boringly easy to catch up.

  He didn’t have Ana’s handle on people, so he just said the first thing popping to mind. “I think my sister hoped to have some barmy production where she hands you a check for a new chair,” he said, strolling alongside the frantic escapee.

  The twit was running out of steam already. He glared at Tudor. “The proceeds of crime already?” he asked in disgust.

  Tudor’s interest picked up a notch. “You think the non-profit is run by a crime syndicate? That would make a cool vid. I could work with that.”

  Michael slowed down to stare. “You write video games?”

  “Sometimes. School gets in the way,” Tudor said, voicing his dream as if it meant nothing.

  “How about a game where your mother kills people for money?” the kid asked furiously.

  Bugger it! That whacked him back to reality. Was the kid saying his mother had actually killed Stiles? What the hell did he do now?

  Tudor shrugged and played up his Brit accent, although his nerves were now jangling. “For all I know, Mum has fragged dozens of pillocks, but she’d make sure the buggers deserved to die first. So it’s just the usual Robin Hood rubbish and would make a boring game.”

  The kid looked glum and stopped wheeling at the corner. “Yeah, if I’m translating correctly, that makes sense. Still, she’d go to jail if she got caught.”

  “Not if it was self-defense. My sister once drop-kicked a—” He started to say nanny but realized that wouldn’t go over well in this part of town. “...a prat out of a second floor window after he set fire to our apartment. She didn’t go to jail.”

  “Mom couldn’t drop-kick a dog,” Michael said in disgust. “So, was that your sister at the door?”

  “Yup. She’s tougher than she looks. Want to go back and see if they’re plotting murder?”

  The kid looked resigned. “I didn’t bring my Metro pass anyway. You’re really here to give us a check? That doesn’t make sense.”

  Tudor shrugged as the kid turned around. “You’ve got a sister who makes sense?”

  “Nah, she just took the cash Mom gave her and paid off credit cards. I wanted to buy a car and get out of here.”

  Crikey, that did sound daft. Tudor wondered how he’d convey that info to Ana without getting them both killed—if his mother really was a murderer.

  Could Ana be in danger? Tudor picked up speed, forcing the kid to wheel faster.

  ***

  Ana gives away Graham’s money:

  “Let me get this straight,” Maggie O’Ryan said as she poured tea from flowered china. “You work for some fancy non-profit who wants to give me a check for a new chair for Michael—out of the clear blue sky and the kindness of your heart. But you come here without a check and dressed like an undercover cop. Am I getting this so far?”

  I slid my Patty Pasko business card across the plastic coffee table. “You want me to walk around here in Armani? Why are you expecting cops at the door?”

  “Because that’s how my life is. Until I see cash in my bank account, I’m not believing you. And if you ask for my bank account number, I’ll have to shoot you.” She tightened thin lips and stuck out a pugnacious jaw. Weariness had carved as many lines in her face as age.

  I liked her a lot already. “If you want to shoot scammers, I can direct you to a nest of them in Canada. But getting guns across the border isn’t easy these days.”

  Maggie almost laughed. She’d returned her graying black hair to its ponytail while the water boiled. She still wasn’t relaxed, but she took a seat on the scuffed vinyl sofa and poured tea for herself. “You learn to look gift horses in the mouth these days. I apologize if I’ve offended.”

  “You’ll only offend if you insult my intelligence or my siblings. And I’m not entirely certain about the latter.” I sipped the tea—strong Irish breakfast, of course. “I didn’t bring a check for multiple reasons, one of which is that sometimes we can get a group discount on whatever appliance is needed. We might be able to upgrade your choice or give you a little cash back instead of leaving it all up to you to figure out. I was afraid if I arrived bearing catalogs, though, you wouldn’t open the door.”

  “You’ve been doing this a while, haven’t you?” she said tiredly. “How did my name get drawn?”

  “I’m not on that committee, but it’s often teachers or local cops who make recommendations. They’re in a better position to notice who needs what. If you thought I was hauling you off to jail, I assume you’ve been in touch with the local precinct recently?”

  She rubbed a rough-looking hand over her forehead. “Not the locals. The ones near my work. They’re more uptown and probably think I’m a murderer. I doubt they know about Michael or care, but he’s got a few good teachers. Who was that you sent after him?”

  “My little brother. I promised him a horror flick if he came with me today.” />
  I prayed Tudor remembered not to give out his name. It could be in the newspapers any day now, and it wasn’t as if everyone in America was named after English kings. Our mother had a thing about historical royalty, which is why I’m Anastasia, named after a Russian princess—one who got murdered, I might add. The life of royalty tends to be short.

  “They look as if they might be the same age,” Maggie said. “Ever since he ended up in a chair, Michael has been having difficulty with bullies at school. We’re thinking of moving to a district with better policies for children with disabilities.” She shifted uneasily in her seat.

  I recognized nervousness when I saw it. But the boys burst through the doorway, not leaving me time to gauge the cause.

  “I don’t want a new chair,” the wheelchair-bound kid declared. “We just need the money.”

  I nodded slowly, as if pondering the possibility.

  Maggie hastily jumped in. “Don’t be foolish, Michael. You need a chair. If we move, your new school will require multiple classrooms, and it will be easier for you with an electric chair.”

  The boy looked mutinous. I glanced at Tudor, who crossed his fingers in our family warning signal to be wary. Right. I’d get on that—as soon as I figured out how.

  “You have to understand...” I said slowly, groping for what was at stake here. “Some families... might not use cash in a manner conducive to our purposes.”

  “She means people gave money to their fund for wheelchairs, not drugs or groceries,” Maggie bluntly told her son. “We’ll look at the catalog and see what they can get us at the best price.”

  “That would be your best choice,” I agreed apologetically. “I know moving is expensive. What if we find someone to help with that? How soon are you moving?”

  “Not fast enough,” the kid said gloomily, wheeling off and disappearing into the back of the house.

  “I apologize for my son,” Maggie said, wearing a taut expression. “We’ve been through some tough times lately. I’m hoping he’ll come out of it. I have a deposit on a nice place for the first of the year. The chair would make a great Christmas present.”

  Tudor sat silently while we discussed dates to meet again. I liked Maggie. I was pretty certain she was in a nervous frenzy because her conscience was eating at her, but I couldn’t come right out and ask. She had to trust me first, and she didn’t—rightfully so. How much time and patience did I have to spare before the feds caught Tudor or the cops came after Graham?

  And if time and patience were all I had to offer, I was in need of a better modus operandi than befriending witnesses. I’d forwarded several offers of job interviews to Euan, but she had yet to come forward with additional information. Fine detective I made.

  We offered our farewells and departed, Tudor practically leaving me in the dust as he rushed to escape on his long legs.

  “Your movie runs all night,” I said dryly, catching up with him.

  “He thinks his mother got paid to murder someone,” Tudor spat out. “You were sitting there, drinking tea, with someone who may have poisoned Stiles.”

  I affectionately punched his shoulder. He winced. Oops. We needed to introduce him to Graham’s third floor gym.

  “I appreciate your concern, but I watched her make the tea and drink it before I touched it—an unnecessary precaution in this case, but it’s always good to stay in practice. What makes Michael think his mother murdered someone?”

  “She apparently came into some money, but that’s all I know.” He hunched his shoulders and glared sideways. “What happens if we don’t deliver the goods?”

  “We’ll deliver. That part is easy. The hard part is establishing trust. That’s the point you and Graham don’t get. You want information to be inside machines, but machines have limits. It’s face-to-face talk, watching body language, developing a connection, that makes the difference.”

  “Right, like you get out so much,” he grumbled.

  “I used to. I fell out of practice for a while, but I’m trying to get back in the swing again.” Now that I wasn’t hiding from Magda was my unspoken rationale. “Computers are easier than dealing with people, granted, but they don’t have all the answers.”

  But we’d learned Maggie had come into unexpected money—at least enough to make a deposit on a better home. That could potentially be traced. So we hadn’t totally wasted our time.

  “Let’s make a stop before we hit the Metro,” I suggested. I hadn’t planned this, but I knew how to do impromptu. I steered him toward the precinct station and the cops I’d helped to bring down a local mob king. In my books, that meant they owed me.

  I didn’t recognize the sergeant at the desk, but I asked for Detective Azzini or Sergeant Jones. Tudor hung back. I doubted that he’d ever been inside a police station, but he was looking a little green. Guilt does that—another reason I was here. He needed a hard dose of reality.

  Warning the sergeant that I had no useful news, just charity in mind, we talked schools while we waited. I had his name and number and ordered wrapping paper from his kids’ school fundraiser by the time Azzini arrived.

  The good detective looked harassed in a hunky TV detective sort of way, with his clipped tight black curls and beard shadowing his dark skin. He led me back to his cubicle. “No hot leads today?”

  Azzini knew my real name, but he had no reason to connect me to Graham or anyone else. I introduced Tudor as Paul Pasko, who looked teenage awkward as he shook the cop’s hand.

  “I’m working on a big one, but there isn’t anything you can do yet. I thought I’d ask you and your guys about a holiday feel-good case instead.” I told him about Maggie and her kid and an anonymous donor wanting to help out. I knew the good detective would look her up the minute I left, but that would have happened anyway. This way, she was a person to him, not a perp.

  “And you want us to find someone to deliver the chair and maybe help her move out of this slum? We’ve got a community group that can probably do that.” He studied me through narrowed eyes. It was a sexy look on him, but I wasn’t buying it. “You gonna tell me why?” he demanded.

  “Call it a hunch. She doesn’t trust cops. She’s all alone. And I think she’s an innocent caught up in some deep shit. We don’t want her disappearing into the night.” In more ways than one—I hadn’t forgotten Kita.

  Kita had come into a job and expensive immigration papers recently. Follow the money kept ticking in the back of my head.

  The detective rubbed his tired eyes but nodded. “You know this won’t stop us from arresting her if we need to, right?”

  “As long as you’re aware that I believe she’s innocent until proven guilty and will act accordingly, we’re good,” I said cheerfully.

  “I don’t make promises. You’re not really a lawyer, are you?” he grumbled, standing up to lead us out.

  “Half the professors would have quit if she’d gone to school,” Tudor said grumpily. “You won’t believe what she can do to a law book.”

  I smiled proudly that he thought this of me.

  “Knows how to keep you in line, does she?” the good detective asked sympathetically. “Maybe she ought to teach classes to delinquents.”

  I laughed. Tudor didn’t.

  I wanted my brother working on this side of the law, if possible. Magda had her agenda; I had mine.

  We made our way back to the Metro. I texted Graham to ask if it was safe to return. He ignored me. I assumed that was a no, so we went to Georgetown. I even endured the really bad 3D monster flick with Tudor, in appreciation for his accompaniment.

  I was a little less enthusiastic about dinner at a burger joint, but I was still waiting for an all clear from Graham. Stupid me. He’d probably changed the locks while we were out.

  After the burger joint, I scowled at my watch and made an executive decision to return home. Tudor was leery but none of his cell phone tactics landed him any more info than I had. We couldn’t wander out in the cold all night.

 
; It was after eight and dark as we took the back street by the carriage house. Worried about Graham’s claim that the feds would place spies in the bushes, I sent Tudor in first, while I watched. I didn’t want to tackle a fed, but I knew how.

  Half the street lamps were out on this back street, but I noticed no movement, no camera lights or glints of binoculars following Tudor as he slipped into the carriage house.

  Tudor texted me when he was safely inside the cellar. I ambled across the street and slipped into the darkness beside the carriage house like any homeless bum looking for a safe nest for the night.

  No men stepped out of the shadows to interrogate me. I used the key code to enter the side door.

  Graham was there. I couldn’t see him in the complete darkness, but his presence was strong. Maybe it was his elusive musk or my nerves making me antsy. Either way, I wasn’t going anywhere until I’d had a word or two with my overlord.

  I produced my flashlight and signaled my location. “I know you’re here,” I said aloud.

  He came up from behind, grabbed my waist, hauled me back against his hard chest, and kissed my ear. I should have had a heart attack, but I didn’t even scream. I elbowed him. He just chuckled.

  He smelled of subtle cedar and rosewood, and I was trying hard not to swoon. He had to lift me off the ground to kiss my ear.

  Since I’d given up one-night stands, I’d been without sex way too long. So maybe that influenced my thinking—what little of that was happening right now. But Graham was everything I wanted in a man—physically. He’d been haunting my dreams since we’d first met. My heart pounded harder in foolish anticipation now that he had his hands inches from my breasts.

  “Mallard has temporarily convinced the feds that you and Tudor are touring MIT. You’re now officially confined to quarters.” He nibbled my ear then brushed hot kisses along my cheek. “Want to do something about it?”

  I was in serious danger of melting and grateful for my heavy army coat keeping his hands off vital parts. I’d done promiscuity in the past. I was getting too old for that stupidity, but I didn’t know how to do relationships. I was pretty sure this wasn’t a good start, no matter how much I wanted it.