Game of Death (12 page)

‘Nick,’ she says pleasantly. She comes over to me and takes my hand, leaning in close enough to make the handshake seem almost like a hug. ‘No problems with the new hires, I
hope?’

‘No, Helen, everyone seems to be settling in. You know Yvette Jones? She’s in my department.’

Without answering the specific question, Helen smiles at Yvette and extends her hand. ‘Yvette,’ she says.

‘And this is Paul Killkenny,’ I say. She shakes his hand as well. ‘He’s a detective with the Boston Police Department.’ She withdraws her hand a little more quickly
than I think she might normally, raises an eyebrow.

‘Really? A detective.’ She tries to make her voice sound impressed. ‘What brings you all out to Brighton today?’

‘We’re looking for some information about three women who did some sort of work for the company a few years back,’ I say.

‘What kind of work?’ Helen asks.

‘We’re not entirely sure,’ I say. ‘We know one of them did some work as a model, but we don’t know specifically what she did for the company.’

She looks at Killkenny. ‘We don’t normally give out any employee information to the police without a warrant,’ she says hesitantly. ‘It’s a policy.’

‘I know,’ I say, ‘but in this case it’s probably better for the company if we bend the policy just a little bit. At least for the moment.’

‘Why? What is it that the police are investigating?’ She looks at Killkenny, and he stares evenly back at her.

‘All three of the girls were killed,’ he says in a cold, flat voice. ‘I’m investigating their murders.’

Helen’s smile fades, and her face drains just a little bit. There is a receptionist in the waiting area and her head swivels at the use of the word ‘murders’.

‘Maybe we should continue this discussion back in your office,’ I suggest.

‘Yes,’ Helen agrees. ‘Yes, that might be best.’

Helen’s office is a large corner spot with luxurious furnishings and a separate sitting area set away from her desk and work space.

‘I’m not comfortable with this,’ Helen is saying as she taps away at her computer.

‘None of us are,’ I reassure her.

‘I could get a subpoena,’ Killkenny says. That gets Helen’s attention. She looks up at him, glaring. ‘I don’t want to, but I will if I have to.’

‘It isn’t necessary,’ I say to him. I look at Helen. ‘He could, though. We’re trying to keep the company’s involvement in the investigation quiet. I
can’t imagine there’s much information the police need from us. We can simply provide a little help and be done with it.’ I don’t know whether Helen believes me, but I doubt
the words even as they leave my mouth.

‘Here it is,’ she says. ‘Amanda Hicks. All I have is a contract, nothing more.’

‘What’s the contract for?’ I ask.

‘Looks like a fairly standard modeling contract and release. It was four and a half years ago, just after the company started. They clearly didn’t have many record-keepers back then.
Frankly, I’m surprised we found this.’

‘There are no other records that mention her?’ Killkenny asks. Helen shakes her head. ‘How about the others? Janet Schmidt and Patricia Carnes?’

Helen taps some more on her keyboard. After a moment she nods. ‘Janet Schmidt had the same contract. No further information.’ She goes back to her tapping. ‘Patricia Carnes,
too.’

‘But you have no more information?’ Killkenny asks. There’s an edge in his voice.

‘None.’ Helen’s tone is cold.

‘Like I said, I could get a subpoena,’ Killkenny shoots back.

‘I’m sure you could, Detective, but you won’t get any additional information from that. I can’t create documents that don’t exist. Apparently these women did
modeling for the company when it was starting out. I know nothing more than that.’

Killkenny looks at me. ‘So, that’s it? That’s the extent of the cooperation?’ He shakes his head.

I’m frowning as I look back at Helen. ‘These are contracts with the company, right?’ I say to her.

‘Yes, as I said.’ It’s clear that she is getting annoyed with the process. I may have burned any goodwill I might once have had with her.

‘Who signed on behalf of the company?’

She looks at me for a moment, then turns back to the screen and scrolls through the document. I can see her come to rest toward the bottom, and she sits there for a few seconds, just staring.
Then she looks up at me. ‘Tom Jackson,’ she says. ‘He signed on behalf of the company.’

‘They’re modeling contracts.’

Tom’s office is one of the ones on the executive floor. He could have one of the corner offices, given his seniority, but it’s not his style to push for perks like that. As a general
matter, he’s not particularly concerned what people think about him; he’s not a people person. He’s an exceptional technologist, though, and he’s smart enough that he was
able to transition to the business side of the company early. His particular gift is in figuring out how technology could be monetized based on the way people behave online, and how much they are
willing to pay for a variety of services. He went through the process with several start-ups early in his career, and had enormous success. NextLife, though, is turning out to be more of a
challenge.

‘Yes,’ Killkenny says. ‘They’re modeling contracts. That much I could see. But what were they modeling?’

Tom’s sitting behind his desk, a plain slab of Formica that the company leases for all the offices. There are few personal items in the office, and the desktop and credenza behind him are
dominated by three large computers, two with oversized screens. He’s a lot like me; he’s here to work. That’s one of the reasons we get along so well. He picks up the contracts
again and looks them over. ‘They’re from four and a half years ago,’ he says. ‘We were in the development stage at that point, so it wasn’t for any type of
media.’

‘No?’

Tom shakes his head. ‘No, we didn’t have anything to sell at the time; we weren’t in the market yet. We certainly weren’t doing any advertising.’

‘What kind of modeling were they doing for the company then?’ I ask.

He looks at me, shifting in his chair just enough to make it clear that he isn’t entirely comfortable with the question. ‘That’s sensitive company information, Nick. I’m
not sure we should be sharing that with anyone outside of the corporate structure.’

‘It’s important,’ Killkenny says.

‘Why?’ Tom asks. He looks at me, then at Killkenny. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘It’s about three murders,’ Killkenny says. The effect is pronounced. Tom’s face goes white, his mouth dropping open. ‘All three of these girls have been murdered,
and the only thing we can identify that they have in common is that they modeled for this company at around the same time four and a half years ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Tom stammers after a moment. ‘I had no idea.’

‘No reason you should have,’ I reassure him. ‘You see why we need to know, though, right?’

He nods slowly. ‘I do.’ He takes a deep breath and rubs his hand over his face. ‘They were prototypes,’ he says at last.

I stare at him, blinking, and it takes a moment for me to understand. ‘Prototypes,’ I repeat, the meaning sinking in. ‘I never put it together,’ I say.
‘Prototypes,’ I say again, like I am exploring a new term.

‘Prototypes?’ Killkenny says. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Come with me,’ Tom says, standing. ‘You need to talk to the Doc. He’ll be able to explain this better than I can.’

The computer lab is on the fourth floor, and it’s entirely an expression of Dr Santar Gunta’s personality. While many companies in the technology sector have
adopted a loose, informal atmosphere, particularly for their programmers, Dr Gunta considers himself first and foremost a scientist. As a result, he has been unwilling to give up the clean-room
feel. The entire floor is open, and the sunlight streams through the huge glass windows on all sides. The floors are white tile, the walls freshly painted, the desks and computer equipment all
shiny bright white plastic. Everyone in the room is wearing a lab coat, giving the place the feel of a bright, sterile medical facility, or perhaps a NASA mission launch.

There are a hundred programmers at their computers, all their attention trained on the screens in front of them, tapping endlessly on their keyboards. Every once in a while one of them will
print out a sheet of programming and take it over to a supervisor, discuss programming strategy in hushed tones and then head back to his computer. Looking around the room, I notice that none of
the programmers are women. Not one. In fact, Yvette is the only woman on the floor. I guess I’ve probably noticed the prevalence of men in the programming business before, but it’s
never struck me as directly as it does standing in this room.

‘It’s impressive, isn’t it?’ Tom says. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s talking to Killkenny, not me.

‘What are they doing?’ Killkenny asks.

‘Programming,’ Tom replies.

‘Programming what? The system’s finished, isn’t it? It’s up and working.’

Tom lets out a little chuckle. ‘The system’s never finished. Not if we want it still to be relevant six months from now. Technology moves at light-speed, and no one who wants to
survive can sit still. Our competitors are out there right now, trying to come up with something even more impressive than NextLife; something that will blow it out of the water. We have to beat
them to whatever that is. If anyone is going to make our current technology obsolete, we want it to be us. We learned that from Steve Jobs. At most companies they’ll kill any new project that
cannibalizes their most successful product lines. At Apple, they encourage it. It’s what keeps them fresh, keeps them sharp. We’re trying to emulate that here.’

I can see Killkenny scanning the room, and his eyes light upon a large desk at the center of the room. It’s twice the size of any other desk, and it’s raised up so that the man
sitting behind it can survey the entire room at a glance. The man in the chair is in his mid-fifties, with dark skin and thin, close-cropped gray hair. He has a serious, studious expression on his
face as he scrutinizes two giant computer screens on his desk.

‘Who’s that?’ Killkenny asks.

‘That’s the Doc,’ Tom says. ‘Dr Santar Gunta. He’s the technological genius behind all of this.’ From a distance, Tom looks at Gunta with something like awe.
‘Do you want to meet him?’

‘I guess I have to,’ Killkenny says.

We walk over to the center of the room. Next to the raised desk, nearly connected to it, is a smaller workstation. Sitting there is a strikingly attractive young man in his late twenties. He
watches us as we walk toward them. He is thin, with dirty-blond hair and bright-blue eyes. He’s looking at us, seeming to evaluate each one of us.

Gunta doesn’t look up from his work until we are standing next to his desk. I see that the desk actually rests on a platform nearly a foot off the ground. As a result, even seated, Gunta
is almost looking us in the eyes when he turns and regards us with evident surprise.

‘Tom,’ he says, nodding to the company’s head of Revenue Generation. He looks at me with suspicion. ‘Nick.’ When his eyes fall on Yvette I can sense a hint of
disgust at her presence. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asks us. His voice is quiet and self-possessed and has the gentle lilt of the small village in India where he was born and
raised.

‘Doc, this man is with the police,’ Tom says. ‘Nick and Ms Jones are helping him with an investigation, and they need some information from you. Can we have a moment of your
time to talk?’

Gunta’s voice remains quiet, but I think I can sense some hesitation. ‘I have a great deal of work to do today,’ he says.

‘It won’t take too long, I don’t think,’ Tom says, trying to put Gunta at ease. The scientist doesn’t look convinced. ‘It’s important,’ Tom
presses.

‘I have an office.’ He nods to the far corner of the floor, where there is a span of three doors. He stands and steps down from the platform where his desk sits. He’s a man of
short stature, and stepping off the platform has a transformative impact. From his perch he seemed authoritative – imposing, even. Now he seems intimidated. He walks over to one of the doors,
opens it and walks in. Killkenny, Tom, Yvette and I follow.

Gunta’s office has a strange feel to it. The floor is the same bright tile as the main lab, the walls whitewashed, the windows framed by white, industrial treatments. His desk, though, is
antique with elaborate inlay and a leather top. Behind it stands a matching credenza that reaches almost to the ceiling. Scattered throughout the many shelves are mementoes from the Far East.

Gunta walks to the far side of the desk and sits. He waves toward the pair of metal and plastic chairs on the other side of the desk. Tom sits in one, Yvette in the other. Killkenny and I remain
standing.

‘How can I help you?’ Gunta asks. I think I hear a slight quaver in his voice.

‘As I said,’ Tom begins, ‘Detective Killkenny is with the Boston Police Department. He’s investigating a murder.’

‘Three murders,’ Killkenny corrects Tom.

‘Yes, right,’ Tom agrees. ‘Three murders.’

Dr Gunta’s expression changes only slightly. He seems less surprised than one might expect. ‘What do these murders have to do with me?’ he asks.

‘Nothing,’ Tom reassures Gunta quickly. ‘It’s just that all three victims seem to have a connection to NextLife. It could be a coincidence, but the police need to look
into it, you understand.’ He seems almost apologetic in his approach to Gunta, and the computer genius stares back at him without expression.

‘We’re not sure it’s a coincidence,’ Killkenny says flatly.

Gunta looks at me, and then at Yvette. ‘And what is your involvement in this?’ he asks us.

‘Nick and Ms Jones were the ones who discovered the connection. They did the right thing and notified us,’ Killkenny says.

‘Did they?’ He takes a breath. ‘Should Mr NetMaster be involved in this?’

‘He’s been informed, and I’m keeping him in the loop,’ I say. It’s only a partial lie. ‘I also spoke with Josh, so he’s fully aware of the
situation.’ My tone is neutral, but my glare at Gunta is sharp. I respect the man’s abilities, but I’ve never fully trusted him. He returns my look with a sour expression.