Part 14 The Resurrection of Samuel J. Speedman #3
‘You were the biggest winner of that day. Fame, fortune, admiration in every corner of the media for not only bravery but smarts as well. I mean, you solved more riddles than any of the rest of us did—including the key ones that led to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Aristo King being buried alive—and you won a one-against-three gunfight which even came with a witness: her.’ Again, I nodded at the silent Vasha.
‘And after all that, you scored a plum new job as Aristo King’s head of security.
It was as if that whole day had been designed to transform you into the world’s greatest detective. ’
Garrett said nothing.
‘But I didn’t know for sure until I received an email from a dead man.’
‘What do you mean?’ Garrett said in a low voice.
‘Monty Woods, the Tech Detect, died last night. The assholes from Modern Alchemical Solutions drowned him in concrete. But before they nabbed him, he’d sent me an email. It arrived mid-afternoon, while I was unconscious, so I only saw it tonight.’
I recalled being in the cab earlier, reading my emails on Heidi’s laptop and seeing the subject line in my inbox:
TheTechDetectYesterday 3:31 p.m.
Last few lines of corrupted plaintext
I’d clicked on it.
The full email had read:
Sam, read this now!
My algorithm decoded those last few lines of corrupted plaintext.
Shit, dude.
Here is the original messed-up plaintext:
Here it is with the corruptions deciphered:
Now, here it is, spaced out and punctuated, with the zeroes and ones removed:
4071AY: OVERALL RIDDLE: HOLMES BOOK SLEEPY HOLLOW. COMICS S.H. CEMETERY
BETWEEN CARNEGIE AND CHRYSLER GRAVES.
1. OTIS EXPRESS ELEVATOR UNDERNEATH
2. DENNIS RODMAN L.A. LAKERS 73
3. WIVES AT HELIPAD ON ROOF
4. 44 NANNY’S APTMT.
5. GARBAGE CHUTE ON 98
3765AZ: COPY. GOT IT.
4071AY: LET OTHERS SOLVE SOME IF THEY CAN. MAKES IT LOOK BETTER. THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO SOLVE ALL.
3765AZ: OK
4071AY: HERO MOMENTS FOR YOU: I’LL DROP BOY FROM ELEVATOR AND YOU CATCH HIM.
USE WINDOW CLEANING HARNESS TO SAVE CASSANDRA K.
MY COLLEAGUE WILL MAKE SURE G.M. IS AT S.H.
CEMETERY FOR YOU TO SHOOT. IF ANY OTHERS WITH YOU, YOU WILL HAVE TO NEUTRALIZE.
GET G.M.’S PHONE AFTER. IT WILL HAVE FAKE TEXTS WITH YASMINA K.
3765AZ: OK
Sam, the second person in this text exchange, 3765AZ, is Merritt Garrett.
He had the answers to all the riddles in advance. He was even given ‘hero moments’. He was the one who shot the Grandmaster and his goons at the cemetery. He even knew to check the Grandmaster’s phone at the end of it all. Merritt Garrett was the third client!
Call me as soon as you get this.
Monty
Back in the elevator, I stared at Merritt Garrett.
‘You were the third client. You hired Modern Alchemical Solutions to transform you into the world’s greatest detective.
So they did, by setting up all those traps and riddles, and having you outdo four other well-known private investigators.
Modern Alchemical Solutions just combined your goal with those of two other clients in one giant blockbuster event on December 21st.
‘First, Winnie Tan: once a mousy tech girl, now trim and terrific, she’d rekindled her relationship with Aristo King and wanted him back.
‘So she paid Modern Alchemical Solutions to destroy the reputation of King’s current wife, Yasmina Ivanova, which they did in the most public way possible.
‘The second client was the Chinese spy service, the Ministry for State Security. Since they worked often with Xiao, Modern Alchemical Solutions added Xiao to the list of five detectives to be brought to 59West. Their goal: the QuantumSpeed-7 chip.
‘And the third client: you. A man who wanted to be known as the world’s best detective. So he brought you and four of America’s best detectives to 59West, only he gave you all the answers in advance.’
(To be honest, that last part irritated me.
Actually, it pissed me off.
The riddles that I’d solved, I’d solved them cold, under pressure, with my own brain and reasoning. Garrett had known the answers all along.)
I continued: ‘After all the media attention I’d received after solving that big case in the South, Modern Alchemical Solutions had been forced to include me on that list. They told me so.
‘And finally, to carry out all three cases at once, Modern Alchemical Solutions kidnapped, drugged and set up the Grandmaster, a nasty killer-for-hire known for employing elabo-rate traps.’
(I recalled asking the Unperson why he’d bothered with all the traps and riddles.
He said there’d been a reason for them.
That reason: to create the illusion that the Grandmaster had been behind it all.
Even more than that, the Unperson had made it look like the Grandmaster had double-crossed his employer, Yasmina Ivanova, and tried to kill her, too, by dropping her off the roof in the helicopter.)
‘That was Modern Alchemical Solutions’ overall plan: to lay the blame on the Grandmaster, who they kept—drugged and dazed, with two Russian goons—at the water mill by the cemetery.
Then Vasha, disguised as a gardener, would bring them out at the appropriate time.
For a while, I thought this was Vasha’s only task, but that wasn’t her whole job, was it?
She could also be an independent witness to your heroism.
‘The Grandmaster and Yasmina take the fall, and since both of them are dead, they can’t prove it otherwise.
‘You become a hero.
‘And Modern Alchemical Solutions comes through for all three of its clients.
‘Until Yasmina Ivanova—having survived the day, yet penniless, outcast and abandoned by New York society—asked me to clear her name. And I took her case, for free.
‘It was only when I started poking around, first with the Russians, then at Sleepy Hollow and later with Monty Woods, that the true scheme emerged.’
(It occurred to me that if I hadn’t saved Yasmina’s son in the elevator shaft and then Yasmina herself in the helicopter on the roof, it all would’ve worked.
For even if Yasmina had survived, she wouldn’t have known who I was and thus thought to hire me.
But by impressing her on those two occasions, she did think of me and that was what had made the difference.)
Merritt Garrett nodded slowly, his gun still aimed at me.
‘I heard you were smart,’ he said.
He looked away, thinking. ‘I saw all that coverage you got after that business in the South. All the TV interviews and magazine profiles.
‘I’ve been a private detective my whole life.
An honest one and a good one—I got knifed catching the Funhouse Killer in Atlantic City; shit, I almost died—yet I’ve always scraped by.
Never had any fame like you got. And I wanted some of that fame.
I’m just as good a detective as you, Speedman, better even, and I wanted the world to know that. ’
‘So you went on the darknet . . .’
‘. . . and found this company I’d heard whispers about: Modern Alchemical Solutions.’
I said, ‘You unleashed a monster. That man is ruthless—’
‘That man is my monster! I paid him his fee. He works for me,’ Garrett snapped.
He was getting angry. Good.
Now I just needed him to hit me.
‘So it was all set up to make you look like a hero?’ I said. ‘Like saving Cassandra by abseiling down the side of the building?’
‘Yep.’
‘And Alexei in the elevator shaft. You were supposed to save him, too. When I jumped across the shaft to catch him, I thought I glimpsed someone reaching out for him.’
‘That was me. I was supposed to catch Alexei, but I didn’t get to the edge of the shaft in time,’ Garrett said. ‘Didn’t matter in the end. It actually gave you a moment to shine.’
‘You were also supposed to solve one final riddle at the end of it all, revealing Katya’s location in the garbage chute,’ I said.
I recalled the Post-It with ‘Titanic Oscar2’ written on it: Titanic’s Oscar win in 1998 and Oscar the Grouch who lived in a garbage can, i.e. the garbage chute on the 98th floor.
‘I didn’t have to,’ Garrett said. ‘Hooper figured that out. Like with you and the boy, it helped for someone else to have a moment.’
(I didn’t tell Garrett that I had been the one who’d figured that out, not Trey Hooper.)
‘So, the shootout at the cemetery,’ I said. ‘When I dashed off to the bridge to check on Audrey, Vasha brought the three Russians out—armed, but drugged and helpless—for you to shoot and kill. Tell me, did you shoot yourself in the arm as well, to make it look like you’d been winged?’
‘I got her to do it.’ A nod at Vasha. ‘Better angle.’
‘What if I’d stayed?’ I asked pointedly. ‘What if I hadn’t gone to the bridge?’
Garrett answered in a low voice. ‘Vasha and I would’ve killed you. And then we’d have just blamed it on the Russians. Given where we are now, I kinda wish it had happened that way.’
‘What about the drone that attacked my chopper on the way back from King’s drone base in New Jersey?’ I said. ‘Did you send it?’
‘I called Modern Alchemical Solutions and they did.’
I nodded slowly.
‘You know, Merritt,’ I said, ‘I hate to say it, but you’re not a better detective than I am.’
‘What?’ he said, stiffening.
‘You cheated. You needed the answers beforehand. I didn’t.’
‘I could’ve solved—’
‘No, you couldn’t. All that this has shown is that you aren’t the best and never were—’
Whack. And there it was.
He punched me in the face.
Whack. Again, in the gut.
I doubled over, wheezing, dropped to my knees.
Vasha chuckled softly.
Garrett stood over me. ‘Seriously, pal, this is not the time to be a smart-ass.’
Kneeling at his feet, I groaned, my eyes level with his worn cowboy boots.
Then I did it.
Quick as a whip, I reached out and yanked up the left cuff of his jeans and snatched the Bowie hunting knife from the sheath hidden in his left boot, the one I’d seen him use on the side of the building to cut Cassandra’s flex-cuffs.
‘What the—!’ Garrett shouted as I flung the knife side-handed . . .
. . . at Vasha.
It lodged deep in her throat and she fell, her eyes wide with shock, gurgling, a horrific amount of blood spraying from her neck.