Cyber Genius (22 page)

“You have wrong number,” he shouted, then slammed the phone
in my ear. Landline, nice. I missed the days of slamming phones.

I occupied myself wondering where one bought a dial phone
for slamming while I rearranged a few of those big rolling trash bins in front
of Adolph’s garage door. While I was at it, I scouted the area for potential weapons.
Workmen who left unlocked toolboxes behind—thinking this was a secure area—were
my friends.

This was by no means one of my better ideas, but I was
freezing, and the exercise warmed me up.

Ten minutes later, the garage door rolled up. By then, I’d
created a reasonably impressive barrier blocking access to the drive behind the
condo units.

A Mercedes sports car backed out at high speed— and screeched
to a halt upon hitting the first big plastic bin. Garbage bags flew out of the
cans, over his trunk, and spewed chicken guts onto the blacktop. Little cars
aren’t meant for crashing into tall objects, so the trunk looked a little worse
for wear.

I waited until Wilhelm leaped out, cursing, before I made my
presence known.

He visibly startled as I emerged from behind a neighbor’s
patio trellis. Adolph’s new chef was a scarecrow figure of wild blond hair and
towering skinniness. I’m a sturdy, tidy shrimp. But I’d brought him down once,
and judging by his widening eyes, he hadn’t forgotten me.

“You!” he said intelligently.

“We need to talk,” I told him. “We can do it here or at the
police station.”

“You cannot make me!” He started to climb back into the car.

From behind my back, I produced the hammer some poor workman
had stupidly left at the end of the day. I sauntered to the front of the pretty
Mercedes and swung the hammer dangerously near the headlights. “Does Adolph
know you’re driving his baby? Do you even have a license? If the police catch
you driving it, they can impound it.”

I didn’t even know if it was Adolph’s car. I was lying as
fast as my frozen tongue could flap. I’d never owned a car or a license, but I
understood fear. I’d lived with it long enough.

“What do you want?” he asked, obviously debating whether to
run over me or the cans, and the risk to his relationship if he messed up his
lover’s pricey toy.

“My only agenda is to find who ordered Stiles killed,” I
said reassuringly. “I assume the same person is responsible for the death of
your aunt.”

I thought he might weep. His shoulders slumped, he leaned
against the car, and covered his face. I remained wary. Trapped animals usually
fought back.

Not Wilhelm. “You will find who killed my Aunt Hilda?” he
demanded, uncovering his face and finally revealing anger. “She was goot
woman.” He growled something in German that I couldn’t decipher.

“I liked her,” I agreed. “But whoever killed Stiles
apparently thought she knew too much and was in that room with us. What did she
know? Give me anything that will help me find this murderer.”

He shook his head wearily. “I know nothing. It is all money
and...” He shrugged, not knowing the word. “I do favor for Adolph. He does
favor for Tray. Aunt Hilda does favor for me. It is all one thing and nothing.”

The man wasn’t as stupid as he looked. “What favor did you
do for Adolph?”

“I come in and work that night, even if I have no papers,
that is all. I make my vegetable risotto, but there is not enough fresh
tomatoes.”

“Because the risotto wasn’t originally on the menu?” I
asked.

He nodded and pushed his crinkly blond hair off his brow.
“Kita’s onion soup was on the menu, but those rich pigs asked for
fugu chiri
. If you ask me, they got what
they deserved. But Adolph could lose his position because of that stupid Jap.”

I didn’t waste time sorting out nationalities while he was
talking. I puzzled over why he thought the puffer fish was a last minute
addition when Kita had been practicing for days. “It may have been your risotto
that killed them. Who provided the ingredients?”

“It was
not
my
risotto,” he cried. “I used some cans, yes, but they were good. Any... moron...
would know a bad can of tomatoes. What does this do with my aunt?”

His accent was worsening. I needed to keep him talking. “One
killer leads to another,” I said. “What about the salsa? Who made that?”

“I did. Adolph says the fresh basil and garlic would hide
the canned taste. We disagreed, but he is top chef and I am not. After we
argue, he chopped the basil and onions for me, in apology, to show it is not
all about the money, I think.”

He didn’t look at me as he said this. Either he was lying,
or he was embarrassed—or both. I wasn’t making progress on motivation, but the
salsa was looking even better as the weapon of executive destruction.

“Was the salsa and risotto only for the head table, then?” I
asked, hunting for a means of injecting botulism into this joint project. “I
can’t think you’d have enough for everyone at the last minute.”

“Of course,” he said bitterly. “Everything for MacroWare so
precious Tray will hear how good we are. But no more! I could not work for pigs
like that,” he said, facing me again and making a rude gesture of disgust.

“So who was doing whom a favor by pleasing the execs and
Tray?”

He looked rightfully puzzled by that mangled question, but
my teeth were chattering. It was dark enough that the street lamps had come on,
and the wind was picking up, wafting the stench of garbage my way.

“Adolph wanted to open a kitchen in the MacroWare office in
D.C.” Wilhelm sounded sullen as he figured out my question. “Tray said he would
talk to Stiles if their hotel dinner was good.”

“You said this was all about money. I’m not seeing it yet,”
I said patiently, under the circumstances. “I’m just seeing good ol’ boy
scratch my back syndrome.”

He wrinkled his nose to puzzle his way through that. His
grasp of idiom was pretty sound, as reflected by his reply. “My Aunt Hilda knew
Tray from Seattle dinners. As personal favor, she arranged big loan for him so
he would hire me and help me get green card. Tray could not hire me because of MacroWare
security, so he asked Adolph to help. Adolph wants to open kitchen in MacroWare
office here. If he does that, I can be head chef. Because they know Adolph
drinks too much, MacroWare would not hire him as chef, but they would not care
if he
owned
kitchen. Aunt Hilda would
help us.”

This was making absolutely no sense on the murder front.
Well, it wasn’t as if Wilhelm would say, “Adolph used bad tomatoes for the
salsa to kill the MacroWare bastards who fired him for drunken driving
convictions”—especially if Adolph was hoping to gain a restaurant from
live
execs. I wasn’t even seeing a way
to arrange botulism poisoning from this scenario, provided Wilhelm was
truthful. I had my doubts about that.

“You handled both the soup and the vegetables, correct?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Kita was slow. He wanted to clean
before filling bowls. Adolph said to serve now. So I did. I know nothing of
puffer fish.”

“Serve—as in dishing the food out, not taking it from the
kitchen?” I was running out of questions. I’d never worked in a kitchen and
couldn’t really puzzle out at what point tainted tomatoes or puffer fish could
be added.

“Exactly,” he said impatiently. “I filled bowls like peon
because Adolph ask me. I add risotto to plate with chicken and top with salsa.
Servers add dishes to tray and serve tables. No poison, nowhere.”

“And you know of no one in the kitchen who might want to
poison Stiles?” Now I was fishing without bait.

His hand gesture indicated his opinion of my question. “You
think I would not tell police if so?”

“I think you told the police nothing because they didn’t
know you were there. Adolph threatened his staff to keep your presence quiet.
Do you have any idea how suspicious that looks?”

“It is so,” he said gloomily. “I should go home now and
forget new life here. It is not much different from old life.”

“I can’t help you there. It will look like you’re running
away, though. Maybe you should just try to figure out how to be legal without
your aunt bribing people.” I looked at my watch. Time to be moving on. “Open
the gate for me, will you? And if you think of anything else that will help,
call me.” I handed him one of my fake realtor cards.

I left him to clean up the garbage bins.

Patra called as I trudged back to the Metro debating my next
stupid move.

“We can’t find anyone to verify the operating system leak,”
was her opening volley. “But MacroWare stock is falling on rumors.”

“Not news,” I retorted. “Can anyone get their hands on the
beta program and test it?”

“I had a nerd at our bank score a copy from their D.C.
office. I just sent it to Tudor to see if it’s one of the flawed ones. I’ve made
enough brownie points with this case to earn a travel budget to follow the
story. If I fly up there, will Maggie O’Ryan let me interview her?”

“You want to get her killed?” I asked in horror. “Send her a
bodyguard. I know it’s not Hollywood exciting, but see if you can find out who
held the mortgages on all the major players. I’ll get back to you when I know
more, okay?” I wanted Patra working on our side, but I was too tired and
disgusted to come up with a more challenging job for her other than doing the
tracking I didn’t have time to do.

“That’s too easy. Come up with something better soon.”

Yeah, like visiting Maggie again.

Or better yet, returning to Graham in his suite and having
hot monkey sex.

I went home by way of Metro and hid in a pizza delivery
truck that conveyed me to the carriage house garage, avoiding the goons with
guns watching the house.

Tudor’s Take:

Tudor glared at prissy Nicky and turned his tablet face
down on the dinner table as ordered. He could argue that Nick wasn’t his father
and couldn’t tell him what to do, but he didn’t know his half-brother as well
as Ana and couldn’t judge his reaction. “People could die while we’re stuffing
our faces. Why isn’t Ana here?”

“Probably for the same reason Graham isn’t,” his barmy
brother said too cheerfully.

As if Tudor knew what that meant. The way he saw it, both
adults had scarpered just when he needed them most—not anything new in his
life.

“Graham never eats with us,” EG pointed out. “Are we having
a Thanksgiving dinner? Can I invite Mom? And Tex and his family?”

“That would certainly provide traditional family
entertainment,” Nick said wryly, without really agreeing.

Tudor didn’t know EG’s father and didn’t want to. Since he
didn’t intend to be here that long, he didn’t care who they invited. “I’m done.
Can I go back to my program now?” He scooted his chair back. “It’s kind of
important.”

“And we’re not? You have much to learn, cherub, but run
along and save the world while EG and I send photos of your empty chair to
Ana.” Nick produced his cell phone and waved it in Tudor’s direction.

Tudor scowled but ignored the threat. “Saving the world is
more important,” he insisted. “Ana would agree.” He thought. Being abandoned
didn’t give him warm fuzzies.

He left EG and Nick snapping photos of empty chairs and
debating clever tag lines. Some other time it might have been fun to pretend he
was part of the family, but not now, with the fate of the internet on his
shoulders.

The attic echoed hollow without Graham’s scary vibes. Tudor
hadn’t realized how much the silent dude had occupied the space until he was
gone. He’d been kind of chuffed working with someone who appreciated how his
head worked.

Graham wasn’t completely gone though. His files had
continued pouring into Tudor’s mailbox through dinner. Tudor focused on the messages
with Graham’s analysis of the beta software Patra had nicked.

He remembered Patra as a silly teenager more interested in
boys than news, but he was impressed that she’d scored the sacred program half
the PC world drooled over in anticipation.

He backed up the program’s files into an external drive
before he systematically deconstructed the code.

Tudor was deep into C++ when Ana arrived bearing a foamy
green drink he supposed was meant to be good for him. He snatched one of the
brownies that accompanied it.

“Any way of detecting who wrote what part of the code?” she
asked.

“Not without comparisons. So many people work on these
things that it wouldn’t be easy even then.” Tudor tested the drink. There was
enough ginger ale to make it potable.

“Wouldn’t it have to pass a lot of tests before release?
Someone in the company had to have seen the spyhole if they’re any kind of
techies at all, and we’re talking the Taj Mahal of Geekdom.” She nibbled one of
the peanut butter brownies.

Ana had a way of drilling down to the core.

“The hole could have been planned,” he reluctantly admitted.
“This is test software. They might have been using it to test usage by
particular types of consumers.”

Ana grimaced. “Introduce a test hole, then kill everyone who
knows about it? This does not compute. Any way we can use it to reverse spy on MacroWare?”

Tudor scarfed another brownie and thought about it. “Graham
has access to MacroWare’s servers. We can search their files without using the
new software. What are you looking for?”

“Bad people.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I need to
meet
people to know who to spy on. Any
luck yet on learning who was in charge of distributing the test software?”

Interesting. He’d always thought of Ana as a nerd like him.
She actually
liked
going out and nattering
with the gormless? Wicked strange.

“Got that one.” He scrolled through his files and hit print.
Underneath Graham’s massive console, a printer quietly whirred.

Ana retrieved the paper and turned on a recessed light to
study it. She whistled. “Wyatt Bates is one of the honchos of the local operation?
Why did I not remember that?”