The Devil's Analyst

by Dennis Frahmann

  Lopez didn’t pick up on Josh’s cue to leave. He answered, “Chip was calm.”

  Josh thought that interesting description was also an apt way to describe Jesus.

  Jesus went on. “He had questions and he thought Oliver and I might have answers.”

  At the mention of Oliver, Danny tensed. Josh never understood why Danny so disliked his old writing teacher. After the first few classes with the man, it seemed the professor evoked a real passion in Danny. But then Danny read Broken Beauty and everything changed. After reading the book for himself, Josh agreed the story line was dismaying. Yet he never fully understood why Danny found it so upsetting. After all, the reviews were grudgingly positive.

  Jesus seemed ready to leave, but then paused. “There is one thing I don’t think I ever mentioned to Danny or the police. Being here made me think of it.

  “Your husband seemed surprisingly interested in this house. At first, I thought he was engaging in idle chitchat. That’s the kind of thing you do with new people—you know how one lingers on the few things held in common. Since we had both been in this house the night we met, it seemed a natural thing to discuss, and of course it is a beautiful place. Later I realized there might have been more to our conversation because Chip wanted to know something.

  “He seemed to think the house harbored a secret room, and he wanted to know what I knew. I guess he thought such a thing would appeal to a writer with my reputation. Perhaps he expected to hear about dungeons or such.”

  Josh kept his eyes from rolling. How often would he have to listen to Jesus’ made-up nonsense? Everyone knew the former owner was merely a crazy man who collected horror memorabilia. Of course a home like that would have its “secret” rooms.

  Francesca perked at the mention of the hidden lairs. Her glass was empty again. “I told these guys about this very thing. The last time I was here, we were about to go on a search. Maybe Chip heard me talk about them. Know what? I want to take a look. Let’s go on a search.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Jesus said. Josh was convinced he did it merely to annoy Danny.

  “If it was of interest to Chip, then I want to look,” Cynthia declared.

  Danny was not interested, but always wanting to be the accommodating host, he was unwilling to quash the suggestion.

  Josh decided to end this nonsense. No secret rooms needed any exploration. “Come on guys, what are we going to do? Tap on all the walls? Turn the sconces? Really, don’t you think if there were any dungeons or lairs, we would have discovered them during the remodel?”

  “Let’s at least take the tour. You know, I’ve never seen the lower levels and I’d like to,” Francesca’s words were slightly slurred. Danny looked at Josh and then agreed with Francesca’s request. Josh thought he did it as some kind of payback on Josh for inviting Jesus over.

  “Okay. This way,” he said. There was no use fighting. They headed through the dining room and into the cluttered kitchen. Thank God, the cleaning woman would be in tomorrow. Everything was a mess. “We can take the back stairs to reach the lowest level. It was the old service basement.”

  He flipped the light switch, and they descended the first flight. At the first landing, they kept going. There was no reason to dally on this floor. It only contained several guest bedrooms and the old billiards room. They continued descending to the lowest level. Josh could feel the chill of the bottom floor, which was always cold even when the heat was at full blast. At this level, the exterior walls were completely concrete and two-thirds of them were buried into the hillside. Even on the sunniest of days, the space remained dim—only the south side held windows. In the remodel, Josh transformed the original collection of storage, furnace and laundry rooms into one large game room that could also serve as a screening room. The north wall was lined with bookcases, and in its center an archway opened into the wine cellar dug into the hillside—Josh’s pride and joy.

  Francesca stumbled out of the stairwell into the room. He couldn’t let her have any more wine. As it was they would need to call her a cab or make her stay the night. Just what he wanted, another guest in the house.

  The basement seemed ghostly in the moonlight filtering through the windows. Josh flipped the light switch to transform the room with a blaze of light. At the other end of the room, he noticed the curtains were flapping. The room seemed even colder than usual.

  “What the hell,” Josh said. Why was a window open? He strode to the moving drapery. Beneath it, the floor was littered with broken glass. The security system must have been compromised. Someone had shattered the window to break into the room. Then he remembered how he had left the system off because Jesus was coming over.

  Everyone looked at Josh. Despite the wine, even Francesca recognized the implications of the flapping curtain and the glinting shards.

  “So I guess it wasn’t Kenosha’s imagination after all,” Danny declared. “Someone broke in. But for what?”

  Danny was equally angry and afraid. Ever since their return from Wisconsin, Josh had minimized Kenosha’s concern about a house break-in. Now the broken glass proved she was correct. Somebody was threatening their well being, but his sense of justification was balanced by a chilling premonition that things were about to turn dark.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded of Josh. “Why would someone break into our house? What are they looking for?”

  Josh looked at him in befuddlement. “How would I know? It’s probably local kids. You know they’re always smoking shit on those stair streets.”

  “Maybe they do, but you know that’s not what’s happening here.”

  Danny didn’t understand his own fervor. Maybe being near Lopez was a kind of emotional catalyst, and Danny wasn’t about to back away. By some logic he felt to be true, Josh and he were clearly embroiled in someone’s devious plot. He needed Josh to acknowledge it.

  As a kid, a teenager, and even a young adult, Danny was always too quick to back down. Rocking the boat was never his style. He needed people around him to be happy, and he lacked the confidence to act on his own beliefs. Confronting someone he loved and accusing him of keeping secrets required a major shift. Yet he knew this man he loved was keeping something hidden because Josh should have been more surprised by the shattered glass pane, but instead it seemed he half expected it.

  And Josh wore the melting look of betrayal. It was a look scarred into Danny’s psyche. He had seen it as an adolescent watching the movies with Pete. And he faced it again at summer’s end with Oliver so many years ago. Only that time the traitor’s face was also streaked with derision. Tonight Josh was at risk of joining the camp of Pete and Oliver. Not only was he keeping something from Danny, but also he clearly knew he was in the wrong.

  “You know what they’re looking for, don’t you!”

  Danny’s voice held a steeliness that as much surprised him as it comforted him. Francesca and Cynthia moved awkwardly as though to escape the scene; they only knew the weaker Danny. He was tired of letting others direct his life. It was time to be someone stronger.

  Josh went on the offensive. “Who’s the ‘they,’ Danny? We don’t know who did this. We don’t even know that a broken window means something.”

  Danny refused to accept these denials. “Okay, have it your way. Keep trying to tell me there’s nothing going on. You can tell Cynthia that Chip will reappear and that money hasn’t been stolen from the Lattigo Nation. You can try to convince Kenosha she’s crazy, imagining someone was sneaking into our house. You can even tell me over and over that I haven’t been followed. Guess what? It won’t do any good. Nothing you say is true, and we all know it. And you know what else? I believe the same person and car that followed me followed Chip. Our friend came here to help us, and now he’s gone. Someone breaks into our house, and you pretend it’s coincidence and that everything will be all right, and I won’t just go along anymore.”

  Cynthia caught her breath, and Danny turned to her.

  “I know Cynthia. We all want
to believe that Chip’s okay. And none of us accept the police explanation that he’s a thief. We know your husband. He’s smart. He’s loyal. But we have to face reality. He must have found something he wasn’t supposed to. If he ran off, he would let us know he was alive. He cares too much to do any less. And it can’t be a kidnapping . . . because who would have done that and why hasn’t there been a ransom? He’s gone.”

  Josh pulled Danny into a fierce hug that wasn’t meant to console but to control him. He whispered for only Danny to hear, “You need to stop this. You’re freaking out Cynthia. Calm down and support her. Then we can get rid of everyone, and I’ll tell you what I’ve tried to keep hidden.”

  Suddenly Danny felt calm and totally sober. The danger was real; he wasn’t imagining it; and he needed to be in control.

  He looked over Josh’s shoulder at a shaken Cynthia and his eyes tried to convey how sorry he was. Francesca was collapsed into a chair, staring at her glass. Then he saw Lopez. The man was barely holding back a self-satisfied smirk. Suddenly, everything made sense. He didn’t know where the thought came from, and it hardly seemed possible. Yet from all he knew of Lopez and after reading The Dumping Ground, he could believe anything was possible.

  He wrestled free of Josh’s grasp to swing angrily at Lopez. “It’s fucking Oliver, isn’t it?”

  Josh looked at him in amazement. “What the hell are you talking about? Oliver who?”

  “Oliver Meyers! Our partner.”

  Now Lopez was actually smiling, and Danny was again encircled with Josh’s arms. No matter how much Danny wanted to, Josh wouldn’t let him hit the professor.

  Lopez said, “Seriously. You think a multi-millionaire investor is behind a minor break-in.”

  “Why not? He’s already stolen my life and handed it over to you.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Lopez wasn’t rattled, but Josh was upset. “Danny, what are you talking about?”

  Danny felt drugged. Maybe he drank too much; yet all he could think of was that slim volume resting by his bedside. In that novel, names and locations may have been altered, but the book’s spirit spun the story of Oliver’s summer betrayal. Except that the story’s point of view cast a light that made Danny the villain, not the victim, of that adolescent web. If Oliver would stoop so low as to betray an entire summer of memories, then who could predict what else he might do. Despite his apology to Danny just days earlier, Danny considered the possibility that Oliver blamed Danny. Maybe he wanted to get into this house to attack Danny. Maybe the only reason his company had invested in Premios was because Danny was one of the owners. The world overflowed with psychopaths, and that long ago summer surely proved that Oliver was such a person.

  “Danny, breathe deeply and tell me what you mean.” Josh continued to hold Danny tight, who felt comforted in Josh’s arms.

  As though to apologize for her personal dilemma causing such anxiety, Cynthia lightly touched Danny on his arm.

  Danny took that deep breath. He needed it. He realized he needed to disclose something hidden too long from Josh. While he never planned to discuss that summer with Oliver, there was no way out now. Where to start? Not even wanting to say the man’s name aloud, he nodded in Lopez’s direction.

  “His newest novel. It’s about me. The whole thing covers a summer in my life. A summer with Oliver Meyers.” He almost choked on the last sentence.

  Cynthia looked away. She knew what was to come. After their brief meeting with Oliver and his unexpected apology, Danny disclosed an abbreviated version of the summer’s events to Cynthia. He also told her he never wanted Josh to know.

  Josh looked at him with incredulity. “Danny, this is Jesus Lopez we’re talking about. Like you always say, he only writes about horrible people and horrible things. Whatever could have happened in your life that he’d find interesting?”

  Danny fell quiet. Josh and he always promised to be truthful with one another, and in many ways they lived up to that commitment. In the past, Danny spoke freely about the pain and loss of his mother’s suicide, and he even shared the story of the movies and Pete Peterson. In turn, Danny knew how guilt from his parents’ accidental deaths years ago plagued Josh. In a way, the two of them met because of the respective tragedies, and they became the people they were only because of the sadness in their lives. But sometimes the things you weren’t willing to tell anyone were the things that defined you. Some facts seemed so destructive that just a hint of them might force others to completely reexamine what they believed of you. Some truths were not worth the risk of being disclosed.

  Lopez actually chuckled. “Thanks for that vote of confidence, Josh. I thought you placed higher value in my writing. But I guess not.

  “As for you Danny. You were once my prize student. I had such hopes for what you could become. I tried to test you and make you strong, but you broke so easily, the way you wasted your talents with writing that silly ‘zine. As a teacher, it’s hard to watch someone fritter away their potential.”

  Danny didn’t care what the man thought. “So you pay me back by letting Oliver talk you into absconding with my life.”

  “Really, Danny, your thinking is so narrow. Why assume it was Oliver who told me your little secret? Do you really think no one else knew what was going on?”

  Danny felt unable to say anything. Why would Lopez say such a thing? No one else could have known all the details. That summer was a secret between Oliver and Danny.

  Francesca stirred in her chair. It was as though Danny’s outburst had sobered her up.

  “Don’t you think we should call the police?” she asked.

  Cynthia retreated to her bedroom. The evening was all too much. She had known Danny and Josh for years and before tonight had never seen them so poised for a knockdown fight. She had no desire to be dragged into their differences. Her own problems were so huge. She glanced down at the wastebasket beside the lounge chair. The wrapping from the pregnancy kit was still there. After all this time trying to start a family, and now the test gave her the positive color that she wanted to see for so long, but she had no audience for her good news, and she feared that the small life growing inside of her could be all that remained of Chip.

  Danny was right. Each of them was dancing around the precipice of truth. The only explanation for Chip’s disappearance—and she should accept it—was death. If she knew for certain that Chip was gone, she could deal with it. But lingering in limbo was too tortuous.

  Through the window, the empty hills of a dark Griffith Park rolled northward. At night she could see little, but she noticed a circling police helicopter about a mile away. Its spotlight remained centered on a small area. For a moment she wondered if the police were already in pursuit of some suspicious vagrant in response to Josh’s incident call. That was the way life worked for Josh and Danny: one call to 911 and the Los Angeles Police Department was in full pursuit on their behalf.

  On the other hand, she was forced to dig for the smallest bits of information. When she finally uncovered them, they proved unsatisfactory. Earlier in the day, her detective Samuel Denkey called from Thomas’s office in Lattigo. He had flown to Wisconsin to investigate the company’s accounts onsite. After examining the financials, Thomas and Denkey asked for the conference call to brief her, but it only left her with more questions.

  During that entire phone meeting, she sat in the same chair that she sat in now. Throughout the detailed disclosures, she stared out the same window. In the daylight, the rain-fed hills seemed almost as green as Ireland. She longed to escape the detective’s drone by losing herself in the verdant grasses. Sometimes on this visit, she watched deer in the far hills of the park. Their presence always made her think of their Wisconsin home. Something about deer had always brought a smile to Chip and her, especially in the spring when they spotted a young fawn bounding through the brush with childish joy.

  Thomas began the call. “The million dollars is definitely gone,” he said. “We can’t
trace where the funds ultimately went and there seems no way to recover any of it.”

  Denkey jumped in. “But I’m confident your husband didn’t take the money, and I would testify to that in court. I’ve talked to the local police, shared my reasons and they now hold the same view.”

  “What’s changed?” Cynthia asked.

  “We’ve looked at the details. They simply don’t support the idea of embezzlement. It’s a crack team working at this computer site, as one would expect in any well-run data-hosting center. Your husband hired the best, and together we’ve scoured the code. The hackers were clever, but they left enough crumbs that we can piece together what happened.

  “It looks like this. The hackers used a weakness in the Premios firewalls to embed their malware in the company’s database. This is what happened back on New Year’s Eve. By itself, that was likely a diversion to mask their real attack on the Lattigo Industries enterprise resource planning system. The hackers buried another piece of code—the one that triggered the embezzlement. We’ve tracked both pieces of malware back to that server farm Chip discovered in the Valley, the one that was dismantled. We’re still trying to identify who rented that facility and when.” Denkey paused.

  Cynthia found his accounting insufficient. “I don’t get it. What you describe seems a very complicated way to steal a million dollars. Why stop there? Lattigo Industries is nearly a billion dollar business. Once they did it, surely, they could have transferred more.”

  Thomas murmured his agreement, and Cynthia sensed he was silently urging Denkey to say more.

  “Mrs. Grant, you’re right. We know that we’re still missing something. I guess you would call it the motive, or the payoff. This whole computer virus thing seems too complex and thought out for the amount that was taken, but at the same time too simplistic if it was intended to be a repeat job. But examining the books makes one thing perfectly clear.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  His reply was quick. “There’s no way your husband would do this. I’m not saying that because I know anything about his character. But there’s no reason for him to steal anything. Thomas gave me full access not only to the files for Lattigo Industries, but also to the books of the Lattigo Nation for which Mr. Grant is the chief. He also connected me with the manager of your personal finances. I’ve seen all the books, and examined them in detail. It makes no sense that anyone would steal a million dollars when you already have so much.