Hack (10 page)

“Give it a rest, Rolly,” Aubrey said. “It’s obvious isn’t it, Mr. Shepherd?”

“Just call me Shepherd. Yes. If you didn’t do it, then somebody else did—and fed… it… to you at Bistro du Bois.”

“Exactly,” Aubrey agreed. “Murray Glassberg. He detests me and would do anything to stop me from reviewing him again. The bastard killed Neil, or had someone else do it, and… fed him to me. Then tried to pin it on me. No other solution makes sense and I think you can prove it.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“I would like to pay you to find proof, Mr. Shepherd.”

“I don’t work for you.”

“You’re getting paid as an investigative reporter by the
Mail
anyway. Think of this as gravy, a bonus.”

“I just signed an employment contract. I’m not allowed to work for anyone else. I’m new at this but isn’t getting paid by someone you write about unethical?” I asked.

“Not if it’s in cash,” Aubrey said. “Don’t tell them. It will be our little secret.”

“I don’t think I want a secret with you. Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

“So you won’t take the money but you’re going to continue your investigation anyway?”

“Looks that way.”

“You’re a hack with ethics?” he giggled.

“Funny, right?”

“Very. So, I’m rich and you have ethics and have just refused free money. Who’s the schmuck?”

“If I find out you did it, you are.”

“You won’t. By the way, what’s with the face? Someone slam a door on it?”

“You’re very perceptive,” I told him. “Okay. So, now that we’ve established I have ethics and you don’t, tell me, did you intend to give Murray’s restaurant a bad review again—even before you tasted the food?”

Aubrey looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Of course I did,” Aubrey said proudly. “I still will, when all this is cleared up and the
Tribune
lifts my suspension. That’s the whole point, to put frauds like him out of business. He should be selling used cars or maybe he could be a reporter like you. He’s also a hack. One of the thirteen dishes, a chicken entrée, was far too gamey and had gone cold then been re-warmed under those damned heat lights. I can always tell. That’s always a risk with dim sum style, passing all those dishes around. They get cold. I will crucify him. I will drive scum like him out of the business. His food is cheaply popular, pandering to the lowest tongues.”

“You mean like McDonald’s?” I asked him with a grin.

“Okay,” I said, before Aubrey could react. “Tell me about the day of the murder. The fight at your place, McDonald’s, Bistro du Bois, all of it. By the way, do you use Altoid mints?”

“Breath mints?” Aubrey asked, in a horrified tone. “I never use mints or gum. Why would I anesthetize my taste buds? I’m a food critic, not a cheerleader. I don’t even use mouthwash, only an organic baking soda tooth powder. My taste buds are my fortune.”

“Did Neil use Altoids?”

“You’re not listening. I don’t use them. He didn’t use them. They are not allowed in my home. Period,” he huffed. “You might as well ask if I eat leftovers.”

A guy accused of cannibalism was grossed out at the thought of reheating dinner the next day? I couldn’t resist.

“Do you eat leftovers?”

Aubrey’s eyes narrowed.

“No. Never. Disgusting, like eating garbage.”

“Okay, so where did the Altoid on the kitchen counter come from?”

“There was a mint in my kitchen?”

“Yes.”

“They’re one of the sponsors of the show,” Arbusto interjected. I was surprised that the lawyer had managed to keep quiet for so long.

“Who is?” I asked.

“Altoids. They’re a sponsor. You know, food show, after-dinner mints,” Arbusto explained.

“So where did the mint come from?” I asked.

Aubrey shook his head. “Ask the real killer. He probably left it.”

“Any idea who that might be?”

“No. Someone who hated me, obviously.”

“Why? Maybe they hated Neil. I mean, he’s the one who’s dead.”

“Yes, but it seems calculated to implicate me, to make me look bad. To ruin
me
.”

“Maybe that’s just gravy.” I was thinking out loud now. “If someone wanted Neil dead, maybe they also wanted you to be blamed—so no one even thinks of them as a suspect. That’s what feeding you… Neil… was about. You’re the fall guy. They skate.”

Aubrey thought about that for a bit.

“So you’re saying it might have been someone from Neil’s… past?”

“I’m not saying. I’m asking. I don’t know. What kind of past did he have?”

Aubrey looked at Arbusto and the lawyer looked back.

Aubrey nodded.

“Mr. Leonardi had a bit of a checkered past, I’m afraid,” Arbusto said. “Multiple arrests, some jail time.”

“For what?” I asked.

Again, they exchanged glances and nods before Arbusto spoke.

“Various things. Kid stuff. Arrests for drugs, some vandalism, a few robberies and assaults, male prostitution and ahhh… just one child molestation.”

“That’s kid stuff?” I asked.

“But that was a misunderstanding and he has been relatively clean and sober for years.”

I pointed out that Neil had alcohol, weed, prescription painkillers and even animal tranquilizer in his bloodstream when he died.

“I have no idea where he got any illegal drugs,” Aubrey said, a bit too quickly and not too convincingly. “If any of Neil’s former… associates wanted to hurt him, I had no clue. I don’t know them. Maybe the police do.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, actually Neil testified against quite a few former associates over the years, some of them rather nasty,” said Arbusto.

“But if they don’t know me, why would they want to frame me?” Aubrey asked.

“Like I said, perhaps they just needed a fall guy,” I suggested. “Nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal?” Aubrey laughed sarcastically. “Maybe the Altoid mint people should take it personally? Maybe the killer is trying to ruin
them
.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I think the mint was a joke, to tie in with how the killer displayed Neil’s body.”

Both Aubrey and Arbusto looked blank.

“Displayed?” asked Arbusto.

“He was laid out like… food. Naked, on a white floor, with… garnish. That’s why you were fed Neil Parmesan—sorry—the killer served him up on a platter and even left an after-dinner mint. It’s a joke meant to point at you or someone in your line of work.”

“Like that creep Murray Glassberg,” Aubrey said.

“Maybe,” I said. “But if you had just killed Neil, why go out of your way to make it obvious it was all about food? The cops are still looking at you but they’re also looking at Glassberg and his people. Why make a stupid visual joke that will draw attention to a food connection? Someone with a motive?”

“You mean Glassberg’s fear of Aubrey’s review?” Arbusto asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “If I was the killer and Neil was my real target, I would have made it look like a robbery gone bad. If Aubrey was the target, I’d make it a simple lover’s quarrel. I wouldn’t do hokey stuff like cannibalism or sprinkle parsley on the body and leave a mint. I’d take Neil’s dead finger and have him write your name in his own blood on the floor. Open and shut—you did it. The cannibalism and the display is a show, a menu that points at you, or Murray as a backup. It’s so obvious, I’m having trouble believing either one of you did it. My gut says it was somebody else.”

“Someone from Neil’s past?” Aubrey asked.

“I don’t know. Any of them use Altoids?”

They dropped me off near Aubrey’s townhouse. It was lunchtime, so I found a Starbucks, got a twelve-dollar frappuccino, a twelve-dollar cheese sandwich and an eight-dollar cookie. I sat in a comfortable chair, plugged my headphones into my iPhone, and listened to my recording of the limo interview. Then I rang Badger. Badger seemed pleased when I told him it was an exclusive. I asked him to send me copies of the text and voice messages he had hacked from Aubrey’s and Neil’s phones.

“Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m checking out the time frame and alibi and those will help a lot,” I explained.

“Alright but be discreet,” he said. “They’re not exactly public.”

“Really?”

An email with file attachments popped onto my iPhone a minute later. I emailed Badger that I was on the case and talking to the cops but I decided I had done enough work for the
New York Mail
for one day. I texted Mary Catherine at her office, using our code, and asked her to meet me at my place. She agreed and I headed downtown.

“That girl isn’t here, is she?” Mary Catherine asked nervously, standing on my threshold an hour later.

“Of course not.”

“So when’s the wedding?” she asked sarcastically. She seemed to be taking it well. I laughed and asked her if she wanted a drink.

“At two o’clock in the afternoon?”

“I thought you were one hundred per cent Irish. People drink at lunch.”

“One of those horrible licorice things you drink?”

“Arak is delicious,” I protested. “And organic.”

“Arsenic is organic and I’m sure it tastes better than that candy drink from hell. Is that how you got that redhead into the sack?”

“No. And it was the other way around. Ginny practically raped me.”

Mary Catherine’s left eyebrow rose.

“She tried to have me beaten up but that didn’t work out. Then she came over and did the job herself, using every other body part except her fists. When I took a shower, all my notes and some rather important video evidence was gone and so was she.”

“That’s sweet. Actually, I think I will have a drink,” she grinned. “Vodka, tonic on the rocks. Lime, if you have it. I want to hear this.”

Mary Catherine sipped her drink and listened to everything. I started at the beginning, with my accidental summons to a good murder. I ended with Aubrey’s limo interview and Badger sending me copies of the hacked messages. She drank her V&T down to the crackling ice and put it down.

“Shepherd, you are something,” Mary Catherine said. “You have done much better than I thought anyone could. But I think it’s time to end our little undercover arrangement.”

“Why?”

“You know why,” she said. “This was a great idea and we were doing fine but suddenly you are becoming too… public. Front-page stories, fistfights, sexual entanglements. Also, you’re making enemies who might decide to look into your past. Or your present. That could be embarrassing and I can’t allow that. Besides, you’ve done well, much sooner than we had hoped. We actually have proof. It’s time to pull the plug. We’ll find another way.”

“No. What you’re saying is I’ve been too successful. Really? We’re moving forward. We’re going to call it quits just when it starts to pay off? No one knows and they’re not going to find out. Yes, we have proof of similar behavior but not the actual evidence we need. Sack up, Mary Catherine. We can have it all. All you have to ask yourself is ‘is it worth it?’ Your call.”

She regarded me silently for a full minute, thinking.

“You’re right,” she said. “We’ll continue. I have to get back to the office soon, so show me your stuff, soldier.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

I was in bed the next morning when an angry Aubrey Forsythe woke me up on my cell phone. I let him curse for a while to vent. Eventually, he calmed down enough to communicate that he was peeved at my story. I asked him to read the offensive parts to me, as I went to the front door to retrieve my copy of the paper.

“You printed it all! Everything. You say I protest my innocence but you also say I tried to bribe you and that I had made up my mind about a review before I tasted the food!”

“Yup. What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? You said Skippy was the TV producer’s idea and that I was putting him in a kennel. You make me look like a mean, pompous, unethical bastard! They’ve got a cartoon of me as the Red Queen from
Alice in Wonderland
, saying ‘first the verdict, then the meal.’ You have no right!”

“I didn’t see that yet,” I chuckled, opening the paper. “Clever. Again, what’s the problem?”

“That was all off the record!”

“No, it wasn’t. You never asked for anything off the record. That’s why I recorded it.”

“I
assumed
it was off the record. You have to retract it. The
Tribune
has fired me. I have Rolly as a witness. I’ll sue you!”

“Okay but I listened to my tape. Nobody asked for anything to be off the record. You have to ask, right? That’s how it works. I’m surprised you don’t know that, and you such a pro with the press.”

“Tape? What tape?”

“Well, not a tape. Actually a digital recording. It’s amazing the apps you can get nowadays. I had my phone under my notebook as we chatted. Didn’t you notice it? I wasn’t really hiding it. Hey, I’m not a real reporter. It’s not like I can take shorthand or anything. You guys talk too fast for me. This way, I have a record. You know, in case there’s any confusion later.”

“You son of a bitch. You ruined me.”

“Nah. C’mon, Aubrey, you can’t be ruined. Impossible. The whole country already knows you’re a nasty, pompous prick and they love you for it. You’re an American idol. You’ll find some way to spin this into gold. So, where are you hiding out? Aubrey? Hello? Hello?”

I was getting the hang of reporting. It was like recon sitreps but with quotations. I called in the fact that Aubrey had been fired as a result of our story and Badger was so pleased he stopped bugging me for the rest of the day.

For two days, over the rainy weekend I called Aubrey on his cell phone but I kept getting his voicemail. He didn’t call back. I ate, slept, walked and watched TV. Badger pestered me with calls but gave up by Sunday when I had come up with nothing.

On Monday morning it was so warm I considered renting another bicycle but I bought a Metro Card instead from a vending machine and took a bus uptown. I found Ginny outside Aubrey’s townhouse but nobody was home. She and a small pod of press were staked-out, milling around with nothing to do except wait for Aubrey. The story was fading.

Looking at her was doing something to me. She was wearing one of those light translucent silky tops that ended just above her perfect butt, which was tightly outlined by black leggings that ended in black leather riding boots. The top was open and she had a lacy v-neck thing underneath that exposed enough freckled cleavage to be interesting. I remembered what she looked like without any of that on, and it was a nice image. I remembered the smell of her hair, a delicious vanilla scent.