Second Life (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 4)

by D. F. Bailey

  “Implies nothing,” he interrupted and then drew back a moment. “I mean it shouldn’t dissuade you. And frankly, working at the right level, you could add a lot to what we do.”

  “Really?” She smiled.

  “Of course.” He waited another moment. “Okay, so with that kind of good news—which is like nine-point-oh out of ten—I’m guessing the bad news could be really bad.” He waved a finger in a loop as if he’d been circling the air waiting to land.

  She picked up her coffee but didn’t take a drink. “It might be.”

  He lowered his gaze. “What is it?”

  “The jacket.”

  His eyebrows knit together and a puzzled look crossed his face.

  “It’s so strange. And I don’t know what it’s about. Maybe nothing,” she added. She set her coffee cup down on the table and passed him the slip of paper. “I found this in Toby Squire’s jacket.”

  “In the jacket? We both searched that thing. Where?”

  “In a concealed pocket zipped into the lining.”

  As she walked to the hallway closet to retrieve the Armani jacket, he examined the scrap of paper and studied the mix of text and numbers: @r3v3lationnow.

  “What is this?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She drew open the jacket lapel and showed him the hidden pocket. Then she unzipped it so it gaped open.

  He gazed at the jacket without touching it. “I must have searched that a dozen times. Never saw the pocket.” He turned his attention back to the paper. “So you found this in there?”

  She nodded.

  “What do you think it means?”

  “So it begins with an atmark, the first sign in every Twitter handle,” she said as she opened her laptop and clicked onto her Twitter feed. “Have a look.”

  She clicked on the sole link on the page belonging to I.M. Unknown. The list of names and addresses appeared in a single column from the top of the page. All of it neatly aligned in apparently random order. They studied the list a moment and then Eve let out a gasp.

  “It’s changed.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “My God, Will. I swear it wasn’t there this afternoon.”

  A silence weighed on them as they read the last entry and address. William Marc Finch, 114 Alta St, San Francisco, CA 94133.

  “What the hell?” His stomach tightened and he exhaled a low moan.

  They both leaned closer to the computer screen. He now wanted to examine this very carefully. Apart from his name and Martin Fast’s, he recognized two others: Eleanor Pilarz, an outspoken glaciologist at the University of Calgary, and Jayne Waterston, the journalist from The Village Voice who’d dubbed Kali Rood the Virgin Queen.

  “So. All right,” Eve said, her voice confident, “let’s just figure this out.”

  “Yeah. We better.” He shook his head and leaned back in his chair to try to fathom the situation. Was this a prank? A coincidence? Something one of the writers at the eXpress had put together as a joke?

  Over the next hour they sat opposite one another at the kitchen table with their laptops open, cups of coffee at their sides, searching the internet to determine the identities of the twenty-four people named in Toby Squire’s list. It didn’t take long for them to determine that most of the list members were either academics, scientists or media personalities and reporters. As they concluded the process of googling the names their sense of curiosity took a serious turn. Besides Martin Fast, a second member on the list had died in the past three weeks.

  “Phillip Hirsch. London, England,” Eve announced in a flat undertone. “Killed last month in some sort of early evening home invasion.”

  “That’s one outside the country and one here in the States.” Will considered the implications.

  “Two out of twenty-four dead. And it’s not like these are execution-style mob hits. They’re more like botched stick-up jobs. Like when Martin Fast stumbled into that store two days ago.” She waved a hand at the list on her screen and shrugged.

  “I know.” Finch leaned back in his chair after he checked the Wikipedia profile on the second-to-last name on his laptop. Phillip Edward Hirsch. A shiver rolled up his back.

  “I can tell you one thing that’s certain,” he said after a long moment. “Toby Squire had nothing to do with this list.”

  “No?” Her voice held a note of skepticism, as if she knew Squire might be capable of anything. “Then where did he get it?”

  Finch glanced through the window when a boom of thunder rumbled above them. They both gazed at the dark clouds packed above the roofline. Thunder and lightning storms were rare on the west coast. Especially in the summer. Likely this would fade and pass in the next ten minutes.

  “I don’t know. But look at this objectively. After his brain surgery and his coma the surgeon told us that Squire had the functional IQ of a ten-year-old. And when I saw him that day,” he said and paused as the image of Toby Squire’s suicide broke his thoughts, “I doubt he could barely read a list like this.”

  “So you’re saying the list has nothing to do with Squire.” She gave him a serious look. “But the list itself may be evidence of … something.”

  Finch pondered this with a frown. “Maybe. And maybe.”

  She smiled. “Well, that’s the sort of decisiveness that always gets my attention.”

  He returned her smile with a grim nod. “Tell you what, why don’t you talk to your friend in the SFPD. What’s her name?”

  “Leanne Spratz.”

  “Right. See if there’s anything the cops are holding back about the ballistics report on the .38 they found on Squire. Something that doesn’t match up with Squire and Fast being killed by the same weapon. Meanwhile I’m going back to the Vincent Hotel and see if I can dig up anything more about Toby Squire. He had a friend. Maybe I can track him down.”

  Eve scanned the page on her screen once more. “What about the list?”

  He tipped his head to one side and considered the possibilities. “Remember Gabe Finkleman? He’s the research guy at the eXpress. I’ll ask him if he can decode it.”

  ※

  Leanne Spratz wandered into the Caffe Trieste, nodded at the barista and waved a hand to Eve who sat at the small round table in the far corner. She set her purse on the chair next to Eve.

  “Let me grab a latte,” she said and made her way to the coffee bar.

  Since they’d moved into the neighborhood, Caffe Trieste had become Eve’s and Will’s go-to coffee shop. It was illuminated by natural light that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows along two sides of the room. A hand-painted mural of a seaside Italian village adorned the far end of the bistro. The adjacent walls were decorated with scores of framed portraits of the proprietors’ family and friends, passing celebrities and loyal habitués. In the evenings and weekends a trio or quartet might entertain the clientele with the sort of musical nostalgia that Eve imagined would be commonplace in the Mediterranean. The sign above Eve’s shoulder read: “Petosa Accordians. Official instrument of Trieste Music.” But today no musicians had ventured into the shop and apart from a few patrons’ laughter and the two or three writers who quietly tapped at their laptops, the mood in the cafe was subdued.

  “So. Thanks for coming.” Eve smiled, happy to see her old friend when Leanne returned to the table.

  “For you? Our glorious Saint Eve? Anything.” As she sat at the little table, Leanne crossed a hand in the air, a gesture of mock blessing.

  Saint Eve. The nickname bestowed upon her after she’d exposed the years of sexual harassment and intimidation against the women in the SFPD prior to her discharge. Her bitterness had been sweetened by a two million dollar out-of-court settlement. And the tacit admission of her employer’s guilt. However, she still felt a mix of embarrassment and pride whenever one of her old colleagues addressed her as Saint Eve.

  “But I’m on the clock,” Leanne continued, “so I can’t give you more than fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Okay. So the
.38. I just need to check that the official statement about the Martin Fast murder isn’t hiding anything.”

  Leanne shook her head.

  “And it’s the same pistol Toby Squire used to kill himself that afternoon?”

  “It was.” Leanne leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I had a chance to examine the ballistics report. It’s a match. There’s no doubt.”

  “And everyone accepts that Squire killed Fast?”

  “Makes for an easy two-fer. Two dead, one gun.” She shrugged, a weary gesture to suggest there isn’t a cop in the world who wouldn’t put both cases to bed based on the ballistics evidence alone.

  “Look, Eve. Listen to me,” Leanne continued in a plaintive voice to draw Eve’s attention. “Everyone knows you’re probably still suffering from what Squire did to you.” She paused as if she wondered how to continue, then decided to simply dive in. “Why do you think there has to be more to this?”

  “I don’t know. Will was there when it happened. He said Squire looked almost psychotic.”

  “And that’s a reason to doubt he’s the perp?” Leanne smirked with a cynical laugh. “You’ve been off the beat too long, girl.”

  “Maybe.”

  Perhaps Leanne was right. She’d been too wounded by Squire to think rationally about him. The case linking him to Martin Fast was cut and dried. Move on.

  “Speaking of Will, I read his feature story on Kali Rood. Let me tell you, she’s a piece of work.”

  “Really? How do you know that?”

  “Her whole foundation. If anyone needs salvation, it’s her.”

  “What? You think the Virgin Queen needs help?” Eve winked. They both laughed, both somewhat embarrassed to be gossiping this way.

  “Right.” Leanne pushed her empty coffee cup aside and leaned forward. “I have a cousin who has a friend who knew her in high school in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Her parents died in a some kind of house fire. Anyhow there was this tragedy and then she moved out of town. That’s when the rumor mill began to churn.”

  Eve’s head ticked to one side. “What rumors?”

  “That she was somehow responsible. There’d been an arson inquiry but nothing was ever proved. The night of the fire, Kali was at a sleepover.”

  “With who?”

  “Another girlfriend. All very convenient. Like, a little too convenient.” Leanne glanced away as if she needed to back out of the conversation. They’d both seen the sort of trouble that could emerge from third-hand gossip.

  Eve finished her coffee and gazed through the room with a troubled expression. She realized that over the past ten minutes the cafe had filled to capacity. The buzz of laughter and the wrangle of chatter and debate gained intensity.

  Eve considered asking if she could call Leanne’s cousin, but when she took her purse in her hand and stood up, Eve felt her curiosity fade. Besides, if she ever needed it, she knew she could come back to Leanne for another favor. That door was always open.

  As they walked toward the exit, three musicians slipped past them toward the makeshift stage at the back of the room. Each carried their instruments above their chests to avoid bumping into the patrons who crowded around the coffee baristas. A guitar, a mandolin, and an antique accordion: a rustic trio.

  “Thanks, Leanne. You’re gold, you know.”

  “Oh, I know!”

  They both laughed, then hugged one another.

  “You want my advice?” Leanne said in a serious voice. “Let this thing go. Toby Squire and Kali Rood. They’re both poison.”

  ※ — SEVEN — ※

  FINCH LEANED HIS head against the wire fence surrounding the reception counter at the Vincent Hotel and tried to get Frank McGill’s attention. The hotel clerk’s ears were covered by high-density headphones, the sort of equipment the writers back at the eXpress used to block the constant banter of phone calls surrounding them in the bog.

  “Gilly!” he yelled. “Gilly, over here.” He slapped his palm on the laminate counter. When that failed to break Gilly’s trance, he reached through the grill of the protective cage, tore a sheet of paper from the desk blotter, balled it in his fist and tossed it at Gilly’s neck.

  “What?” The wounded vet turned in his swivel chair and pulled the right headphone from his ear with his good hand. “Oh, sorry.” He stood up and laid the earphones next to a laptop. After a second thought, he closed the lid on the computer and applied a weak grin to his face. “Will Finch, right? What can I do for you?”

  Will smiled, a look intended to put Gilly at ease. The last thing he needed was to offend the only lead he had.

  “Look, I don’t mean to bother you, but after the cops broke up our little open house visit the other day, I need to ask you some more questions.”

  “Yeah?” Gilly leaned on his side of the counter and studied Finch through the wire cage. “I can’t get you back into Lenny’s room again if that’s what your after. It’s already let out to a new guy.”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then what do you need?”

  “The name of this man. Looks latino to me. Maybe you’ve seen him.” Finch pulled the polaroid picture from his pocket, the same picture he’d stolen from Squire’s dresser when the cops were distracted by the rat cage. The photo showed Toby Squire and Mr. X sitting in an outdoor park somewhere. They weren’t posed in an embrace, but they bore the look of mutual respect, the sort of deference that came from surviving in the same battle zone for months on end.

  Gilly took the picture in hand and shook his head. “Don’t know him. But that’s definitely Lenny Earl with him.”

  Finch pointed to Toby. “His real name is Toby Squire.”

  “Toby Squire?”

  “A murderer who escaped police custody last year. That’s why the SFPD was so interested in casing his room upstairs.”

  Gilly tipped his head to one side. Finch wondered if the fact that a murderer had lived above Gilly’s work station bothered him in some way.

  “Nope,” he said and returned the picture to Will. “But I can tell you where that pic was taken.”

  “You can?” Finch leaned in. “Where?”

  “The Turk-Hyde Mini Park. Just a block down. The kiddie park where Lenny used to hang out. I’d see him there from time to time.” He adjusted the sleeve on his amputated arm and then rubbed his narrow chin with his hand. “Used to make me wonder, you know? Hanging around kids like that. Some of the men down here, they got real troubles.”

  “I guess.” Finch didn’t want to know any more about the troubles swimming through the surrounding streets. Over the years he’d seen enough of it. “All right, Gilly. I appreciate your help. It means a lot.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Really.” Finch hiked his courier bag strap over his shoulder and turned to leave.

  “Mr. Finch? Look, I know you’re a big name reporter. On CNN and PBS. All those things. But would you like to do a ten-minute spot on my podcast one day?”

  Finch turned to him with a look of surprise. “You host a podcast?”

  “Yessir. Once a week. Gilly’s Last Gasp.” He pointed to the laptop where he’d been editing one of his broadcasts. “Been going almost five years now. Except for every Christmas, never missed a week. Got over twelve thousand fans.”

  Impressed, Finch’s curiosity brought him back to the reception cage. “What’s it about?”

  He smiled and swept his arm in a broad arc. “The one thing I truly know. Life in the Tenderloin District.”

  Finch nodded and tried to imagine Gilly’s inner world. A jungle of frightened strangers hiding in plain sight, all of them eking out an existence in the gutters and garbage bins.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it. Not this week, but soon.” He passed him his business card.

  “You mean it?” Gilly had a doubtful look in his eyes.

  “Yeah. Seriously. I do.” As Finch left the building he gained a sense of optimism, a hunch that if he worked with Gilly, something positi
ve might emerge from this bleak, dark hovel. Something good and whole.

  ※

  Finch left the Vincent Hotel, walked across the street and down a block to the Turk-Hyde Mini Park. In the corner two women sat on a small wood bench, eyeing the children who were clambering feet-first up the playground slide. The same bench where Alice sat a few days earlier and where he’d bought the Armani jacket for ten dollars.

  As he stood at the park gate he held the polaroid picture at arm’s length. Sure enough, Gilly had it right. The bench where the women now chatted idly marked the exact place where Toby Squire and Mr. X had settled while a third person took this picture, the image of two men sitting side-by-side. And who was Mr. Y, the photographer? And where had he ever found a Polaroid instant camera, let alone the film? Will was sure the camera and film had been obsolete for at least a decade. Nonetheless, the proof was in his hand: in Toby Squire’s dull, almost lifeless face staring back at him.

  Finch walked through the gate and angled towards the women, slowing his pace as he neared them.

  “Excuse me.” He smiled, knowing he had to win their trust.

  A hush came over them and they turned their heads in unison. Even in their light jackets, they seemed overdressed for the weather. They possessed the same nut-brown eyes and auburn hair that fell in loose curls to their shoulders. He thought they might be sisters.

  “I don’t want to trouble you,” he continued. “But I wonder if you have seen either of these men.” Reluctant to give up the picture, he held up the three-by-three inch photograph in his fingers.

  They shook their heads in silence. One of them flipped her hand at a mosquito buzzing near her ear.

  “You’ve never seen them here?”

  “No,” one of them said.

  “You sure?”

  “No speak. No nothing,” the other said in an insistent voice.

  The few words they spoke sounded eastern European to him. Hungarian? Romanian? Only a guess; he’d never been close to either country.

  “All right,” he said and slipped the photograph into his shirt pocket and wandered back to his car. As he drove down to the eXpress office a dull feeling seeped through him, a kind of worry that he was chasing a phantom. A ghost just out of reach. Then he thought of his name at the bottom of the list on the web page. That was real. Wasn’t it?