What the Fly Saw

by Frankie Y. Bailey

  McCabe broke off.

  Pettigrew said, “Don’t stop in the middle of your ‘stop whining and pull yourself together’ speech.”

  “Sorry, I forgot where I was in my rant. I had a thought.”

  “About me?”

  “I’ve already told you what I think about your situation. Actually, it was about the psychiatrist I mentioned.”

  “The one who’s had recent experience?”

  “The recent experience was with my victim, the funeral director. My vic had an avatar.”

  “Who was hanging out in cyberspace with a biker girl avatar named Dakota?”

  McCabe nodded. “When the psychiatrist was telling us about that, about our victim’s secret life, he reminded us of the emotional experience of being inside an avatar.”

  “So? Your psychiatrist has probably played a few games in cyberspace in his day. It might even have been a part of his training as a therapist. Cyber addiction has been in the mental health manuals for a while now. And avatars are also used in therapy.”

  “I know.” She shook her head. “Getting back to you. I’m sorry about the lecture.”

  “I forgive you. Obviously your lecture was directed as much at yourself as at me.”

  McCabe laughed. “Thank you, Dr. Freud. My guy really was a bastard. But I’m not going to take out a hit on him. And I would rather you didn’t joke about doing that with Elaine.”

  Pettigrew raised his glass in a toast. “Here’s to always remembering that we are officers of the law.”

  McCabe clicked her glass against his. “Sworn to protect and serve and not hire hit men to dispose of our exes.”

  “So getting back to this psychiatrist,” Pettigrew said. “Aside from advising me to seek his services, are you looking at him as a suspect?”

  “He’s on our list. But at this point, so is everyone else.”

  “Including the woman behind Dakota, the biker girl?”

  “Her, too.” McCabe smiled. “Of course, since, as you’ve pointed out, an avatar doesn’t have to look like its owner, Dakota could turn out to be six foot two and male.”

  38

  Wednesday, January 29, 2020

  8:15 A.M.

  “I come in early, and you’re already here,” McCabe said.

  Baxter grinned. “Making up for skipping out on you yesterday. I even brought you a muffin from your favorite bakery.”

  “Thank you,” McCabe said. She sat down at her desk and reached for the Cambrini’s bag. “Are you feeling better?” She took a bite of the muffin; it was still warm and smelled of cinnamon.

  “A-1. I went by my mom’s, and she made me soup and tea to soothe my tummy. I spent the night there, and felt good as new when I woke up this morning.”

  “Nothing like a mother’s TLC. Anything from Delgardo or Pete Sullivan yet?”

  “Tags from both,” Baxter said. “Both want us to stop in at our earliest convenience.”

  “Let’s start with Delgardo,” McCabe said, reaching for a napkin. “I can eat on the way.” She sighed. “And although I really appreciate the muffin, you do realize you’re encouraging me in my tendency to eat my way through an investigation.”

  Baxter grinned. “What would a good murder investigation be without food for thought?”

  “And bad puns?”

  Delgardo was on his ORB when they walked into FIU. He pointed toward a work table on the other side of the room. They went over to join a tech who was glancing into a microscope.

  “Hi,” the tech said. “We’d better wait for Ray. I think he wants to tell you about this. He’s really pleased with the process we used. First time we’d tried it.”

  “Hope we can understand it,” McCabe said.

  Delgardo joined them a few minutes later. “Sorry. I was on with my counterpart at the State Police lab. Just wanted to let him know the process we’d talked about worked. But we won’t bore you with how we did it. Suffice it to say we were able to extract your piece of paper from the muck and dry it out while preserving the paper itself. We were also able to recover most of the text.”

  “Then it really was the note we were looking for?” McCabe said.

  “If the note was to someone named Luanne—”

  “That’s it,” McCabe said. “Could we see the text?”

  Delgardo waved his hand, bringing an image of the document up on the wall.

  “So Luanne was telling the truth,” Baxter said.

  McCabe nodded. “A note telling her not to worry about what happened last night and that the unnamed author of the note will be in touch when the author gets back from the City. No signature. But easy enough to see why Luanne would think it came from Olive.”

  “Good, quality paper,” Delgardo said. “See the watermark?”

  “Personal stationery?” McCabe asked.

  “Could be. But the person who wrote the note used an old computer and printer.”

  “Would you be able to match the note with the computer and printer it was produced on?” McCabe asked.

  “Probably. The printer would be more useful than the computer.”

  “Thanks, Ray,” McCabe said. “This was fantastic. We’ll get back to you.”

  As they left the lab, Baxter said, “Are we on our way to request search warrants for computers and printers?”

  “It may come to that,” McCabe said. “But let’s see what Pete has and then we’ll check in with the lou about what we ought to do next.”

  “Dead undertaker or poisoned medium,” Baxter said. “Who gets priority?”

  “I vote for the dead guy if Pete can give us a decent lead.”

  Pete Sullivan was as pleased with his surveillance work as Delgardo had been with his forensics. Pete pulled up a spreadsheet and an interactive map.

  “Okay,” he said. “Follow me on this. I’m going to walk you through a week in the life of your vic—at least as much as we can document from where he went in his car. It’s your good fortune that it’s winter and the weather has been lousy, so most people have been in their cars rather than sloshing along the sidewalks.”

  Baxter started to ask, “Did you find a meeting—”

  “Getting there,” Pete said. “Just follow along with me.”

  McCabe nodded. When you produced results, you deserved to be able to show off a little. Delgardo had given up on trying to explain the science, but he did like displaying the outcome with as much flair as possible. Now, it was Pete’s turn.

  “We’re listening, Pete,” she said. “Walk us through it.”

  “Sit down and make yourselves comfortable,” Sullivan said, giving his handlebar mustache a tug. “We have a few stops along the way.”

  The walk through the seven days leading up to Kevin Novak’s death was a study in irony, McCabe thought. A man who didn’t know he would soon be dead doing the things they all did. Going to his dentist, picking up cleaning, going to church.

  The third trip to his church prompted Baxter to say, “Committees? Or, was he meeting with the reverend?”

  “Something we should ask,” McCabe said.

  Pete said, “This next stop looked like it was going to be a challenge, given your request we identify nearby cars when he was somewhere he could be meeting someone.”

  The readout and the flashing light on the map indicated his destination was in Guilderland, west of Albany city limits.

  “The mall? He went shopping at the mall on Thursday,” McCabe said. “How long was he there?”

  “Three hours forty-seven minutes,” Pete said.

  “That’s a long time for most men to spend in a mall,” Baxter said. “Most of us prefer to get in and out as fast as possible.”

  “Do we know if he was alone?” McCabe asked. “Maybe he was with his wife or one of the kids. But this is the middle of the day. The kids should have been in school.”

  Pete said, “He left from his funeral home. No one else in the car when he left, no stops along the way.” Pete waved his hand, bringing up more images
on the wall. “We’ve got the surveillance cam images from the mall.”

  Kevin Novak got out of his car. He had parked in an area where he was one in a stream of shoppers going in and out of the mall. But he was tall enough to stand out, a man in a tailored gray suit and tie among casually dressed shoppers.

  Except he had a knapsack. McCabe said, “He has—”

  “Hold that thought,” Pete said. He froze Novak in midstride and zoomed back for a closer look at the interior of his car. “Unless they’re invisible, no passengers in the car.”

  “No passengers,” Baxter said. “But what’s with the knapsack? Was he delivering something?”

  “He could have been,” McCabe said. “But if he had arranged to meet someone to deliver whatever’s in the knapsack, why was he in the mall so long?”

  “I have the answers to your questions, my friends,” Pete said. “Watch what happens.”

  He released Novak from his freeze frame. “This is where it gets good.”

  “The bus stop,” McCabe said. “He’s not going into the mall. He’s waiting for a bus.”

  Pete fast-forwarded. They watched Novak get on a bus.

  “What’s the number on the bus?” Baxter asked. “Damn, we’ve lost him.”

  Pete said, “If we can follow a car, we can follow a bus.”

  Baxter grinned. “Yeah, I guess you can. But he must not have thought of that, either.”

  “That’s how people get caught,” Pete said. “They think they’re safe from surveillance if they blend into a crowd.”

  McCabe asked, “Are you going to make us wait to see where he gets off the bus?”

  “The passengers getting on and off are fun to watch. But in the interest of saving time…” He brought up another image. “Your victim-to-be, Mr. Novak, caught on camera as he gets off the bus at this stop a few miles farther west.”

  McCabe said, “I take it this cam footage is courtesy of either the bus company or the Guilderland PD.”

  “Both. The Guilderland PD has a cam directly across the street from Mr. Novak’s destination.”

  Pete threw another image up on the wall. Inside the bus stop enclosure, Novak pulled a black thermo jacket with red trim and a baseball cap from his knapsack. He took off his suit jacket and put it in the knapsack, then put on the thermo jacket and cap.

  They followed Novak on cam as he crossed the parking lot of a motel and went into the office.

  Baxter said, “The guy goes to all this trouble, and he picks a cheap motel the cops are watching.”

  “I guess he was afraid if he went to a good hotel someone would recognize him,” McCabe replied.

  “Then he should have gone to his biker chick’s apartment,” Baxter said.

  “Assuming that’s who he was meeting.”

  Novak came out of the motel office. He walked down the row of first-floor rooms, stopped in front of one of them, and unlocked the door.

  Pete said, “And in just a few minutes, Mr. Novak’s guest will arrive.”

  “He probably tagged whoever he was meeting on his ORB,” McCabe said.

  A motorcycle roared up. The rider climbed off, removed her helmet, and ran her fingers through her spiky red hair. She was wearing a black leather jacket, blue jeans, and boots.

  “She really is a biker chick,” McCabe said.

  She strode up to the room Novak had gone into and knocked. He opened the door. She reached around him and tossed her helmet into the room. Then she grabbed Novak and pulled his head down toward hers.

  Kevin Novak jumped back from that kiss as if he had been smooched by a lioness.

  His visitor followed him into the room and closed the door.

  Baxter laughed. “Did he come running out, screaming?”

  Pete laughed, too. “I was expecting that. The blinds were closed, so we can’t see what happened. But here’s our next image. About two hours later.”

  “Two hours?” McCabe said.

  So much for Kevin having been shocked back into fidelity, she thought, as she watched Dakota, the biker girl, come out and roar away on her motorcycle.

  “Here comes our boy, Kev,” Baxter said.

  Carrying his knapsack, Novak came out of the room and walked back to the motel office. There was nothing to read in his expression.

  He walked to the bus stop on the opposite side of the road and changed back into his suit jacket. The bus came and he got on board.

  Pete showed the detectives the final image: Novak putting his knapsack into his car and driving out of the mall.

  “Where did he go after that?” McCabe asked.

  “Back to his funeral home, where he remained for the rest of the day. Then that evening, he went home to his wife and kids.” He waved away the images on the wall. “I have a printout of his movements for you. But that was the most interesting afternoon in your guy’s week.”

  “Probably in his whole life,” Baxter said.

  “And he might have wished he had gone to a movie instead,” McCabe said. “Pete, do you have anything for us on Dakota, the biker girl?”

  “Got her name—born Mary Ann Wilson, known as Dakota. Also have her home and work addresses.”

  “Dare we ask what kind of work she does?” Baxter asked.

  “She works at a beauty spa—as in hair salon—on Madison Avenue. She does facials and massages.”

  McCabe said, “Thanks, Pete. You’re a marvel.”

  “Tell that to City Hall when the DePloy budget comes up again. All the Common Council wants to talk about is problems with the system.” Pete tugged at his mustache. “Try explaining to a bunch of bureaucrats what solar storms and major weather events can do to a surveillance system.”

  39

  Dakota, the biker girl, was in her Mary Ann persona when she came out of the back room of the salon. Her red hair was smoothed down and tucked behind her ears. She was wearing a pink smock.

  McCabe smiled for the benefit of the salon manager. “Would you mind if Ms. Wilson stepped outside with us for a moment? We just have a few questions about something she may have witnessed.”

  “An accident?” the manager asked.

  “Possibly,” McCabe said. “We won’t keep her long.”

  Mary Ann had not spoken. She followed them outside.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You could have screwed that up for me.” She leaned back against the wall of the salon. “What do you want?”

  “To talk to Dakota,” McCabe said.

  Mary Ann waved her hand in front of her face. “She’s here. Same question. What do you want?”

  “Talk to us about the guy you hooked up with last Thursday at a motel out in Guilderland,” Baxter said.

  “My day off. I had nothing better to do.”

  McCabe said, “You met him in a cybersex club, right?”

  “No law against that.”

  “None at all,” Baxter said. “But this guy was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Dakota said. “I had nothing to do with that. He was alive and well when I said good-bye.”

  “We know he was,” McCabe said. “We saw on surveillance cam. What we want to know is what the two of you talked about.”

  “We were in a cheap motel, not a chat room.”

  McCabe said, “So the two of you didn’t exchange a word?”

  “A few. He got all father on me.”

  “How so?”

  “After we’d done the deed, instead of rolling over and going to sleep like most guys his age, he sat up with this look on his face.”

  “What kind of look?”

  “A look like … it’s hard to describe.”

  “Try.”

  “A weird look. Like he was embarrassed and sad and mad all at once. He asked if I did this a lot. I said, now and then. He said I ought to be careful.”

  “Good advice,” McCabe said.

  “I told him I knew how to handle myself. That he should have seen my last boyfriend.”

  “Is he still around?” Baxter asked. “Y
our last boyfriend?”

  “That’s what he asked me—Jack, the guy.”

  “And what did you tell Jack?” McCabe asked.

  “You sure you aren’t from Vice?”

  “We aren’t,” Baxter stated. “But I have some friends there. You want to talk to us or them?”

  Dakota said, “I’ll talk to you, and you’ll make sure they don’t hang me up.”

  McCabe started to say, “We can’t promise—”

  “It depends on what you tell us,” Baxter said. “Either way, you’re better off if we’re on your side.”

  Dakota shrugged. “I told the guy my last boyfriend was a drug dealer and that he was supplying the space zombies.”

  “You just volunteered that information to this guy, Jack, huh?” Baxter said.

  “I was trying to let him know … he was getting on my nerves, okay?”

  McCabe said, “Your boyfriend, the drug dealer—”

  “He’s gone. He skipped town one step ahead of the cops. The little zombie girl he’d brought in to be his distributor was in the house the cops raided. He’d had this big fight with her because she told him she was sick and couldn’t work that night. He was scared she was going to rat him out.”

  “This girl was in the zombie nest that was raided?” McCabe said.

  “Yeah, she was the one who had cholera. The girl who died after they took her to the hospital.”

  The girl in the red scarf, McCabe thought, feeling her heart sink. “Did you tell Jack, the guy you met at the motel, about the girl?”

  “Yeah, I mentioned her.”

  “Mentioned her when you were telling him about your ex being a drug dealer?”

  “He wasn’t really my ex. Just a guy I grew up with. He was trying to go big time by distributing to the zombies.” Dakota smiled. “But saying he was my ex really freaked this guy Jack. He looked like he was going to throw up or something. He said he had kids he told not to take drugs. I guess what was getting to him was that he had just finished bonking a drug dealer’s ex.”

  “When did this guy who wasn’t really your ex leave town?” Baxter asked.

  “Right after the raid on the zombies’ nest. He was getting nervous even before that because he thought Vice might be watching. So he’d already bought his plane ticket. He was planning to take his little zombie girl with him, had bought her a fake ID and everything. But she was throwing up all over the place and he ended up leaving her there in the house.”