3 Requiem at Christmas (12 page)

Or perhaps it was
partially the incense. Juliet was suddenly feeling a bit dizzy and wanted out
of the smoke and used air. She wasn’t used to being in crowds that large.

“
Quantus
tremor
est
futurus
,
” the bass sang. Oh, what fear man’s bosom
rendeth
.

Did the killer feel fear? If he did, Juliet did not see it
in any face. Only the brother was overcome, and that was natural, wasn’t it?

“
Fac
eas
,
Domine
, de
morte
transire
ad
vitam
.
”
Let them, O Lord, pass over from death to life.

The Requiem was winding up.

“
Agnus
Dei, qui
tollis
peccata
mundi,
dona
eis
requiem.
…” Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of
the world, let them rest.

But Juliet didn’t
think that sin could be taken away so easily, not from the earthly plane. And
cold-blooded killers deserved no rest until they atoned.

“
I know that my Redeemer
liveth
, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not
another.” Raphael muttered, making it obvious that he also spoke Latin.

The brother rose
suddenly to his feet and blundered out of the church. One of the satellites
acted like he was going to rise and follow, but stopped when two other
Buchanans
got up and trailed the still weeping Joshua.

“Instructive,”
Raphael said softly as people began to applaud and whistle and the singers took
a bow.

Juliet wasn’t sure
what to do. The music had been wonderful, but she had not been brought up to
applaud in church.

“But not
instructive enough,” she muttered back, forcing her hands to strike one another
as they made audible praise. “Let’s get some champagne.”

The reception was crowded and the guests quickly recovered
their holiday mood. Shedding a sentimental tear was cathartic, but after the
crying there was champagne to drink, delectable foods to consume, clothes to be
shown off, and others to be admired.

One of the caterers offered Juliet a glass of champagne
which she took automatically, though what she really would have liked was a
ginger ale. People were five deep around the oyster bar, so Juliet wandered
over to the dessert table where there were piles of decorated sugar cookies and
a small mountain of red and green chocolates. They were not the round bonbons
she had seen at the store. These were rectangles, thin like wafers but about half
as long as the flash drive she had for her old portable computer. And she had
seen them somewhere before.
At the shop, certainly, but
somewhere else.

“Would you like to try a chocolate? We have caramel sea-salt
and lavender-mint. We sold out earlier this week and only just got more made.”
The pretty girl in a white blouse and a ridiculous poinsettia corsage offered
her the tray she had been staring at.

“Thanks.” Juliet took a red candy with her free hand,
thinking it looked like blood.

Cogs meshed, gears engaged, and the revolutions in her brain
began. Juliet stared into the middle distance as understanding revealed itself.
The woman who saw over horizons had gotten a peek of the coming sunrise.

“You look entirely too thoughtful for being at a party.
Though I suppose this is the equivalent of baked meats at a funeral and we
should take a moment to reflect on our mortality,” Raphael said, rolling to her
side. “Drink your champagne for tomorrow we may die.”

“Better not, or I’ll die tonight. I’m driving.”

“And the chocolate?”

“Oh.” She
unwrapped
it and popped
it in her mouth.
Caramel sea-salt.
It was very good.

“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?” Raphael guessed,
lowering his voice. No one was crowding them. His wheelchair was good for
making hungry throngs mind their manners.

“I think so. I don’t know
the
what
exactly but I do have a
general outline,” Juliet said, looking at the chocolate wrapper in her hand. “And
I think I know where it is.”

“Then let’s go while everyone else is busy,” Raphael said,
obviously having no doubts that this was the sane and sober thing to do and
planning to accompany her. Juliet was relieved that she wouldn’t have to go
alone. She was great at theory but had some doubts about being well-suited to
the job of a woman of action.
“But slowly and unobtrusively.
There is no need to excite undue interest from Mr. No-neck. Do you see
Esteban?”

“No.” She looked casually over the crowd. “I don’t see—oh.
There’s Denver. He is with Mr. No-neck and company exchanging glares.
But no Esteban.”

“So, he’s off frying other fish.”

“Poor fish.” As she looked at them one of No-neck’s
satellites turned to stare at her. Her eyes moved over him without
acknowledgment though he knew who she was. There was no sign of the weeping
brother. Hopefully he was in the bathroom shedding his crocodile tears.

“Do you want to wait for him?” Raphael asked.

“No. All the other interested parties are here. We’ll never
have a better moment to search. I’ll get the coats and fetch the car,” Juliet
said softly and Raphael slipped her his coat-check ticket when she handed him
her champagne. The movement was so natural they might have rehearsed it a
hundred times.

“Mingle for a couple more minutes. It’s best if we don’t
leave together.” She raised her voice slightly. “I wonder where the ladies’
room is. You’ll excuse me for a moment?”

“Of course.”

She already knew where the bathrooms were. They were right
by the cloakroom. Both were functional but lacking in the decorative
inspiration that showed so beautifully in the rest of the church. She didn’t
mind because the staff was efficient at fetching her cloak and Raphael’s coat.

When she turned around, Ranger
Nyland
was behind her.

“Well hello.” She forced herself to smile. “Did you enjoy
the concert?”

“Surprisingly enough, I did.
Never been to
a Mass before.”

“It was a cut above the usual Sunday morning thing.”

“You leaving already?” he asked, looking at her cloak and
Raphael’s coat.

“Yes. I have a friend who isn’t feeling well.”

“I won’t keep you then. Actually, I won’t be far behind you.
It’s supposed to snow tonight. I should try and beat it home.”

“Oh goody—more snow,” she said but made herself smile again.

She slipped outside when the foyer was empty and started for
the parking lot, which had filled completely since her early arrival. Harrison
had played to a full house. She was happy for him and hoped that the recording
had gone well.

Ranger
Nyland
was right about the
weather report. It had begun to snow while they were inside, fat flakes that
she had to wipe from her face because they felt like tears as they melted on
her cheeks. It was just as well that they were leaving early. The flakes were
piling up fast and Raphael’s smaller, portable chair didn’t do well in snow.

And neither would Elizabeth’s.

Juliet hesitated and then reached for her phone. The benefit
of a small evening bag was being able to find things easily.

She tried Elizabeth first but her phone was off. Elizabeth
was polite that way. She tried Asher next. He wasn’t as polite as his mother
and answered. His voice was clear but the background babble was loud.

“Asher,
it’s
Juliet. Don’t say my
name.”

“Okay, but Carrie isn’t around. You’re safe.”

“Huh. Look, I’m outside and it is starting to snow.
Hard.
Raphael and I are going to leave. You may want to ask
Elizabeth if she wants to go too. I’d offer to take her,” Juliet said
hurriedly, “but I don’t think I have room for three or four of us and two
chairs with a full trunk.”

“It’s alright. The inn has arranged for taxis. It won’t be a
problem.”

“Good,” Juliet said, glad that she wouldn’t have to come
back to fetch them. “See you later then. Bye.”

She disconnected quickly. Fortunately, her car was only two
rows over and by the time she got back to the portico, Raphael was there. She got
out of the car and helped him into his coat and then into the passenger seat.
Raphael could stand
on his own
and was an old hand at
getting in and out of cars, even those that didn’t have swivel cushions. Juliet
stowed the chair in the trunk. She had lied to Asher about it being full.

“Feel like giving me the general outline of what we’re
looking for?”

“So, do you know anything about the exciting world of
microchips and flash drives and tech things in general?” she asked as they
pulled away.

“Very little, but I should probably learn. Apparently the
silicon monsters are here to stay.”

“I don’t know a lot either, not in detail, but there are a couple
tidbits I have run across in other cases. Did you know that unless the
government completely owns or is invested in a computer company that there is
no obligation to report inventory thefts or discrepancies, assuming they are
even audited—and many companies aren’t audited, not even internally? Nor are
companies obliged to report tech developments. This is true, even when the
chips they make can be used in all kinds of nasty things like weapon systems.”
She peered through the windshield. The wipers were keeping up but she was glad
that this would be a short trip and that the inn was lit up like a Christmas
tree. If they had gone overland it would have only been a trip of half a mile.
Taking the road and bypassing the ski runs added another three miles on the
trip. Three miles on a plowed road wasn’t bad, though there was one narrow stretch
near the lake where they would be unable to see either the church or the inn.

“That seems a bit careless.”

“Yes, but if a chip is supposed to be used for coffee makers
and no one thinks to ask if it can guide missiles, then it just slips by. Our
security agencies are still not tech savvy so there is a lot of slipping. Okay,
so back in the time of VCRs it used to be that memory cards were big things,
but then came microchips. Of course, what we’re after might not be that kind of
thing at all. We could also be looking at a database on a flash drive—something
that could be used for blackmail. Plenty of people doing nefarious things they
would rather the world not know about. But in either case, we are looking for
something small and electronic and about the size of an after-dinner mint.”

“Denver said that Columbus seemed to be protected. That
could work for either scenario—stolen tech or stolen knowledge.”

She nodded.

“I’m not sure we can solve the specifics from this end—and
it doesn’t matter. Not in terms of figuring out who the killer is and getting
back the missing object before No-neck finds it. As Esteban and I discussed, the
missing item could be anything from stolen art to nuclear weapons—though, come
to think of it, neither of those would be on a computer chip—but you get the
idea.”

“So it’s definitely something on a chip?”

“Or the chip itself. Some have very specific designs and
they get smarter, faster, and smaller all the time. Even if a chip isn’t for
weapons, just having the next generation of computer chip is worth millions—maybe
billions to whoever gets it to market first.”

“Okay. I accept the premise. How about some details? Elucidate.
From the beginning, please. How did you figure it out?”

Juliet turned up the heater. She felt very cold. Her cloak
was lovely but not as warm as a parka.

“Okay, feel free to throw rotten tomatoes if you don’t
believe the story. This is one time when I would like to be proven wrong.”
Raphael smiled slightly and nodded for her to continue. “Well, for starters, we
have these two brothers—one a singer and one an accountant who works for a man
of dubious moral character.”

“Cain and Abel?” he suggested.

She nodded, but didn’t take her eyes from the road. She
didn’t have chains on her tires and it was getting slick. She had to slow down
and check that the car was in all-wheel drive. She didn’t want an accident, not
with Raphael in the car and the snow getting deeper.

“And Brother Cain’s shady boss has acquired something
special from an electronics firm that he would like to sell abroad where the
market is, let us say, more free.
Less regulated.
Where he has no governmental watchdogs dogging his financial
footsteps.
Maybe the new boss is trying to make a name for
himself
since he’s the new thief on the block.”

“The new shoes that don’t fit,” Raphael said softly.

“Right.
Now, the boss doesn’t want
the thing in his house because he has these watchers who drop in occasionally
to check up on stuff and might be upset if he had something that he wasn’t
supposed to have, so he gives this special something to his trusted accountant
and asks him to hang on to it for him.”

“And Cain, who isn’t all that trustworthy after all, blabs
to Brother Abel about this wondrous thing in his safe,” Raphael guessed.

There were lights behind Juliet, bright in her mirror and
slowly gaining on them. She hoped they belonged to a taxi carrying Asher and
Elizabeth and that he kept back. She didn’t need her eyes filled up with
headlights while driving a dark, curving road.