The Short Drop

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  “What? What is it?” Tate asked.

  Gibson ignored him. WR8TH had built himself a back door into Tate’s computer and had been flying it remotely like a drone. WR8TH had downloaded data from ACG through Tate’s computer, left a copy on the hard drive for them to find, and walked away clean. The real WR8TH could have been a thousand miles away, or he could have been at the next park table.

  It was smooth. But Gibson still couldn’t see what WR8TH’s game was. It was a big chance to take ten years after you’d gotten away with it. What was so valuable that he was willing to risk capture?

  What he did know was that WR8TH hadn’t found it yet. Triggering Gibson’s virus today proved that. It wasn’t an accident, and he hadn’t done it to protect Tate. Tate was a pawn. Triggering the virus meant that WR8TH still wanted to play. Gibson just needed to figure out how to play back.

  He stood to go.

  “Come on, man, I know you figured something out.”

  Gibson passed his remaining provisions through to Tate. A bottle of water, a granola bar, and an apple.

  “I didn’t do nothing. You know it.”

  Gibson turned to leave.

  “Nothing is an awful big word.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Officer Patricia M. Daniels was not particularly happy to see them. She looked Jenn and Hendricks up and down and went back to hunting and pecking at her keyboard.

  “Usually we handle this sort of thing by written request. Do you know that? We take the Right-to-Know Law very seriously. Very seriously,” Patricia explained without looking up. “We have an Internet portal so that the general public, that would be you, can submit your request online.”

  “We understand that.”

  “There’s a system, see? I get to people in order,” Patricia said. “I have a stack of requests right here. And I told your Mr. Abe that. I did. But your Mr. Abe, he has to have it today. ASAP. He’s so important, what does it matter if there’s a g-d system or not? And I told him as much. But then he gets on with Frank,” she said, gesturing back toward the sheriff’s office. “And in five minutes, Frank is out here telling me I’ve got to drop everything and accommodate you people.”

  “We really do appreciate it,” Jenn said.

  Hendricks looked out the window.

  “To serve and protect,” said Patricia.

  The records room was in the basement, but her desk was on the second floor. “They tried to put me down there with the records, but it’s biblical dusty down there. Ain’t fit for a dog,” she said. “I told Frank as much. Told him he should try it and see how his asthma likes it.”

  Patricia fished her keys out of a drawer and eased herself out of her chair. She was no more than five feet tall and built like a Russian nesting doll, starting from a wide base and narrowing to a point. Patricia adjusted her belt and ambled toward the basement with a slow, bowlegged gait.

  The basement records room was divided into rows by metallic shelving units that were stacked with labeled boxes. Patricia wasn’t lying about the dust. It coated every surface. It was dark, and the fluorescent track lights, themselves coated in dust, did little to pierce the gloom.

  Everything within the last five years was stored electronically, Patricia explained. There were plans to convert the remaining paper records, but the county hadn’t freed up funds to hire a clerical team to do all the data entry. She unlocked the metal gate and led them down an aisle. She had a slip of paper with the record information and used it like a treasure map to find her way. Patricia ran a tight operation. Everything was boxed, labeled, and organized professionally, and she found the case file quickly.

  “I worked LAPD for twenty years. This is the best records room I’ve ever seen,” Hendricks said.

  “Thank you,” she said, brightening up. “Why didn’t you tell me you was police?”

  “Just me. She was CIA,” he said by way of explanation.

  “CIA? Oh. Well, we won’t hold it against her,” Patricia said, elbowing Hendricks in the side.

  “We just appreciate all your help,” Hendricks said.

  “Well, I am happy to help. I had my dander up because when your Mr. Abe first called, and I heard ‘suicide,’ I just assumed he was talking about the Furst case. And you know I won’t have such a recent case until next year sometime.”

  “Furst?” Hendricks asked.

  “Evelyn Furst,” Patricia said, and when that still didn’t clear up the matter,“Doctor Evelyn Furst.”

  “Sorry, we’re not from up here,” Jenn said.

  “Evelyn Furst? The dean of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh?” Patricia prodded them unsuccessfully. “Well, it’s been in the news a lot. She lived up this way and commuted. Real tragedy. She was a nice lady. Did a lot of good. So when I heard ‘suicide,’ I just figured you were reporters looking to embarrass her. Not that you asked me, but in my opinion, it’s a free country and that ought to include your life. Not that I ever would, but it’s the principle.”

  “You said it,” Hendricks said.

  “Nope, just here for that one,” Jenn said.

  “Say, Patricia, you think I could get a copy of the Musgrove file?” Hendricks asked.

  “The whole thing?”

  “It would sure help me out.”

  Patricia looked uncertain. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t.”

  Hendricks put a hand on her arm reassuringly. “I understand,” he said. “But you have my word, we’ll be discreet. I’d owe you one. It would get the boss off my back. Truth be told, he can be kind of difficult.”

  This seemed to strike a chord with Patricia, and she grudgingly agreed but only after extracting several redundant promises from them. She led them back upstairs to make a copy of the file. She handed it over with a request.

  “You need something else, you just call me direct. All right?” She handed Hendricks her card. “You’re right about your boss. That Mr. Abe put Frank in a funny sort of mood.”

  They promised they would and said their good-byes.

  “Going to call her?” Jenn asked once they were outside. “She took a shine to you.”

  “Sure I am. Right after you call Vaughn.”

  That stopped her dead in her tracks.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” He winked at her.

  “Hey, do me a favor and stand right there. I need to get my gun out of the car.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that, Annie Oakley.” He waved the Musgrove file at her. “So, wanna eat and read?”

  Anywhere but a diner was Jenn’s only caveat. A week of Vaughn’s obsession with diner food had made her internal organs feel like they’d been sautéed in grease. She needed something fresh and green.

  As they walked to a restaurant down the block, she imagined Vaughn sitting at that diner of his, the Nighthawk. Cash in his pocket and free and clear of this mess. It made her smile. He wouldn’t have sat still for what she’d done. Big a screwup as he was, he had a stubborn morality that she admired. Especially when he saw someone was getting the short end of the stick, as maybe, just maybe, Kirby Tate was getting now. There was a time it would have bothered her too. But now she just saw Tate as the debris that inevitably surrounded this type of operation. It didn’t even bother her that it didn’t bother her.

  At the restaurant, they spread the file out on the table and sifted through it while they ate. The story of Terrance Musgrove was a sad one. By all accounts Musgrove was a beloved member of the community—a local boy who put himself through college and then veterinary school. Jenn scanned a stack of written accounts that all told variations on Musgrove’s willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty for a sick animal. His dedication had enabled him to expand his practice over the years to include four locations. There had been talk of franchising nationwide, but it hadn’t gotten beyond the planning s
tages. Nonetheless, he’d done well for himself, and he and his wife, Paula, had lived on Orange Road for eighteen years with their daughter, April.

  The long and the short of Terrance Musgrove’s life was that he was a good man. His wife was the author of two children’s books and was heavily involved in local charities. His daughter went to private schools and was a competitive swimmer who had first swum at the Junior Nationals when she was eleven years old. The family took an annual ski vacation to Wyoming and had a summer place a couple hours away on Lake Erie.

  Jenn put down the stack of papers and picked at her salad.

  “Jesus, this is rough,” Hendricks said.

  “What you got?”

  “So, the daughter, April. Fourteen years old. She and the mom were up at their summer place. Just the two of them.”

  “On Lake Erie.”

  “Yeah. So the kid and the mom are sitting on their dock, and the kid decides to go for a swim. So the police speculate that the kid swam straight out.”

  “And?”

  “And got clipped by a motorboat. Bashed her head pretty good.”

  “Enough to kill her?”

  “Enough to knock her out. She drowned. But it gets worse. Mom panics, jumps in, and swims out to save her kid but isn’t the swimmer her daughter is. Drowns trying to save her.”

  “Musgrove have an alibi?”

  “Says something about us that that was my first question too. Yeah, the doctor was in the office the entire day. About a hundred witnesses. Police sniffed around but never had any reason to pursue him as a suspect.”

  “And his suicide? How soon after did he do it?”

  “Not for another two years. But people close to him said he struggled with depression and drinking in the aftermath. Said he got pretty bad by the end. Mood swings, personality change, his business suffered.”

  Jenn sat back and mulled it over in her mind.

  “This is a sad story, but I still think we’re on a wild goose chase here. What does a dead vet have to do with us?”

  “Look at the date,” Jenn said, tapping the autopsy report.

  Hendricks glanced at it and shook his head. “What? That he killed himself a couple months after Suzanne disappeared? That’s kind of a stretch, don’t you think?”

  “It would be if someone hadn’t led us to his old house and typed his name into a computer.”

  “So what’s your theory? That Musgrove becomes despondent? Loses his mind and starts talking to Suzanne on the Internet in some delusional attempt to replace his daughter; meets, seduces, and kidnaps Suzanne; and God knows what else? Realizes what he’s done after it’s too late and kills himself out of guilt?”

  “Actually that’s better than what I had.”

  Hendricks rolled his eyes. “Come on.”

  “Both girls were fourteen. Why not?”

  “Well, for one, if Terrance Musgrove took Suzanne, and Terrance Musgrove is dead, then who is Kirby Tate in all this? And for two, who broke into the McKeoghs’ house today?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” Jenn admitted. “I feel like I’m playing poker with only three cards.”

  Hendricks was nodding. “Kind of hard to make a hand.”

  “What are we missing?” she asked no one in particular.

  They paid the check and gathered up the Musgrove file. A photograph caught Jenn’s eye. It was a crime-scene photograph of Musgrove’s suicide. Terrance Musgrove had hanged himself. She felt a chill pass between her shoulder blades. Hendricks saw her expression change and looked at the photo questioningly.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I need to get back to Grafton. I need my laptop. And…”

  They looked at each other. Neither wanted to say the name Kirby Tate.

  “You got it. Do you want to call George or shall I?”

  “He’s going to love this, isn’t he?” she said.

  “Not the word I would use.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Gibson sat at a table in the shade of the Carolyn Anthony Library. It was comforting after the storage locker. He’d also hoped returning to the scene of the crime would help him think, offer some clarity, but the library was just a library and had nothing useful to tell him. The park was quieter than last Friday, when he’d allowed himself to be conned. Allowed himself to be spun expertly and aimed at Tate.

  How easily he had fallen for it.

  Gibson looked at the GPS coordinates his virus had pinged back to ACG as if they might speak to him. No doubt Jenn and Hendricks had followed those coordinates, wherever they led. Perhaps they would take WR8TH unawares, but Gibson doubted it. WR8TH was much too careful. If Gibson’s virus had activated, it was only because WR8TH had allowed it. But why reveal himself now? Didn’t it defeat the entire purpose of setting Tate up? Unless, of course, WR8TH couldn’t resist—was so arrogant that he couldn’t stand not sharing his brilliance. Gibson had certainly known hackers like that. He’d been that hacker. This was exactly the kind of move he would have made… when he was fifteen years old.

  His laptop pinged, and a small text window opened in the corner of his screen. The hairs on Gibson’s arms stood up.

  WR8TH: i hear ur looking for me

  It was written in the shorthand Pidgin English favored in some quarters of the Internet. It sounded like teenage laziness, but Gibson made no assumptions. He knew programmers in their fifties with master’s degrees who used it regularly online. There were sites where good grammar could get you banned on general principle.

  GVaughn: I don’t even know who this is.

  WR8TH: true. but u know who im not, dont u???

  GVaughn: You’re not Kirby Tate.

  WR8TH: whoops

  Gibson could feel WR8TH laughing at him.

  GVaughn: You really did a number on him.

  WR8TH: dont feel bad for that trash. he got wat he deserved

  GVaughn: That’s pretty cold-blooded.

  WR8TH: yeah not me who stuck him in a storage locker

  GVaughn: You’re quite the puppeteer.

  WR8TH: r u all butthurt that i found yer program?

  GVaughn: It served its purpose.

  WR8TH: only cuz i let it

  GVaughn: Why did you?

  WR8TH: why didnt u go back to dc like they told u?

  GVaughn: Been spying on us?

  WR8TH: little bit. answer the question, why r u still here?

  GVaughn: Suzanne.

  WR8TH: same

  Gibson stared at the last line of text for a full minute.

  GVaughn: WR8TH. I assume that’s who you’re supposed to be? The WR8TH?

  WR8TH: *blush*

  GVaughn: I don’t believe you. I think you’re some wannabe using his old alias.

  WR8TH: ur not that stupid. u know its me

  GVaughn: Do I?

  WR8TH: who else would have that picture???

  GVaughn: It’s probably a fake. Just like you.

  WR8TH: stop playing games. ur wasting time

  GVaughn: Maybe it’s my turn to waste time. All your games kinda put me in the mood.

  A long pause followed.

  WR8TH: r u done?

  GVaughn: For now. So it was you? You took Suzanne?

  WR8TH: sort of… more complicated than that

  GVaughn: What do you mean “sort of”?

  WR8TH: i’m not wat they think I am

  GVaughn: What do they think you are?

  WR8TH: a pedophile like tate. that i hurt her

  GVaughn: And you didn’t?

  WR8TH: no, i loved her

  GVaughn: You understand how sick you are, right?

  WR8TH: not wat u think

  GVaughn: Okay, you loved her, all right. S
o where is she now, Romeo?

  Another long pause. Gibson was afraid he had goaded WR8TH too far. He couldn’t help it. Listening to this son of a bitch talk about loving Bear was too much to take. But he needed to keep him talking.

  GVaughn: Are you capable of feeling bad for what happened to her?

  WR8TH: every day man. every lousy day

  GVaughn: So where is she? Come on. You have us all in suspense. We’ve played your little game. You’ve proven how clever you are. The Tate thing was very clever. Golf clap. But enough with the foreplay, huh? It’s main attraction time. The big reveal. Isn’t that what the point of all this is? Some kind of creepy confession? Unburden your soul at last?

  WR8TH: u dont get it

  GVaughn: Or do you just miss the attention? Just hoping to inflict a little more pain on the people who loved her?

  WR8TH: I LOVED HER!!!!

  GVaughn: Then where is she?

  WR8TH: i dont know

  GVaughn: Fuck you, “WR8TH.”

  WR8TH: swear to god. i thought they knew

  GVaughn: They? Who is they?

  WR8TH: abe consulting group. why u think i hacked them???

  GVaughn: You think ACG knows where Suzanne is?

  WR8TH: i did yeah

  GVaughn: And now?

  WR8TH: i dont know anymore

  Gibson sat back and stared at the screen.

  WR8TH: hey, dont look so surprised, gibson

  That got under his skin; he was sick of being toyed with. He punched at the keys.

  GVaughn: Oh, you know my name. Good for you. That must have been real hard to figure out from all the ACG files you took.

  WR8TH: u kidding? i would know u anywhere. BrnChr0m. ur a legend. Suzanne talked about u all the time

  That rocked Gibson. Bear talking about him to her captor. That he’d been on her mind even then. He felt a great sweeping sadness. Sadness mixed with a returning anger.

  GVaughn: Oh, yeah? She talk about the good old days growing up on the shore while you were torturing her, or whatever sick shit you did?