The Wife of Riley

by A W Hartoin

  “I thought you were checking out Sabine Suede first.”

  This was an unexpected reaction. “I did. It wasn’t her. We went to the Orsay this morning and there she was with a new nose and hair.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Spidermonkey.

  “How about congrats, Mercy. You rock.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “You don’t believe me? What the hell? I’m telling you it’s her,” I said, beyond miffed.

  Spidermonkey sighed. “I believe you. But I can’t believe it, if you know what I mean.”

  “You can’t believe she’s alive and we found her?”

  “I didn’t think she was alive. There were no indications, other than the sister. This isn’t exactly good news,” he said softly.

  “Because now I have to tell Calpurnia and wreck people’s lives?”

  “I don’t think you should tell Calpurnia. This is a delicate situation. Angela Riley left for a reason. It could be dangerous for more than just her if we let the cat out of the bag.”

  “You’re right. I need to find out why she did it before I decide,” I said.

  Aaron leaned out of the doorway and held up a finger. I shook my head no. I wasn’t very hungry before and I definitely wasn’t now. He crooked a finger at me and I got up anyway. My mind was swirling with possibilities, none of them good.

  “First, we need concrete evidence,” said Spidermonkey.

  “I got her prints on a book,” I said.

  “Excellent. Where are you?”

  “A Kurdish sandwich shop.”

  “So Aaron’s with you.”

  I squeezed past a couple of patrons and joined Aaron at a skinny wooden counter stacked with puffy baked ovals of flat bread. The woman would slide dough in and out of the oven between her and two men working at a barbecue with amazing speed. Aaron asked what I wanted again and he ignored me as usual.

  “Of course I’m with Aaron. How else would I end up at a Kurdish sandwich shop in Paris, of all places?” I asked. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Kurdish sandwiches.”

  “Is it Urfa Dürüm?” asked Spidermonkey with a chuckle.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Novak lives across the street.”

  “Seriously?”

  “There’s a method to his madness. Give Novak the book and he’ll run the prints. Once we confirm her identity, you can decide what you want to do.”

  “I don’t want to do anything,” I said, now sounding as peevish as Chuck had.

  “Not an option. Call me when you have results.” Spidermonkey hung up and Aaron gave me a rolled up sandwich stuffed with seared meat and some sort of slaw.

  “I told you I’m not hungry.”

  “That’s for Novak. You get this.” Aaron gave me a roll of plain flatbread.

  We left the shop and found the line going down the block. I started to rethink my “no.” Kurdish sandwiches must be pretty good. Aaron picked a piece of crusty meat off his sandwich and popped it in my mouth without asking. He always knew what I wanted before I did. The meat melted on my tongue and had exotic spices that lingered long after I swallowed.

  I eyed the sandwich in my hand. I could eat that, Angela situation or no. “How do you know Novak wants it?”

  “He wants it.” Aaron led me across the street to a rundown building that looked unlikely to house anyone as savvy as Spidermonkey. I doubted Novak was up to par. Aaron pushed an unmarked button on the cracked plastic panel next to the door that had greying plywood nailed over the bottom half. Nice.

  “Oh, well,” I said. “He’s not here. Bummer.”

  Aaron didn’t move. He stared at the speaker and the spiders making a nest in it.

  “Come on. You must have the wrong address.”

  The speaker squawked to life, startling both me and the spiders. “Oui.” The voice was less than friendly and also less than French.

  “Watts,” said Aaron.

  The voice didn’t answer, but the door clicked. Great.

  Aaron opened the door to reveal the dingiest foyer I’d ever seen and that’s saying something. I’d been in a crack house once, trying to get information out of an addict. This foyer was worse. I think I saw hepatitis on the floor. Aaron didn’t care. He trudged over broken bottles and wads of material with questionable stains, kicking boxes out of the way to get to the elevator.

  The doors clanked open after a five-minute wait and a smell came out of that tiny space that made even Aaron step back.

  “It should go without saying, but I’m not taking that elevator,” I said, looking for stairs or an escape route, which ever I found first.

  Aaron snagged my sleeve. “We gotta go up.”

  “There’s a dead rat on the floor. With maggots. I don’t know who this Novak is, but I’m fairly certain he’s a freak.”

  “Take the stairs,” said the same voice from the speaker.

  I spun around, searching the ceiling for a source.

  “Miss Watts, turn to your left. Walk ten paces and open the door on your right,” said the voice.

  “Novak?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your building is a health hazard.”

  “Yes.” And that was all he had to say, so we did as instructed. The door in question was one I’d never have opened otherwise. Graffiti covered it and the walls surrounding it. There were penises and I never open doors with penises on them. It’s just a bad idea. Instead, I called Spidermonkey and told him to call the cops if we didn’t get in touch in five minutes. He laughed, but I wasn’t amused. Every alarm bell I had clanged in my head. Everything about that place said do not proceed.

  On the other hand, I didn’t want to be a wussy. I gave Aaron Novak’s sandwich and a second before my hand touched the knob, it clicked. I opened the door, sweeping away a used hypodermic and a container filled with something that could’ve been urine. It certainly smelled like urine.

  I held my breath that it wouldn’t knock over. It didn’t. Thank god. My breath whooshed out when I saw the staircase. It was as clean as the foyer was filthy. And I don’t just mean clean. I mean sterile with white walls and a gleaming stainless steel handrail.

  “Go up to the fourth floor,” said the voice and I happily did.

  The door clanged shut behind us and a bolt slid back into place. We were locked in now, but, for some reason, it didn’t bother me. Getting out of the filth was a huge relief.

  On the fourth floor, another door clicked, letting us out of the stairwell. We walked into another, wholly unexpected world. Thick Turkish carpets dotted the shiny hardwood floor of a narrow hall painted a rusty orange and covered in family photos and artwork.

  “This is really weird, right?” I asked Aaron.

  He shrugged.

  “Any idea which door?”

  The hall had four doors, none marked.

  “Second door on the left,” said the voice.

  I still couldn’t spot a camera and it creeped me out. I texted Spidermonkey about the creep factor and he sent me an emoji rolling its eyes. Thanks a bunch.

  Aaron ignored my texting and had trotted to the door, knocking loudly. It occurred to me that I’d never seen Aaron nervous. As far as I could tell Aaron has two emotions—hungry and excited about food.

  “Go to the door, Miss Watts,” said the voice.

  I sucked it up and went to the door, seriously worried about exactly what we were going to find on the other side. I’d had experience with two hackers, Uncle Morty and Spidermonkey. Neither of them prepared me for the man that opened the door.

  Novak had Chuck’s height but weighed fifty pounds less, at least. He wore a bicycling outfit so garish that my mouth dropped. It was skintight and electric blue with pink polka dots and epaulets printed on the shoulders. For a second, I thought we were in Italy. I’d seen some outfits that rivaled it there, but no where else. To top it off, he sported a man bun the size of a cinnamon roll on the crown of his head. Brown strands had come loose a
nd framed his face, accentuating his large hatchet-like nose and small brown eyes.

  “What happened to your hair?” he asked, sounding much more friendly in person.

  My hand went up automatically. Shit. The curls were back and in corkscrew form.

  “It’s raining,” I said.

  “You should wear a hat.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Or carry an umbrella.”

  I resisted the urge to throw my flatbread at him and crossed my arms. “I should wear sunglasses.”

  “What?”

  “You’re blinding me.”

  Novak’s narrow face went blank.

  “The outfit,” I said. “You could be seen from outer space.”

  He looked down and laughed. “Spidermonkey said I’d like you. Come in.”

  Aaron gave him his sandwich, which was exactly what Novak liked, and we went into Novak’s apartment. Or maybe not. The room was a chilly sixty degrees and was so clean you could make microchips in there. Two walls were covered in electronics so sophisticated the NSA would be jealous. Another wall had multiple monitors. All of them were on, but they had a screen scrambling thingy going so that I couldn’t tell what was on them. The fourth wall, opposite the monitors, had a metal desk with an exercise ball for a chair and multiple laptops. Novak got us two metal folding chairs and he sat on the exercise ball, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth.

  I sat on the icy chair and shivered. “What is up with your foyer? It’s seriously disgusting.”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t seem to like disgusting,” I said, glancing around and trying to find a speck of dust and failing.

  “I don’t. The foyer is only an additional level of security,” he said.

  “Security? It looks like a crack den.”

  “Exactly. People believe what they see. A phenomenon you should be familiar with.” Novak watched me with a level gaze, unnerving at best. He was very different from Spidermonkey and Uncle Morty. They achieved their level of intrusion with laptops and serious smarts. Novak was a whole other animal.

  “Who do you work for?” I waved at the wall o’equipment. “This isn’t for background checks or snooping in people’s bank accounts.”

  “I won’t ask you who you’re working for,” he said without blinking.

  I snorted. “I doubt you have to.”

  A smile broke out over his face, lighting up his eyes and relaxing me. “No, I don’t. I rarely have to ask those kinds of questions.”

  “Well, I do. What kind of work do you do?”

  “All kinds. All levels.”

  I shifted in my seat. I wanted to confirm Angela’s identity, but this guy might be a gateway to people I shouldn’t know. People that nobody in their right minds would want to know. “Which side are you on?”

  “A wise man once told me that there are no sides. Only results.”

  An electric zing went through me. I’d heard that, too, in the not so distant past.

  “That sounds familiar.”

  “I’m not surprised, considering your recent…misadventure.”

  He knew about Cairngorms Castle. I’m not sure why, but the thought settled me down. Novak knew Leslie, and Leslie was on our side. I’d met him at the castle. He was a former operative for the US and had been put out to pasture in an isolated spot in the country where he couldn’t cause any trouble.

  “Tell me you don’t work for terrorists,” I said.

  “Terrorists by whose definition?”

  “What the—”

  “Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder,” said Novak, clearly enjoying the subject. Me, not so much.

  I crossed my arms. “Fine. My definition. The commonly-accepted definition. Guys that commit crimes in order to terrorize people to get what they want.”

  He shrugged. “They pay well.”

  “Oh my god!” I rocketed out of my chair and went to the door, then turned around to tell Novak that he was a world-class piece of crap when I discovered he was grinning ear to ear, an expression I was intimately familiar with from more than one quarter. “Are you just bothering me?”

  “I wanted to see what you’d do,” he said, still grinning.

  I waved my bread cone at him. “I have bread and I’m not afraid to use it, dirtbag.”

  “You are a formidable woman with your…what would you call it? An afro?”

  I patted my hair. Yes, it was curly. Beyond curly. Dear lord. I’d done something to deserve this. I wished I knew what it was so I could never do it again. “I kind of hate you.”

  “You aren’t the first woman to say that to me. So tell me, Miss Watts of the bread weapon, why are you here?” he asked.

  During this whole exchange, Aaron hadn’t moved, other than to chew. I wasn’t sure if he’d even notice if I left. Some partner he was. I sat down next to him and glared. He didn’t notice.

  “Spidermonkey said you’d help me out,” I said.

  “Yes. I owe him a favor,” said Novak.

  “Two favors?”

  “Two?”

  “He said you’d help on the apartment thing, too,” I said. “Spidermonkey told you about our Klinefeld Group investigation?”

  Novak nodded and another lock fell out of his bun. “Yes, he did. Two favors to pay back. Your priority is Angela Riley?”

  “Yes. I actually found her this morning.”

  “Which one is she?” he asked.

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “Sabine Suede or Corinne Sweet?”

  I could barely hear him over Aaron munching on his sandwich and groaning. I shot him an irritated look and inched my chair closer to the desk. “Spidermonkey told you about them?”

  “He did. Which one?” He peeled back the white butcher paper on his sandwich and began to eat as loudly as Aaron, giving me a mocking look. I’d known the man for a total of three minutes and he was already bothering me. What is it with me and men?

  “Corinne Sweet,” I said, ignoring the moans of pleasure coming at me in stereo. I gave him a quick description of my encounter with Angela.

  “What do you want me to do then?” Novak asked.

  I laid the Orsay bag on the desk. “I want you to confirm. She held this book in the middle on the spine side.”

  Novak got out a blue paper towel and gingerly laid his sandwich on it before snapping on a pair of latex gloves and taking the book out of the bag. “Excellent.”

  I stood up. “When will you be able to get me the results?”

  “Two minutes.” He went to the wall of equipment and pulled out a slender wand. “Here?” He pointed to the spine.

  I nodded and he pushed a button on the wand. It glowed blue and he ran it over the area I’d indicated. He turned off the wand and put it away. Then he put a wireless keyboard on the desk and began typing at phenomenal speed. One of the monitors unscrambled, but the only thing it revealed was code. I couldn’t even tell what language it was.

  “Did you scan the prints?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Novak said without a pause in typing.

  “You don’t need the powder?”

  “No.”

  I squinted at the monitor. “Do you have Ang—”

  “Stop talking,” said Novak.

  Now that I recognized, a crabby hacker. Novak’s eyes switched back and forth between two laptops. I assumed he was comparing prints, but I wasn’t going to risk asking, so I buttoned my lip and glanced at Aaron to see if he noticed. He didn’t. His mouth was stuffed with meat chunks and the groaning had increased. Weirdo.

  “Confirmed,” said Novak. “Twenty-point match.”

  The monitor now showed two fingerprints with little red dots at various points on the swirls and ridges.

  “No wiggle room there, I guess.”

  Novak sat with his long fingers poised over the keyboard. “You wanted wiggle room?”

  I leaned back and an icy chill went up my back. “Not really. But now I have to decide what to do. Where’d y
ou get Angela’s prints from?”

  “She worked for your postal service before she was married.”

  “Did you find out anything else about her? Anything I don’t already know,” I said.

  Novak smiled and ran his fingers over the edge of the keyboard. “I don’t know what you don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I did a background on Corinne Sweet.”

  “Lay it on me,” I said.

  And he did. Novak might be totally different from Spidermonkey and Uncle Morty, but he was just as thorough. Corinne Sweet signed an apartment lease five days after disappearing in Chicago. She paid the deposit and first month’s rent in cash. The apartment was out in the boondocks near La Défense. She got a job at Les Cahiers de Gibert, a bookshop in a non-touristy area. She had one credit card under her alias and a bank account with Barclays, which seemed a little weird. Why did she have an English bank while living in Paris? Her accounts weren’t interesting though. She had only the money she earned at Gibert as an accountant. She opened the account on the same day she signed the lease. Since then, Angela/Corinne had lived a quiet life. She loved the chain restaurant, Frogburger, and shopped mostly with cash. Her email was just as quiet. She didn’t date and had few friends outside her work. No clubs or religious affiliation. She had grown more comfortable over the years, slowly moving from the nosebleed section of the city to an apartment next to the Pompidou Center. She left the bookshop after four years in favor of the Orsay, tourist central.

  “Bold for a woman in hiding,” said Novak, “or reckless.”

  “I don’t think she was either,” I said.

  “No? How do you explain it then? She moved herself to two areas where she was more likely to be recognized and she was. Perhaps she wanted to get caught or the cat and mouse game excited her.”

  I stared at the fingerprints and shook my head. “She wasn’t likely to be recognized. No one in her family had passports until her sister got one for her honeymoon. No one she knew intimately was a world traveler. The Fibonaccis only go to Italy and Greece. No. Angela wasn’t playing chicken.”

  “Playing chicken?” asked Novak.

  “Flirting with danger,” I said. “It’s an American thing.”

  He pushed his keyboard away and lowered the zipper on his top like he was hot. That wasn’t possible. It was freaking freezing in there. My goose pimples had hypothermia. “What’s your answer for the move?”