Cold Case

5

That does it, Matt thought glumly. What are they going to do now?

The silence of the other make-believe sleuths only seemed to underscore his gloom.

Surprisingly, Lucullus Marten provided an answer. His heavy, square face moved to take in the half-circle of unhappy sim participants. Then he turned to Ed Saunders.

“Would you mind very much giving us a moment or two of privacy?” the big man asked.

Saunders looked just like a startled bird. “Um — no,” he said. “Take as much time as you need.”

An instant later the sim’s creator had vanished from his seat.

Marten leaned back in his big thronelike seat. “My dear colleagues,” he said. “We face a most onerous accusation — but, it seems, an inescapable one. I was hoping that, in the absence of the teacher, as it were, someone might be willing to admit to a little wrongdoing.”

“Just among us?” Maura Slimm said sweetly.

Marten nodded.

But everyone in the room stayed silent.

Marten blew a great, gusty sigh. “I feared it would not be as easy as that,” he admitted.

“Of course not!” Milo Krantz snapped. “The…hacker”—he made a face as the slang term escaped his lips—“this person would have to be witless to make an admission before witnesses. This is not a case of returning the teacher’s apple to the desk, no questions asked. Legal sanctions have been invoked. There may even be criminal penalties.”

“Well, that little speech should really encourage whoever it is to speak up,” Mick Slimm said tartly.

His wife aimed a suspicious stare at Krantz. “Or maybe you planned it that way to cover yourself. You’ve obviously been doing a lot of thinking about the situation.”

“Again, one would have to be witless not to think of the consequences,” Krantz snapped in reply.

“Let’s just can it,” Spike Spanner growled. “We can talk in circles and point fingers until our time is up.” He tapped a beefy finger to his chest. “I’m telling you I didn’t do it.”

“Nor did I,” Marten spoke almost immediately.

“Well, I certainly wasn’t poking around where I shouldn’t.” Maura Slimm turned to the man lounging against the arm of her chair. “Were you, Mickey?”

“It strikes me as a sucker’s game.” Mick Slimm ran a finger along a carefully clipped mustache. “Saunders was only using this case to provide a framework for whatever would happen in our sim. Who’d know which actual facts he might include — and which he would toss out?”

“I suspect our director would have been wiser to let the charade go on,” Marten rumbled, “while looking to see whether anyone used any of the discarded elements you mentioned.”

“Too late for that,” Krantz sniffed. “How unfortunate you didn’t mention that plan earlier.”

Maura Slimm continued to give the tall man a beady stare. “What I don’t see you mentioning is your innocence, Mr. Krantz.”

The icy blue eyes behind the spectacles rolled in disgust. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Would you prefer it on a Bible?” He put a hand over his heart. “I swear I am not breaking into secret records on this case.” Then Krantz glared round the room. “I trust you’re satisfied?”

“I trust nobody,” Spike Spanner growled, spearing Matt with a look. “Especially someone who won’t take the pledge.”

Matt raised a hand. “I swear I didn’t hack into anything about the actual case behind the sim. I don’t know anything about the Haddings and the Callivants — except what my friend Leif told me.”

“Who?” Mick Slimm said.

“The Haddings?” Marten’s voice rose. “The Callivants?”

Maura Slimm nearly fell off her chair, thrusting an accusing finger at Matt. “You just gave yourself away!” she cried.

Matt hadn’t. He’d purposely thrown in the names of the true parties in this mystery, hoping to surprise a response from one of the sleuths. But the ones who weren’t exclaiming in surprise had better poker faces than Matt had hoped. He’d thrown away his advantage, with nothing to show for it.

“We know the Peytons in the mystery are a big-shot political family,” Spanner said. “That would certainly fit the Callivants, I suppose.”

“Hadding — that’s the real name of the girl who died?” Krantz sat straighter.

Matt nodded. “None of this came off the Net. I’ve got a friend who’s into society scandal. I picked his brains. The actual case didn’t happen in the nineteen thirties, the way Saunders set it up. According to my friend, the case resembles the murder of a girl named Priscilla Hadding, who died back in 1982.”

“Eighty-two?” Spanner echoed. “I was still in diapers then. Who’d remember?”

“Somebody starstruck by the social scene,” Matt suggested. He shot a silent challenge toward Krantz and the Slimms, all famed as society sleuths. Reluctantly he added Lucullus Marten as well. Most of the big man’s cases involved the rich and famous.

“Well, Newman, you shot your bolt,” Marten rumbled. “If you hoped to shock anyone into confessing, you’ve failed. All you’ve done is make yourself the main suspect.”

The whole group settled into mistrustful silence.

At last, Maura Slimm said, “If it was such a big scandal, why isn’t it better-known?”

Spike Spanner gave a snort of laughter. “I can answer that one. Hey — look at what happens to anyone who even mentions the damned case?”

Megan O’Malley held the door while Leif Anderson stood in the entryway to her house, trying to stamp off the snow sticking to his low boots. They were ankle height, but dressy — the fine leather was already soaked.

“I thought Washington had mild winters. The Brits used to classify their embassy here as subtropical.”

“About every fifteen years we get a serious snow-storm.” Megan shrugged. “Count your blessings. They’re facing a real blizzard up in New York.”

“Yeah, but back home, I’ve got the clothes to deal with this.” The snow was gone now, but his shoes squelched as he stamped on the welcome mat.

“Just take ’em off,” Megan finally said. “We’ll try stuffing them with something and putting them on a heat vent to dry them off.” She looked Leif in the eye. “I suppose I should be flattered that you’d brave this weather to come and see me.”

“Actually, it’s your folks I need to see — or rather, their library.”

Now Megan really gave him a look. “I wonder if you’ve heard of this wonderful thing called the Net. You can check out whole libraries and even buy books without leaving your house. It beats turning blue at the edges and ruining a pair of shoes.”

“I’d rather not advertise what I’m interested in,” Leif replied. “But I figure, between your parents’ books and yours, you might have some of the stuff here I’m looking for.”

“Well, you can ask my folks,” Megan said. “They’re both home. Some people have enough sense to stay out of the snow.”

Megan’s mom was a freelancer for The Washington Post, while her dad was a mystery author. Both worked out of the house — even if sometimes “work” seemed to mean frowning at the displays of the stories they were writing.

Robert Fitzgerald O’Malley seemed glad for the interruption as the kids came into his office. “Leif!” He exclaimed, turning in surprise. “What brings you out in weather like — whoops!”

His sudden movement dislodged a teetering pile of books on the table next to him. Megan and Leif helped him retrieve the fallen volumes. She wound up holding books titled The Dictionary of Imaginary Places and Modern Metallurgy. Leif had True Crimes of the Twentieth Century and The Living Sword. He held the last book up, staring at the cover. “Aldo Nadi’s autobiography!”

“That’s right,” Megan’s dad said, “you’re a fencer.”

“Not in that guy’s class.” Leif added his books to the new pile Megan was creating on the table. “I can’t figure how all this stuff comes together — but then I never expected the way you worked out Morte Siciliano, either.”

“You read it?” The novelist beamed, almost as proud of his books as he was of his children.

“Leif wants to do a little digging in the library,” Megan said.

“Certainly,” her father said.

Megan grinned. Anything for a reader of R. F. O’Malley, she thought.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” her father asked.

“Biographies, I suppose.” Leif pointed to the true crime book in the pile. “And maybe a little of that.”

“I got that from Julie. It sounds more like the journalist’s side of the stacks.” Megan’s dad rose from his chair. “Let’s go and ask.”

Megan generally tried to stay away from her folks while they were working. The little house was noisy enough, thanks to her brothers. Luckily, Mike was off doing research, and Rory, Paul, and Sean were out investigating the exotic phenomenon of snow in D.C.

Julie O’Malley, Megan’s mom, had apparently reached a good stopping point in her story when Megan, her dad, and Leif came into the living room. “Biographies?” she said when Dad passed along Leif’s request. “Most of them are over here.”

“I’m especially looking for anything about the Callivant family,” Leif said.

Megan gave him a look. What was this all about? He takes one look at a girl who insults him, and all of a sudden he’s digging into her family tree?

“We’ve got a couple of books—Lost Promise, about Steve, Will, and Martin.” Mom made a face. “That was family-authorized, so there are lots of interviews, but it’s also something of a puff piece for the Callivants.”

She went to the shelf and chose a book. “America’s Anointed has a lot of stuff about the Callivants, and it’s much more balanced. There’s a story about Will Callivant’s daughter—”

Leif nodded. “The one who got involved in that weird spring break incident with those guys. She’s been in a private sanitarium ever since.”

Julie O’Malley nodded grimly. “You know that one? While life has been hard on the Callivant men, the family curse seems to be just as hard on the female members of the clan.”

Leif dug a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I was wondering if you had A Death in Haddington, by Simon Herzen.”

Megan stared at the rude noise her mother made. “That piece of…writing?” Julie O’Malley shook her head. “I was in journalism school when that came out. The buzz about the book was tremendous. Everyone said Si Herzen was going to blow the top off a big cover-up.”

Leif leaned forward eagerly. “And?”

“Then it hit the stands and sank without a trace. I read it. Herzen had done a clip job, more or less cutting and pasting what the media had printed and broadcast about the Hadding case. The book stank, but we never knew why. Maybe the publisher’s lawyers got into the act, or the Callivants got to Herzen or the publishing company.” Megan’s mom looked disgusted. “I wouldn’t give that book house room.”

The library shelves did yield a few other volumes about the Callivants. A couple were pretty old. One had a couple of chapters on Priscilla Hadding’s death.

Leif thanked Megan’s mom. Then Megan led him into the kitchen to get some plastic bags to wrap up the books.

As soon as they were alone, Megan folded her arms and stood in Leif’s path. “You’re up to something. What’s all this about the Callivants?”

“It’s for Matt,” Leif said. “He’s in trouble, and the Callivants may be the cause of it.”

Megan listened to the story of how Matt’s mystery sim had spiraled out of control. “I guess we should be glad we didn’t get into this world to play,” she finally said. “What’s he going to do?”

Leif shrugged. “Right now he’s just watching the clock tick away.”

While Megan worked to make a good, waterproof package, her mother came back in. “Here are your shoes, Leif, but I think you’d be better off with a pair of Rory’s boots.”

She looked worriedly out of the kitchen window. “The snow has stopped, but now we’re getting freezing rain.” A car went skidding by on the street. “Snow’s bad enough in this town, but this may even be worse.”

Matt hadn’t even gone out of his house. He’d sat in the kitchen, explaining things to his parents…and watching the clock move ever closer to Ed Saunders’s deadline. How long would it take the Callivants’ lawyers to start badgering him and his parents?

Matt’s father was obviously thinking the same thing — and worrying about it. “I just don’t understand,” he said for what had to be the fiftieth time. “How could you sign an agreement like that?”

“It’s fairly standard, Dad. Don’t you read the fine print whenever you load in a new program?” Matt said gloomily. “It’s just never been an issue in any of the programs I’ve used.”

“I find it hard to believe that giving away those kinds of rights would be standard,” Gordon Hunter said.

Matt’s mom called to them from the living room. They came in to find her standing in front of the computer console. Some sort of document, much enlarged, floated before her in holographic display. “I’ve been calling up the agreements for various sims we’ve used,” she said. “Look here.”

“That’s my tennis game,” Matt’s father said, looking at the heading of the display.

“Read this bit of fine print.”

Word for word, it was the same as the clause in the agreement Matt had signed, giving the sim operator the right, if necessary, to reveal the identities of all participants.

Gordon was shocked. “I thought the Revised Privacy Act of 2013 was supposed to protect consumers against things like this.”

“And I suppose this little clause is what the lawyers came up with to get around that law,” Marissa Hunter said grimly. “It’s also in my flight simulator. As Matt says, it appears to be an industry standard.”

“I’ll bet we could challenge that in court,” Matt’s father said.

His wife merely gave him a look.

Sure, we could challenge it, Matt thought. If we had money like Leif’s father, we could even afford the time and the lawyers. But Dad was a teacher, and Mom a career Navy officer. Their income wouldn’t let them hire a fraction of the kind of legal talent the Callivants already had working on this.

Dad must have realized the same thing even as the words were coming out of his mouth. Silently he led the way back to the kitchen to watch the hands of the clock advance.

The deadline came, then dinnertime. Everybody in the Hunter family barely touched the food on their plates, waiting for…something. A call, a virtmail message — Matt had ordered his program to sound a special chime if anything came in.

There was only silence as they tried to eat, silence as they cleared the table, silence as they cleaned the dishes.

“You would think Saunders would let us know, one way or the other,” Matt complained as he stacked plates in the kitchen cabinet. “Unless it might have something to do with the weather?”

Marissa Hunter gave her son a wry smile. “They don’t usually declare snow days for legal problems,” she said.

Matt waited a little while longer, then finally said, “I’m going to call him.”

Going to the living room console, he recited the Net address that had engraved itself into his memory. The computer display blinked for a moment, then Ed Saunders appeared. “Can’t talk to you right now,” his image announced. “But you can leave a detailed visual or virtmail message — your choice.”

Disgusted, Matt cut the connection. “He’s not there! What would he be doing out on a night like this?”

“He could be hiding behind his automated answering system,” Matt’s father suggested, “using it to screen his calls.”

“You mean he doesn’t have the nerve to face us.” Matt angrily returned to the computer, giving it a new set of orders. The machine took a moment or two to sift through the Net. But it finally came up with a physical address to match the owner of the Net site.

Matt told the computer to plot the location on a map of D.C., marking the nearest Metro stations.

“What are you thinking of, Matthew?” his father asked, his voice concerned.

“I want to know where we stand with this mess,” Matt replied. “It looks as though Saunders lives only a couple of blocks from the Waterfront Metro station.”

“You’re not thinking of going out in this ice storm,” his mother said.

“I’m thinking of going under it.” Matt looked at his parents. “Do we really just want to sit here and wait for whatever it is to fall on us?”

In the end Matt and his father, bundled up like Eskimos, wound up setting off for Ed Saunders’s house. Several times on the long, slippery walk to the Metro station, Matt wished he hadn’t been so persuasive. The frozen rain was coming down in tiny pellets of ice, which flew along on a howling wind. And no matter which direction they walked in, the wind seemed to be gusting right into their faces.

Now I know how it feels to be sandblasted, Matt thought as a new crop of sleet tore across his exposed skin. He could barely see where he was going through his slitted eyes, and every step he took along the slick sidewalk threatened to dump him on his butt.

It was a distinct relief to skid down the stairs to the station. But then they faced an infuriating wait for a train. “A good part of the Metro system is open to the sky,” Dad said. “I guess even the rails are getting iced up.”

At last their train arrived and took them, along with a few other harassed-looking evening commuters, across town. Clinging to an ice-crusted handrail, they made their way up the stairs. Of course, the wind had swung around again so that it was in their faces.

Head down, his cheeks feeling as if they were being peppered with tiny buckshot, Matt half-walked, half-skated through deserted streets.

Sure, he thought. Anybody with an ounce of brains in their heads would stay indoors and warm during a storm like this.

He and his dad slogged along until Gordon Hunter asked, “Two blocks, you said. How many blocks have we gone now?”

Holding on to a glazed light pole, Matt swung around to squint up at the street sign. Great. Now only half his face was being ice-blasted. “It’s right around the—”

He broke off as he spotted the lump in the middle of the block off to their left, almost beyond the wan circle of light thrown by the ice-frosted streetlight. It was a human-shaped lump, half-on, half-off the sidewalk.

“Dad!” Matt burst out, skidding toward the still form.

When he got close enough to make out details, Matt stopped so quickly, his father almost rammed into him from behind.

The ice-crusted lump was human. Worse, it was familiar.

Ed Saunders’s bluish face stared blankly up into the pelting ice storm, immobile despite the stinging particles rattling down on his cheeks, his nose…his open eyes.

Matt didn’t need to see the reddish-black stain on the curb beneath Saunders’s head to know that the man wouldn’t feel anything ever again.