The Zen Man (25 page)

“Picture wasn’t taken in Colorado. Look at the color of the water. Too aqua.”

“Like you know the color of every body of water in Colorado.”

“Third generation, baby, been to every corner of the state. Trust me, there’s no water that color.”

Laura released a sigh. “We didn’t hit the jackpot, but we made some links. Definitely appears Hughes is connected to Walt.”

“Copy pictures of that boat, too.”

“Why?”

“Because he likes it too much.”

• • •

The next morning, I walked Laura to the door. She wore her fleece jacket, jeans, Skechers, and the faux leather messenger bag with Walt’s laptop tucked inside. “God Rest Ye Gentlemen” played on a TV commercial in the background.

“Wish I could drive you there.”

“Sam wants to see you. Plus, I’ll be in and out of TeleForce before you know it.”

Sam had called this morning, wanted to come over and review police statements for the murder case. Maybe last night’s date had been a bust, or maybe the season sans family was eating at him. After he’d called, Laura had insisted I make the time for him while she returned the laptop, although we’d agreed to make up a story about Laura visiting an old friend on Christmas morning as the reason why she was gone. Better to keep Sam in the dark than leak a pinpoint of light on our latest trespass felony excursion.

“Do we have anything Christmas-y for me to offer him when he shows up? Fruitcake, wassail, boar’s head?”

“Make him some scrambled eggs and a vodka shot. He killed the scotch the other night.” Laura kissed me on the lips. “Wish me luck.”

I opened the door, shivering inside my flannel robe as cold air swirled inside. The sky was a crystalline blue, with clouds a-streaming. A gregarious waxwing, flashing its yellow belly as it swooped through the air, emitted a high, lispy trill.

“Shit.” Laura’s single word turned to mist in the chilly air.

“Shit’s right. But don’t worry, baby, we’ll get out of this mess.”

“No, look at the TV.”

I glanced back at the TV in our den.

Plastered on the screen was a guy who looked vaguely familiar. Dark hair slicked back, wearing a charcoal diamond argyle sweater, smiling with eerily white teeth. Then I remembered where I’d seen him before. He’d been Brianna’s date the other night.

Below his name scrolled the words

Larry Atkins. Investigative Reporter. Channel Nine News.

“Shit,” I muttered.

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.
—Zen quote

S
eeing that guy on the TV had sickened Laura. At least no one had mentioned Larry dissecting the murder or savaging Rick on TV, yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to happen any day. And he sure hadn’t come clean about his profession when he’d been at their house, walking around, checking out their place, listening to Sam and Brianna talk about her theories and those secret autopsy photos that supposedly pointed to Rick’s innocence. If they were such good evidence, and Brianna had connections to see them in the first place, why didn’t she just produce them, let Sam show them to the D.A., get Rick absolved of this madness?

All of this left Laura with a growing, queasy distrust not only with Larry, Mr. Investigative Reporter, but also Brianna. What was she up to? Didn’t make sense that a cougar in lust wanted to put her prey behind bars. Maybe she was working for the killer, had been promised money—a job?—in return?

A flash of red and white passed in front of her car. She slammed on the brakes.

“Ho, ho, ho, honey bun!” the guy in the Santa suit fell against the hood of her car, grinning sloppily.

Her heart pounded. Her mouth went dry.

“Whatcha doin’ by yourself on Christmas morn? Need some company?”

No accent. Not
that
Santa.

She forced a smile, waved him on. He stumbled across the street, calling out to others. After he’d navigated his way onto the far sidewalk, she blew out a pent-up breath, eased her foot onto the gas. After this craziness was over, she and Rick would go away for a few days, get their heads back on straight, start afresh.

A few minutes later, she parked in the alley behind the TeleForce building, banking no do-gooder cops wanted to give parking tickets on Christmas morning. Besides, she’d be back in no time, fifteen minutes tops.

She slipped Cathy’s key card in the slot. The door clicked open and she walked briskly across the lobby to the elevators, punched Walt’s floor. As the elevator rose, she put on her leather gloves—didn’t want to leave fingerprints. Earlier, Rick, wearing latex gloves, had carefully wiped down the laptop before placing it inside the messenger bag. Of the two of them, she was the one prone to such precise acts, but when it came to covering their tracks, making sure not even a print tied them to a crime, Rick had become the Detail Master.

She inserted the key into Walt’s office door, pushed it open, and halted.

“Merry Christmas, Laura.”

Sheer black terror froze her to the spot.

There sat Walt, behind his desk. An older man, the one she’d seen in the photo on the boat, sat in a chair off to the side of the room. They both looked abnormally calm, strangely still. Walt, dressed in a navy cashmere sports jacket, red-striped dress shirt with red textured silk tie, and that smarmy smile, looked like an evil, overgrown Harry Potter. The older gentleman was a study in colors that didn’t match—whiskey leather loafers with white socks, blue-green trousers, a suede courier jacket the color of old lemons. His white hair had been carefully combed over his dome forehead. On a pinkie finger, he wore a fat gold ring that could moonlight as a paper weight.

Her mind scrambled for an excuse. “I thought I left some papers in here—”

“Cut the bull and get in here,” snapped Walt, standing. “You stole my laptop, and now you’re bringing it back, so don’t insult my intelligence with inane excuses.”

She stumbled forward a step, wracked with sudden nausea. Walt crossed to the door and shut it. It closed with a sucking sound.

He took the messenger bag from her, motioned to an empty chair, the same one she’d sat in during her interview that felt like a lifetime ago. “Sit.”

She did as told, thought about her cell phone in her pants pocket. Maybe she could flip it open, press her speed-dial number for Rick’s phone…he’d hear what was going on, know she was in trouble. That required dexterity, something she lacked with these leather gloves on. Even if they were off, fear had cut off feeling in her fingers.

Walt sat back down, shoved the bag onto his desk. “We know what you and Mr. Levine are up to. And as far as any files you may have copied, they’re unopenable, so you wasted your precious time.”

She waggled her fingers, trying to loosen them up, regain feeling. Keeping her eyes locked on Walt, she inched her hand down to her pocket, felt the bulge of her cell phone.

“Yah too obtuse,” said the older man, speaking so slowly, she could hear her thudding heartbeats between each word. “Here’s how it is, sweet cheeks. Each of those copies has a wicked trigger inside. When somebody tries to open a copied file, that trigger goes kaboom and the file gets shot dead.” He pointed at her with his index finger, his thumb cocked like a hammer. Snapping his thumb, he mouthed “kaboom.”

Fear shot through her.

He chortled, dropped his hand.

A tense silence enveloped the room as Walt and the man stared at her. She didn’t want to show weakness, wanted to seem calm, in control. Maybe she could talk her way out of this, appeal to their decency. But with the pulsing knot in her throat, she didn’t trust her ability to speak.

“Quit wasting time,” barked the older man, “and check the computah.”

Walt rebooted his laptop. She stared at the computer as it whirred to life, thinking about what the older man had said. If he were telling the truth, it meant each of the files she’d copied last night probably had some kind of embedded algorithm. Opening the copied file triggered the algorithm, which overwrote the data. An excessive security tactic to protect alleged work files. Although she guessed one photo—the boat in the screensaver—wasn’t set to self-destruct.

She pressed her fingers against the hard end of the cell phone, debated if she could remove one glove without their noticing. No, impossible. The old guy was watching her with a fierce, predatory look.

“What were you looking for, Laura?” asked Walt, eyeing the monitor. “If you thought there was anything incriminating on my hard drive for your boyfriend to use at the retrial, you’re sadly misguided. Not only was I exonerated from any wrongdoing, I’ve made it my business practice since then to have no authority over any of the pension accounts at TeleForce.”

“You’re right. I was desperate to help my boyfriend. I’m happy to confess what I did to TeleForce security—”

“Shut up.” The old man turned to Walt. “See anything important?”

“No.”

The man stood, shook his leg as though it’d gone asleep. “Then let’s take ah friend for a drive.”

• • •

In between Christmas tunes, the smooth-voiced radio announcer shared cheery news about a Bandit Santa who’d held up a liquor store and dropped the wad of cash into a Salvation Army bucket, a miracle child born at Denver General, and a major snow storm likely to hit Colorado this afternoon. Occasionally, he also announced the time, which was how Laura knew she’d been tied-up and gagged for almost an hour in the backseat of the Land Rover.

Her body ached from lying in a tight fetal position. A pillow case, smelling of fabric softener and dust, had been tied taut around her mouth. At least they hadn’t blindfolded her, too.

The announcer introduced the next song. “Silent Night” by Olivia Newton John. As the singer’s tremulous voice sang about sleeping in heavenly peace, tears filled Laura’s eyes.

I’m going to die.

She thought about Rick. She’d promised to call him the minute she left TeleForce, so by now he was worried not hearing from her. From the buzzing in her pocket—she’d turned off the ringer earlier this morning—he’d been trying to call her.

He’ll be lost without me.

The thought surfaced unexpectedly, but now that it had she realized it was true. He was a smart guy, a tough PI when he needed to be—but he wasn’t the kind of man who did so well living alone. When they’d first started dating, she’d been shocked at his housekeeping habits. From the towels all over his apartment, it appeared he’d shower then dry himself while walking from room to room. He never dusted. And his food staples consisted of sauerkraut, ketchup, rye bread, and beef dogs—which Rick had jokingly referred to as the four kosher food groups.

But what haunted her the most was his tendency to be a loner. For all his gregariousness, she feared he’d become a hermit after her death. The kind of man seen eating alone at coffee shops, buying one ticket at movie theatres, reading by himself at the library. Of course, he’d have Mavis, but she wouldn’t live forever.

She hoped he stayed clean and sober. Hoped he didn’t give into his regrets. Hoped he became a lawyer again. Not that he needed that badge of professional respectability in her eyes, but it’d impress others. More important, it’d add to his own self-worth.

She swallowed back her despair, told herself maybe this wasn’t the end of her life, but didn’t believe it.

The car turned, bouncing and lurching along a washboard road. She turned her head slightly, saw clouds of dirt spewing outside the backseat window. Maybe they were in the farmlands of Adams County, north of Denver, or in the vast prairie lands southeast of Denver, somewhere in Elbert County.

Either way, she was headed to a remote, cold, lonely destination.

• • •

A short while later, the car stopped. The men got out, slammed shut their doors. A blast of winter air hit her as the back door creaked opened. Hands grabbed her by the upper arms, yanked.

“Get out,” barked Walt.

She half-fell, staggered to her feet outside the car, shivering as much from fear as the cold. Her grandmother would’ve called this a godforsaken piece of earth. Nothing except flat land and sage brush, broken by a split rail fence. A dark, boxy configuration sat on the horizon. Someone’s house, maybe a barn. From far away, a hammer rhythmically pounded, the sound reverberating through the air. Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk.

Walt stepped into her field of vision. “You’ve been a pain in the ass, Laura.”

She held his gaze—some small, vital part of her determined to look strong despite her circumstances.

“Wally, ya slick empty-minded a-hole!” barked the older man, “Ya said there was rope in here.”

The older man stood behind the Land Rover, its rear door open. He stared into the open back end.

“Get the plastic ties,” called out Walt. “They’re just as good.”

The same ties they’d used on her feet and hands. What else were they going to use them for?

“Got a cell phone on you, Laura?” asked Walt, his gaze traveling over her body. He patted her down, his fingers grazing places he shouldn’t. She didn’t flinch, didn’t make a sound. As Walt inched his fingers inside her pocket, he drew his face close to hers, his puffs of breath warm against her face. He smelled like coffee and cigarettes.

“Shame you had to play Jane Bond,” he whispered, “maybe we could’ve been friends.”

Walt pulled her cell from her pocket, turned it off, dropped it into his coat pocket. The older man walked up holding a bunch of plastic ties.

“Let’s get this over with,” he growled, looking toward the horizon. “Gonna start snowing like a son-of-a soon.” He pulled a knife out of his jacket, handed it to Walt. “Cut the ties off her feet. I don’t want to carry her to the fence. My leg’s killing me.” He frowned at the distant building. “What’s that racket? Somebody hammering?”

Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk.

“Some rancher’s probably fixing his fence.” Walt pulled the blade against the tie.

“On Christmas day?”