by Marc Jedel
She almost growled in response. “Now? What did he do this time?”
“Marty? Oh, you mean your dog. He didn’t do anything—”
I interrupted, “No, he did. Buddy totally saved the day. He tackled the ninja. She got in the house and threatened me with Mace.”
Laney threw up both hands in confusion, nearly smacking Skye in the face. “What ninja? Why did Sergeant Jackson threaten you?”
“Not that Mace—”
“Stop!” Sergeant Jackson used his command voice again.
Meghan, always clear-headed, came to the rescue. “The woman in the black clothes broke into the house. She threatened Marty with a can of pepper spray. Buddy tackled her. Then Marty and I captured her and tied her up. I called 9-1-1 and Marty must have called Sergeant Jackson, then everyone showed up.” She stood, brought her chair over so Laney could sit, and took a deep breath. “There, now we’re all caught up.”
She walked over to me and took my hand. No one else could tell the experience had shaken her too, but I could feel her trembling, so I wrapped my arm around her and tried to calm us both down.
Mace returned to his interrogation. “Taking a Rover might be crazy, but it isn’t illegal,” he said to me. “What does it matter if she was picked up near his house? He wasn’t home. This sounds like another of your crazy ideas.”
I resented that comment. Only some of my ideas were crazy. “She lied to me.” At Mace’s look of disbelief, I quickly added, “And Raj. He was there, too. We were in Portland at the Sirius office when we met her on Monday morning. Peri told us she had been in San Francisco all day on Saturday with her husband. But she wasn’t.” Administering the final coup de grâce, I added, “And she was divorced two years ago. I found her divorce decree online. She was here in San Jose in the late morning, not in San Francisco. That’s plenty of time to make it to the mountains, kill Larry, and come back.”
All eyes turned to Peri. Her face tightened and her eyes shifted as she searched for an excuse but found nothing.
On a roll, I continued, “You’ll want to see this, too.” I picked up the folder from the kitchen table and handed it to Mace.
“What’s this?” he rumbled as he opened it and began thumbing through the contents.
I stood up a little straighter. “Underneath the printout of Peri’s weekly calendar is a signature form opening up an offshore brokerage account. It authorizes stock option trading, starting with a large order of put options for Sirius Innovation.”
Sergeant Jackson gave me a puzzled look. “It’s signed ‘Patti Smith.’ What does that have to do with anything?”
“That’s Peri’s signature. She signed us in at Sirius on Monday. The signature has large loopy letters and the I’s have hearts in place of the dots. Looks like a little girl’s signature, right?”
“It is not!” Peri’s eyes darted bolts at me, and she jerked her shoulder forward as she squirmed again. “People have made fun of my signature for my whole life. It’s not a little girl’s signature, it’s just feminine.”
Sergeant Jackson ignored her for the moment. “What’s a put option?” he asked me.
“It gives you the right to sell a stock at a given price.” The blank looks in the room led me to explain further, “Basically, it’s a bet that the stock price will drop. If you own a put option, you make a lot of money fast if the stock drops. She bought a lot of put options on Sirius and would make a mint if their stock plummeted. She’s an exec there. That’s illegal.”
Sergeant Jackson craned his neck to the side and rubbed the top of his crew cut. “Okay …”
I could tell he wasn’t sure what to do next. That’s what partners were for.
“Arrest Peri Syte for killing Larry.” If I ever spoke in a courtroom, that would have to become my courtroom voice. I continued, “Larry had this signed form in his house. It’s proof she was breaking the law. She killed him and then tried to steal it back to cover her tracks.”
Mace moved his hand to his chin. “Well, we can bring her in for breaking and entering. Our financial crimes unit will need to talk to her, but there’s no proof of murder in what you’ve said.”
Peri squirmed again, rubbing her arms against her side, and this time a cop grabbed her wrists to still her. “Let me scratch myself, you doofus.” She almost spat on him in her annoyance. “I’m not trying to escape. Only a moron would do that in a room full of cops.”
Her repeated movements prickled my memory. “Hey, pull up the arm of her sweatshirt,” I told the cop.
The cop looked at Mace, who nodded. He’d noticed Peri’s odd movements as well.
The officer pulled up the sleeve of her black sweatshirt, revealing an arm that was bright red and blotchy from repeated scratching.
I stepped closer for a better look. “Hey! You’ve got that same burn with little dots on your arm as Larry did.” I breathed in sharply. “You were there. You did kill him.” It hadn’t seemed real until now.
Mace leaned in for a better look. “That does look awfully similar,” he said tentatively. A sunburn wasn’t enough to convince him.
“She had Larry’s keys,” Meghan said softly.
Mace glanced at Meghan.
I jumped on that. “Yeah. Meghan’s right. How could she have them unless she drove his car back from the mountains—after leaving him dead in the forest.”
Mace nodded. He shifted gears, and his officer’s voice returned as he looked at Peri. “Ma’am, you’re under arrest—”
Peri interrupted him with a half-sob, half-laugh. “I didn’t kill him. That idiot … He grabbed a Giant Hogweed plant with his bare hands and thrust it into my hands when I wasn’t looking. That fool told me, ‘It’s the world’s biggest flower for you.’” She sniffed and her eyes teared up. “What a romantic fool.” She shook her head. “I didn’t kill him, but I was there.”
Everyone froze, not daring to interrupt.
She continued, her voice pleading. “I told him to drop it. I mean, what idiot doesn’t know those plants are toxic. They can burn you. Thirty minutes later, I started feeling itchy. Larry did too, but more. His rash came on so fast.” She shook a little. “His hands, arms, and face got all red and then he fell down, complaining he couldn’t breathe. He got frantic. He kept looking around for his EpiPen.” Her voice cracked. “He didn’t have it with him. He gave me his keys, and I ran back to his car. His EpiPen bag was on the floor.” She shook her head sadly. “When I got back to him with the bag, he was dead.” She shuddered, and a tear dripped down her cheek. “That’s all. It was so sad.”
“So sad,” I repeated in a soft voice, almost to myself.
Meghan leaned in and wrapped both arms around me, pulling me in closer and squeezing my waist in sympathy.
At first, I felt sorry for Peri too. Then I got mad. “No!” I said emphatically, startling the room. I pulled loose from Meghan. “That’s not all.” I shook my finger at Peri as I made a litany of accusations. “You didn’t call 9-1-1 to try to save Larry. You drove his car back to his house without telling anyone. You snuck around the corner to take a Rover home so no one would know you were there. You used scary ninja skills to follow us here and snuck into this house to get that document back.” I punctuated each comment with a stab of my finger at her.
The tears in her eyes dried up, replaced by angry bolts of lightning aimed straight at me.
Ninja death rays! I overcame my momentary terror to finish my accusations. “You even had an affair with Doug Samerson and went with him to the Cayman Islands to open illegal accounts together.”
Peri recoiled, her nose wrinkling. “Nasty.” She tried to spit the bad taste out of her mouth. Her reaction had been spontaneous. No one was that good an actor.
Perhaps I had misread that situation. I tried to recover my previous momentum. “Well, you’re no innocent bystander anyway. Larry died because of you and then you covered it up so you wouldn’t get caught. All for money.” I continued pointing at her as the room absorbed the full im
pact of the story. Suddenly I wondered if Larry had known about the stock options. Had he figured out who had signed the form? Was he in on it with Peri?
I felt deflated. The moment of appreciative silence in the room was all too brief before a familiar voice spoke.
“Wow, Cuz.” Samantha stood behind Laney with her hands on both girls’ shoulders. She must have arrived unnoticed.
Her approval felt good. I couldn’t often impress my cousin, especially in person. I nodded, feeling better. “Pretty impressive detecting, huh?”
“No, I mean that’s the weakest excuse for a Halloween costume I’ve ever seen.”
Skye and Megan snorted. With muffled chuckles, the officers snapped out of their daze as well.
“Hang on,” Laney said to Peri with a frown. “I don’t have the same last name as Marty. How’d you find my house?”
The room quieted as everyone’s eyes shifted back to Peri, who sneered at Laney. “I’m in HR. We know things.”
Laney’s glare intensified, and she opened her mouth as if to set the record straight that she too was part of that secret society.
Peri didn’t let her interrupt, adding, “Marty put you down as his emergency contact when he registered at Sirius. His apartment was dark so I guessed he might have gone here. He sure wasn’t heading straight to a party after jumping into the pool.”
My mouth fell open. She’d been to my apartment?
Mace had heard enough. He started reading Peri her rights.
“That’s my pom-pom,” Megan announced to the room of officers, pointing out my possession of her property, looking for someone to rectify the situation or possibly even arrest me.
A few officers merely chuckled at her indignant hands-on-hips pose. They recognized a borrowed pom-pom when they saw one.
Samantha’s purse dinged, and she pulled out a phone before noticing it was Izzy’s. Her face dropped.
I stepped over to console her. Although I felt more settled now that Larry’s death was solved, Izzy’s death was still fresh to Samantha.
The phone buzzed again as an image flashed on the screen.
Samantha recoiled in disgust as she scrambled to throw it back in her purse.
“Wait. Let me see that again,” I said.
“Eww.” Using only two fingers to avoid touching the screen, Samantha handed it to me.
I looked at the photo of a man’s hand holding his pants open to reveal more than I cared to see.
Then it clicked for me.
“Mace … I mean Sergeant Jackson,” I corrected as he bristled in front of the other officers gathered around Peri. “Look at this.” I showed him the unlocked phone.
“What is this?” Although Mace wasn’t pleased with my interruption, I’d earned a little consideration.
“This guy’s been sending sexts, you know, explicit photos, to Isabella Hernandez. That’s the woman from Sirius who was killed at the parachuting competition in Hollister.” His eyes tightened in impatience, so I finished quickly, “I know who’s doing it.”
His jaw clenched, any traces of tolerance for my dramatic pauses gone.
I got on with it already. “It’s Alan. An IT guy from Sirius.”
Samantha got upset. “Wait! A guy from Izzy’s job sent her those gross texts for months? What a creep! How do you know?”
“What did you say?” Peri grew agitated as she leaned toward me. “Do you mean Alan Johnson?” Reacting to my confusion, she added, “Our tech security guy, Alan. You met him in Portland outside Vince’s office.”
I nodded. I hadn’t known his last name yet recognized his distinctive bright orange watch band. You didn’t see many of those around.
Peri exploded. “That son of a—”
Laney interrupted, “Hey! My kids are here.”
Peri swallowed her curse. “For months?” She stopped and then took a deep breath. “All this time when we were together?” Jerking out of the cop’s grasp, she lunged toward me.
Two officers caught up to her, but she’d already stopped in front of me. That was a good thing, as I hadn’t budged. I was still rooted to the spot, staring at Peri. Engineers were hired for their brains, not their reflexes.
With her hands still cuffed behind her back, she leaned over to look at the sext. When she saw his wrist band clearly visible in the corner, she moaned, “We were in love.” Her voice cracked. “At least he told me he was in love with me. We were going to get married as soon as …”
Peri shook herself as another wave of anger swept across her face. “That … that—”
“Children!” Laney interrupted again.
Laney’s parenting approach confused me. She was fine with her girls standing in the same room with a killer but not with them hearing a curse word.
Peri looked up at Mace, her eyes dark and burning. “It was all Alan’s idea.” She looked like she wanted to spit when she used his name. “Alan stole Samerson’s email password and read his emails. When he found out our new drug trial was failing, he wanted us to buy puts against Sirius with fake accounts, move to Vanuatu, and live by the beach.”
“Va-new-a-who?” asked Mace.
“It’s an island in the South Pacific.” Peri sighed. “It sounded so romantic.” Then, her eyes widened as she drew in a sudden breath. “He was flirting with Izzy, wasn’t he? I thought he hung around Samerson and Peters to steal company secrets.” She gritted her teeth. “But he was there to flirt with her … that floozy. That—”
“Kids!” came Laney’s sharp voice.
“Hey!” complained Samantha about the depiction of her friend.
Peri darted an annoyed glance at Laney but complied. Taking a deep breath to control her emotions, she returned to her story. “Alan said Larry called Izzy late on Friday when he was fiddling with something in Samerson’s office. He couldn’t hear much except it was about the drug trial. He wanted me to ask Larry out, you know, on a pretend date, to find out what he’d told Izzy.”
Then her eyes narrowed as her suspicions crystallized. “Wait a minute. Yeah.” She looked directly at Mace. “I think he did it. I think Alan killed Izzy. That …” Glancing at Laney, she stopped herself this time. “I forgot Alan told me he’d follow up with Izzy. It’s been so busy with my arm and getting ready to leave the country next week. I thought he meant he’d ask her what she’d heard. He’s sick. Sending sexts to a woman he killed.”
She turned back to Mace. “You should check Alan’s computer and look for any videos of him in Hollister. He was watching all these videos about parachutes. I’ll bet he found something and messed with her parachute. Now he’s trying to cover his tracks by sending those gross pictures, that—”
This time Mace stopped her and asked Laney for some paper. He kicked everyone out of the kitchen except the police and Peri. From the living room, I watched as he took off Peri’s cuffs and handed her a pen. He asked her to write down her story in detail right away. While she wrote, he placed an officer on guard, then stepped into the garage to make a phone call.
I sat on the couch, catching my breath while the cops stood around. Meghan, Samantha, Laney, and the girls went out to the porch to hand out candy. Buddy padded up in front of me and placed his head underneath my hand. “Just covering your bases in case Laney decides to kick you out after all, huh?” I whispered to him as I stroked his head.
No one noticed me petting tonight’s hero.
Mace came out of the garage after a few minutes. “Our APB caught Mr. Johnson at the airport. He had checked in for an international flight. TSA is holding him.”
“Alan was leaving today? Without me?” Peri gasped and made small stuttering sounds. “I’ll testify against him. I’ll totally testify. He did it. I’m sure he killed her. How could I be so stupid?” She put her head down on her arms and cried.
After a few minutes, she stopped crying, picked up her pen, and, with a vengeance, finished writing.
Buddy had enough of hanging out with me. He wandered away in search of new trouble, or foo
d.
Peri threw her pen down on the table. “There.” She looked up at the nearest officer and, with a cold edge to her voice, asked, “Can they torture him before his execution?”
Before the officers escorted Peri out of the house, one more silly question bugged me. “Why all the way to Vanuatu? Wouldn’t it be easier to go somewhere like the Cayman Islands?” As she started gagging again, I added, “Not with Samerson, but isn’t it closer?”
Peri gave a disgusted snort. “There’s no extradition to the US from Vanuatu like there is from the Caymans. Besides, where’d you think Alan got the idea for the options trading? He’s good on the technical crap, but he’s not that smart. Well, at least he knew he didn’t need to fly to the Caymans, or Vanuatu, to open a secret account for illegal stock trading. Samerson is so stupid. You just need bitcoin, a fake email account, and a burner phone, and you’re all set. Samerson used his company email to set up the appointments and then thought deleting the emails would erase them.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Honestly, Samerson is such an idiot.”
At that, Mace left her with the other officers and stepped out to make another phone call. When he returned, he gave me a nod of grudging respect.
I’d take it. We were as good as partners again!
A few minutes later, I traded places with Laney and the girls as they went inside for a family meeting. I stood on the porch with Meghan and Samantha, watching Peri scowl at me from the back seat of the police car as it pulled away from the curb. She wasn’t so scary now that her ninja powers had fizzled out. The fire truck had long gone, and the other officers had turned off their cars’ flashers as they finished their paperwork.
It was a good thing I didn’t have to figure out how to write up all of tonight’s adventures. I’d leave it to the news reports to inform the Rover execs that the Sirius acquisition had gone down in flames. Best not to have the Rover leadership associate my name with this fiasco. I resolved to get into work on Monday extra early. The discussions about what happened to Sirius should prove most interesting.
