Chapter 1 #3
“We all have, right? The name of the game. Anyway, I promise, we will discuss every move we make, and one of us is never that many steps from the other.”
“Gotcha.”
“So, study time!”
They sat on opposite sides of the desk in the room, bringing up separate computers.
Wesley spoke aloud as he studied his screen.
“Frank Adams, Frank, simple suicide, Cassandra and Hank Little—Cassandra assumed to be the shooter. Frank in Jesup, Georgia, then Cassandra and Hank in Palatka, Florida. Obvious. The next ‘suicide’ even occurs in Montgomery, Alabama. Randy Templeton—electrocuted in his bathtub with his electric shaver. The first person to really object to a case being closed as an assumed suicide was Myra Templeton. She was furious, called her neighbors a bunch of old biddy gossips and claimed that yes, of course, they fought, married people did—but she had no intention of leaving her husband, nor was he suicidal in any way. He was a truly devout Catholic, and suicide is not at all accepted in his beliefs.”
“Three states, but border states,” Chloe murmured, looking over her screen at Wesley. “And now, a major case, supposedly murder-suicide. Back in Florida, Broward County. Six dead including Jane Sewell, who supposedly killed the others and then herself. Perfect shots on a roomful of people!”
He nodded. “All related to computers, new technology—and big money.”
“I don’t see any problem at all associating these events—but besides what they all did, what could connect them when they’re spread out like that?”
“The tech departments have been making deep dives into company records, social media, more, and they should be sending us everything they’ve discovered within the hour. Maybe we use the time until then to work on ourselves,” Wesley suggested.
“Oh, yes, right!”
She switched screens, seeking her own new biography.
“Well, hmm. I am from Florida, Broward County instead of Miami-Dade, but no surprise that I might have gone to the University of Miami. Background Norse on my mom’s side, confused Northern European on my dad’s. And now . . .”
“Now, my dear, darling wife, you’ve just opened your own business, promoting artists and their work, and you desperately need to improve your computer skills,” Wesley said.
“That’s not a stretch at all!” she told him. “And you, my darling, just what is it that you do for a living?”
“Mine is cooler,” he told her.
“Cooler than art?” she demanded.
He shrugged, grinning. “I have a dive boat. I take people out to the reefs off Islamorada, where, of course, we’re living these days. You are familiar, I take it?” he asked.
She grinned. “Oh, yeah. Speaking of cool, I used to love to go to Tavernier and head out on ‘Captain Slate’s Creature Feature.’”
He nodded. “Diving down, having nurse sharks blowing bubbles with you atop your head, stroking rays as they swam by . . . Yeah, it was cool.”
“So, you’ve done that, too?” she asked.
“Came from the opposite end. I’m one of those kids who grew up in Key West.”
“Wait, of course, I know that!” she told him. “Your father was a cop! A cop in Key West!”
Wesley nodded. “Yep. And let’s see, hmm.
I look things up, too, when I’m being assigned a strange case with a .
. . stranger. Your mom taught at Nova; your dad had been career military, retired, but took on a job with a security company and received a special commendation from the company and the country when he foiled a bank robbery. ”
“He was a great guy,” she said softly.
“I believe you,” he assured her.
“Wow,” she said dryly. “In real life, we’re almost stereotypes.”
He laughed. “Worse things to be. Anyway, fake life . . .”
“Fake life, as you said, similar. Great idea, because you don’t mess up as much in any casual conversation.”
Wes nodded. “Second honeymoon. We’ve been married for three years, but both got so involved with our careers that we hadn’t spent enough time together.
We thought about an Alaskan cruise, but like the sun too much.
Oh, and our families are all over the country, so it wasn’t like we could visit folks in one shot, and we needed together time more than anything else, so . . .”
“So, here we are. Diving—even though we spend our real lives diving.”
“Ah, but we’re excited to be on the cruise.
We’re diving different places for fun and for me especially, real fun.
On this, I’m not responsible for the health and safety of others on this trip!
It’s just exploring the wonders of the sea with my beloved who is usually too busy babysitting insecure artists to really enjoy the water with me. ”
He was grinning at her. The guy seemed to be okay.
Great. She could get along with him. And pray, of course, that he really did live up his reputation and would have her back.
He frowned suddenly, staring down at his screen.
“Succinylcholine,” he murmured.
“What?”
A total change in the conversation.
He looked at her. “We just got some info on a few of the second autopsies. They dug up the dead and did more detailed tests. And our cases are beyond a doubt related—the victims were hit up with a paralytic before death, succinylcholine, not something generally sought and discovered in the usual autopsy of a shooting victim unless such a factor had been indicated. Also, by the time a person’s remains get to an autopsy, it’s had a chance to dissipate.
But apparently, they are finding trace amounts. ”
“That would explain the perfection of the shots on that many people. Straight through the heart, which doesn’t happen unless your victims are non-moving targets. So, they are drugged with a substance that leaves them awake but paralyzes them. How are they getting it into the victims?” Chloe asked.
He shook his head. “No answers on that yet. But, hey, we’re getting a nice sheet on people who were related business-wise or other to the victims, a few very wealthy, a few not so wealthy .
. . Your sheet is up! Read, see what you think.
Also, they followed the movements of these people over the last year in which all of this has occurred.
They all attended special meetings or conferences which put them in the same general area as those who died. ”
She studied her computer. They’d been sent a list of six names, culled from the many by a combination of work between possible resentments or goals and assessments and proximities from a profiling team.
She quickly saw that yes, everyone on the list worked in the computer field in one way or another. Naturally. But closer looks showed that each of the six had been working with—or against—those who were dead. In a few cases, the names of those on the list worked for the same companies.
In some cases, they worked for rival companies.
A few had been down on the totem pole.
“Edward Thompson,” she murmured.
“Saw it,” he said. “A vice-president with the hosting symposium, and . . . a company creating a special screen for gamers and an affordable system that will also allow hours upon hours of video, images and word computing. Nice. Edward Thompson makes a seven-figure income yearly. But the pressure is surely hard on him at all times.”
“Then there’s Abigail Swenson,” Avery said, looking over at Wesley. “She was beneath the first fellow who, hmm, ‘committed suicide.’ Frank Adams. He received a promotion that she had been up for, too.”
“Her income is not enormous,” Wesley noted.
“But better than most these days.”
“True. Except in the tech world—” he began to remind her.
“You have the possibility of becoming a multimillionaire.”
Wesley nodded. “Next. Broward County last week. A party of six. Five were shot and killed, and as Alonzo told us—and as I’m sure we both already saw in the news—the sixth person, a young woman named Jane Sewell, was found with her gun—a six-shooter—in her mouth.
Ballistics matched. Six shots, five through the heart with one remaining so that she could kill herself when she finished with the others. ”
“And they’ll discover that she and the others have traces of the drug in their systems—which explains the perfect shots.
Seriously, very few people just stand there when a gun is pointed at them and they’ve already seen their friends or associates shot,” Chloe pointed out.
“We knew there was something off with it.”
“True. So, Edward Thompson, Abigail Swenson—four more names. Daniel and Broderick McClintock, brothers who started up a company called Secure Security. Their emphasis is on firewalls and so on and . . . supposedly, they can lock out any malware or any other like dangers. Interesting . . .”
“What’s interesting?” Chloe asked. “In particular?”
“I’m pretty sure I read an article on them. They claim to have tremendous ability in shutting down the dark web—they’ve reportedly worked for the San Francisco police,” he said.
“I don’t see that here—”
“Rumor—I had friends working on a trafficking site. I wasn’t on the case, but I believe they mentioned the company in their work.”
“Why would they have come out on the suspect list? Surely, at the federal level, this sheet would include—” Chloe asked, frowning.
“Keep reading. They did help the San Francisco police—they were exceptional in their ability to trace a site that bounced around twenty different countries.”
“They are suspects—for being too helpful?”
He shrugged, looking at her. “Retired Special Agent Matt Greenberg, a specialist who was in the profiling gig from just about the beginning apparently wrote in a ‘need to know only’ memo about them. They were helpful, yes. On that investigation. But Greenberg’s memo warned that while helpful, they also needed to watch for godlike tendencies within the pair.
By helping, they were also learning how to avoid detection should they move into criminal online activities themselves. ”
“Wow. I can’t begin to imagine being that magical online!”