The Devil's Analyst (20 page)

“It might be better not to mention our concerns to either of your hosts,” Denkey warned.

“Why?”

“Premios was one of the things Mr. Grant was researching when he disappeared. I think it’s prudent to keep our suspicions to ourselves. It’s at least a possibility that Premios is somehow part of this.”

Earlier in the day, Cynthia hadn’t known what to do with that information, and she still didn’t. She continued to stare out the window. The police helicopter was gone, but there was a glow emanating from that part of the hills as though there were now spotlights on the ground. She pulled the draperies closed. She wanted to retreat into safety, but she didn’t know where to go.

There was a rap at the door. Danny stuck his head in, “Francesca’s about to leave, and I thought you might want to say good-bye.”

Cynthia would have preferred remaining cloistered in the suite, but she supposed she owed everyone the courtesy of saying good night. “Of course,” she said and followed Danny through the hall, down the stairs, and into the foyer. Francesca and Josh were standing by an already opened door. That strange writer was nowhere to be seen; perhaps he had already left.

“What did the police say?” she asked Danny. They were descending the stairs. Their footsteps landing on the tiled risers echoed in the night. Francesca and Josh looked up.

“They haven’t been here yet,” Josh replied. She was going to mention seeing the helicopters, but then stopped herself. The sooner the farewells were given, the sooner she could retire.

As she approached the door, a police car pulled into the driveway. An officer stepped out, and he seemed startled to see a group of people framed in the doorway. The driver also exited the car.

“Well, I guess they’re here now,” Cynthia said to Danny.

The two men ascended the stairs together. Perhaps it was only her imagination, but Cynthia heard the thumping sounds of the helicopter returning to the area. She also thought the officers seemed unusually grim for responding to a house burglary.

The taller officer was the first to speak, “We’re looking for Cynthia Grant.”

Danny pointed to her, and the officer began to approach. Suddenly, hope rose within her. She was ashamed of her days of doubt. Chip had been found, and she was about to be whole again. She felt a smile trying to emerge, because they must be here with answers.

“I’m very sorry, ma’am, but we believe we have found your husband. Earlier in the evening, a hiker found a body in the park that is carrying your husband’s identification and matches his description.”

All hope died.

INTERLUDE

Session Nine

As Sherlock Holmes
might say, “The game is afoot.” Or was that from Shakespeare. I forget.

Some might think I’m losing control. I certainly never intended for anyone to die. At least that’s what I tell myself. That’s what I have always told myself.

But shit happens.

You have to go with the flow, and remember what it’s all about.

And it’s all about Danny.

I think that’s all I want to say for today.

PART THREE

THE STORM BREAKS

CHAPTER NINE

Coping

Above Cynthia
the sky was a clear, deep blue. Tomorrow she would leave Los Angeles, return to Wisconsin, and bury Chip. Finally released by the coroner, his body was already shipped there and his tribe was preparing a final tribute. Cynthia would arrive in time for that event. But first, she felt compelled to make a more personal final farewell, and she would remain stoic.

She needed to see the site where Chip died, and she needed to go by herself. Learning exactly where that spot was took more effort than Cynthia thought it should. Only after much prodding did the detective in charge reluctantly provide the needed details. He warned her that there was nothing left to see, except for trampled brush, and that viewing the place where Chip’s body had been dumped could only evoke unhappy thoughts. She disagreed. She knew what she needed.

Her plan outraged Danny, who insisted he should go with her. He tried every approach to convince her: he maintained the park was a big and wild place—a mountain lion had recently been spotted within its hundreds of acres; she might get lost; or maybe the killer was hanging around. She didn’t accept his concerns. She was a northwoods girl who could take care of herself. All she needed was time alone, and if she decided to shed a few tears at the site, then there was no need for Danny, Josh, or anyone else to be on hand. Perhaps she clung to some element of Chip’s heritage, because she desperately longed to believe that Chip’s spirit awaited her in that wild ravine.

She found it easy to follow the detective’s detailed instructions. Because there was no way to drive to the location, he told her to park on Commonwealth and walk up that residential street. Its neatly manicured lawns and well-kept homes on that beautiful February morning reminded her that the comfortable world the neighborhood represented had vanished for her. These houses appeared inviting and warm—so unlike Danny and Josh’s monstrous hulk of a mansion—and could be places where families might grow old together. She thought of the baby within her and knew that wouldn’t happen for her. According to a local doctor she consulted, Cynthia would be a mother by early fall. When she found Chip’s final spot, she intended to whisper that news into the wind, and if the universe were fair, it would carry the information to wherever Chip’s spirit might be.

She parked her car near the end of the street not far from where an iron pipe stretched across the pavement to bar traffic from going further. Danny told her that several park roads remained closed as a result of damage from a major earthquake in the early nineties. She walked north on Commonwealth, skirted the barrier, and passed a slightly overgrown park nursery. She then turned right onto another closed road, Vista Del Valle, where it veered to the east and up the hill. The detective speculated that whoever dumped Chip’s body had used a bypass through the nursery to drive up the abandoned road.

As she ascended the road, Cynthia encountered walkers, many with their dogs, each of the individuals smiling and saying good morning, but she found the good will of the early morning hikers bordering on the unbearable. Two women, each pushing their respective small child in a fashionable stroller, chatted with animation. When they noticed Cynthia, they smiled at her as if they could tell that she was soon to join their ranks.

The morning sun was warm. Her steady uphill trek was making her perspire. She stopped to catch her breath and noticed the view. In the far distance, she could see the towers of Hollywood and even further off the blue sheen of the Pacific. Nearer in on a close-by ridge was the silhouette of Danny’s home, close enough that she could even see the outline of the window into her room. So close. During all her days of fear and worry, she might have seen the tops of the trees that shielded Chip’s body from view. If only she had known where to look.

Near yet another sharp curve, she spotted a dirt road going off to the right. This was where the detective told her to walk. It was really more of a trail than a road, and it led into an unexpected pine forest that felt alien to these arid hills. Although the trees weren’t the same type of conifers as those that surrounded her house back in Wisconsin, entering their shade felt like crossing back within the boundaries of a world that had been home. Only the tall Mexican palm stretching skyward through the evergreens disturbed her illusion.

When Danny tried to talk his way into joining this hike, he mentioned these woods were used as filming sites because they were close to the studios and felt like a northwoods setting. Even now the site seemed familiar. Perhaps she had seen the grove substituted for Wisconsin in some movie or television show. It was foolish to think this way, but somehow it seemed appropriate that Chip’s final journey in this world transported him through such woods, and that perhaps these trees prepared his spirit to enter its next stage of being. She could only hope.

The police speculated that Chip’s murderer drove his car all the way into these woods, parked in the clearing that sported a few picnic tables, and then dragged Chip’s body through the woods before rolling it downhill into a deep ravine filled with poison oak. There was another possibility. The dumping spot wasn’t far from the end of a residential street that abutted the park and ended with a small gate allowing pedestrian access to the park. But the police deemed that entry unlikely since the houses on the steep hilly street sat right on the street. The killer would have recognized how easily the residents could have seen him if he had parked there.

In all probability, Cynthia was now following the same path taken by her husband’s killer, but it didn’t help her accept or understand what had occurred. She knew the police speculated on why the murderer would dump a body so close to the park’s edge. Often bodies were found deep in the park according to the lead detective, but he suggested that the killer had been in a hurry since he hadn’t even bothered to bury the body.

She reached the spot and stood on a knoll above the ravine. Based on the pattern of broken brush, the police determined the killer sent the body rolling downhill from this location. Cynthia could see the ground at the base of the ravine trampled from the police investigation, but she judged it too steep for her to scramble down. Besides there was no need. If Chip were still here in some ethereal way, he would certainly sense her presence. She sat in the shade of a twisted California oak, using a low horizontal branch as her bench. In the shade of the trees, she appreciated the fact that it was still a California winter. A light breeze chilled her, but she was calm.

“Goodbye, Chip,” she whispered.

In the wind that rustled through the trees, she yearned to feel the light brush of his touch—but she was too realistic to expect it.

“I loved you,” she said, this time more loudly. “We were meant for each other. From the moment I saw you, I knew. We should have had so many years together as family. I didn’t get to tell you that I’m pregnant, but I hope you know, wherever you are, that there now exists a combined part of both of us. You will live on.”

In a rush, her emotions overwhelmed her. She could no longer play the widow controlling her sorrow. She sank to the ground and her tears were soon followed by sobs. It was too much. Life had promised her so much more and now it was all gone.

Something rustled behind her. For a moment she thought Danny had followed her, so she turned around in anger, but all she saw was a young buck stepping into the dappled sunlight, and it reminded her of the Lattigo legend of Frozen Bear and the myth that he transformed himself into many different creatures to return to his true love. Suddenly she knew that she would never be truly alone. She dried her tears.

“Goodbye, Chip. I will always remember you,” she whispered again. The deer ran off.

It was time to leave, but Cynthia was reluctant to return to the house. Danny and Josh would be there, and they always had their unending questions. She didn’t want to talk. Instead she returned to the nearby path and rather than retrace her path, she turned downhill, venturing onto new routes.

The path was narrow, steep, and muddy from recent rains. But she could hear the murmur of running water. Soon she found herself alongside a seasonal flow of water. Everything was lushly green, and there were frogs croaking in the small pools of the stream. She didn’t know where she was headed exactly, or how long this detour might take in getting her back to her car, but she knew she had a map of the neighborhood in her bag and wasn’t worried. This setting removed her from the urban stress of Los Angeles, and that was where she wanted to be.

Eventually, her rivulet broadened into something that could actually be called a small stream, and her muddy path joined up with a gravel road. The stream cascaded through a set of baby rapids and then dropped some ten feet in a small waterfall beside the road. The water was picking up speed.

Ahead she spotted another long pipe gate closing off this park road from the actual city street just beyond. The real world waited, and it couldn’t be escaped. She walked through the gate and onto the street pavement. Beside her the stream broadened as it flowed beneath a wooden bridge that formed the driveway to a sleek modern house of the fifties. Cynthia always thought of Los Angeles as a desert, and yet on this street some lucky person lived with his own little river.

Perhaps all things were possible. One fact was certain. It was time to leave Los Angeles. She would not give up searching for Chip’s killers, even if the police did. Someone robbed Chip and her company; someone framed Chip; and someone killed him. She wouldn’t rest until she knew who that someone was.

She walked a bit further. The stream was gone. She realized it must have been diverted into underground culverts to be hidden from life and the sun. Cities destroyed nature. This city destroyed her husband. But she would overcome it and she would honor Chip.

And she would do it without the help of Danny or Josh.

Today everything annoyed Josh
: the polished concrete floors, the exposed ceilings, the rows of workstations, and the perky kids pounding away at their computers. Josh was sick of Premios and everything it stood for. Yet at the same time, the company remained his obsession. Last week, the Fed raised the discount rate; the Dow Jones continued to flounder; and their bankers asked too many questions. He needed to stay focused, but there was always the matter of Chip.

Danny considered him heartless. Josh knew that, but he also knew that nothing would bring their friend back to life, so all he could do was take steps to ensure that their future didn’t include the same early demise. And he had to concentrate to make that happen. Old friendships would only muddy the waters.

“Josh, I need your attention,” said Orleans. She was sitting across from him in their glassed-in conference room. In front of her were stacked several folders of financial statements and projections.

Was it time to share his idea he wondered. He needed to present the concept in the right way to avoid Orleans perceiving his end game. The girl was clever with sensing out insights about motivations, but she was hobbled by not knowing that Endicott-Meyers invested in Premios to grab the power of Project Big Stick.

Josh knew his project name didn’t make a lot of sense, but code names for computer endeavors seldom did. Some firms liked to wrap their dreams in names of animals or national parks. He happened to have a liking for Teddy Roosevelt. There was something alluring about the concept of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, plus the long ago president also cut a swaggering figure. Of course, Josh would never allow Orleans to learn about Big Stick. Not one of those charts in her stacks of folders carried a hint of that name. Others of his projects were there. It was safe for her to know about them, since she wouldn’t get into trouble if she pulled up the status of Project Dakota or San Juan. Project Dakota simply allowed the parsing of stored data about Premios users to detect preferences—all to ensure the firm’s customers would be presented with the most meaningful content. Nor would it be a problem if she also had slides, or even a dedicated folder, on Project San Juan. It was an artful way to deposit digital tracking bits on the devices that accessed Premios. Again, it was just to enable an efficient user experience, and Josh had outsourced it to an independent programming team in Chennai, India. Orleans could even know about something called Project Rough Rider. After all, everyone expected it to be an industry-leading approach at streamlining the quick transmission of mass amounts of data. A company like Premios had a lot of projects and as far as Orleans needed to know they were all on track.

But only Josh, Oliver Meyers, and that crazy genius of a programmer in Poland knew how these three projects were ultimately intended to mesh together and create Big Stick. Unfortunately, that integration wasn’t on schedule, and Oliver Meyers wasn’t happy. And Oliver didn’t even know the full extent of the delays.

The problem wasn’t the delay in Big Stick; the problem was Oliver Meyers, who knew too much and was too demanding. The original concept for Big Stick had been simple and benign. In those initial meetings with Meyer, Josh allowed himself to get carried away with possibilities. He deliberately fanned the idea that Big Stick could first spy on people’s personal information stored on their computers and captured from their interactions with the Internet and then process the resulting mounds of data in ways that would be meaningful and useful. Josh thought his exaggeration was a way to ensure financing. Everyone did the grand talk. Big ideas could be patented and sold to others. Josh was good at weaving a dream and lighting up possibilities that day—too good because he prepared a bonfire of potential that now blazed in Oliver’s mind once he detected the potential for more than actionable data. He saw the opportunity for fraud, theft, and blackmail. That brought in his hidden money and embedded Oliver’s hook deep into Premios. And Josh had swallowed so willingly. What a fool.