Carolina Crimes

by Karen Pullen

  “I’d figure you’d have to shoot her first, or she’d feed you your own arm. But then why bother with the beating? It’s just…it was so unnecessary.” He rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. “I can’t imagine anyone hating her so much to…to do that. Everyone liked her.”

  I frowned. I hadn’t seen any signs of Minnie’s martial arts training while I was watching her. It wouldn’t have been something a stranger would expect. “Thanks for talking to me about her. Have you had dinner yet? I’ve got a car and I’ll pay. It’s the least I can do.”

  Gerald stared at me blankly, as if the concept of getting food seemed as incomprehensible as string theory. “I… No, thanks. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  I talked him into letting me order him a pizza, and I left.

  On the way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jun-seo. It didn’t make sense that he’d suddenly jumped from marijuana to heroin and decided to confess to a murder he couldn’t have committed. Either would leave his father without a caregiver. On a hunch, I started calling funeral homes until I found what I was looking for.

  “Yes, I’m afraid the funeral was yesterday. The wake was held early and the service was expedited. The son had an unbreakable commitment, but insisted on standing as chief mourner.”

  “Do you mind if I ask if all the services are…taken care of? I know the family wasn’t well off, and I’d like to contribute, anonymously of course, if they need help.”

  “Paid in full, but I believe the family asked for donations to a certain charity in lieu of flowers. I don’t have the details in front of me, but they’re on our website, under the announcements section. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful at the moment.”

  “No problem, I’ll check there. Thanks for your help.” I hung up and leaned back in my chair, propping my feet up on the half-open bottom drawer of my desk.

  Jun-seo’s father had died the day before Minnie’s murder, probably shortly before Jun-seo had overdosed. Before he’d confessed to killing Minnie, he’d made arrangements for his father’s funeral and burial, and stood as sangju, or chief mourner. Paid in full. Too quickly for a life insurance check. And Jun-seo didn’t have a job. So they were living off what, disability? Social Security? If Minnie was spotting him tips, they didn’t have family money. So where did the money for the funeral come from?

  That answer came to me quickly. I called Shouft and got his voicemail.

  “Hey. Jun-seo paid for his father’s funeral yesterday morning, in full. Find out who paid him to confess, and you’ll find your murderer.”

  I sat at my desk for a while, thinking. Then I got my car keys. I couldn’t shake the thought that Minnie’s murder was caused by love, not hate. If I was right, then her death was my fault.

  I knocked at the door that was still hung with a black wreath and the traditional funeral notice for Ms. Kim’s husband. A few minutes later, Mrs. Kim opened it. She looked even smaller and older than before, her hair still up in its tight bun, dressed in a housecoat and slippers.

  “Mrs. Kim? I came to talk to you. About Min-jun, and Jun-seo Lee.”

  “Jun-seo? He is a good boy. A good son. My son is dead. What can be said?”

  “You wanted me to find Min-jun so he could stand as the sangju for your husband, didn’t you?” Korean culture dictates that the eldest male son is responsible for officiating at the death of a parent, in the role of the sangju. The sangju takes the blame for allowing their parent to die, so the spirit will not wander lost and angry. To have a funeral with no sangju is unthinkable.

  “So? What does it matter now, why I wanted you to find my son?” she asked, turning to go back in the house.

  “Min-jun refused, didn’t she, when you met her after work that night. From my reports, you knew where to wait. You asked her to come home, so your husband could be properly buried.”

  Mrs. Kim’s mouth worked. “I knew they fought, but they were so close before…before the trouble. I never thought Min-jun would refuse to bury his father. It is wrong to hate your father so much. I did not raise him that way.”

  “Your husband was ex-Special Forces. I’m sure he had several weapons around the house. Did you take one to protect yourself, so late at night? And when Min-jun refused and was going to leave, did you pull the gun on her? Tell her that she needed to listen? Needed to come home and do her duty?”

  “Stop saying she. I had a son! That’s what Min-jun said. Said he could not stand as sangju, even if he wanted to, because he was no longer a man. My husband and I have no brothers, no other male relatives. It was Min-jun’s duty to bury us properly.” Mrs. Kim’s voice was sharp and painful, the authoritarian tone far too reminiscent of my own mother’s.

  “Is that why you beat him after you shot him? To correct his behavior?” I could feel the old anger and resentment flaring up. Even after all these years, I still wasn’t sure whether I’d been raised strictly or abused. I’d never been hit without knowing exactly why I was being punished. Even so, I’d been hit well past the American definition of abuse.

  “No! If I must bury my son, I did not wish him to be seen as…with breasts and puffed lips. I did not mean to shoot him. It was an accident.”

  Guns go bang, I thought. “You must tell the police the truth. They already know Jun-seo couldn’t have done it. He was in an ambulance when Min-jun died.”

  Mrs. Kim wrinkled her face into an expression of disgust. “Shameful boy! He should have told me that before I gave him the money.”

  “He wanted to bury his father. He had no money to do so. He came to ask you for a loan, based on his childhood friendship with Min-jun. Instead, you gave him a job.”

  She was shaking her head. “Disgraceful. He should have told me. Perhaps he was not a good boy after all.”

  “Mrs. Kim…” I started, and then stopped. Because I was staring now at the little pistol she’d pulled out of the pocket of her housecoat.

  “You are a bad girl. This is a house of mourning.” She squinted as the barrel waved slightly in the air.

  “The police will be here soon.” I took a couple steps back. Rule of thumb: if there’s a pistol pointing at you, run. They’re inaccurate past fifteen feet in amateur hands. Problem was, I was only five feet away.

  “They’re already here.” I heard a deep bass voice rumble behind me, around the cigarette I knew was in his mouth.

  “Put the gun down, Mrs. Kim.”

  Mrs. Kim lowered her arm when she saw Detective Shouft, standing out of the line of fire pointing his gun straight at her head. Obedient to male authority, I couldn’t help thinking, though with relief instead of my usual irritation.

  An hour later, after Mrs. Kim had been read her rights and arrested, and the neighborhood was no longer lit by lights and sirens, Shouft came over to where I was leaning against the fence. He lit another cigarette from the end of the last one.

  “Parks.”

  “Shouft.”

  “Feeling suicidal?”

  “Not really.”

  “I would have called you, told you she paid for Johnny’s father’s funeral.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. Active investigation.”

  He didn’t answer, blowing out a thin stream of smoke.

  “Shitty detective work, Parks. You guessed.”

  “Beat you here by ten minutes.” He made the growly noise that reminded me of a disgruntled bear. We stood in silence for another few minutes before he spoke again.

  “Dinner?” His tone of voice was far too casual. I could feel my pulse quickening with the prospect of a familiar bad decision, the kind you don’t start regretting until you can’t get your underwear down from the ceiling fan.

  “Only if you’re paying.”

  “Breakfast?”

  “Only if you’re cooking.”

  THE GAME, by Marjorie Ann Mitchell

  Sam Breske stared in confusion across his boss’s large mahogany desk, hoping that today would be the day the old man finally grew a sense of humor,
and what he’d just heard was a failed attempt at a joke.

  Martin Harrison, owner of Harrison SimTech and creator of VIC—Virtual Image Clone—looked back at him dispassionately, not a twinge of amusement on his face. “In order to do what’s necessary to stay on top, there’s bound to be collateral damage,” he said, leaning back in his black leather executive chair and tenting his fingers. Behind him, a window displayed the view from the top floor of the six-story building—swaying pine and sweet gum trees, a cloudless blue sky. Their office buildings in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina were understated, especially given RTP’s boost in prestige since SimTech claimed it as its headquarters. It was here that Martin ruled—a Caesar guarding his empire.

  “That collateral damage you’re talking about is my team. The same people who helped you build this company.” Sam rose from his seat, incredulous.

  Martin sighed. “There’s no room for sentiment in business, Sam. It’s not financially feasible to continue your project.”

  “Just like that? VIC is the highest grossing gaming system in history. How’s it possible that enhancements wouldn’t make money?”

  Martin leaned forward, pointing at Sam accusingly. “You know as well as I, we’re fighting to stay ahead of the competition. Tough decisions have to be made.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sam said, his arm slicing the air in dismissal. “You’re asking me to fire the best assets this company has. How do you expect SimTech to grow without software engineers?”

  “That’s the other thing I wanted to speak to you about. You’ve been an integral part of the company, Sam, creating the HMC when the gaming commission threatened to shut us down over some unfortunate incidents.”

  Even though everything Martin was saying was true, Sam could tell he was being disingenuous. “By unfortunate incidents, of course, you mean the deaths caused by VIC’s realism. You know damn well I didn’t create the HMC all by myself.”

  After two gamers had died, Sam had managed the project team that created a Health Monitoring Component (HMC) that could detect a gamer experiencing an unusually high amount of distress. When the HMC triggered, it shut down the video game and sent a signal to emergency services in the gamer’s area. The HMC had saved the company, their careers, and several lives.

  Irritated, Martin continued, “Yes, yes, but the point is, I know how invested you are in this company and in VIC. That’s why I plan to keep you on in a position I created specifically for you. There’s a group of green engineers, fresh out of college, arriving next week. You’ll be the Lead Training Specialist in charge of getting them up to speed. Then, perhaps we can revisit whether your project can go forward.”

  Sam ran his hand through his thick black hair. Had he heard right? “You expect me to train my team’s younger, cheaper replacements.”

  Martin’s smile was a cold reflexive twitch. “I expect you to do what’s right for the company. I’ll leave it up to you how to inform your team, but make sure they’re gone by the time the new batch arrives. That’ll be all, Sam.”

  “Fuck you, Martin.” Sam stormed out of Martin’s office, ricocheting from disbelief to anger to panic. He hadn’t noticed Bryce Harrison standing in the hallway and he barreled into her. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you,” he said, embarrassed. The boss’s wife. How much had she heard?

  “Hey, Sam, no problem. Your mind must’ve been a thousand miles away. What’s going—?”

  Sam didn’t wait for her to finish. He needed to find his team. He kept walking toward the stairwell. He’d worked with Bryce on the HMC project and been impressed by her creativity and cool intelligence. But once married, she’d become a full-time executive’s wife. A waste of talent, Sam thought, but typical of Martin’s ego to want his wife’s full-time support all to himself.

  As he trudged down the flight of stairs to his team’s floor, his shoes felt like lead boots. He stepped out of the stairwell and surveyed the cubicle farm where his team huddled over their computers, intent and focused on work he’d told them was valuable. His stomach lurched and he covered his mouth until the feeling subsided. No. Martin was wrong, and Sam wouldn’t be the one to tell them. He turned back to the stairway, heading toward the executive floor. He would resign, make Martin do his own dirty work.

  He approached Martin’s slightly open door and reached for the doorknob. At the sound of raised voices, he froze. Glancing around to make sure no one was in the hall, he leaned against the wall to listen.

  He heard Bryce first.

  “How much blood has to be on your hands for you to wake up?”

  “There’s no blood on my hands. The deaths caused by VIC before the HMC was added were unforeseeable. There haven’t been any since.”

  “The HMC saves people while they’re in the game, but what about when they’re not? I’ve seen the statistics, Martin. Domestic violence and assaults have risen, specifically among VIC gamers.”

  “I can’t be held responsible for the actions of gamers in their private lives. The game doesn’t make people violent.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d heard the stories at the women’s center. You have the power to change things. Why won’t you listen to reason?”

  “I understand your need to have hobbies, but if your charitable work upsets you, you should find something less stressful.”

  “It isn’t a hobby. People’s lives are being ruined. If you’d open your eyes to what’s happening outside of SimTech, you’d understand.”

  “Between that coward, Sam, and you, I’ve had all I can take for one day. Go home. We’ll discuss this later.”

  “You bet we will.”

  Sam pulled back from the door and slipped down the hall towards the stairs. He had to give Bryce credit. She had balls, to confront Martin like that.

  * * * *

  Sam scraped his meal of leftover spaghetti down the garbage disposal and dropped his plate into the sink. It made an awful clanking noise but didn’t break. He slammed the faucet on and ran water into the dish to let it soak, then jerked it off. But his kitchen appliances and dishes were no substitute for the person he was boiling angry at.

  Earlier in the day, he’d feigned sickness and left work. He still hadn’t told his team, and he didn’t plan to. Restless, he walked into his living room.

  His furnishings were modest. Nothing embarrassing, but simple in style. The hardwood floor was cool against his bare feet. He walked down the hallway leading to the bedrooms and turned into the guest room he’d converted to a game room.

  Stepping across its threshold was like entering a different dimension. Whereas the rest of his apartment was humble, he’d spared no expense here. The walls were covered with limited edition memorabilia from old science fiction movies, collected over the years with care so that each one represented a different period within the genre. The futuristic bar was custom-made from his own design and included a glass surface with interactive LED lighting. The sound system and entertainment screen were top of the line. In the center of the room was VIC’s simulation chair.

  Sam poured a glass of bourbon. He sipped, letting the whiskey burn down his throat to warm his belly. VIC had changed the way the world played video games. By simply uploading a photograph, the gamer could create a virtual image clone of himself or herself to play with, or a synthetic image clone of someone else to play against. Instead of the cartoonish characters players could choose from in other video games, VIC was so realistic that players felt they were in the movie. Yet it was better than a movie. It was as if they’d traveled through different dimensions of their own making. No fantasy was off limits.

  It was time for a fantasy of his own. Setting down his drink, Sam slid his body into the VIC simulation chair. After hours upon hours of play, the chair’s soft leather had contoured to the shape of his body. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling as his body relaxed into it. He clipped the cross-chest harness into place and wiggled his bare feet into the footgear attached to the chair, working his toes int
o the flexible foot glove that would read his movements and reflexes. Next, he slid both forearms into the gloves attached to the armrests. The gloves contracted comfortably around his arms. His fingers tapped the controls inside the glove, and the helmet and display settled around his head, blocking the sights and sounds of reality.

  After the VIC intro, Sam set up his game scenario. He always played in Group Play mode as a default. The anticipation that an unexpected player might enter the game made it more interesting. After clicking several options, he went to his personal files and selected a picture of Martin from the company website. VIC searched its database, loaded the stored character, then prompted, “MR. HARRISON IS CURRENTLY IN PLAY. WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN?”

  He selected Yes. He was more than ready to challenge the bastard. Maybe the defeat of Martin in virtual battle would salvage his bruised ego.

  The VIC Sam found himself in the living room of a large pretentious mansion, one he could imagine Martin living in. His gorge rose when he found Martin—the VIC Martin—standing in front of an ornate fireplace. How he hated the man. Before Martin could react, Sam strode across the room and punched him in the face. Man, that felt good.

  Martin staggered back, nearly falling. “You son of a bitch. Who do you think you are?”

  “It’s a game,” Sam glared at him, making his hands into fists so tight his knuckles turned white. “Let’s have some fun.”

  Martin grabbed a cast-iron fireplace poker from its rack and swung it at Sam. Sam ducked low and drove an elbow into Martin’s kidney. Martin doubled over in pain, his grip on the poker loosened, and Sam yanked it out of his hands. Clenching his side, Martin looked up at Sam, his eyes wide. Sam stood over him, tightened his grip around the handle of the poker, and brought the heavy tool down across his boss’s shoulders. Martin went down on his hands and knees, crying out in agony.

  “This is for everyone you’ve stepped on to get to the top, you greedy bastard,” Sam growled as he brought the poker down on Martin’s body again and again. He swung until he could no longer catch his breath, then hunched forward with his hands on his knees, sucking in air, tears running down his face as he looked at the crumpled body. Embarrassed that his emotions had overtaken him, he wiped his face with his arm. It’s just a game, he thought, though a sense of power surged through him and he allowed himself to feel a brief satisfaction.