“Do we watch and wait or incite war?” He studied the gorilla’s position beside the house under construction, apparently unfazed by murderous thugs or Ana.
He really ought to be worried about Ana.
“On my own, I’d go for war, but EG’s inside, and that comes under messing the nest, too,” she said with regret. “I really need to get my own place. This level of monitoring is beyond all tiresome.”
“Leonard’s had an opportunity by now to discover the old carriage house on the other block. Shall I leave you here while I check on him? I can video you the result.”
Laughing, Patra looked up at him. “An older man who gets technology. Good for you, sport. Go at it. I want to see how Graham protects his rear.”
Sean all but snarled and trotted off around the corner. That should get him out of her way before she started shooting.
Fourteen
I glared as my no-longer new or amusing toy beeped with still another message from Patra. My sibling was showing off, metaphorically strutting her stuff by sending photos of the nosy reporter and his cohort in a tavern. If Patra wanted to try the mossy tactic of cozying up to the enemy, it was her time and money. But I supposed it was considerate of her to let me know where she was.
I was monitoring the coded file slowly emerging from the current document I’d fed into the software. Graham had been right. Patra’s father had coded some of his papers. Figuring out which ones was the trick. He’d played dirty pool by encoding what appeared to be meaningless office memos and expense reports instead of his journal entries.
I hit the phone for the image coming through at the same time as Graham snarled through the intercom.
“Send your sister back where she came from. I don’t need those termites snooping around my back door.”
“Because that’s where you keep your Batmobile?” I asked, just because.
The image appearing on my phone showed a gorilla-sized goon with a shoulder holster leaning against the wall of the house across the street. And Graham had spotted a termite at the back door? Not good, Patra.
Graham didn’t waste his breath responding. He’d got his threat across with his snarl. I grabbed my phone as it rang with a forwarded photo — from Sean? What the hell was Sean doing out there? I trotted to the kitchen to show Mallard the image of Riley at the carriage house.
He recognized the location behind us and grabbed a meat cleaver.
“Protect yourself and EG with that,” I warned. “We don’t take violent offensive.”
As if Mallard would take orders from me. He glared down at me with scorn and took the kitchen stairs to his backyard herb garden. Assuming Patra was somewhere outside, I ran up to the second floor and EG’s tower aerie.
I knocked politely. “Tower surveillance needed. Coming in.”
Her door instantly popped open. She had our newly purchased spy telescope in hand. “There’s a man with a gun in the alley.”
“Yeah, Patra is out there sending live action photos. Have you spotted her yet?”
EG had lowered the top half of her shades so she could stand on her reading chair and look out. I had a little more height, but not enough. I took the spyglass, climbed on the desk chair, and worked it like a skateboard, looking for the best position.
The big goon with a gun was on the east side of the vacant house across the street. Patra was stationed on the west, watching something on her smart phone. Sean must be sneaking around with a camera, and she was forwarding his images.
I turned to look out the rear tower windows, but the warehouse or reinforced carriage house or whatever that was behind us was a solid mountain obstructing the view. I couldn’t even see Mallard.
Nick wandered in, dressed in his best Saturday night duds and smelling like an expensive whorehouse. “What game are we playing?”
“Patra’s out there with a hitman,” I said, handing over the glass. “We’re wagering on whether she brings him down before or after Graham does. And Graham reports a termite at the rear.”
“Oh, goody, can I have the termite?” he asked facetiously, checking out the thug in front. “The goon is totally passé. Patra really ought to look for a better class of enemy. A good strong fire hose would bring him down. I think Mallard has one in the basement.”
“Mallard has gone after the termite with a kitchen axe. Since Patra’s been following Leonard Riley, I assume he’s the termite. We’re waiting for the fireworks before bothering with the goon.”
A recorded voice began broadcasting from the speakers in the hall. We all obediently trudged out to decipher the staticky broadcast from Graham’s lair.
“Perennial bad boy, Reginald Brashton the Third, died unexpectedly in his jail cell today after being extradited to face drug and embezzlement charges. An autopsy has been arranged. Arnold Oppenheimer, lawyer for one of the plaintiffs suing Brashton, had visited with Brashton earlier in the day. Speculation is rife in the legal community.”
In frustrated fury, I whacked the telescope against the speaker. The one at the other end of the hall continued with the news report, but I didn’t have to listen.
Brashton. Dead! After all our efforts to return him alive.
I couldn’t summon any grief over a spoiled rich boy who’d murdered my grandfather. Fear and fury warred inside me instead. This was worse than losing the yacht. I pounded my heel into the wood paneling in a fit of frustration.
Damn Reggie! Even in death he was a pain in the rear.
Unable to fight this devastating blow, we grimly retreated to EG’s room to spy on the spies.
“News van at three o’clock,” Nick reported, gazing out the shaded windows without need of chair. “The media has figured out who the plaintiffs are.” His voice had gone from cheerful to flat. All his work bringing Reggie back alive — for naught.
Nick and I gloomily contemplated the many ways we could have tortured our grandfather’s lawyer if we hadn’t been trying to play legal. Was Reggie’s death in a jail cell the justice we wanted? It didn’t feel like it.
“Thugs to the left of us, termites to the right,” EG said helpfully. “Now what do we do?”
I sighed. Pouting wouldn’t get us anywhere. We might as well deal with what was on our doorstep.
“Nick, check on our favorite termite journalist. Tickle Riley’s fancy any way that makes you happy to chase him away so Mallard will put down his axe and go back to fixing Graham’s dinner. We have a news van out front, blocking our goon’s aim, so I’m guessing we don’t need the fire hose. I think I’ll go pull a few daisy petals and see what happens. I need to get back to work and this parade of imbeciles is in my way.” I stalked off, simmering.
I was back in my grubbies — long cotton skirt and tie-dyed t-shirt — so I wasn’t exactly camera fare. Which was precisely the image I wanted to project — dull, uninteresting, unnewsworthy. If gorgeous Patra of the short skirt got out there first, the media would never leave us alone.
So I took the stairs two at a time while texting Patra to tell her to stay the hell out of sight. She objected. I told her I’d lock her out of the house. She sulked in silence.
When I reached the front door, I slowed to a mosey. The cameraman was at the front gate by the time I let myself out. Instead of going to meet him, I ignored him. I sat down on the front step and began looking for four-leaf clovers in the patch of lawn. If there had been daisies, I would have plucked them.
Apparently Mallard had locked the gate while wielding his meat cleaver. Smart man. The camera whirred and a reporter leaned over the spiked wrought iron fence to shout, “Miss Maximillian, did you know Reggie Brashton was murdered in his jail cell this afternoon?”
I picked a blade of grass, chewed on it, eyed him skeptically, then returned to playing with the clover. I wasn’t giving him credit for identifying me. My long black braid is pretty distinctive, and I’d stirred up an ant’s nest of reporters just a few weeks ago. I looked for the gorilla goon across the street from the corner of my eye, but the
van blocked the house.
The reporter tried again. “Your lawyer was the last person to see him alive. Will Brashton’s death help or hurt your case?”
Oh, the little boy had read his press copy. Very nice. I chewed my grass some more, then looking past him, I nodded as if to a friend. The reporter and cameraman swung around, maybe just a little afraid. I doubted that they knew Graham was inside, so maybe it was just their surroundings that made them jumpy.
From his street-side position, the cameraman must have spotted the hired goon with his telescopic lens. Instead of jumping in his van and leaving, he started filming the goon.
I pulled out my phone and called Patra. “Is the baddie leaving yet? Want to be on entertainment news or come in the back way?”
I’d seen her across the street, so I knew she was watching the whole scene. I trusted she was keeping an eye out for Gorilla Boy, who should be making his escape down the alley about now.
“Entertainment news?” she asked warily.
“Brashton is dead and apparently the media thinks our lawyer killed him. Can you think of any good questions they might ask?”
I waited for her to run that scenario through her encyclopedic knowledge of the media and reach the same conclusion as me.
“Probably not,” she agreed. “I’d rather be the one asking questions. Is Nick out back?”
“Yup. He’ll escort you through the kitchen garden.”
With the reporter still shouting questions at me and the cameraman now filming the whole street, I got up and went back inside. Riley and friends wouldn’t risk a film crew.
I jogged down to my office with my heart in my throat and my head pounding. I needed to find out all I could about Reggie’s death.
It would make a great deal of sense for our enemies to kill Reggie and blame our lawyer at the same time. I knew Graham would benefit since it was his house we wanted. Reggie’s old law firm would benefit because we fully intended to drag their esteemed East Coast asses through some very murky mud. And number one on my list of suspects — the shadowy Top Hat organization that I suspected of ordering Reggie to kill Max. Reggie had had stories to tell, names to name. I should have seen this coming.
I wished I had Graham’s banks of computers at my fingertips. I didn’t like it that people around us were dropping like flies.
“Riley ran when he saw Mallard coming,” Nick announced with disappointment, clattering down the stairs with Patra. “They don’t make good hoodlums anymore.”
The phone rang.
I waved everyone to silence while I answered the phone. Oppenheimer’s secretary was on the line.
“Mr. Oppenheimer regrets that he will be unable to pursue your case,” the poor secretary said. I could tell from her voice that she hadn’t wanted to call us — for good reason. I wasn’t about to be reasonable.
“Tell Oppenheimer not to be a chicken-hearted turd. We’ve paid him a substantial sum, and we’re not letting him off the hook. He can help us find out who really killed Reggie and why. Tell him to hire a detective if he’s incapable of asking the right questions. We’re not taking no for an answer.” I hung up and smiled wickedly at my listeners. I didn’t have to let them know how worried I was.
"And now we start hunting Reggie’s murderer as well as Bill’s,” I told them.
Fifteen
My declaring we were about to become detectives didn’t deter Nick from heading out for the evening. Nor did it stop Patra from exchanging notes with Sean at the fake Irish pub on the corner. Heaven forbid that I should interfere in their social lives just because I didn’t have one.
Before I started my own detecting list, I located EG in my bedroom, pecking away at my laptop. She had a clear view of the street from my desk and her slightly battered spyglass beside the computer.
“I don’t suppose you’re doing homework?” I leaned over her shoulder. She was Googling Broderick Media.
“In one sense of the word, yes,” she said in a clipped snotty tone. “If this is to be my home, then I’m working to protect it.”
“I don’t see any Gatling guns. So, are we chasing Reggie’s trail or the beanbrain who’s been spying on Patra?”
"Leonard Riley, investigative reporter, fired by Broderick Media after being convicted and sued for invasion of privacy over telephone hacking the vice president of the United States. Apparently the Secret Service was displeased. That was back before 9/11.” She called up a back issue of the Washington Post. “There’s a different media conglomerate in the UK currently sued for tapping the phones of public officials. They must have picked up a few tips from BM.”
I quickly scanned the story. “I don’t think Leonard’s little misadventure begins to compare with the English variety,” I pointed out. “The UK media directly hacked the queen and the prince and everyone down to the baby sisters of rock stars through some antiquated phone system. It’s tougher to hack U.S. phone systems. If he actually tapped the vice-president, he needed someone with equipment on the inside. Different sort of operation.”
“That’s what I thought.” EG brought up another tab with the image of a portly, white-haired gent wearing a shit-eating smile that made my guts grind. Dr. Charles Smythe, leader of the Righteous and Proud, read the caption, but I would have recognized a sleazy snake-oil salesman anywhere. Half the members of Congress wore that expression. The other half just weren’t as pretty. Not that I’m prejudiced or anything.
“Why Smythe?” I asked.
“Dr. Smythe, a former aide to the vice president of the United States, recently appointed to the R&P’s newly-created executor’s position,” she read aloud. My own personal evil genius pointed to a figure in the background of the photo.
The figure looked like our rotund reporter, a few pounds lighter. The story date was roughly ten years ago — way beyond our concern. I waited for explanation.
“Dr. Smythe has resigned his position at the White House to work as head of the Righteous and the Proud,” she read further into the story. “Shortly prior to Leonard’s arrest,” she added, tabbing back to Riley’s page.
“Why on earth…” I tabbed back and forth, skimming the articles.
Smythe had resigned from the White House not long before Riley was arrested for tapping the veep’s private phone. The two of them were shown together in a publicity photo — so presumably Riley knew Smythe? As well as Broderick, because Riley had been working for BM when he’d got arrested and fired.
Had the R&P rewarded Smythe with a paying position after Riley had gathered inside information from the vice president’s private phone line? The correlation of place and time were there, but not much else.
“And after Lennie left prison, he collected a small pension from B&M, according to his credit report. The credit bureaus list him as an independent contractor,” EG added.
“Independent contractor could mean anything. Lennie could just be doing exactly what he said,” I reminded her. “Investigating new hires is not unknown, although Riley could be putting his own spin on it for whatever reason. I’ll dig in a little deeper. You did good, grasshopper, now go take your bath and read a book about bats.”
“Once I have my Mac —”
“You’ll be dangerous, I’m aware. But we have to give Nick and Patra a few things to do, so you can clock out now. Give the brain a rest.” I shooed her out of my room, feeling a mother’s heart tug at recognizing her child was a chip off the old block.
Except EG is my sister and she emulated Mata Hari Magda, and that really was not a good thing for any of us.
Patra’s perspective
Patra leaned against the wall and sprawled her legs across the booth seat in the dark pub. She sipped her beer and returned to tapping through her smart phone. “Why aren’t you quizzing me about Oppenheimer and Brashton and all those fascinating things all reporters want for this week’s gossip?”
On the bench across from her, Sean shrugged and sipped his own beer. “Investigating a dead druggie isn’t my kin
d of story unless it leads me to Graham and whatever he’s up to these days. I’ll be your media mouthpiece on Reggie, if you need it.”
“Not happening unless Ana gives the word. You do not want to get on Ana’s wrong side.” Patra showed him the text that had just arrived. “She’s found another speech analyst for my father’s tape and is sending him all the audio files we confiscated from Bill’s place.”
Sean already knew about Bill’s files and had done nothing with the information. She had to trust him if she wanted insider information. But she didn’t mention that Ana had figured out part of the code in her father’s papers. That was private. “She’s scary good.”
“I agree with the scary part.” Sean eyed her text with skepticism. “But your father is old news. What’s the point? The world’s moved on. That war is done.”
“My apartment was incinerated a month ago, and Bill may have just died for that old news. If I’m earning a Pulitzer before I’m thirty, I can’t ignore any story that comes my way. Bill was murdered. We don’t know why. The cops aren’t looking. I will. Simple. Now are you with me or not?”
“The whole family is crazy,” Sean muttered. “Do I get to share the Pulitzer?”
“Sure, why not?” she waved her hand and shut down her phone. “Ana says the rest of Bill’s papers are with his family. I want them. I have tomorrow off. How about you?”
“It’s Sunday,” he pointed out. “Even the media has the day off.”
“Yeah.” Patra sent him her sexiest grin. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
* * *
Sunday morning, I woke up from a hot and nasty dream of a sweaty, very naked Graham on top of me. I was so far into the dream that I actually contemplated going upstairs and experimenting with another of his steamy kisses. I’d have to do something about getting laid soon, but family complicated my life. I hit the shower instead.
I took time to study my wardrobe after I got out. I’d spent my earlier years as my flamboyant mother’s inconspicuous shadow. My comfort zone had always been with invisibility. Disguise served a similar purpose. I was planning on visiting a jail today. I didn’t think prison orange was the look I was after.
Undercover Genius Page 11
