praise for terminated “Ray Daniel has nailed it. Nailed the story, nailed the writing, nailed the whole clever, original and quirky deal. An authentically riveting thriller, with wit and skill and a voice you can’t forget. Terrific.” —HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN, ANTHONY, AGATHA, AND MACAVITY WINNING AUTHOR “A smart, snappy, suspense-filled entertainment that knows just when to ratchet up the action, just when to turn the plot, just when to twist the knife. And more than that, it’s filled with fascinating characters, snarky humor, and some sharp social observations, too. You’ll read far into the night and come away with two things: a deep sense of satisfaction and sweaty palms from turning the pages so fast.” —WILLIAM MARTIN, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BACK BAY AND THE LINCOLN LETTER “Ray Daniel delivers a fast moving and engaging story with fullyblown characters, biting wit, and sparkling dialog. Terminated is a terrific debut novel. There is a new kid in town who deserves a wide audience.” —GARY BRAVER, BESTSELLING AND AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF TUNNEL VISION “Ray Daniel not only delivers a suspenseful, twisty, action-packed yarn, he’s created an everyman hero named Tucker who will linger in the reader’s conscious long after the final page is read. A terrific debut for a promising new series.” —STEVE ULFELDER, EDGAR-NOMINATED AUTHOR OF WOLVERINE BROS. FREIGHT & STORAGE “Ray Daniel knows what he writes and has written a winner.” —MIKE COOPER, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF CLAWBACK
T E R M I N A T E D
T E R M I N A T E D A TUCKER MYSTERY
RAY DANIEL
Midnight Ink
woodbury, minnesota
Terminated: A Tucker Mystery © 2014 by Ray Daniel. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Edition First Printing, 2014 Book design and format by Donna Burch-Brown Cover images: iStockphoto.com/16410403/©franckreporter iStockphoto.com/13537814/©mblea041 Cover design by Ellen Lawson Midnight Ink, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daniel, Ray, 1962– Terminated : a Tucker mystery / Ray Daniel. — First edition. pages cm ISBN 978-0-7387-4069-0 1. Software engineering—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 3. Mystery fiction. I. Title. PS3604.A5255T47 2014 813'.6—dc23 2014008764 Midnight Ink Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.midnightinkbooks.com Printed in the United States of America
For Jeff and Rachel. You’re the best!
acknowledgments I would list everyone who has helped create Terminated, but the list would be longer than the novel. My friends, family, coworkers, and fellow writers have supported me in every way that it’s possible to support an author. Thank you all! When I told my wife Karen that I wanted to be a writer, she thought it was a great idea and continues to think it is a great idea regardless of the challenges. No matter how things went in the writing world, I knew I could come home to a big smile and someone who would say “I know you can do it.” Thank you, Karen. I love you! Thank you to my first writing group: D.C. Harrell, Kristin Janz, Joan Kosmachuk, and Christian Powers. They were the first people to meet Tucker and their insights, comments, and monthly deadline helped me launch my writing career. Thank you to my second writing group: Sibylle Barrasso, Shelly Dickson Carr, Hans Copek, Judy Copek, Bob Long, Carol Lynn, Wynter Snow, and Paula Steffen for our weekly sessions. You helped Tucker and me find our voices. Thank you to my agent Eric Ruben at the Ruben Agency and my editor Terri Bischoff at Midnight Ink. Your faith in my abilities and in the Tucker Mysteries mean the world to me. Janet Rosen, thank you for helping me give Tucker his emotion and humanity. Thank you Joseph Finder for taking the time to give me advice about my career and about writing. You’ve helped so many people in the Boston writing scene and I’m grateful to be one of them. Clair Lamb, thank you for helping me get Terminated over the finish line. You are an outstanding editor. Thanks to Gary Braver, Mike Cooper, William Martin, Tim McIntire, Daniel Palmer, and Steve Ulfelder for reading the early edition of Terminated and providing blush-worthy review comments. ix
Thank you Hallie Ephron for being the little editorial voice in my head that keeps me on the right path. Hank Phillippi Ryan, I always feel good about where I’ve been and where I’m going after I talk to you. Thank you for your friendship and support. Finally, thank you to the members of Mystery Writers of America of New England, Sisters in Crime of New England, and Grub Street. You all make Boston a wonderful place to write. I love Boston and I love writing with you.
x
sunday
1
one
Morning sex is, in fact, everything it’s cracked up to be. The languid sharing of pre-caffeine pleasure, the gentle moaning in a sunlit room, and the natural hormonal cycles of a healthy thirty-threeyear-old male combine to create one of life’s optimal experiences. Sadly, my chances at living the dream evaporated when my best friend told me that he had figured out how to catch my wife’s killer. I had been standing in the galley kitchen of my shotgun condominium in Boston’s South End, sipping orange juice and rallying myself from a night of tequila and unexpected pleasure. I was thinking about Maggie and how she had murmured that I should get back to bed as soon as possible. I sipped my juice and felt my blood sugar rise. Click and Clack, my hermit crabs, scuttled around on their pink sand. Hermit crabs were the perfect pets. They didn’t poop on the rug, they listened well, and they added life to a bachelor apartment. I had wanted to get a pair when I was married, but Carol thought
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they were gross. She called them cockroaches in mobile homes, which was quite unkind. Clack was wearing a new shell that I had picked up for him at Revere Beach. He had discarded his original shell, a fluorescent orange monstrosity that some sadist had covered with sparkles. “You’re looking good, my friend,” I said to Clack and toasted him with orange juice. I reached for my BlackBerry. It was locked, so I entered the password and opened the Twitter app. What should I tweet? Oh what a night was too obvious, and Back in the saddle again was too crass. I hit upon it: It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. But then my stomach churned, and I added: I hate tequila mornings. I once had been a big Facebook guy, maintaining a group of friends who didn’t mind the fact that I only communicated with them in the two or three minutes where I was waiting for software to compile. I quit Facebook soon after Carol died. The constant messages of condolence and “How are you doing?” felt like an invasion. The barrage of Farmville requests, “Repost this if you care about …” messages, and pictures of cute kittens went from being annoying to painful. I switched to Twitter, where the conversations were short. I had downed my orange juice and was heading back to bed when the door boomed behind me. It crossed my eyes. I turned and stumbled toward the living room looking for my pants. The door boomed again. I thought about Maggie trying to sleep and said, “Coming!” The booming stopped. My pants were piled in front of the door, still inside out from when Maggie had torn them off. I righted them, pulled them on, 3
and looked through the peephole, expecting to see a neighbor. Instead, I saw my best friend, Kevin. I pulled the door open, took a step back, and swept my arm in a come in gesture. Then I belched and bolted to the john as my stomach roiled. I stood over the toilet, hands on knees, catching my breath. Kevin and I had been roommates at MIT. We were an unlikely pair. I was a smart kid from Wellesley, and he was a smart kid from Revere. We worked great together. He put up with my late nights of drinking. I put up with his late nights of studying. We had both slept as late as possible. Kevin closed the door and followed me. He stood in the small space where my bathroom and bedroom met kitty corner at the end of the apartment. “Good God, Tucker. What happened to you?” “Tequila.” “You can’t drink tequila.” “I can if I’m motivated.” “Sure you can.” Kevin dressed like a banker and exuded the wholesome energy of a guy who had run five miles before breakfast. His skin shone, his eyes were clear, and his spiky cropped hair was perfect. He crossed his arms and looked at me as if I were a puppy tangled in its own leash. My stomach decided to keep its contents. I stood up and squeezed past Kevin to get back to the kitchenette. I popped open the carton of orange juice and poured myself another glass. Kevin said, “I will never get used to you doing that.” “Doing what?” “Drinking orange juice when you’re hung over.” “What should I drink?” 4
“Pepsi. Nice, warm Pepsi.” “That’s disgusting.” My gut lurched again. I put my hand to my mouth and collected myself. Kevin said, “You OK?” “I’m fine. Now scoot. I have to go back to bed.” “Why?” As if in answer, the door opened and Maggie peeked her head around the corner. She pulled it back when she saw Kevin and said, “Tucker, I need to get to the shower.” I remembered that Maggie’s clothes were also in the living room. I took Kevin by the arm and led him to the door. I gave him a little push and said, “Sorry Kev, you’ve got to go now.” Kevin resisted my push. He said, “We need to talk.” I said, “Fine, we’ll talk later. How about dinner?” “No. We need to talk now. In my office.” “Why can’t we talk here?” “It’s official business.” “FBI business?” “Yeah,” said Kevin, and he turned toward the front door. Apparently Maggie needed more than the shower, because as soon as Kevin’s back was turned, she made a naked dash across the two feet that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. She looked great, even at high speed. I was getting peeved. I opened the door and pulled Kevin into the hallway. “Can’t you see what’s going on here?” I asked. “Of course,” said Kevin. “I have excellent observation skills. I’m a trained investigator.” “Dude, you’re in the cybercrimes division at the FBI. I don’ t think it makes you an investigator. You’re a hacker with a badge.” 5
“And you’re a hacker with a girl,” said Kevin. “Exactly. And when was the last time that happened?” Kevin closed my apartment door, and we stood on the little landing. He said, “I feel bad, Tucker, I really do. But this is about finding Carol’s killer. I have a lead.” Carol and I had worked together at a security software company called MantaSoft. We were both programmers. I ran the project, called Rosetta, and she worked on it. It ended badly. I said, “Tell me more about this lead.” “I will when we’re in my office. I don’t want to do this in a hallway.” My thoughts of Maggie and morning sex disappeared, burned off by memories of the impotent rage that had coursed through me when I had found my wife, dead in the kitchen. “You’re not screwing with me, right, Kevin? This is real.” “It’s a shot. I can’t promise anything.” “OK,” I said. “Wait for me downstairs. I’ll need about ten minutes.” Kevin smiled. “You won’t regret it.” He turned and trotted down the stairs. When I entered the apartment, Maggie was sitting in front of the galley kitchen, wearing a towel and sipping orange juice. She asked, “Is he gone?” “Yup.” Maggie stood and dropped her towel to the floor. I could feel my eyes dilating. Her small breasts stood at attention. Drops of water glistened on her toned legs. She was the best-looking fifty-year-old woman I had ever seen. She walked toward me and pressed herself against my bare chest. Her short, spiky, salt-and-pepper hair tickled
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my nose. Her fingers ran down my spine as she kissed my nipple and asked, “Shall we go back to bed?” I hugged her close, feeling the lats and trapezius muscles. If this was what my body would look like when I was in my fifties, I’d be ecstatic. I kissed her on the cheek and stepped back, disengaging myself. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got to go. Do you think we’ll see each other again?” Maggie held my face in her hands and said, “You can be sure of it, dear.”
7
two
FBI Headquarters sits in a curved building across the street from Government Center, the plaza where Boston fans celebrate Patriot Super Bowl wins. We have duck-boat parades for the Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins championships. I think all championship trophies should just be renamed “The Boston Cup.” Kevin and I rode up the elevator from the parking garage. We had said nothing on the drive over. I’d asked him about the clue, but he said to wait until we reached his office. Now I had nothing to think about but my hangover. I said, “I shouldn’t be upright. I think I’m gonna puke.” “It’s your own fault.” “I could have slept this off. But you had to show up at the crack of dawn.” “Crack of dawn? It was 9:30.” “Exactly.” Kevin’s office was a spare government-issue cave. I slumped into a guest chair made of chrome and fake leather. Kevin’s desk was
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made of chrome and fake wood, and held a computer and a picture of his wife and kids. A basketball poster hung from the wall over a wire-mesh wastepaper basket with a little net and a Boston Celtics backboard. The trashcan was about five feet from Kevin’s desk. Wads of paper were scattered on the floor around the basket. I pointed at the wads. “That’s just pathetic. I hope you investigate better than you shoot.” Kevin handed me a folder and said, “These are confidential, but they’re definitely connected to Carol.” The folder contained pictures of a naked woman in what looked like a hotel room. She was lying on the bed, facing away from me. Duct tape bound her arms and wrists behind her back. More duct tape bound her knees and ankles. The gray tape looked like steel. The pictures gave me an unpleasant sexual jolt. I closed the folder and said, “Thanks, but no thanks. I can download my own porn.” “That’s not porn. Keep looking.” It sure looked like porn. The naked woman faced one way, then another. Closeup pictures, faraway pictures. All the pictures showed the same woman, the same bed, the same duct tape, and the woman lying in the same position. She wasn’t moving. I asked, “Is she dead?” Kevin said, “Yes.” “Who is she?” “You don’t know?” I found pictures of the woman’s face. Her nose and mouth were covered with tape. She must have suffocated. My stomach rolled. This was sick. After the pictures of her head from the front and back with the tape on it, I came to a picture of her face with the tape removed. 9
“Holy shit. That’s Alice Barton,” I said. Alice was a nervous, mousy woman Carol had hired to help her manage the software code on our project. We were supposed to have a hiring freeze, but that didn’t stop Carol. She had gone right to Jack Kennings, the CEO, and gotten her requisition approved. That was Carol’s way; even the CEO couldn’t resist her. “Alice Barton,” I repeated. “Do you know who killed her?” “Someone at your old office says that maybe you did.” “Who?” “I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.” “Someone accuses me of murder and you won’t tell me who it was?” “Well … I can’t.” “This is bullshit,” I said. I was pissed off. The police had investigated me for months after Carol was murdered. I didn’t want to go back under the microscope. “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” said Kevin. “I know you didn’t do it.” “How do you know that?” “Because at the time of death, you were drinking tequila with your lady friend.” How did Kevin know that? Sherlock Holmes claimed that we solve puzzles by deduction and come to the answer through a linear string of logic. That’s crap. You really solve puzzles through a flash of insight. Then you work your way back through the logic so you can explain it to others. After years of debugging software, I was good at generating flashes of insight. My programmer brain cranked on the Mystery of the Tequila Girl Alibi and came up with the answer. I remembered that I had
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tweeted last night while Maggie and I were eating dinner and doing shots. Is it tequila then lime then salt, or the other way around? “You read my tequila tweet,” I said. “You saw that I was in my apartment.” “Yup. I keep telling you to turn off that location feature. It’s creepy. The tweet had a map that pointed at your house. And it had a time stamp. So I know where you were at the time of the murder. By the way, who was that woman? I’ll need it for my report.” “Maggie.” “And her last name?” My brain kerchunked. She had never told me her last name. “I don’t know.” “Did she tell you her age?” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “When she peeked at me from the bedroom, I saw a flash of gray.” I crossed my arms and said, “Your observation skills at work again?” “It’s my superpower.” “Oh, I see. You’re Nosy Man, invader of privacy.” “You didn’t answer my question.” “I don’t know. Fifties, I guess?” Kevin broke into a wide smile. “You, my friend, are cougar bait!” “Har. Har.” “Where did you meet her? Water aerobics?” “I met her at the Thinking Cup. She was having trouble with her computer. And she doesn’t do water aerobics. She does yoga. She’s in fantastic shape.” “How did she wind up in your bed?” 11
“Her computer was full of viruses. I offered to make her dinner and re-image her hard drive.” “Is that what they’re calling it now?” “Nice. She brought a bottle of Patrón, and one thing led to another.” “Like I said. Cougar bait.” I stood and started picking up Kevin’s wads of paper and putting them into the basket. My brain sloshed each time I grabbed one of Kevin’s missed shots. The hangover was winning. I dropped back into my chair and reached for the picture of Alice. She stared up at me from the crime photo. Her dead eyes were asymmetrical—one mostly closed, the other mostly open. Her lip was torn from the tape being pulled off. Or maybe she had torn it trying to breathe. I closed the folder. “Did your source say why I would kill Alice?” “Revenge.” “Why would I want revenge against Alice Barton? I didn’t know her.” Kevin picked up the folder. Fiddled with it in his hands. Opened it. Closed it. Looked at me. He said, “I’m just repeating what I heard.” “I understand that. What’s the problem?” “I don’t believe it myself,” said Kevin. His face flushed. My stomach was starting to twitch. I’d never seen Kevin like this. “Now you’re scaring me. What could be so terrible? Why would I kill Alice?” Kevin took a deep breath. “Because she stole Carol from you. The person told me that Alice and Carol were lovers.” That was the final drop of poison in my already roiling tequila stomach. I stood up, rushed to Kevin’s trashcan, and puked all over his Boston Celtics backboard. 12
three
I sat alone in Kevin’s office as he dealt with his despoiled wastepaper basket. My stomach felt better, but I couldn’t get my bearings. I was confused. Carol had been a lesbian? “You didn’t see that one coming, did you, baby?” I moaned. Carol was sitting at Kevin’s desk, wearing her funeral dress. “Jesus, Carol, not now.” “It seems like as good a time as any.” Carol’s legs slid beneath her dress as she crossed them. Whenever she did that, I thought about how those legs had felt under my hand, how my fingers had caressed the strong muscles. She looked as good as the day she died. Her black hair cascaded over her shoulders, and the plum dress draped across her breasts. They were part of a glorious body that I hadn’t touched in the last six months of our marriage. Carol had first appeared to me the week after her funeral. I had decided to sell the house and was looking at the place in the South End. I was checking out the bedroom when she arrived.
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“Hello, baby,” she said. I jumped across the empty room. “What the hell?” I stammered. “So you’re selling our place? How come?” Carol walked over to the window and looked out at the building next door. “This is awfully crowded. Don’t you like our house?” “You mean your house,” I said. “Oh, God, not this again.” “You wanted that house. I never liked it. There was too much grass and it was too big.” “It was big so we could have a family,” she said. “I didn’t want to raise kids in the city.” “Yeah, well, you weren’t going to get a family by not sleeping with me.” The Realtor had come back into the room, and Carol vanished. The Realtor asked, “So what do you think?” “I’ll take it.” So I moved to a new place, but Carol kept showing up. Part of me wanted her to leave me alone. Let me move on. But another part was happy to have her back. It was an uneasy relationship, just like when she had been alive. I didn’t know what would get her out of my life, but I knew it had to happen. “Is it true what Kevin said? Were you having sex with Alice?” I asked. Carol smiled. “What do you think?” “I think that if you were having sex with Alice, you could at least have offered me a three-way.” “Don’t be gross.” “I’m just saying it would have been a good way to break the news.” 14
“If I were having sex with Alice, it would have been your fault. You were enough to put any woman off the whole idea of a penis.” “I don’t know about that. Maggie seemed satisfied.” “Don’t you trust that woman.” Kevin opened the office door. I glanced at him, and when I looked back at Carol, she was gone. I really do need to get to a shrink. Kevin said, “Were you talking to someone?” I said, “Do you see someone?” “No.” “Well, then, there you go. Where’s your wastepaper basket?” “I threw it away. You got orange juice pulp in the wire mesh.” “Sorry about that.” Another agent followed Kevin, filling the small office with his bulk. Kevin said, “Tucker, this is Agent Miller.” Agent Miller shook my hand and said, “Kevin’s told me a lot about you. Call me Bobby.” If you took a bowling ball, taught it to talk, and bought it a custom bowling-ball suit, you’d wind up with Agent Bobby Miller. His bald head reflected the buzzing overhead lights, and his massive chest filled my field of vision. Bobby said, “Kevin wants me to show you something.” He handed me a folder with his meaty hand. “Check these out.” Kevin said, “Unless you’re gonna puke again. I’m out of wastepaper baskets.” I ignored Kevin and spread the new folder out on his desk. The folder was full of pictures like the ones of Alice, but with different women. In the top picture, a small blonde with big breasts was on a hotel bed, tied with duct tape and suffocated. I said, “You’ve got more of these?” 15
Bobby said, “Yup.” I pointed to the top picture. “I don’t know her.” “You wouldn’t. Her name was Courtney Acres. She was a prostitute in San Francisco.” Under Courtney was another picture. Another blonde, big boobs, duct tape. Bobby said, “Maria Scarborough. Prostitute in Orlando.” Next picture, a different blonde. Next one, another. Bobby had memorized the name and city for each one. I didn’t know the women, but I knew the cities: Dallas, San Antonio, Reno. I had been to all of them. They had all hosted the biggest software conference in the security industry: SecureCon. I asked, “Where is SecureCon this year?” Bobby turned to Kevin and said, “You were right. He is smart.” Kevin said, “Wicked smaht.” Bobby said, “It’s in Boston. All these women were killed by the same guy. We call him the Duct Tape Killer. Good old DTK.” “And you figure that he killed Alice Barton?” “I’d bet you a dinner at Legal’s.” “What’s this got to do with me?” Bobby said, “Nothing. You see that, Kevin? Tucker agrees with me.” Kevin said, “He doesn’t agree with you. He doesn’t have all the facts yet.” “What facts?” I asked. Kevin ticked numbers off his fingers. He liked to do that, talk in outline form. “Fact 1. DTK kills blond prostitutes on Thursday afternoons. This time he killed a brunette engineer on a Saturday night. It breaks the pattern.” 16
Bobby said, “Maybe he just got bored.” “Fact 2. Someone told us that Tucker had killed Alice.” Bobby said, “But you said that was bullshit. You said that guy hated Tucker.” I said, “What guy?” Bobby and Kevin said together, “Can’t tell you.” “This is bullshit.” Bobby said, “Exactly.” “Fact 3,” continued Kevin, “The brunette engineer who DTK killed on a Saturday worked with Tucker’s wife, Carol.” Bobby said, “That doesn’t count. There was no duct tape with his wife, her throat was fucking cut from ear to—” Kevin and Bobby disappeared, telescoping away into background noise. I was standing in my kitchen again. Carol’s corpse lay in the center of a giant bloody graph, the blood having run down the grooves of the kitchen tiles. I couldn’t reach her without stepping … A strong hand gripped my shoulder. “Tucker, come on back, buddy.” It was Kevin. I said, “I’m OK.” But my breath was still coming in shallow gasps. Bobby picked up the folder and said, “Now you got me saying insensitive shit in front of your friend. I’m done with this. Listen, Mr. Cybercrime, stick to spam and porn, OK? This isn’t your strong suit.” Bobby shook my hand, “Good to meet you, Tucker.” Then he left, slamming the door behind him. I was still shaky. I stood. “I gotta go, Kevin. I need to get out of here.” Kevin said, “Just stick with me. Just a little longer. You need to know one more thing.”
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I remained standing. My breath had returned to normal, but the adrenaline in my system had turned to bile. “What could I possibly need to know?” “Someone’s going to sell Rosetta.” “Shit yeah, Kevin. MantaSoft is going to sell it. That’s why they paid me to write it.” “I’m talking about the source code. Somebody is going to sell your source code.” Source code is the equivalent of a software manuscript. Once you have the source code, you can create your own versions of the product. You can pirate it, modify it, or hide viruses in it. You have complete control. I said, “That sucks, Kevin, it really does. But MantaSoft is a security company. They won’t lose the source code. On top of it, they fired me. Fuck ’em.” “I’m telling you it’s all related. Carol, Alice, you getting fired. It’s all related.” “How?” “I don’t know.” And then it struck me. I said, “You want me to do your job.” Kevin was silent. I continued, “This is just like in school. You still can’t debug.” The world of top software engineers is broken into two camps: designers and debuggers. Designers, like Kevin, are organized architects who can build cathedrals out of information. You ask them for a program that can do email, and they’ll give you one that can do email, but that can easily be expanded to do text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. They have ordered, logical minds
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that resonate when they see an elegant solution. But those ordered, logical minds have a weakness: debugging. Designers, like Kevin, make poor debuggers. They’re like Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back, futilely punching the disabled hyperdrive and shouting, “It isn’t my fault!” They’ll look at a bug a hundred times and tell themselves, “It shouldn’t be doing that.” On the other hand, I’ll look at the same bug once and say, “You subtracted when you should have added.” My mind branches into all the alternate realities of the code and jumps to the thing that breaks the software. I’d saved Kevin’s ass before when his works of art just didn’t work. Now Kevin was trying to get me to do that for him with Alice’s murder. He couldn’t put the pieces together, and he wanted me to help. I said, “This has nothing to do with Carol, does it?” Kevin said, “Of course it does.” “You just wanted me to get all worked up so I could figure it out for you.” Kevin studied his shoes. “I need your help.” He looked pathetic. I wasn’t happy to hear myself say, “What can I do?” “So you’ll help?” “It depends,” I said. “What do you need?” “Like I said, it’s damn strange that you were fired the same day that Carol was killed. And it’s damn strange that the DTK killed someone on your project on a Saturday night. I think that you getting fired is a key here. I want you to find out why you were fired.” “And how do I do that?” “You ask Nate Russo. He still works at MantaSoft.” That wasn’t going to happen. 19
“I’m sorry, dude, but I’m done here. I’m not talking to Nate. I hate Nate. I’m going home.” I headed for the door. At the door I stopped and said, “The guy was like a—forget it.” Kevin called after me, as I strode down the hall and out of his office, but I ignored him. I wasn’t going to talk to that backstabbing son of a bitch Nate Russo.
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four
I stormed up Tremont Street with Government Center on my left and Kevin’s office building on my right. My cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID: Kevin. I sent the call to voicemail. I was going home to enjoy my life as a bachelor. First, I was going to get food. Later, I would go for a run. I liked to run a few miles along the Charles. It would serve the double duty of keeping me in shape and venting my spleen. That night, I would watch the Red Sox on my HDTV, with a beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. At Park Street Station, I considered how to get home. I could go underground and take the T, or walk through the Boston Common and Public Garden. But there was no good food on the T, while I could grab a snack if I stayed above ground. I decided to walk home. The Common was full of people. I strolled through the park and circled the Frog Pond, a big, manmade puddle that cools the city kids in the summer and gives them a place to ice skate in the winter. Since
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it was a hot summer day, the pond acted as an oasis for young mothers who watched their charges run into the pond and waddle out with expanded diapers. I walked past the pond and saw a trim redhead crouched in the path, hand-feeding a squirrel. I noted the redhead’s legs as they stretched the material of her shorts. I hadn’t noticed a woman in months, but my night with Maggie seemed to have changed that. I wondered if this was what healing felt like. My BlackBerry chirped and I looked at the message. Speak of the Devil. Kevin’s text message said, “Call me!” He would have to wait. The redhead was having trouble getting the squirrel to eat. The animal kept approaching her and veering away, only to come back to look longingly at the peanut in the redhead’s hand. She was holding the peanut between thumb and index finger and saying, “Here you go …” I put words into the squirrel’s mouth in a falsetto voice, “Oh God, I want that peanut so bad. But she’s big and scary!” The girl turned and said, “Tell me about it. He’s a skittish little thing.” I said, “I think he’s worried about the way you’re holding the nut. Try resting it in your palm.” She turned her hand palm up and rested the peanut in the center of it. The squirrel approached her, stood on its hind legs, and reached over her fingers to take the morsel. Then it retreated a few feet, sat on its haunches, and ate. The redhead stood up. She was tall and fit, with small breasts and green eyes that complemented her green sports bra. She said, “You know a lot about squirrels.”
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“I watch a ton of Animal Planet, but I learned about squirrels while growing up on the streets.” “The streets?” “Back in the ’hood: Wellesley.” “I see.” She smiled and put out her hand. “I’m Jeanette.” I reached out to shake, but was distracted by Carol. She had appeared behind Jeanette. Carol said, “Baby, you have the attention span of a pigeon.” I followed through with the handshake. “Hi, Jeanette. I’m Tucker.” Jeanette pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear and smiled. At this point, I imagined myself asking Jeanette if she’d like to get coffee over at the Thinking Cup. But Carol wouldn’t go away, and I felt inhibited. The squirrel was bounding back toward us like he was collecting rent. I said, “It looks like your buddy wants another peanut.” Jeanette fished out a peanut as I turned and walked away. Carol fell into stride next to me. I pulled my Bluetooth headset out and snaked it into my ear. If you walk down the street talking to your invisible dead wife, people think you’re crazy. However, if you put a Bluetooth headset in your ear, people think you’re industrious, even if you are crazy. I said, “You know, most widowers are allowed to move on with their lives.” Carol said, “You call this moving on?” “It’s a start.” “Don’t you even care who killed me?” “Of course I care. Why don’t you tell me?” “Because it doesn’t work that way.”
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I didn’t respond, and we walked together toward the Public Garden. We’d had this conversation before, and it didn’t get any better with time. Carol broke the silence. “Why were you wasting time with Red back there?” “I wasn’t wasting time.” “Oh please.” “What?” “Kevin gave you a simple task. You should be calling Nate to find out why he fired you.” “I don’t want to talk to Nate,” I said. Then, “Why do you suppose he fired me?” Carol’s voice took on an edge. “I’m sure I don’t know. I was being murdered. Do you ever think of anyone but yourself ?” “Oh for God’s sake, not this again.” Carol raised her hands. “Look, I don’t want to fight. What did Nate say when he let you go?” “He said the company was making a change.” “So why didn’t you ask him for more specifics?” “What’s the point? He was just going to lapse into that legal bullshit they use to keep you from suing them.” “It’s been six months. He should be able to talk freely. Just call him.” “No.” “Fine. Don’t call him. What do I care?” I stopped walking and stood at the edge of the green lawn. A siren wailed as an ambulance trundled down Charles Street and into the maze of Beacon Hill millionaire brownstones. Perhaps it would go through to Mass General; perhaps it would stop at the house of some guy who thought his money would protect him. The ambulance that 24
had pulled up to our house in Wellesley had not bothered with a siren. Carol stopped walking and turned. I felt the sea breeze slide across the Common, and Carol’s hair stirred in response. She said, “What is it?” “When does this end?” I asked. “What?” “This thing we’re doing. You popping up, me wearing a headset so I don’t look like a lunatic. When does it end? When do we move on?” Carol stepped toward me. My nose twitched as I strained for a whiff of her perfume. Instead I smelled the ocean. She looked back across the Common, toward the sea, up into the blue sky, then back to me. She said, “I don’t know. It’s no fun for me either.” “Why don’t you just leave?” “It’s not that simple. Call Nate, baby. It’s our best shot.” I blinked, and she was gone. Thank God. I walked across the vast expanse of Boston Common. Originally people had grazed cows and hanged witches in this space. Now they just sunned themselves and threw Frisbees for their dogs. The Common ended at Charles Street. I bought an Italian ice from a vendor, and tweeted: Just bought an Italian ice from a Pakistani. The crosswalk at Charles Street was blocked by a knot of tourists who were waiting for the light to change, even though no cars were coming. This is Boston, folks. You don’t need no steenking light. I stepped through the knot and crossed into the Boston Public Garden, my favorite place in the city.
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Frederick Law Olmsted designed the Boston Public Garden before he designed Central Park. It was like every other comparison between Boston and New York. Boston was always first: first public school, first underground train station, first World Series winner, the list goes on and on. New York has had to make up for its embarrassing string of lateness by becoming the most powerful metropolis in the history of the world. It’s pathetic. I wound my way past the flowerbeds, sat next to the Swan Boat lagoon with my back against a tree, and admired the skyline. The John Hancock Tower was blue today, mirroring the perfect sky. In front of it, the red bricks of Back Bay combined with the green of the trees and the splashes of color from the flowers to produce a visual masterpiece. A Swan Boat made the turn around the small island in front of me and paddled across my view, propelled by a college girl in shorts. I dug into my Italian ice. But I couldn’t enjoy it. Kevin wanted to know why Nate had fired me, and so did I. It just made no sense. I had been running a software project for MantaSoft, and it had been going great. We were meeting schedules, people liked working for me, and the product was going to be huge. It came without warning. One day Nate had called me into his office and fired me. Sorry, Tucker. We’ve decided to make a change. I was stunned. I had stumbled away from him, grabbed my car keys, and driven home. That was when I found Carol. She was lying on the kitchen floor with her hand at her throat, as if she had been trying to stop the blood that covered the floor. Her legs were at an awkward angle. She must have been thrashing before she died. Her blue eyes were open, and I felt their accusation.
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Kevin tells me it wasn’t my fault, that there was nothing I could have done. He says that if I had been at home protecting my wife, instead of at work getting fired, I would just have been killed alongside her. Maybe he’s right, but maybe I could have done something. Distracted the guy, disarmed him, or sacrificed myself so Carol could get away. Instead, I had stood in a kitchen doorway as the scene seared itself into my brain. The next months were a blur. I barely remember the funeral, being investigated (Kevin says the husband is always the first suspect), and selling the house. Things happened, but the details were missing. I was just going through the motions of life, doing what had to be done. I had some money stashed away, so I worked out, wandered the city, attended the Sox, and became a hermit right in the middle of a town full of women, parties, and sports. My Italian ice was sour. I might learn to like the single life, but I hadn’t chosen it. Someone had chosen it for me when he broke into my house and slit my wife’s throat. I’d tried to ignore that fact, but it gnawed at me and reminded me that I had been helpless in the face of a monster. I put down the Italian ice and pulled out my cell phone. It was time to call Nate.
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