Mortal Crimes 1

by Various Authors

  Joe had once observed that her tracking was the only piece of her heritage she’d taken along with her when she’d left her native culture behind. And as much as that statement had riled her, it was true.

  She’d learned to track at her grandfather’s elbow. From the time she could waddle behind him on unsteady toddler feet, she’d found refuge in the woods. It was quiet. It was calm. And, he taught her that if she paid close attention, the woods would share all the secrets of the wild with her.

  She allowed herself a faint smile as stepped careful out of the creek and bent to examine the disturbed mud and gravel on the bank.

  The distinctive tracks gave the animal away. Raccoon. It had probably come to the water to wash its food and had slunk away into the woods when it spotted her.

  You can’t avoid the case forever, she admonished herself.

  But she needed this, she reasoned. She felt increasingly disconnected from nature the longer she lived in the dense, noisy city. One morning spent mucking around in the woods wasn’t going to tank the trial. Rosie’s contact in the Clerk’s Office would track down their wayward motion. The defendants own words would convict them. And maybe, just maybe, the quiet stillness of the winter woods would help her rid her mind of distractions, like Joe.

  She settled back on her haunches. The thin rays of sun fell on her upturned face. She closed her eyes, filled her lungs with the cold, fresh air, and emptied her mind.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Do you understand?” the man asked in a cold voice.

  Franklin’s fear and worry masked his irritation at constantly being treated like an idiot. If this man thought Franklin was so stupid, why had he chosen him?

  “I understand.”

  “Good. It needs to start in her home office. That’s the second room on the left side of the hallway as you walk away from the door.”

  Franklin placed a finger on the square labeled “study” on her apartment’s floor plan.

  “I see it.”

  “Can you overload the circuit her computer is on, start a small electrical fire?”

  Of course he could.

  As Franklin was learning, as long as he didn’t care about societal rules and the law, he had the technical ability to do almost anything. The knowledge of how much power he possessed as long as he had a keyboard was nearly as frightening as the fact that the man on the other end of the phone held his mother’s life in his hands.

  “Yes.”

  “If possible, the damage should be confined to her apartment. If it is not possible, that is acceptable. What is the goal?”

  “The goal is to destroy her computer.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you will override the sprinkler system?”

  “Yes. To her apartment only.”

  “Very good. Do it.”

  The man hung up.

  Franklin pushed away the thought of what might happen if the lawyer was sleeping in and overcome by smoke. He couldn’t get distracted by worrying about other people. He had to do whatever was necessary to get his mom back safely.

  He tapped into the system that controlled the Delano Towers Apartment Building’s electrical systems and pulled up the detailed grid. He clicked on 609. A detailed plan of the apartment, with a blinking square to indicate every outlet currently being fed juice, filled his screen.

  He found the study on the map and enlarged it. There was no doubt which outlet powered her computer. The bar graph at the bottom of the screen showed the overwhelming majority of the electricity going to an outlet on the north wall. Franklin assumed a lawyer would be careful enough to purchase and use a decent surge protector.

  He scratched his chin. How the surge protector would work would depend on if she had one that had a built-in fuse, a gas discharge arrestor, or a metal oxide varistor. Metal oxide varistors were by far the most common type. He’d just start there. A varistor worked by diverting excess voltage away from its protected load. But, by design, it worked best to conduct electricity during a short spike or a transient surge. Exposure to a persistent overload, for as short a time as several seconds, should overwhelm it, overheat it, and cause it burst into flames even if she spent the money for an internal circuit breaker. He’d try that first and readjust if it failed.

  He pulsed power to the line, ramping up the load to 208 volts. Then he waited. He did not have long to wait.

  After about fifteen seconds, the building’s sprinkler system and hard-wired fire alarms began to light up. He minimized the electrical system window. With three clicks, he overrode the fire alarm and disconnected the system that would activate the sprinkler in the study of Apartment 609.

  Her computer would literally melt. And the flames would take care of any papers sitting on or near the desk. The man would be pleased.

  He gnawed at a flap of jagged skin hanging near his thumb.

  “Please don’t let try to be a hero,” he whispered aloud. The thought that the lawyer or one of her neighbors might rush into the burning apartment to save her work ate at him.

  He’d be responsible for anyone who was injured—or worse.

  Panicky tears filled his eyes.

  His mother had always worried that he was too soft to survive in the modern world. Maybe she was right. Maybe he was so soft and weak that he would fail to save her.

  Pull yourself together.

  He forced himself to slow his shallow breathing and punched in the man’s telephone number to let him know that he’d done it. He’d added arson to his growing list of crimes.

  ________

  The sense of tranquility that Aroostine had spent an entire morning cultivating evaporated in an instant when she rounded the corner onto her street and saw the crowd of residents huddling on the sidewalk and in the street near her apartment building. A small fire truck blocked the street, and parka-wearing police officers directed the mass of people to stay back.

  Aroostine spotted Mr. Cornhardt, who lived across the hall in 610, standing with the Indian couple from the end of the floor. He wasn’t wearing a coat but had a knitted afghan thrown over his shoulders. Peanut, his Westie, was whimpering in his arms. She noticed that unlike his owner, Peanut was bundled into a jacket.

  “What happened?” she asked as she approached the group.

  The Indian woman’s eyes widened when she saw Aroostine.

  “Oh, Aroostine. There’s been a fire,” Mr. Cornhardt said, his voice trembling. At the sound, Peanut started to shake.

  “There, there, Peeny,” he soothed the dog.

  “A fire? Was anyone hurt?”

  “No, thank the Lord. But Mrs. Patel here says one of the building managers told her it started on our floor.”

  “In your unit actually,” Mrs. Patel said in a soft, apologetic voice.

  “My apartment caught fire?”

  Aroostine’s mind reeled. Where would she stay? How bad was the damage? Were her belongings all destroyed?

  “You have renter’s insurance, don’t you?” the Indian man—presumably, Mr. Patel—asked.

  “Yes,” she said numbly, trying to claw through the shock to remember her agent’s name.

  “That’s good. We heard it was an electrical fire. It started in the walls.”

  “But … I have a surge protector,” she said.

  Mr. Cornhardt shook his head. “It wasn’t a surge. Nobody else noticed anything out of the ordinary. I was watching ‘Ocean’s Twelve’ with Peanut here. He likes that George Clooney. ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ is a clearly superior movie, but the second one was free with my streaming account, and Peanut isn’t very picky. Anyway, my power never flickered or anything.”

  The Patels nodded their agreement.

  “But, how—?”

  “I don’t know. You need to find someone from building management and get some answers. They’re crawling all over the place in a panic because your sprinkler malfunctioned.”

  Aroostine just stared at him wordlessly.

  “It’s true,” Mr. Patel chime
d in, “the fire alarm didn’t go off and neither did the sprinkler.”

  “Are those—connected?” She didn’t think they would be, but she hadn’t ever had a reason to think about it. At the moment, her brain was struggling to make sense of the jumble of words her neighbors were throwing at her, engineering details were definitely beyond her grasp.

  “Two different systems,” Mr. Cornhardt confirmed. “And they’ve tested them both. They’re both working properly now, including in your unit. So, why are we still freezing our butts off in the street? That’s the real question.”

  Mrs. Patel gave Aroostine a sympathetic smile. “You must have very bad luck. If they let us back in, you’ll join Ajit and me for dinner tonight.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Patel.”

  “Call me Dia.”

  Aroostine forced her mouth into an approximation of a smile.

  “Thank you, Dia, but I’m afraid I have a case getting ready to go to trial and I really need to work this evening. Can I get a rain check?”

  “Certainly,” Ajit said.

  “Thanks. Well, at least I finally met my neighbors,” she joked.

  Over Mr. Cornhardt’s shoulder, she spotted Mallory, one of the building managers, talking to a burly man wearing a Fire Department windbreaker. She excused herself and jogged over to them.

  You must have very bad luck.

  The matter-of-fact statement echoed in her head.

  First her missing document. And now this. It was certainly beginning to look like if it weren’t for bad luck, she’d have no luck at all.

  She approached Mallory and the firefighter and cleared her throat.

  “Oh, Ms. Higgins,” Mallory squeaked when she noticed Aroostine standing there, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this—”

  Aroostine took pity on her and finished the sentence, “My apartment caught on fire. I talked to the Patels and Mr. Cornhardt.”

  Mallory released the tension she’d been holding in her shoulders. “Obviously, The Delano will replace anything that’s been damaged or destroyed by the fire or smoke damage.”

  “Great.” Aroostine smiled weakly. “So, what exactly happened, and, more important, when can I get into my apartment?”

  “You 609?” the firefighter interrupted.

  “I guess so. My friends call me Aroostine, though.” She surprised herself with the lame attempt at a joke.

  That earned her a reluctant chuckle. “Well, Aroostine, an electrical fire started in the wall, which blew your surge protector, melting your computer and destroying pretty much everything in your home office as a result of a malfunctioning sprinkler.” He threw Mallory a dark, disapproving look at the mention of the sprinkler failure.

  “Melted my computer?” Aroostine repeated stupidly. “Like, my hard drive?”

  “Afraid so.”

  For the first time since her neighbors had broken the news, the enormity of what had happened hit her in full.

  “Aroostine? Are you okay?” Mallory asked, a look of concern on her face.

  “I … just … I have a trial starting in a little over a week. All my notes…”

  “Surely you back up to the Cloud? Or keep a copy at the office?” the firefighter said in disbelief.

  “Usually, both. But, not these notes.”

  “Why not?” Mallory asked, her concern morphing into disapproval.

  Aroostine closed her eyes and willed herself not to pass out. She swallowed and said, “It’s a long story. It doesn’t matter.”

  She wasn’t about to tell the property manager and some random District of Columbia fireman that she was so insecure about her trial abilities that she didn’t want anyone else to stumble across her opening, closing, and witness examinations and cross-exams until they were final.

  Pride goeth before the fall, her adoptive father’s voice rang in her ears.

  She almost laughed. She’d never truly understood that particular adage until this very moment. Fat lot of good it did her now.

  “Anyway,” she pressed. “Can I get into my place?”

  Mallory and the firefighter exchanged a look.

  “I’m sorry, but no,” he said.

  “Look—what’s your name, anyway?”

  “Pete Richards, ma’am.”

  “Look, Mr. Richards, I’ve been out in the woods all morning, and I need to take a shower, change my clothes, and get something to eat before I go into work. Because apparently I need to recreate my trial prep notes from scratch. So, can you please stop being a bureaucrat and let me into my apartment?”

  “No can do. Your walls are still hot. And it’s smoky in there. It wouldn’t be safe.” His voice was kind, but his face was implacable.

  Aroostine felt tears welling up in her eyes and forced them back. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Mallory hurried to reassure her. “We can put you up in the model apartment temporarily. And I’m sure I can get the office to approve a petty cash dispersal so you can get some clothes and toiletries. It’ll just be for a night or two. Luckily the damage is confined to your study.”

  Aroostine shook her head. The last thing she wanted to do was to hang around the building if she couldn’t access her place. “I have my bank card on me, thank goodness. I’ll just … stay with a friend.” As she said the words, she realized she did have at least one friend in this miserable town.

  She’d call Rosie from the back of a cab. They could recreate the work. Hell, her loss would inure to Rosie’s benefit—she’d let the junior attorney take the lead on a witness or two. She really didn’t have a choice. Not if she still planned to win this trial.

  “Good luck,” Pete Richards called after her as she trudged to the corner to hail a cab.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rosie met Aroostine at the door of her Columbia Heights townhouse.

  “Come in, it’s cold out there,” she said by way of greeting, pulling Aroostine inside.

  Aroostine looked around and tried not to gape at the exposed brick walls, the orange and red canvas hanging over the fireplace, and the abundance of dark, rich wood and sumptuous fabrics.

  “This is gorgeous. Did you do all this yourself?”

  The townhome was the picture of urban sophistication.

  Rosie blushed. “No. When I saved enough for a down payment for a house, my parents surprised me by hiring an interior designer to furnish it. They said I’d be living out of the IKEA As-Is room forever on a government lawyer’s salary. You know how it is, being young and single—I’m sure your family’s the same way.”

  Young and single. A pang of guilt plucked at Aroostine’s conscience. But she decided this wasn’t the right time to mention to her closest friend in D.C. that, oh, by the way, she had a husband back home.

  Instead she focused on the notion of the Higgenses hiring a decorator and swallowed a giggle.

  “Um, back home nobody really has their house decorated by a professional”

  Rosie cocked her head. “Really?”

  Aroostine thought of the roosters and folk art Americana that most of her parents’ friends favored. They picked up their tchotchkes at the craft stalls that dotted the annual Apple Festival not at some high-end, European furniture store.

  “Really,” she assured her friend.

  “Huh. Anyway, speaking of being single—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Somebody was asking about you.”

  “Asking about me?”

  “You have an admirer,” Rosie teased.

  Aroostine felt her face grow warm.

  “Mitchell?” she guessed.

  “You nailed it,” Rosie confirmed. “He’s cute—I think so, at least. I didn’t even know he was single. He’s always so serious and focused at work, we’ve never talked about his personal life. Not until you showed up, that is.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond. This was probably the best chance she’d have to mention the small matter of her marital status. But she really didn’t feel like talking about Joe
.

  “Uh, so, I could really use a shower,” she said, both because she was desperate to change the subject and because it was true.

  “Oh, of course! I’m sorry. After the day you’ve had, I’m sure you could. Follow me.”

  Rosie led her up the narrow spiral staircase and down a short corridor.

  “Here’s the guest room. There should be towels and shampoo and stuff in the bathroom. I’ll grab you a pair of sweats and leave them on the bed.”

  “Thank you, seriously, so much. But, um, I don’t really think sweats are appropriate for the office, even on a Saturday,” Aroostine said gently.

  She gave Rosie’s gray leggings and long-sleeved t-shirt a pointed look to suggest she might also want to change before they went into work.

  Rosie cocked her head and looked bemused.

  “What?” Aroostine asked.

  “There is no way we’re working today. We’re going to hang out and relax, then eat Chinese takeout, watch girlie movies, and drink a bottle of good red wine.”

  Aroostine gave her the same look back.

  “Are you crazy? One, we have jury selection in six days. Trial starts in nine days. I just lost all my notes, and Hernandez granted the motion in limine—which reminds me, did the Clerk’s Office get back to you. Please tell me they did and the whole thing’s been resolved.”

  “Not yet. The guy did say it would take him a while to research it. So I’m sure, eventually, it’ll get straightened out.”

  “What’s a while?”

  Rosie chewed on her bottom lip for a few long seconds, then she admitted, “it could take as long as a week.”

  “A week? We don’t have a week. That settles it: we’re definitely not taking the day off.”

  “Oh, yes, we are,” Rosie informed her.

  Aroostine studied her for a long moment.

  “No way.”

  Rosie held her ground. “Listen, you’re the boss, but this week has sucked—I mean, even without your place catching on fire it sucked. The fire is just the cherry on this crap sundae. You deserve a day to recharge. No, strike that, you need a day to recharge. We’ll get up at the crack of dawn and work all day tomorrow. Deal?”

  Aroostine bit her lip and considered Rosie’s plan. It had been a miserable week.