by Harlan Coben
"I know."
Win leaned back. "I'll stay involved, of course. And again if my particular talents are needed--"
"Let's hope they aren't," Myron interrupted.
Win shrugged again. Then he said, "Funny, isn't it?"
"What?"
"We haven't even mentioned Esperanza in all this. Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know."
"Perhaps," Win said, "we have some doubt about her innocence."
"No."
Win arched the eyebrow but said nothing.
"I'm not just being emotional," Myron said. "I've been thinking about it."
"And?"
"And it makes no sense. First off, why would Esperanza kill Clu? What's her motive?"
"The DA seems to think she killed him for the money."
"Right. And I think it's fair to say we both know better."
Win paused, nodded. "Esperanza would not kill for money, no."
"So we have no motive."
Win frowned. "I'd say that conclusion is at best premature."
"Okay, but now let's look at the evidence. The gun, for example."
"Go on," Win said.
"Think this through for a second. Esperanza has a major altercation with Clu in front of witnesses, right?"
"Yes."
Myron held up a finger. "One, would Esperanza be dumb enough to kill Clu so soon after a public fight?"
"Fair point," Win conceded. "But perhaps the battle in the garage just raised the stakes. Perhaps after that Esperanza realized that Clu was out of control."
"Fine, let's say that Esperanza was still dumb enough to kill him after the fight. She'd have to know she'd be a suspect, right? I mean, there were witnesses."
Win nodded slowly. "I'll go with that."
"So why was the murder weapon in the office? Esperanza isn't that stupid. She's worked with us before. She knows the ins and out. Hell, anybody with a television set would have known you're supposed to dump the gun."
Win hesitated. "I see what you're saying."
"So the gun had to be planted. And if the gun was planted, then it follows that the blood and the fibers were planted too."
"Logical." Win doing his best Mr. Spock. The Batphone rang again. Win picked up the receiver and dispatched the matter in seconds. They went back to thinking.
"On the other hand," Win said, "I have never encountered a perfectly logical murder."
"What do you mean?"
"Reality is messy and full of contradictions. Take the O.J. case."
"The what?"
"The O.J. case," Win repeated. "If all that blood was spilled and the Juice was drenched in it, why was so little found?"
"He changed clothes."
"So? Even if he did, you'd expect to find more than a few dashboard splatters, wouldn't you? If the Juice drove home and showered, why was no blood found on the tiles or in the pipes or what have you?"
"So you think O.J. was innocent?"
Win frowned again. "You are missing my point."
"Which is?"
"Murder investigations never make complete sense. There are always rips in the fabric of logic. Unexplainable flaws. Perhaps Esperanza made a mistake. Perhaps she did not believe the police would suspect her. Perhaps she thought the weapon would be safer in the office than, say, her house."
"She didn't kill him, Win."
Win spread his hands. "Who amongst us is incapable--given the right circumstances--of murder?"
Heavy silence.
Myron swallowed hard. "For the sake of argument, let's assume the weapon was planted."
Win nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on Myron's.
"The question is, who set her up?"
"And why," Win added.
"So we need to make a list of her enemies," Myron said.
"And ours."
"What?"
"This murder charge is seriously wounding both of us," Win said. "We thus have to look at several possibilities."
"For example?"
"First," Win said, "we may be reading too much into the frame-up."
"How so?"
"This may not be a personal vendetta at all. Perhaps the murderer heard about the garage altercation and concluded that Esperanza would make a convenient patsy."
"So then this is all just a way of deflecting attention from the real killer? Nothing personal?"
"It's a possibility," Win said. "No more or less."
"Okay," Myron agreed, "what else?"
"The murderer wants to do Esperanza great harm."
"The obvious choice."
"For whatever that's worth, yes," Win said. "And possibility number three: The murderer wants to do one of us great harm."
"Or," Myron said, "our businesses."
"Yes."
Something like a giant cartoon anvil landed on Myron's head. "Someone like FJ."
Win merely smiled.
"And," Myron went on, "if Clu was doing something illicit, something that needed large amounts of cash--"
"Then FJ and his family would be a prime possible recipient," Win finished for him. "And of course, if we forget the money for a moment, FJ would relish any opportunity to crush you. What better way than decimating your business and incarcerating your best friend?"
"Two birds, one stone."
"Precisely."
Myron sat back, suddenly exhausted. "I don't relish the idea of tangling with the Aches."
"Neither do I," Win said.
"You? Before, you wanted to kill FJ."
"That's just my point. I can't anymore. If young FJ is behind this, we have to keep him alive in order to prove it. Trapping vermin is chancy. Simple extermination is the preferred course of action."
"So we've now eliminated your favorite option."
Win nodded. "Sad, no?"
"Tragic."
"But it gets worse, old friend."
"How's that?"
"Innocent or guilty," Win said, "Esperanza is concealing something from us."
Silence.
"We have no choice," Win said. "We need to investigate her too. Delve into her personal life a bit."
"I don't relish the idea of tangling with the Aches," Myron said, "but I really don't relish the idea of invading Esperanza's privacy."
"Be afraid," Win agreed. "Be very afraid."
CHAPTER
11
The first potential clue did two things to Myron: It scared the hell out of him, and it reminded him of The Sound of Music.
Myron liked the old Julie Andrews musical well enough--who didn't?--but he always found one song particularly dumb. One of the classics actually. "My Favorite Things." The song made no sense. Ask a zillion people to list their absolute favorite things, and how many of them are going to list doorbells, for crying out loud? You know what, Millie? I love doorbells! To hell with strolling on a quiet beach or reading a great book or making love or seeing a Broadway musical. Doorbells, Millie. Doorbells punch my ticket. Sometimes I just run up to people's houses and press their doorbells and well, I think I'm man enough to admit I shudder.
Another puzzling "favorite" was brown paper packages tied up with string, mostly because it sounded like something sent by a mail-order pornographer (er, not that Myron would know that from personal experience). But that was what Myron found in the large stack of mail. Plain brown packaging. Typed address label with the word Personal across the bottom. No return address. Postmarked New York City.
Myron slit open the brown paper package, shook it, and watched a floppy disk drop to his desktop.
Hello.
Myron picked it up, turned it over, turned it back. No label on it. No writing. Just a plain black square with the metal across the top. Myron studied it for a moment, shrugged, popped it into his computer, hit some keys. He was about to hit Windows Explorer and see what kind of file it was when something started to happen. Myron sat back and frowned. He hoped that the diskette didn't contain a computer virus of some sort. He should, after all, know
better than to just stick a strange diskette into his computer. He didn't know where it had been, what sleazy computer drive it had been inserted into before, if it wore a condom or had a blood test. Nothing. His poor computer. Just "Wham, bam, thank you, RAM."
Groan.
The screen went black.
Myron tugged his ear. His finger stretched forward to strike the escape button--the escape button being the last refuge of a desperate computerphobe--when an image appeared on the screen. Myron froze.
It was a girl.
She had long, semistringy hair with two flips in front and an awkward smile. He guessed her age at around sixteen, braces fresh off, the eyes looking to the side, the backdrop a fading swirl of school-portrait rainbow. Yep, the picture belonged in a frame on Mommy and Daddy's mantel or a suburban high school yearbook circa 1985, the kind of thing with a life-summing write-up underneath it, a life-defining quote from James Taylor or Bruce Springsteen followed by So-So enjoyed being secretary/treasurer of the Key Club, her fondest memories including hanging out with Jenny and Sharon T at the Big W, popcorn in Mrs. Kennilworth's class, band practice behind the parking lot, that kind of apple-pie stuff. Typical. Kind of an obituary to adolescence.
Myron knew the girl.
Or at least he'd seen her before. He couldn't put his finger on where or when or if he'd seen her in person or in a photograph or what. But there was no doubt. He stared hard, hoping to conjure up a name or even a fleeting memory. Nothing. He kept staring. And that was when it happened.
The girl began to melt.
It was the only way to describe it. The girl's hair flips fell and blended into her flesh, her forehead sloped down, her nose dissolved, her eyes rolled back and then closed. Blood began to run down from the eye sockets, coating the face in crimson.
Myron bolted his chair back, nearly screaming.
The blood blanketed the image now, and for a moment Myron wondered if it would actually start coming out of the screen. A laughing noise came from the computer speakers. Not a psycho laugh or cruel laugh but the healthy, happy laugh of a teenage girl, a normal sound that raised the hairs on the back of Myron's neck as no howl ever could.
Without warning, the screen went mercifully black. The laughter stopped. And then the Windows 98 main menu reappeared.
Myron gulped down a few breaths. His hands gripped the edge of the desk to the point of white knuckles.
What the hell?
His heart beat against his rib cage as though it wanted to break free. He reached back and grabbed the brown paper wrappings. The postmark was almost three weeks old. Three weeks. This awful diskette had been sitting in his pile of mail since he'd run away. Why? Who had sent this to him? And who was the girl?
Myron's hand was still shaking when he picked up the phone. He dialed. Even though Myron had call block on his phone, a man answered by saying, "What's up, Myron?"
"I need your help, PT."
"Jesus, you sound like hell. This about Esperanza?"
"No."
"So what have you got?"
"A computer diskette. Three-and-half-inch floppy. I need it analyzed."
"Go to John Jay. Ask for Dr. Czerski. But if you're looking for a trace, it's pretty unlikely. What's this about?"
"I got this diskette in the mail. It contains a graphic of a teenage girl. In an AVI file of some sort."
"Who's the girl?"
"I don't know."
"I'll call Czerski. You head over."
Dr. Kirstin Czerski sported a white lab coat and a frown as yielding as a former East German swimmer's. Myron tried Smile Patent 17--moist Alan Alda, post-M*A*S*H.
"Hi," Myron said. "My name is--"
"The diskette." She held out her hand. He handed it to her. She looked at it for a second and headed for a door. "Wait here."
The door opened. Myron got a brief view of a room that looked like the bridge on Battlestar Galactica. Lots of metal and wires and lights and monitors and reel-to-reel tapes. The door closed. Myron stood in a sparsely decorated waiting room. Linoleum floor, three molded plastic chairs, brochures on a wall.
Myron's cellular phone rang again. He stared at it for a second. Six weeks ago he had turned the phone off. Now that it was back on, the contraption seemed to be making up for lost time. He pressed a button and brought it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Myron."
Pow. The voice walloped him like a palm blast to the sternum. A rushing noise filled his ears, as though the phone were a seashell clamped against him. Myron slid into a yellow plastic chair.
"Hello, Jessica," he managed.
"I saw you on the news," she said, her voice a tad too controlled. "So I figured you'd turn your phone back on."
"Right."
More silence.
"I'm in Los Angeles," Jessica continued.
"Uh-huh."
"But I needed to tell you a few things."
"Oh?" Myron's Smooth-Lines Fountain--he just couldn't turn it off.
"First off, I'll be gone for at least another month. I didn't change the locks or anything so you can stay at the loft--"
"I'm, uh, bunking at Win's."
"Yeah, I figured. But if you need anything or if you want to clear your stuff out--"
"Right."
"Don't forget the TV too. That's yours."
"You can keep it," he said.
"Fine."
More silence.
Jessica said, "We're being so adult about this, aren't we?"
"Jess--"
"Don't. I called for a reason."
Myron kept quiet.
"Clu called you several times. At the loft, I mean." Myron had guessed that.
"He sounded pretty desperate. I told him I didn't know where you were. He said that he had to find you. That he was worried about you."
"About me?"
"Yes. He came by once, looking like absolute shit. He grilled me for twenty minutes."
"About what?"
"About where you were. He said that he had to reach you--for your sake more than his. When I insisted that I didn't know where you were, he started scaring me."
"Scaring you how?"
"He asked how I knew you weren't dead."
"Clu said those words? About my being dead?"
"Yes. I actually called Win when he left."
"What did Win say?"
"That you were safe and that I shouldn't worry."
"What else?"
"I'm talking about Win here, Myron. He said--and I quote--'he's safe, don't worry.' Then he hung up. I let it drop. I figured that Clu was engaging in a little hyperbole to get my attention."
"That was probably it," Myron said.
"Yeah."
More silence.
"How are you?" she asked.
"I'm good. And you?"
"I'm trying to get over you," she said.
He could barely breathe. "Jess, we should talk--"
"Don't," she said again. "I don't want to talk, okay? Let me put it simply: If you change your mind, call me. You know the number. If not, have a nice life."
Click.
Myron put down the phone. He took several deep breaths. He looked at the phone. So simple. He did indeed know the number. How easy it would be to dial it.
"Worthless."
He looked up at Dr. Czerski. "Pardon?"
She held up the diskette. "You said there was graphic on it?"
Myron quickly explained what he had seen.
"It's not there now," she said. "It must have deleted itself."
"How?"
"You say the program ran automatically?"
"Yes."
"It probably self-extracted, self-ran, and then self-deleted. Simple."
"Aren't there special programs so you can undelete a file?"
"Yes. But this file did more than that. It reformatted the whole diskette. Probably the final command in the chain."
"Meaning?"
"Whatever you saw is gone forever."
/> "Is there anything else on the diskette?"
"No."
"Nothing we can trace? No unique characteristics or anything?"
She shook her head. "Typical diskette. Sold in every software store in the country. Standard formatting."
"How about fingerprints?"
"That's not my department."
And, Myron knew, it would be a waste of time. If someone had gone to the trouble of destroying any computer evidence, chances were pretty good that all fingerprints had been wiped off too.
"I'm busy." Dr. Czerski handed him back the diskette and left without so much as a back glance. Myron stared at it and shook his head.
What the hell was going on here?
The cell phone rang again. Myron picked it up.
"Mr. Bolitar?" It was Big Cyndi.
"Yes."
"I am going through Mr. Clu Haid's phone records, as you requested."
"And?"
"Are you coming back to the office, Mr. Bolitar?"
"I'm on the way there now."
"There is something here you might find bizarre."
CHAPTER
12
When the elevator opened, Big Cyndi was waiting for him. She'd finally scrubbed her face clean. All the makeup was gone. Must have used a sand blaster. Or a jackhammer.
She greeted him by saying, "Very bizarre, Mr. Bolitar."
"What's that?"
"Per your instructions, I was checking through Clu Haid's phone records," she said. Then she shook her head. "Very bizarre."
"What's bizarre?"
She handed him a sheet of paper. "I highlighted the number in yellow."
Myron looked at it while walking into this office. Big Cyndi followed, closing the door behind her. The number was in the 212 area code. That meant Manhattan. Other than that, it was totally unfamiliar. "What about it?"
"It's for a nightclub."
"Which one?"
"Take A Guess."
"Pardon?"
"That's the name of the place," Big Cyndi said. "Take A Guess. It's two blocks down from Leather-N-Lust." Leather-N-Lust was the S&M bar that employed Big Cyndi as a bouncer. Motto: Hurt The Ones You Love.
"You know this place?" he asked.
"A little."
"What kind of club is it?"
"Cross-dressers and transvestites, mostly. But they have a varied crowd."
Myron rubbed his temples. "When you say varied ..."
"It's sort of an interesting concept really, Mr. Bolitar."
"I'm sure."
"When you go to Take A Guess, you never know for sure what you're getting. You know what I mean?"
Myron didn't have a clue. "Pardon my sexual naivete, but could you explain?"
Big Cyndi scrunched her face in thought. It was not a pretty sight. "In part, it's what you might expect: men dress like women, women dress like men. But then sometimes a woman is just a woman and a man is just a man. Follow?"
