The Big Sheep

by Robert Kroese

  There was only one employee who seemed to interest Keane at all, but I found it hard to imagine she was our thief. Her name was Stephanie Kemp, and she was a cute, plump brunette in her midtwenties. She was a lab technician with good credit, no criminal history, and a spotless though unremarkable work history. Working for Esper was her first job out of college. Keane had allowed me to handle most of the interviews while he wandered around the room, chewing on Circus Peanuts and occasionally interjecting an impertinent question, but he definitely took an interest in Stephanie Kemp. He spent a good ten minutes asking her about everything from her taste in music to her hair color.

  “What was that about?” I asked when he finally dismissed her.

  Keane shrugged.

  “You don’t think she’s our thief.”

  He laughed. “Not a chance.”

  “So, what’s with the grilling?”

  “Just playing,” said Keane, with a grin. “Such a sweet girl. Very cooperative.”

  I sighed and let in the next subject. We interviewed three more employees after Stephanie, but Keane showed no interest in any of them. It was nearly six P.M.

  “Next!” Keane yelled.

  “That’s it,” I said. “Unless you’ve changed your mind on some of the ones you dismissed out of hand.”

  Keane shook his head. “We’re missing somebody.” He slumped into a chair and began riffling through the dossiers again. “No. No. No. No. No. Wait, what about this guy? Hugo Díaz. Lab tech. Lousy credit. Eyes of a sheep thief. I didn’t dismiss this guy.”

  I took the file from him and pulled out the last page, which I handed to Keane. I pointed at the relevant line. It read:

  DECEASED JAN. 18

  “Two days before the sheep disappeared,” I said. “Went home early on Friday afternoon, complaining of heartburn. Was found by his wife, dead of a heart attack early Saturday morning. The sheep theft occurred sometime Sunday night.”

  “Hmm,” said Keane.

  “I’ll admit the timing is a little suspicious, but there just isn’t any way Díaz could have stolen the sheep.”

  “But he could have been in on it. Working for a third party. The deal went wrong, and he ended up dead.”

  “The police found no evidence of foul play. And we know whoever overrode the security system was someone with access to the lab. Someone who could pass Esper’s biometric scans: voiceprint, fingerprint, and retinal imaging. So unless someone physically dragged Díaz’s corpse down to Esper, I can’t see how he could have been much help in the theft. If there’s an inside man, it’s someone else.”

  “Hmm,” said Keane again.

  “What?” I asked. “He’s dead, Keane. He didn’t do it.”

  “Perhaps,” said Keane.

  “No, Keane,” I said. “Not ‘perhaps.’ Death isn’t a detail you can overlook. It’s a hard and fast category. Dead men don’t steal sheep.”

  “I just don’t think we should dismiss him so quickly, is all,” said Keane.

  “You dismissed one woman because her shoes were too tight!” I exclaimed in exasperation.

  “Three sizes too tight,” said Keane. “That’s a woman who is willing to live in near-constant pain in order to maintain the illusion that her feet are slightly smaller than they are. She’s not what you’d consider a creative problem-solver. She lacks the ambition and the imagination to execute a crime of this scope.”

  “So does Hugo Díaz,” I said. “On account of his being dead.”

  “Convenient, isn’t it?” said Keane. “Is there going to be an autopsy?”

  “I highly doubt it,” I said. “The man was forty-eight years old and sixty pounds overweight. He left work complaining of chest pains. His wife found him dead in bed the next morning. It’s not exactly what you would call a suspicious death.”

  The door opened, and a slightly built, well-dressed man walked into the room.

  “Mr. Keane,” he said. “Mr. Fowler. I’m Jason Banerjee, Esper’s vice president for research and development. I understand you’re done with interviews for the day. Late for another appointment?”

  I shook his hand. Banerjee looked to be in his late thirties—which meant, for a man in his position, he was some combination of brilliant, politically savvy, and phenomenally wealthy. Probably all three. He was dark-skinned and handsome, with cruel, clever eyes.

  “Nope,” said Keane. “We’ve talked to all the employees we need to.”

  “You have a suspect then?”

  “Working a case like this is an iterative process,” said Keane. “Speaking of which, we need an autopsy for Hugo Díaz.”

  “Díaz? The technician who had a heart attack? Why?”

  “Alleged heart attack,” said Keane. “And if I knew why I needed the autopsy, I wouldn’t need it.”

  “Díaz was our employee. We don’t have the authority—”

  “Next of kin?”

  “Wife,” I said, examining Hugo’s file. “Jessica.”

  “Convince his wife it’s necessary,” said Keane to Banerjee. “Bribe her if you have to. I need to know what killed Hugo Díaz.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Banerjee. “This better not be a wild-goose chase. I need that sheep back as soon as possible. So, what’s next?”

  Keane checked his comm display. “Now we’re late for another appointment.”

  FIVE

  Priya had given us her complete schedule for the next several days, which consisted almost entirely of leaving her hotel early in the morning to go work on the DiZzy Girl set and then returning to the hotel sometime after dark. Tonight, though, she was supposed to make an appearance at a party at Élan Durham’s house in the Hollywood Hills. When she mentioned it, I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea to go to any unfamiliar places if she thought she was in danger, but Keane thought it was best to keep up appearances. He’d asked her to get us added to the guest list so we could keep an eye on her.

  We made the trip mostly in silence, but as we neared Élan Durham’s house, I decided to bring up something that had been bothering me.

  “Do you actually think Priya is in danger?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Keane answered without hesitation. “I wouldn’t have taken the case if I didn’t think she was in danger.”

  “We have no evidence anyone intends her harm, other than her own testimony.”

  “You’re forgetting the letter from Noogus,” said Keane.

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  “You saw the letter with your own eyes. She didn’t imagine it.”

  “You realize it’s not difficult to write a letter to yourself, right? It’s a short step from imagining somebody is trying to kill you to writing yourself a letter warning you about it.”

  “It is a step, though.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Keane sighed. “A letter is a physical projection of an idea. Paranoia is inward-focused and self-reinforcing. Your classical paranoiac isn’t going to write a letter to herself warning about the conspiracy. There’s no need. The paranoiac has all the evidence she needs. It’s everywhere she looks.”

  “But she’s not using it to convince herself. She’s using it to convince us.”

  “Perhaps. But that doesn’t fit the standard model of paranoia either. A paranoiac isn’t going to seek out strangers to tell them about the conspiracy. And she certainly wouldn’t manufacture evidence of the conspiracy to convince them. That’s a complete inversion of typical paranoid behavior.”

  “So you don’t think she’s paranoid.”

  Keane shook his head. “No, she’s clearly paranoid. But she’s something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “There are two possibilities, as far as I can tell,” said Keane. “Either she’s genuinely in danger, or…” He trailed off, seemingly lost in thought.

  “Yes?” I prompted.

  “Huh?” said Keane, apparently unaware of having left his rumination unfinished.

  “She’s in d
anger or…?”

  “Oh, or she’s a whole new kind of crazy.” He grinned at me. “Either way, though, it’s exciting, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head. I was starting to think April was right. Priya Mistry needed professional help, and not from a phenomenological inquisitor. God knows how much damage Keane might do to the poor girl’s psyche by the time he had tired of toying with her. On the other hand, it wasn’t like I had the power to stop Keane from pursuing Priya’s case—and there was a possibility she really was in danger. Probably the best thing to do now was to follow Keane’s lead and try to step in if things got out of hand.

  We caught up to Pavel at the foot of the driveway. His beat-up Suburban, parked on the side of the winding mountain road, was completely out of place in this neighborhood. I gave him a quick debriefing, which didn’t amount to much: he had followed Priya’s limo to the DiZzy Girl set, hung out there for the day, followed it back to her hotel, and then followed it to Durham’s place. Security wouldn’t let him up the driveway, so he had parked and waited.

  Pavel was one of a handful of ad hoc operatives who were occasionally employed by Keane to do surveillance and other tedious legwork. Pavel was Keane’s favorite, because the man had no ambition whatsoever. The way Keane figured it, no ambition meant no complications. Pavel never asked for a raise, and there was never any serious threat he’d fall prey to a bribe or blackmail. Other than the occasional check from Keane and a little income from selling synthetic drugs on the beaches around Malibu, Pavel had no visible means of support. He slept in his car and spent the vast majority of his time surfing. He used the occasional assignment from Keane as an opportunity to test whatever black-market synthetic stimulant had recently come into his possession. That was another reason Keane liked him: when Pavel was on an assignment, he didn’t sleep. I sent him home, or wherever it is that he goes when he isn’t working for Keane.

  We pulled into the driveway. There followed an anxious few seconds during which I was convinced Priya didn’t have the presence of mind to remember to have us added to the guest list, but the guard at the foot of the driveway waved us on after a cursory check of our IDs. We pulled up the long driveway toward Élan Durham’s massive multilevel compound. Keane tossed the keys to a valet who did an admirable job of hiding his dismay at having to park a fifteen-year-old Nissan aircar, and we went inside. The house was suitably capacious, impressively appointed with expensive-looking abstract sculpture, and populated with scores of rich and beautiful people. I began to feel underdressed and out of place.

  “So, now what?” I asked, scanning the attendees. “Wait for somebody with a lead pipe to lure Priya into the conservatory?”

  “You keep an eye on Priya,” said Keane. “I’m going to poke around a bit.” With that, he snatched a glass of wine from a tray as a waiter passed, and then disappeared into the throng. I sighed and shouldered my way through the crowd, looking for Priya. It didn’t take me long to find her. A sort of nexus had formed around her, with lesser celebrities loitering in her gravitational pull. A strange dynamic seemed to have asserted itself, with Priya’s presence simultaneously attracting and repelling other guests according to some unconscious but inexorable social hierarchy, each guest finding his or her own place in relation to Priya. She looked stunning as always; tonight she wore a tight-fitting strapless red dress. Her long black hair was down, and she wore diamond earrings that glittered in the dim light of Élan Durham’s vast living room. It was difficult not to stare.

  I didn’t intend to talk to her; Keane had made it clear we were to remain incognito, and he’d instructed Priya to play dumb if she ever saw us. My plan was simply to get close enough that I could keep an eye on her and intervene if I thought she was under threat. It was a little silly, since I didn’t really believe she was in any danger, and couldn’t possibly have protected her from every potential attacker in that room anyway, but maybe it would do her mental state some good to see me there.

  As I got close to Priya, though, I began to feel uncomfortably self-conscious. It was bad enough I was underdressed and out of my element; I was also conspicuously alone. I told myself to pretend I was some eccentric investor who didn’t need stylish clothes or the company of other people, but it was no good. I managed to get ahold of a drink, which at least gave me something to do with my hands. I felt the eyes of my societal betters boring into me, and while I didn’t dare look, I was certain Priya herself was staring at me, those bottomless eyes demanding I account for my presumption. It made no sense: yesterday Priya had been on the verge of collapsing into my arms, but today I couldn’t get within ten feet of her. One thought dominated my brain: I didn’t belong there, and everyone knew it.

  An opportunity to save my dignity presented itself as a balding executive type extracted himself from a conversation with a pretty young redhead in a green dress who was now drifting awkwardly at the periphery of the nexus. I walked over to her and whipped up one of my best lines.

  “That dress looks really good with your hair,” I said.

  “Um, thanks,” she said, eyeing me uncertainly. Under the guise of grabbing her a drink from a passing waiter, I maneuvered to where I could see Priya, who was chatting with TC Gemmel, a supporting actor on one of Flagship’s other big shows, Hal Correia, Street Doctor. I held out the glass to the redhead.

  “I don’t drink,” she said. “Are you a writer?”

  I shrugged and took a swallow of the wine. “No,” I said. “Why?”

  “Well,” she said, “you’re not dressed like a producer. And…”

  “I don’t look like an actor,” I said, picking up on her drift. “I’m a consultant. Working with Élan Durham on a new detective show.” I figured it was a harmless lie. I’m sure I wasn’t the only guy at this party bullshitting about working on a show with Élan Durham. At least my motives were pure.

  “Oh, how exciting!” she exclaimed. “Is it going to be casting soon? I just did a three-episode guest spot on DiZzy Girl, and I’m ready for what’s next.”

  More like desperate, I thought. Poor thing. She was probably a beauty queen in Podunk, Missouri, but in LA she was just another aspiring starlet waiting tables in between bit parts.

  “We start casting on Monday,” I lied.

  “Really?” the girl asked. “I didn’t see anything in the trades.”

  “Closed auditions,” I said. “But if you’re interested, I can see if I can get you in.”

  “Wow, that would be great!” she gushed.

  “Sure, just toss me your info. I’m Blake, by the way.”

  “Gina,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Blake.”

  “You too,” I said. “So, you worked on DiZzy Girl, huh? What was that like?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know, working with a big star like Priya Mistry…”

  The enthusiasm drained from her face. “God damn it,” she said. “Are you even really a consultant?”

  “Sure,” I said weakly. Damn it. I had pushed her too fast, and she had seen right through me.

  “What’s the name of the show?”

  “Street … Detective,” I managed. Clever, Fowler.

  “You must think I’m pretty pathetic,” she said. “Well, maybe I am. But I’ll have my own TV show before you get in Priya Mistry’s pants.” With that, she turned and stomped away. I hate parties. Serves me right for lying to the girl, but what was I going to do? Tell her I was on the lookout for signs of a vast conspiracy against Priya Mistry?

  As I mulled this, I became aware that Priya’s conversation with TC Gemmel was becoming animated. Heads began to turn. “… can you forget something like that?” TC demanded. “I thought I meant something to you!”

  Priya was backing away helplessly, sputtering half explanations about being under a lot of pressure and not getting much sleep. I could tell, though, that this guy wasn’t going to let it go. He was trembling with anger and hurt, and it looked like it wouldn’t take much to make him turn violent. I sta
rted walking in his direction, but then I saw Priya’s massive bodyguard, the All-Grown-Up Noogus, moving to intercept him. Fine, I thought. Let Noogus handle it.

  Priya looked like she was on the verge of a breakdown, and I was tempted to go to her, make sure she was okay. But there wasn’t much I could do for her, and Keane had wanted me to remain incognito. So for the moment I just stood and watched as All-Grown-Up Noogus got TC Gemmel in a half nelson and escorted him away from Priya. But then two men in suits approached Priya, trying to calm her down. They were both over six feet tall; one looked like a Filipino, and the other was white, with bright red hair pulled back in a ponytail. All eyes were on Priya, so nobody noticed Red was pulling a syringe from his pocket. Nobody but me, anyway.

  I dove forward, grabbing Red’s wrist tightly and then twisting his arm behind his back while squeezing hard. The syringe dropped to the floor. Priya was now screaming and crying, trying to free her arm from the grip of the second man. I gave Red a shove between the shoulder blades, and he stumbled into his friend. The second man released his grip on Priya, and the two men fell in a heap on the floor. So far, so good. Now to get Priya somewhere safe. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Keane approaching, a concerned look on his face. “Fowler!” he yelled, as if to warn me.

  Then something hit me on the back of the head, and everything went black.

  SIX

  I came to on a couch inside a luxuriously decked-out office. My head throbbed.

  I sat up and saw I was not alone. A few feet away, facing a large walnut desk, sat Erasmus Keane. Behind the desk sat Élan Durham.

  “Good morning,” said Durham, with a smile. He was nursing a drink.

  “Priya,” I managed to grunt.