by Madelyn Alt
“What—” And then he recoiled instantly. “What is that?” His gaze went from one item to the next and then back again.
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing. It looks like something.”
“Nothing . . . to worry about.” My voice lifted up at the end, more like a question than a statement. Darned insecurities.
“I’ll tell you what it looks like,” Tom said, his stubbornness coming out in a big way. Of course that was nothing particularly new. “It looks like something occultish.”
Tom placed anything and everything paranormal or outside of the realm of the everyday, mundane world into the occult category. But he meant it in a bad way. As though every witch and pagan out there could be compared to a more ruthless magical practitioner who was just in it for power and control over another. Because that was the fear of every mundane when it came to magick, or abilities they didn’t have. That it would be turned and used against them, and they would be defenseless to stop it. Witches, to him, were consorts of evil, trafficking with all sorts of things that he wasn’t sure existed, but didn’t want to come in on the wrong side of, just in case. He was all for stacking the deck on the side of righteousness and piety and moral standing. I, on the other hand, believed in the Light. It didn’t always mean the same thing. Take Reverend Baxter Martin, for example. The perfect example.
Marcus was in no mood. “What it is, is none of your damn business. Now, are you wanting my help or not? Because if not, you can get the hell out of my house.”
Tom shrugged. “Fair enough.” The expandable file folder came out again. He inspected our signatures and dates on the confidential agreements and then carefully filed them within. And then, he pulled out a clear plastic bag. Inside it was the crunched thumb drive that had been found among all the scattered computer effluvium in the office. He held it up. “This was found on the floor of the office this morning.”
A faint smirk touched Marcus’s lips, barely contained. “Yes, I know. I was there, remember?”
Tom ignored him. “We want you to do what you can to read the data on this, safeguard the files to prevent their loss, and try to resolve any corrupted data that you possibly can. Since the computer was specifically targeted, what we’re hoping is that we will find something on there that can be tied to a motive for the killing. Right now we’re just trying to piece together as much information as we can, just trying to talk to as many people as possible who might have seen something, anything, to try to recreate his last hours. Maybe there’s something on this that can help, too.”
“Sounds straightforward enough.”
Tom took something else out of the file folder and handed it to Marcus. “Here’s a letter for you, signed by Chief Boggs, Sheriff Reed, and District Attorney Ledbetter, giving you permission to do all of what we just talked about.” He cleared his throat. “It, um, also gives you immunity, in the event that something of a certain, um . . . nature . . . shows up. At least with regard to what you might find on the drive.”
There was something in between what he was saying that he was purposely leaving out. I could feel the presence of it, hovering there, waiting for someone to acknowledge it. “What exactly does that mean, something of a certain nature?” I asked, watching his face closely for the telltale hint of what he was hiding. Marcus was watching, too. “Immunity from what?”
I could tell he was struggling with how much he thought we should know versus how much we might need to know. Finally, he must have decided to just lay it all out on the line. “There are . . . things that could potentially be on the drive. Things that might be unpleasant. We just have no way of knowing for sure until we are able to gain access. And if it is blank or the files are corrupted or unrecoverable, well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
Unpleasant. Unpleasant, how? Who were we dealing with here? Robert Locke was just your everyday, average, slightly creepy but mostly harmless apartment manager . . . wasn’t he?
Marcus just came straight out and asked him.
“He has a record,” Tom said, “for something that happened quite awhile ago. He never did time for it—somehow he seems to have gotten off lightly.”
“A record for something he did in Stony Mill?” I asked.
Tom shook his head. “No, it was elsewhere. If it had been here, we’d have thrown the book at him.”
Small town, swift justice. That sounded about par for the course.
“Seriously, what sort of thing are we talking about?” I pressed as he seemed hesitant to answer concretely. “Something unpleasant, something he had a record for. I mean, that could be anything.”
Marcus seemed to have picked up on . . . something . . . out of all the somethings, though. “I think that the answer is in the need for immunity. Why would anyone need legal immunity for something relating to a file kept on a thumb drive?”
Think, think, think. What would a person keep on a thumb drive? Well, just about anything they wanted to back up. Documents, music, photos . . .
Photos?
“He likes porn?” I asked hesitantly. “But that’s not illegal.”
“It’s not illegal if it is a photo of a person who gave her consent to be photographed . . . and is of a certain age.”
“Child pornography?” I squeaked. “He was arrested for child pornography?”
Tom nodded and said, “Distributing. But I didn’t say a word. You did not hear that from me.”
“How on earth did he get out of serving time for something like that?” I wondered aloud. “You’re right, we would have thrown the book at him. The biggest one we could find.”
“How? I don’t know. My guess is that either his family had enough money or status or power—or heck, all of the above—to buy his way to a plea agreement. Or that he has friends in high places. Or both.”
I couldn’t fathom having so much of any or all of the above to be able to get out of the punishment for an actual crime. I tried, but the concept just boggled me. I was getting stuck somewhere between rich bitch and skeeving diva. But the male versions of those, naturally.
The trouble I was having with that was, Locke didn’t seem the rich-and-connected type. Those were not high-quality duds he was rocking. And the shoes? My grandmother had a saying about a man who didn’t care enough to take care of his shoes, or who couldn’t spare the time to iron the major wrinkles out of his shirt. “Man like that can’t be troubled for anything good.” Maybe she was right. Maybe it was more than just laziness, which is bad enough of a character flaw on its own.
“So, you’re thinking that we might find incriminating evidence on the thumb drive, since the computer itself is a bust,” Marcus said.
“Yes. With any luck.”
“What about the old hard drive? I gave it to Uncle Lou to deliver with the computer.”
I thought back, trying to remember if I’d seen it, but there was nothing in my memory banks about him delivering a zipped plastic bag with old computer parts within it. “Lou left me out in his car while he went back in to talk to Locke. I assumed they were going to talk computers.”
Tom focused on the one thing I hadn’t thought to mention before. “He met with Locke alone?”
“Yes. But only for a few minutes,” I rushed to say when I saw the wheels turning in his head, “and then he was back out with me.”
Tom had picked up his spiral notebook and pen and was writing something down. “Tell me more about your uncle, Quinn.”
“Now, hold on just a minute,” Marcus protested. “You can’t think my uncle—”
“I’m not inferring anything of the sort,” Tom assured him. “But I need to know what connections the victim had. Any one thing could be important.”
Marcus looked at him a good long while before answering. “Lou is in an organization with Locke. You know, like the Masons? They are lodge brothers. It’s how I connected with Locke in the first place. Members frequent the businesses of other members. Keeping the wealth in the
family, so to speak. Church members do the same thing. Locke was looking for computer equipment, my uncle fixed him up with me. That’s all there was to it, as far as I am concerned. I’m sure my uncle would tell you the same thing.”
“I’m sure.”
But he didn’t sound as convinced as I would have liked. At least he didn’t seem to believe Marcus was being duplicitous in all of this.
“If your uncle handed the old hard drive over to Locke, then it’s possible Locke stowed it somewhere. That’s what I’m hoping will come out of this. That maybe the perp didn’t realize the computer was brand new and thought they were destroying the only source of evidence that might connect them to the victim. But we won’t know unless we find it. I’m hoping by the time the guys are done working the scene for evidence, this missing hard drive will show up. And if it does, we may send some more business your way.”
It was the typical “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” trade-off—which wasn’t such a bad thing, when I thought about it.
“Well, we’ll see how that works out,” Marcus said. “In the meantime, the thumb drive. I’ll get to work on it right away.”
Tom handed him the bag. “Remember: protect the files. Recover what you can, but protect the files.”
A thought occurred to me. “You know, the owner of the apartment complex—Jeremy Harding—seemed awfully upset about not having access to the computer. And he seemed pretty excited about the possibility that the data might still exist on a hard drive somewhere.”
Tom frowned at me. “You know Harding?”
“Not really. Well, kind of. I guess.” I blushed. “He is related to Liss. Or was, before his wife was killed last year. Does that make them no longer legally related, once the common family member is no longer in the here-and-now? Or does it depend on one’s emotional perspective? I’ve never quite figured that out.” And then I saw the look on his face, and my face went even hotter. “Well, maybe that doesn’t matter right now.”
Tom was still frowning. And thinking. “You’re right, though. He was. It could be explained by the fact that he’s used to getting his way. People with money often are. But . . . maybe. It’s worth checking into.” He flicked a glance in Marcus’s direction. “I’ll be talking to your uncle as well. But don’t read anything into that yet.”
“Harding was also upset because he hadn’t authorized the computer,” I continued. “That could be looked at two ways. Either it was because Locke hadn’t followed his rules of purchasing equipment—and this is a likely scenario because Locke seems to have paid for the computer on his own—or Harding didn’t want something that was kept on that computer to fall into the wrong hands. Neither one screams murder, though, does it?” I made a wry face.
“Lucky him,” Marcus quipped. “And I’m going to say he definitely paid for the computer on his own. He paid me in cash. A business entity doesn’t pay in cash.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “It would have been a check for sure.” And then, as another thought occurred to me, “I wonder if Harding knew about Locke’s past.”
“Yes, well, I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here,” Tom replied coolly. “Not to mention I think we’re also forgetting something.”
“What’s that?”
“The fact that I am the police officer, and you are not. I want you to remember that, Maggie. This is my job, and for your own safety, it’s important that you remember that.”
“I know, I know. You don’t need to worry about me, Tom. I mean, have you seen this thing?” I asked, raising my cast aloft. “I’m not exactly in prime investigative shape, am I?”
“Thank the good Lord for small favors,” Tom muttered.
It was no secret to me that he didn’t appreciate my knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and neither did he admire my aptitude for reasoning through detail if said details entered into the general sphere of my consciousness. But I couldn’t exactly help it that people talked. Nor could I help it that I had the uncanny tendency to stumble into situations that later are deemed relevant. I mean, really. Was that my fault? Call it fate. Call it luck. The worst luck in the world.
“Do you have any idea who did this?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. Not at present. But I wouldn’t tell you if I did. All I can do at this point is talk to all of the people who have been seen with Locke recently, or who have been known to have taken issue with him. Explore every possible connection. Take statements, and try to prove them against cold, hard facts. Today everyone is a suspect.” He smirked at me. “Even you, Maggie.”
That surprised me. “Me?”
“You saw Locke yesterday afternoon, preceding his untimely death. You even spoke to him later in the evening, arranging to meet him.”
“To sign a lease! I wasn’t even aware of his existence before yesterday afternoon. You can’t be serious.” And then I saw the amused glitter in his eyes. “Oh. You’re not serious.”
“Not really. I just wanted to see what you’d say.”
“It was a joke.”
“I guess you could call it that.”
Not a very good one, but hey—when it came to humor, Tom was a little out of practice.
Ba-dum-bump.
It was about this time that Minnie decided she had had enough standoffishness. None of us saw her winding, secretive path. None of us registered her movement at all. Not until . . .
“Gah!” Tom recoiled as a solid fifteen pounds of flying black fur landed not-quite-gracefully on his shoulder from behind in what could only be termed a sneak attack. “What is it? Get it off, get it off!”
“It is Minnie. My cat,” I reminded him in a soothing voice. “You’ve met her before, don’t you remember?”
His eyes wild as they stared in the direction of Minnie’s round, full-jowled face, which was in turn staring intently at him, he said, “Oh yeah. She was smaller then, wasn’t she? Not quite the size of a puma?”
“Well, she’s grown some. She was only a kitten then.”
Minnie chose that moment to investigate his ear while he sat there, stiff as a statue. “What does she think she’s doing? Oh God . . . I think she’s tasting me.”
“Licking, Tom. Maybe she likes the scent of your after-shave,” I teased.
“No. No, I’m pretty sure she’s just testing the flavor of her next meal.”
Marcus was much nicer than I was. He relented, rising to take Minnie from her newfound perch. Although, if the look of pain on Tom’s face and the accompanying ripping noise was any indication, he didn’t bother to unlatch her claws before lifting her away. “Come on, Minmeister. You’ve done enough terrorizing for the day.” He lifted her to his chest as he carried her off down the hall, her jewel-toned eyes, one blue, one green, staring keenly over his shoulder as though she just might be plotting her imminent return.
Tom, you have been warned.
For all of his tough-cop sensibilities, Tom looked as though he might actually be worried. “What have you been feeding her?” he asked me.
“Just a little kitten food.” I fluttered my eyelashes, the soul of innocence. “Of course she takes down a cow or two most nights, but . . . kidding!”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” Marcus said, shaking his head as he came back into the living room. “I set her down on her favorite windowsill to listen to the birds, but she kept trying to escape me. I actually had to close her in the bedroom.” And as if to demonstrate his claim, we could all hear the thumps coming from the hallway. No, she wasn’t throwing herself at the door. More like hooking her claws beneath the door and flicking hard, thereby rattling the door in a decidedly annoyed fashion. It was a good thing house cats were small. If they were any bigger, it could get scary fast.
“Maybe she just likes Tom,” I suggested helpfully.
“I don’t know,” Tom hedged. “I still think she was working up her appetite.”
Despite the obvious tension that existed between th
e three of us on a personal level, we still found ourselves meeting each other’s respective gazes and chuckling. Which for me turned into a case of the giggles when I could not get Tom’s reaction out of my mind’s eye. “Oh my goodness . . . You should . . . have seen . . . your face!” I gasped in between.
“Well . . . she did kind of come out of nowhere,” Tom said in his own defense. “I mean, you seriously might want to think about putting her on some sort of diet, Maggie. She could do damage, landing on someone like that.”
Wiping away the tears from my eyes and trying to get myself under control before a new fit could hit me with that image (I will not picture it, I will not picture it), I let out a deep, shuddering breath. “Whew! Okay. I feel better now.”
And I did. Amazing how a simple shared laugh could rid the air of days’ worth of accumulated negative energy. A catharsis for the soul.
Stony Mill could do with more of it.
Chapter 13
When Tom had gone, Marcus set me up with fresh iced tea and a whole bunch of DVR’ed Magnum episodes, a secret project he’d been working on for me to bring my Magnum, P.I. addiction out of the dark ages of VCR and into the twenty-first century. He fluffed the pillow behind my head, restacked the cushions beneath my ankle, and with a kiss on the nose told me in no uncertain terms to mind my manners and stay put in healing mode. But even with Magnum for company I found myself unable to get into my zone. How was I supposed to focus on Thomas Magnum and his lovely dimples and eye crinkles and ridiculously heartwarming laugh when I knew Marcus was at his worktable just down the hall? I closed my eyes—I could picture him there, his hair tied back low at the nape to keep it out of his way, the superbright work lamp switched on and flooding the area with light, a hands-free magnifying glass showing him the details, while behind him three large flat-screen monitors awaited him at his computer hub and server station. The boy was tech-ed out to the max, and he liked it that way. And he was good at it. Very good. It was the real reason I was so psyched for him for wanting to go back to school to finish his degree with an eye toward teaching as his end goal . . . just like his Uncle Lou. Marcus’s talents with technology were the kind that should be shared with the next generation, and he had an amazing way of connecting with his young cousin and Evie. He would make a great middle school or high school teacher. I had no doubts about that.
