Janine Marie - Rigging a Murder 01 - The Single Shoe Mystery (10 page)

Looking at the bags, Steph said, “‘Island Treasures’—I love the stuff from that store. What did you get?”

Rolling his eyes as Tiffany started to dig through the bags, Kevin ordered us all back to the dock if we were going to unpack bags.

Later, I followed Katie topside (on deck) after our family meeting and a reestablishment of the rules. I had to laugh as I looked at all Tiffany’s purchases, spread out before her.

Steph was oohing and ahhing over a handmade soap-dish in the shape of a rowboat painted blue, with oars, and a matching toothbrush holder made to look like a lighthouse, matching blue and white towels, bath mats, and then there were the clothes. Oh how I wish I had Tiffany’s shopping budget. On second thought, even if I did, really, where would I put everything?

“Okay, enough about clothes…. What about the shoe that started this all?” boomed Kevin.

Turning to Katie I asked, “Honey, do you remember that shoe you found in Princes Louisa?”

“Of course I do, Mom,” she retorted, like I had asked her something that was clearly obvious.

“Great,” I replied, refusing to be dragged into an argument. She was clearly still upset about our earlier reaction to her wandering off with Tiffany. “Where is it?”

“In my room,” she replied blandly.

“At home or on the boat?” I persevered.

“Here.”

“Really?” I replied, surprised because I hadn’t seen it when I looked in her room. But I was clever enough not to say that. Instead I asked, “Could you run and get it? We would like to have a look at it.”

She shrugged and went off to get the shoe.

When she returned, it was clear to me why I hadn’t seen the shoe. The white shoe was covered—and I mean every inch of it was covered—with glitter glue and colored felt pen doodles, and the opening of the shoe, where your foot would normally go in, was full of felt pens and other colored ballpoint pens. Put on her desktop with all her other crafts, miscellaneous toys, and stuffed animals, I could see how both our intruder and I had missed it. When she handed it to me I took out the pens, giving them back to her and asking her to put them in her room. I turned the shoe around and looked inside and under it, but it just looked like a ordinary, if highly decorated, shoe to me. At this point I had to hand it over to Thomas, who was hovering above me, wanting his turn to discover what mysteries the shoe might hold.

The shoe was dutifully passed around to Kevin then Greg, Steph, Cody, Tiffany, Sam, and to Katie, who had been filled in by now as to why we were SO interested in her shoe, then finally back to me. Anyone watching would have smiled or laughed to themselves as they saw seven adults and two teenagers, sitting on folding chairs on the dock or boatside, and even on the raised edge of the dock, playing a strange “pass the glittering shoe” game, each person more eager than the last to get his or her hands on the shoe. As we got more desperate we started to dismantle the shoe, which was no small task. After the sole was lifted out and showed no secret compartment, like some Nike shoes have for pedometer inserts, we realized that a more determined approach was required.

As Kevin, Sam, Greg, Cody Katie, and Tiffany went off in search of tools that might help us dismantle the shoe, Steph and I went off to our own boats—to make bruschetta and tortilla chips with dip in Steph’s case, and strawberry-banana blender drinks in mine. I made the first batch as virgin non-alcoholic drinks for Katie and Sam, who had been coaxed away from his video games for now to join us.

Chapter Fourteen

Dismantling a Shoe

T
he shoe dismantlement was temporarily halted as appetizers and drinks were consumed, while the discussion was all about what a shoe could possibly hide.

“It must be drugs,” suggested Kevin.

“Really. And how much could you store in a shoe, Dad?” retorted Sam.

“I don’t know—coke or crack? You don’t need much of that to make the shoe valuable.”

“A secret message,” suggested Katie.

“Perhaps it’s a prototype shoe,” suggested Steph.

“Looks ordinary to me,” responded her husband Greg, as he turned the shoe around and held it up to the light. As he stared at the bottom he said, “What about electronics?”

“Yes, a flash drive!” agreed Thomas. “We need to be very careful dismantling this shoe.”

And so the discussion went, until the food was cleared away, drinks refilled, and we were able to convince Tiffany and Cody to join us for dinner. I love to cook and always make way too much food, so I usually had to find a creative way to reuse any leftovers in a new recipe as my family doesn’t eat leftovers. I know, “Eye Roll,” but it’s really my own fault as I keep cooking up new things. Actually, I enjoy the challenge of turning leftover ribs into pulled pork for burritos, or leftover chicken into chicken pot pie, etc.

I took out the pre-marinated steaks to get them to room temperature and made a béchamel sauce (Katie’s favorite) with garlic and tarragon from my herb garden for the homemade pasta (Thomas’s favorite) that I had made at home and bought with us. I boiled the pasta water, turning it down to a simmer until just before we were ready to eat, since homemade pasta only takes 3 to 4 minutes to cook. I went up top to see how Steph’s salad and garlic bread were coming along. Kevin, as usual, was providing the wine. He has an amazing wine cellar.

I burst out laughing as I took in the scene below me on the dock. Thomas had the shoe in clamps that he and Cody were holding secure as Greg the doctor was carefully using his scalpel to cut the shoe apart. Kevin was kneeling in with pliers and a wrench, holding apart the areas that Greg was carefully cutting, and Sam was holding a powerful flashlight above them. Katie was sitting behind Greg and handing him various surgical instruments and tools, as he required them. Turning, I went to go and find my camera. This was a photo opportunity not to be missed.

After taking a few photos with no one even looking up at me, I said, “Okay, everyone look up at me!” This was greeted with “Shhhh!” and “We’re busy!” Giving up, I looked across to see Steph and Tiffany appear with a huge salad and garlic bread. They also laughed, and were in turn told to “Be quiet,” so we three looked on in amazed delight.

Realizing that this was going to take a while, I returned to turn off my pasta water and uncorked one of the bottles of Pinot Noir that Kevin had kindly deposited in our cockpit. I poured three glasses, waved to Steph and Tiffany to come join me, and we settled down to sip the lovely wine as we watched and photographed the careful dismantlement of a shoe.

“I found it!” exclaimed Greg, holding up a impossibly thin, one-inch by half-inch semi-clear piece of plastic between his index finger and thumb.

“Great, but what is it?” several of us asked in unison.

“Maybe it’s a pedometer,” Sam said, holding out his hand. “No,… I guess not,” he admitted as he scrutinized the object.

“I agree it’s not a pedometer; look at the pattern… actually I’m 99 percent sure it’s a computer chip of sorts,” Thomas said, taking the small plastic object and holding it up to the light to examine it closely.

“Really? It doesn’t look like one. It just looks like a some extra plastic was accidently added in the sole of this shoe,” Cody said.

“You have to look closely to see the
transistors—see?” Thomas shone the flashlight at the small piece of plastic and we all crowded in to look.

“Ouch!” came a chorus as several of us hit heads trying to see.

“Let’s take turns,” I said, standing and rubbing my head.
My turn finally came; it seemed to take forever as we had to look one at a time, with Thomas holding the small piece of semi-clear plastic that everyone now agreed was some kind of computer chip.

“But why would someone imbed a computer chip, flash drive, or any other type of electronic in a running shoe?” Steph asked, with a shake of her head.

“That is an excellent question, and this isn’t just any computer chip,” said Thomas, our computer expert. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“What do you mean?” Greg asked.

“Well, for starters it’s not made of silicon; this material is so thin, and even more interesting, it’s flexible.”

“I don’t get it,” said Katie.

“A silicon chip is a piece of almost pure silicon, usually less than one centimeter square and about half a millimeter thick. A silicon computer chip contains millions of transistors—a transistor being a device that controls the flow of electric current—and other tiny electronic circuit components, packed and interconnected in layers beneath the surface. There is a grid of thin metallic wires on the surface of the chip, which is used to make electrical connections to other devices. This tiny component is responsible for arithmetic, logic, and/or memory functions in a computer.

“The silicon chip was developed independently by two engineers: Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments in 1958, and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959. In addition to being used in computers, smart phones and tablets, silicon chips are used in
calculators, microwave ovens, automobile radios and engine controllers, DVD players, TV, video games, and toys. We use them every day,” explained Thomas in a preoccupied manner, as he continued to study the piece of plastic, “but this isn’t silicon.”

“Then what is it?” several of us asked at once, though not at quite the same time, so that it came out as a
jumble.

“Hmmm. I wonder.
Graphene,…could this possible be graphene?” Thomas said slowly as he turned and flexed the object in question.

“What is graphene?” again we all asked, and moved in closer to him to hear, spilling a drink in the process.

Starting out of his almost trance-like state, Thomas said, “If this is graphene and someone has figured out how to cost-effectively use it as a computer chip, instead of using silicon… just think of the possibilities…,” and a preoccupied look came over his face as he did just that.

“THOMAS!” I exclaimed. “What is graphene and why is it important?”

“It’s flexible, for starters,” he replied in an It’s obvious voice. Noticing that we were all still staring at him uncomprehendingly, he sighed and continued, “If graphene chips replaced the silicon chip—and by the looks of this, someone has figured out how to do that—it will take wearable computing to a whole new level.”

“Cool; I get it!” Sam piped up. “Wristwatch computers—or computerized clothing, or roll-up iPads!” Taking out his iPhone, he quickly googled graphene: “Wikipedia says:
‘
Graphene
is a substance composed of pure carbon, with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern similar to
graphite
, but in a one-atom thick sheet.’… WOW;
this
is technical stuff,” he trailed off, scrolling with his finger through screen after screen. “My gosh, you would have to have a Ph.D. in computer science or computer engineering to understand all this!”

At this point Thomas, who does have a Ph.D. in computer science, interjected with “What makes graphene so exciting is that, as you can see, it’s not only thin and flexible but it’s 40+ times stronger than steel, plus it’s a semiconductor whose electrical conductivity is 1000 times better than silicon’s. And that’s just the start of its fascinating properties. For example, a group in Barcelona thinks it can be used to make ultra-sensitive low-cost photo
detectors.
”

“What is a photo
detector
?” Katie asked.

“A device that converts light to
electricity
. It’s used in digital cameras, night vision gear, biomechanical images and telecom equipment. This group in Barcelona is spraying nanometers or quantum dots of lead sulfide crystals on the graphene.”

“Thomas, stop. You’re way over our heads. We really don’t care about the wonders of graphene. What I am interested in why it’s in that shoe, and is that small chip what Lorenzo was murdered for?” I interrupted him mid-lecture.

“Janeva’s right. We could be in real danger if this piece of plastic
was
what got Lorenzo killed,” Steph cried out in alarm.

“You are both correct, of course. I expect it’s not just what this chip is m
a
de of that’s important, but what’s on it. We need to get this”—he held up the plastic chip—“to my office so I can start working on it.” Then he tucked the chip into his wallet.

“Shouldn’t we take it to the police?” Kevin inquired.

“Humph… technically, yes. But it’s a Canadian investigation, and how would we get it safely to them, for starters? If we dropped it off at our local police station, I truly doubt they would know what to do with it. I think we should let Thomas’s team of computer geniuses find out what’s on it; then we will better know what to do,” Greg answered.

“Right: Lorenzo was an American, and whatever is on this chip could be… I don’t know, a state secret,” I agreed.

“I hadn’t thought of that. Should it go to the FBI or the CIA or the Canadian Police?” Kevin rejoined.

“Okay, okay; we are all agreed. I’ll see if I can decode this chip, then we’ll send it to the proper authorities. Now: w
hat
happened to dinner? I’m starved. Is anyone else hungry?” Thomas pronounced.

At the chorus of “YES” that replied, I went down below to get my dinner ready, and quickly, as they were threatening to open a Costco-sized bag of potato chips instead of waiting for the lovely dinner I had
prepared
.