Heart Break: An Isabel Swift Novel (The Isabel Swift Detective Series Book 1)

by MF Moskwik

  “Opiate?” asks Izzy.

  Charles grunts his agreement. “You guys won’t leave me alone. That’s not even the one I sell.”

  Does that count as a confession? Izzy wonders. “Did someone else ask you about Mr. Davis’ medication? Another officer?” Charles grunts again. “Can you describe him? Or her?”

  Charles pulls himself upright with a groan and props his head up on his hand. “Tall. Thin. Dark hair. I don’t know. Just some guy.”

  Izzy sighs at the lack of detail.

  “Got a funny accent, though. Like he wasn’t from around here.”

  “What kind of accent?” Izzy asks.

  Charles shrugs. “Like that guy on that show. You know, the Captain? He’s bald?”

  Izzy bites back a gasp. “A British accent?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the one. Interested in the ‘op-eats’ and some goddamn machine, but I told him I don’t know nothing.” Charles yawns and puts his head back down on the table. “Yeah, man. British. You know?” Charles says. In a moment, his speech turns unintelligible, and then light snores replace his words.

  Izzy runs to the door, buzzes the lock open, and flings herself into the anteroom. “Where’s Jameson?”

  Chapter Ten

  Izzy runs to Jameson’s empty desk and opens his laptop. The screen comes to life, and pictures of news articles fill the page.

  “Sir, look at this,” Izzy says to Captain Williams as he emerges from the hallway. She points to the screen filled with pages and pictures of obituaries and funerals.

  “Iz—”

  “Captain!” she cries as she gestures to the computer with impatience.

  “Officer. Captain.” Jameson greets them as he walks into the room.

  Izzy stalks toward him and shoves him hard. “Liar!”

  “What in the devil?” asks Jameson.

  The officers around them react with surprise and then move to restrain her.

  “Swift! Jameson,” Captain Williams calls.

  “He knows more than he’s saying, Captain, and he’s wasting my time letting me play catch-up. He’s already interviewed my suspect!” Izzy struggles against the officers restraining her. “Jameson, tell us what you know now, or I’ll hold you for obstruction,” Izzy barks.

  “Of what? We are investigating the same case,” responds Jameson.

  “Are we? It didn’t seem that way when I was chasing the suspect in the park by myself earlier,” Izzy retorts.

  “You left me!” Jameson yells.

  “You aren’t telling me what I need to know!” she gasps.

  “Swift! Jameson!” Williams remonstrates.

  Izzy puts her hands up in surrender. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Let me go. I’m good.” As the officers release her, she shrugs her shoulders to shake their hands off her small frame.

  “Good. Because we are going to go to some place quiet now and settle this,” Williams says. With a look at the group of police gathered at the wreck of Izzy’s new partnership, Williams yells, “Get to work people!”

  The crowd scatters, and Williams steers both Jameson and Swift toward the far end of the room, down the hallway, and into an empty office.

  ***

  With a loud ‘snick,’ the door opens, and Williams points at the seats that frame the small table in front of them.

  “Jameson, please have a seat,” says Williams. “Have a seat, Officer Swift.”

  Izzy and Jameson sit warily in the chairs across from one another.

  “Now, from what I can tell, this is not working. And that is putting it lightly,” Williams says as he gestures back and forth between the two of them. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you two are working against each other when you should be helping each other out. You are adults. Make this work.”

  “Captain!” protests Izzy.

  “I said make this work,” Williams reiterates before leaving the room and slamming the door.

  “I’m sorry, but I believe I’ve lost the plot. Would you care to explain what just happened?” asks Jameson. His tone is benign, but his expression borders on open hostility.

  Izzy stares at him silently for a few moments. “Met a friend of yours today, Jameson. Charles Morgan,” Izzy says stonily.

  Jameson winces as if physically hurt by the sound of that name. “Ah.”

  In the time it takes Jameson to formulate the rest of his response, Izzy watches his expression for a clue, a hint, a sign about what he is about to share with her. She is surprised to find herself scared about what he might say. She has never dealt with classified tech before, and terrible, outrageous possibilities of what the device could be or could do fill her mind. To relax, she forces her hands to open and presses them firmly against the table in front of her, but her palms sweat and stick to the ugly, metal surface of the interrogation room table.

  “This will be a long story, and it is not one I was keen to tell,” Jameson sighs. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

  “How do you know Charles Morgan? Why were you asking about Larry Davis’ infusion pump?” asks Izzy quietly. “And why is your computer filled with pictures and articles about dead people?”

  “I could tell you those answers, but those questions would be the wrong ones to ask,” responds Jameson.

  “Excuse me?”

  “A better question: Tell me, Officer Swift, why was I made your partner?”

  Annoyed, Izzy replies, “Because I pissed off the powers that be and got stuck babysitting the British consulting detective from London?” Izzy barks a frustrated laugh and leans back from the table. “If you’re looking for some touchy-feely partner BS, that ship has sailed, Jameson. I want answers.”

  “As do I, though I doubt that forcing this partnership upon us will yield that particular fruit,” Jameson says. “I ask again: Why were you, a three-year, highly qualified veteran police officer of the Westchester County Sheriff’s office assigned to ‘babysit’ an accomplished, if I may say it, state detective on what appeared to be a straightforward, if technology related, robbery case?” Jameson leans forward in his chair, causing a diffuse reflection of brown hair, blue eyes, and impatience to appear on the table.

  Back off, Izzy thinks warily. “Because I lost my partner, Ben Carter, and my captain thinks I’m too emotionally compromised to be on a real case,” she spits angrily.

  Jameson nods and leans back in his chair. “I have an apology to make, Officer Swift, as there are several things that have been kept from you and the county in the interest of the secrecy needed for this case.” Jameson stands and begins to pace on his side of the room. “You are correct in thinking that your assignment to this case is related to the death of your partner, Ben Carter, but not in the way that you think.”

  Izzy clenches her teeth. Her feelings are still too raw, and she does not want to go down this particular rabbit hole with anyone, especially not her smug, arrogant, and—thankfully—temporary partner. “Spit it out, Jameson.”

  “I requested that the partner of Ben Carter, a one I. Swift, be assigned to this case,” Jameson reveals. “Though I was unaware of your gender, I was aware of your relationship to Deputy Sheriff Carter, twenty-five year veteran of the Westchester County police and former trainee of the New York State Police Academy. It is precisely because of your relationship to Carter, and your knowledge of his death, that I requested to work with you.”

  Izzy balls her fist and slams it on the metal table. “Damn it, Jameson. Spit it out. What does Carter have to do with my case of stolen tech?”

  Jameson stops his pacing and fixes upon Izzy a steely, blue-eyed gaze. “I’m sorry, Officer Swift, but I’m afraid I have to tell you that Ben Carter was murdered.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “WHAT?” Izzy exclaims.

  Jameson resumes his seat at the table across from a now-furious Izzy.

  “When one is on the Internet, Officer Swift, one may upload information, such as a picture or a video or a blog post, to a webpage. In other wo
rds, you may send information from yourself to the world wide web, correct?”

  “You just said that Carter was murdered?” asks Izzy.

  “But the Internet works the other way as well, yes? One may download things from the Internet?” asks Jameson.

  “Jameson, tell me what you mean—how was Carter murdered? He died of a heart attack. I found him—the EMTs said his pacemaker failed,” replies Izzy.

  “I am familiar with the report you filed, Officer Swift. Please. Just—” Jameson balls his fist in frustration, but compassion and impatience are the only expressions written on his face. “Please. I need you to listen to me. To trust me.” Jameson lowers his voice. “When one is on the Internet, what is something that one must never, ever do? What can crash a computer, infect a network, or steal information by way of keystroke or surreptitious screen capture?”

  Izzy takes a deep breath and focuses on his question. “Click on a suspicious link. You’re not supposed to click on links because you can download a virus,” replies Izzy automatically.

  “And what does a virus do?” asks Jameson.

  “It installs programs that muck up your computer. Like you said, makes it run slow or steals your keyboard strokes to send to someone trying to hack your accounts. Crashes your computer.”

  “As you are no doubt aware, a few months ago, a device was stolen from New York Medical College—from the Department of Medicine and the Division of Cardiology.”

  “Sure—Rodriguez and his partner are working the case,” Izzy says. “They thought it was an inside job, but they couldn’t ID the perp.”

  “A young clinician-scientist was working on a device that would change the way heart patients with implanted pacemakers would be treated in the case of a heart attack.”

  Izzy focuses her anger on understanding what Jameson is saying. “Pacemaker. Like the one Carter had for his heart.”

  “Precisely. Unless they become nonfunctioning in the presence of a source of interference from either an EMI or from a—”

  “Digital wireless signal. I know. Carter had to wear his cell phone on the opposite side of his body from his pacemaker,” Izzy interjects. “What does this have to do with this case, and how does this prove that Carter was murdered?”

  “I checked his medical files, Officer Swift. Your partner, Carter, had a pacemaker with remote monitoring and follow-up capability, meaning that it sent signals to his doctor, who could then monitor his cardiac activity.” Jameson pauses. “The device invented at NYMC was created to allow remote modification of pacemaker programming by emergency personnel, who, using the device, would be able to bypass the security of the wireless medical device and reprogram its software without the aid of the patient’s doctor.”

  “Yeah, so?” Izzy asks impatiently.

  Jameson pauses and looks at her significantly.

  A device that would change the way patients with implanted pacemakers would be treated in the case of a heart attack, he had said. “Shit, Jameson,” Izzy swears softly. She looks up at Jameson, and the anger she has been holding onto begins to boil. “SHIT, Jameson.”

  Jameson sits up straight, his eyes wide, looking surprised by her reaction.

  “You’re telling me someone murdered my partner by giving his pacemaker a virus?” she asks quietly.

  “Since the theft from the New York Medical College, a dozen other police officers, all twenty-five year veterans of the police department, have died. Some of heart attacks. Some of diabetes. Some from drug overdoses, similar to what happened to Mr. Davis last night.” His voice again drops to a personal, intimate tone. “It wasn’t just your partner, Izzy.”

  “You’re telling me that someone is murdering veteran police by giving their medical devices a virus?” Izzy spits. “You’re telling me that you knew, the state knew, for a month that members of law enforcement were being targeted by a murderer, and nobody told anyone that they were in danger?”

  “Not knew. Only suspected, Officer Swift,” explains Jameson. “After the theft at NYMC, I was tasked to track and then predict possible network hacking by finding instances of identity fraud that shared a compromised hub or network. But my data mining of news reports in the area showed a spike, not in identity fraud cases, but deaths related to chronic medical conditions. I didn’t understand the link until I found that several of the cases showed a peculiar commonality—a long-term member of law enforcement that had died of a chronic medical condition.”

  “But what does this have to do with the other tech theft at County Forensics?” She drums her fingers against the surface of the interrogation room table with impatience.

  “While the death of a handful of people, one at a time, is a terrible thing, it is, in my frame of reference, a small scale event. But what if a device was made that could transmit this virus across all wireless signals, not just at one frequency, but across the entire bandwidth of frequencies simultaneously?”

  Izzy gasps. “The tech from forensics. It was rumored that they were working on something for SWAT.” Izzy looks at Jameson with shock.

  Jameson nods. “In a hostage situation, a device that, theoretically, could transmit a signal across all frequencies simultaneously would allow SWAT to communicate with everyone or cause radio silence in a whole building. But when combined with the technology from NYMC?” asks Jameson.

  “Oh my God,” breathes Izzy shakily. “Mass murder. Why? And why cops?”

  “That is what I do not know, Officer Swift, and why I requested to work with you.” Jameson walks around the table to kneel in front of Izzy. “You say you seek answers, Officer Swift? I am sorry to say it, but the answers both you and I seek will be found neither amongst the crime scenes you so efficiently examine nor amid the data which I studiously analyze.”

  Izzy watches as the intensity in Jameson’s eyes fades and is replaced, instead, with a look of compassion. Jameson reaches out both of his hands, and as he places his palms gently on either side of her head, she is surprised by the gentleness of his touch.

  “I’m afraid, Officer Swift, our best evidence and our best chance for solving our case lies within you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Izzy blinks. “Me?”

  Jameson drops his hands. “Yes. You are a primary witness to a crime related to this case, Officer Swift. Because your partner, Ben Carter, was the only victim of the dozen who was immediately found, and because it was you who were first on the scene, you may have key information needed to break open the case.”

  Izzy blinks again.

  In front of her swims Jameson’s face—an open, beseeching expression writ upon his brow, eyes, and mouth—but her mind’s eye sees only the body of her partner, Ben Carter, covered in sick and lying spread eagle on the forest floor.

  With a quick, decisive movement, Izzy raises her right hand to slap Jameson, but he catches her wrist in his fast, tight grip.

  “That will be the last of that,” states Jameson quietly, and his eyes flash a dark, dangerous shade of blue.

  Izzy shivers.

  Jameson recoils as if burned. His movement takes him to safety just outside her reach, and shock and anger are etched into his features.

  Izzy stands, and then she walks to the door and wrenches it open.

  “Officer Swift?” she hears Jameson call after her. “Where are you going?”

  She turns and reenters the interrogation room. “To catch the guy who murdered my partner.” Izzy turns and stalks out of the room.

  “Officer Swift? Officer Swift?” She hears the rapid staccato of Jameson’s feet as he sprints out of the interrogation room and into the hallway.

  “Officer Swift. Izzy.”

  “Don’t Izzy me, Jameson. From now on, it’s Officer Swift. You will follow me, we will find your tech, we will catch our bad guy, and then I never, ever want to see you again. Is that understood?”

  “Officer Swift, we need your testimony. I need your testimony. If you could please just—”

  “Just what, Jam
eson? Give you my testimony? Tell you how I found my partner covered in vomit and feces on the forest floor just half a mile from the road? Tell you how when I found his body, his skin was still warm, and that I did CPR for ten minutes before the EMTs pronounced him dead?”

  Jameson recoils.

  “There is nothing about that day that would help our investigation, Jameson. I found a body, Carter’s body. Autopsy said it was heart failure. If you think I can somehow conjure up another story about how my partner and mentor died to support your theory? One that involves a wireless virus that rewrites medical device software? Then I’m sorry, but I can’t. You don’t need me, you need proof, and right now, we don’t have any.”

  “Do you mean that you will not allow me to pursue my investigation of the case?” asks Jameson.

  “I mean that if you are going to spin some story about how someone is killing cops with a computer program, you are going to have to give me hard, physical evidence. Not theories.”

  “But you, Officer Swift, you are evidence,” exclaims Jameson.

  “No, Jameson, I’m a person, and I’ll thank you to remember that,” Izzy retorts bitingly.

  Izzy and Jameson storm back into the main room.

  Jameson points to his desk. “You told me, just now, that we have no physical evidence. Prints and DNA are still days away. The GC-mass spec hasn’t even yet been run. And our only other witness,” he spits, “is lying in his hospital bed in an opioid-induced sleep. Your testimony is the only way we are able to pursue our case.”

  “No, Jameson.”

  “What?”

  “If there’s one thing that Carter taught me it’s that when you are up against the wall, there is always another way.” Izzy turns on her heel and stomps out of the station. “We will find another way.”

  “Officer Swift—”

  “Oh, and Jameson?” Izzy turns and waits for Jameson to catch up with her. “You are not off the hook. How dare you know something and not use it to help people. You sit there with your laptop and your data, crunching numbers, and you forget that it’s people’s lives and safety that you’re crunching.”