Chapter 37
June
June sat in the passenger seat of the used Lexus, laptop open and mobile hot spot on the dashboard, reviewing her notes about the men she’d begun to think of as the KT Three.
Although everyone else KT asked about Gun Club apparently had no clue what she was talking about, these three were the only ones who’d actually denied being involved. June hoped that, if she could talk to them in person, at least one of them would tell her something useful.
Lewis turned south toward Montlake, a favorite neighborhood for tech workers because of the easy access to the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge across Lake Washington to Redmond, where Microsoft’s huge campus sprawled.
The UW Medical Center was on their right and Husky Stadium loomed up on their left.
“Who’s this first dude we trying to find? ”
“Troy Boxall,” June said. “Started a Twitter clone called Chatrbx out of college, had maybe one or two original ideas, ran it for five years, and sold to Meta. His take was about thirty million. In tech, that’s chicken feed.”
She’d emailed Boxall three times, requesting an interview.
He’d finally responded with a two-word all-caps reply, “FUCK OFF.” Very on-brand for a tech bro, she thought.
KT’s notes had his cell, so June had also tried texting him, but he’d either blocked her or was ignoring her.
His social media was full of pictures of his fitness regimen and his Tesla Cybertruck.
Unsurprisingly, there appeared to be no wife or girlfriend.
Digging into her databases, she’d found his house in Montlake but no other real estate.
He didn’t seem to travel much, so she hoped to find him at home.
“Chatrbx,” Lewis said. “Where Scott Enderby was a senior VP.”
June nodded. “And, according to Durant, where Reed worked as a contract employee. Although normally a contractor wouldn’t socialize with the C-suite, the company was small, so they probably all knew each other.”
“Why was KT talking to him to begin with?”
“She was writing a piece about all the startups bought by the Big Five and cannibalized for parts. Half the time, they just used a few pieces of technology and scrapped the rest.”
“Creative destruction,” Lewis said.
June had heard this expression many times from startup founders and venture capitalists, talking about technology-driven change. Few seemed to realize that the concept originated with Karl Marx, who’d thought it would eventually lead to the end of capitalism.
“Or buying up and shelving potential competitors on the cheap, depending on your point of view. Anyway, Troy Boxall didn’t seem to give a shit one way or another.” June flipped through her notes. “He told KT, ‘I got paid, what do I care?’ ”
“Five years of his life and he didn’t give a damn what happened to it?”
“Guys like Troy are always in it for the money. Thirty years ago, he’d have gone to Wall Street. Now all the big money is in tech. And the road to getting rich is a lot shorter.”
Lewis crossed the Montlake Cut and turned right onto Hamlin, a lush, tree-lined street with large and meticulously maintained older homes. Three blocks down, across from the Seattle Yacht Club, he pulled to the curb. “How you want to do this?”
“Well, I already know he doesn’t want to talk to me. But I also know he’s home, because he just posted a selfie with his protein smoothie. So we’ll knock on the door and start a conversation.”
“What if he don’t want to talk?”
She patted Lewis’s muscular arm. “That’s why I brought you.”
They walked past the high screen of trees and up the drive, where a large black Bronco stood beside a blocky gray Cybertruck, charging in the rain. The house was a big ugly box with a dark brick exterior and strange metal shutters beside the windows.
“You see those?” Lewis pointed at the shutters. “They’re steel, for security. Mounted on hinges so you can close them over the windows and lock them from the inside. In case a mob shows up with pitchforks, I guess.”
June looked closer. “What are those rectangular openings in the metal?”
“Gun slits.” Lewis shook his head. “Motherfucker’s paranoid as hell.”
He had a camera doorbell, too, which would capture them on video. June rang it a half dozen times, hearing the elaborate chime through the sidelights. Lewis said, “You looking to piss him off from the jump?”
“I just want him annoyed enough to come to the door.” She rang again and kept ringing.
After several minutes, the door opened with a jerk. “What the fuck?”
Troy Boxall wore tight workout clothes that showed a vastly overdeveloped musculature. His arms were so bulked up he probably couldn’t straighten them. At twenty-nine, he already had a receding hairline.
He also carried a pistol-grip shotgun hanging from one hand. “Get the fuck off my property before I call the police.”
Lewis gave June a quick questioning glance. She shook her head slightly, not wanting to provoke the man. She was pretty sure the shotgun was just for show, anyway.
So she flashed him the smile that had worked on tech bros before. “Hi, Troy. June Cassidy, with Public Investigations. I’ve been trying to reach you. We need to talk.”
“Huh.” He tipped his head to the side. “I thought you’d be uglier.”
She resisted the urge to kick him in the balls. He couldn’t answer her questions if he was curled up on the floor protecting his damaged manhood. She’d also heard far worse bullshit in her years interviewing tech bros, and you couldn’t kick them all in the balls—could you?
She kept her smile pleasant. “May we come in? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Boxall shook his head. “You are persistent, I’ll give you that. Almost as persistent as that other girl reporter, but apparently she’s no longer with us.” He smirked. Was he baiting her? Did he know something about KT’s death? Now she wanted to punch him in the face. He probably got that a lot.
But he didn’t close the door. It was the shotgun, she thought. It made him feel in control, overconfident. It was an opportunity.
“We are Legion,” she said, watching his face closely. He didn’t react. “Tell us about the Gun Club,” she said. “Tell us about the Messenger.”
Now he smiled merrily. “I’m not telling you shit. ’Cause obviously you don’t know shit.”
But he didn’t deny his involvement, June noticed.
Boxall glanced disdainfully at Lewis, who stood silently beside her with the contained and implacable stillness he had.
She’d had learned in the last few years that his stillness was more than lack of movement.
It was a focused readiness for whatever might come.
Boxall clearly had no idea what Lewis was capable of. Few people did.
“I know a few things,” she said. “I know about Circuit Rider. I know he ordered Scott Enderby to kill Katelyn Thorsen. I have the Telegram texts to prove it.”
“That’s enough.” Boxall raised the shotgun to his hip and put his free hand on the slide. “Time for you to go.”
June didn’t think he’d pull the trigger. She wanted to rattle him.
“You used to work with Enderby at Chatrbx, didn’t you? I wonder if the cops can connect you to that murder.” She made a guess. “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars you’re on a Telegram chat with him.”
She must have guessed right, because Boxall began to rack the shotgun’s slide to bring a shell from the magazine into firing position. Before he could complete the action, Lewis was in motion, flying forward and twisting the weapon effortlessly away.
Then he stepped back with the shotgun hanging down as if it had been his all along. “Never did like a pistol grip,” he said. “Kick like a mule, hard to control. Do a lotta damage up close, though. But you got to keep a shell in the chamber.”
Boxall put his hands out to his sides. But he didn’t back away from the doorway. His face red and bunched like a fist. “You have no idea what kind of shitstorm you’re facing.”
This was no way to interview anyone, June was well aware. But she was tired of being nice. “Tell us about the Messenger,” she said again. “Tell us about the Dark Time.”
Boxall choked out a laugh. “Or what, he’ll shoot me? On camera?”
The doorbell. She sighed. “Lewis, ditch the shotgun.” She knew he still had the Beretta under his jacket.
He gave her a deadpan look, not happy with giving up an advantage. But he racked the slide, ejecting shell after shell until the gun was empty, then tossing it aside onto the wet grass.
Boxall didn’t lower his hands. Instead he reached to his right, out of view behind the doorjamb. When he brought his hand back, it held a shiny chrome automatic pistol pointed directly at Lewis.
“I do believe I’m within my legal rights to shoot you.” A cruel smile played on his lips. “I’ve never killed a man before. It’ll be good practice for the Dark Time.”