Undercover Genius (8 page)

Bill Bloom was my starting place, if only because he’d told
Patra he had information just before he died. I needed his telephone records.
Logic said if that information had got him killed, then he must have told
someone about it besides Patra.

I could have eventually cracked police files, but why bother
when Graham’s extensive spy network could go directly to the phone company? And
probably already had. I shuffled through our networked computer files and found
the records without tapping anyone. Graham had been snooping and had left the
results where I could find them, should I look. The spook was always testing
me.

Not knowing exactly when Bill had identified any of the
voices, which is what he’d said he’d done, I arbitrarily chose the entire day
of his death. Bill had been a busy little beaver that day. The day prior hadn’t
been quite as active. Using the reverse directory, I determined that he’d made
three calls to a Carol Bloom — his mother, if last name and gender were
any indication. His on-line statistics had revealed he wasn’t married, and
until recently he’d lived with Carol Bloom at the address for that number.
Carol was old enough to be his mother since she’d owned that house for decades.

Moving on… He called his dentist, two men who were listed as
friends on his limited Facebook profile, three companies who might be clients,
a female name not listed on Facebook — and just about every media outlet
in the city.

Looked like Bill had been doing a little investigating of
his own. On the assumption that he was looking for comparison voice clips and
not giving out secrets, I focused on his last call — a local independent
news website that called itself Intrepid News.

I scrolled through the website to be certain they didn’t
have any late breaking news about Patra’s tape or anything relevant, but they
hadn’t even reported Bill’s death. Apparently uninhibited by advertisers, the
on-line rag played a pretty heavy left wing game.

If I was political, I’d probably call myself liberal because
I’d lived in countries where men can legally kill women as if they were roaches,
and that kind of chauvinism scared the heck out of me. I didn’t want anyone
dictating what I could do as a female, particularly not narrow-minded sexist
morons — which was how I identified conservatives, since I’d never had
money and knew nothing about the economy.

The liberal website Bill had phoned seemed quite gleeful in
pointing out any laughable faux pas of the conservatives. They’d even caught a
clip of a leader in the R&P movement stating that our founding fathers were
all good Christian men. Check that out on Google some time. Even with my
limited education, I knew better. Half the men signing the Declaration of
Independence didn’t belong to churches, and the better known among them called
themselves Deists, intelligently disassociating themselves from the religious
turmoil of the old countries they’d fled. The only thing those good old boys
had in common with the R&P were that they were white and male.

I found the Intrepid News phone number and called but only
got voice mail. I left a message letting them know of Bill Bloom’s death, in
case anyone was interested, then asked for a return call at a number I could pick
up on my computer. Fiber optic was my friend.

Then, overcoming my scruples about snooping through my
sister’s room, I ran upstairs to locate the files Patra had lifted from Bill’s
apartment.

Patra’s perspective

Patra cruised past Broderick Media’s lobby security with
the free pass of an appointment with executive vice-president David Smedbetter.
She recognized the name from her father’s papers. Broderick liked to hire
ex-military men, and Smedbetter had once been in the army.

His office confirmed her interview, and she was directed to
the third floor.

The reception area she entered from the elevator featured a
world map with out-sized pins indicating headquarters in every English-speaking
country and smaller pins for bureaus with foreign correspondents. An enormous
vase of artificial flowers occupied the coffee table by the area’s one sofa.
The dust on the flowers suggested that they had been there since the office’s
initial opening.

Patra smiled confidently and refused to take a seat as
directed. She was impatient to have this interview over, and an annoyed
receptionist would get rid of her sooner than later. Pacing the lobby, Patra
admired each and every ancient photo, the trophy display, and the dusty flowers
again. A bespectacled male wandered in and nearly tripped while ogling her
legs. Word spread quickly, and the lobby turned into a busy intersection, until
the receptionist nagged someone into removing her. Patra bit back her grin of
triumph.

She ought to be ashamed of her sexist tactics, but she was
entering a world that only saw a woman’s body and feared her intelligence, so
she merely gave them what they wanted. Ana might think she was a spoiled little
college girl, but Ana hadn’t been around when Patra had started touring the
media outlets in every country Magda dragged her through. She knew damned well
what was what.

Following a beauty queen secretary through institutional
corridors, Patra smiled at heads lifting from cubicles and offices along the
way. She counted two women in the cubicle farm, none in the offices.

The secretary left her with a Human Resources drone, who had
her fill out enough forms to complete Wikipedia. Half way through, an executive
assistant arrived to tow her to Smedbetter’s office. Patra sat in another
reception area occupied by still another secretary while she finished filling
out her forms. Just as she was wondering if she ought to invent a few more
addresses for her nomadic teen years, the secretary signaled that the Great Man
would see her.

Smedbetter hadn’t given up his Army background. With military-buzzed
iron gray hair and bull-like shoulders, he looked like he had a steel pipe up
his spine. He studied her with a vague air of suspicion when she entered, but
her skirt must have done its trick. He picked up her application and took his
time examining it.

She tried not to yawn while he inquired, in a boring
monotone, about her education and experience. She began swinging her leg
impatiently by the time he reached her BBC credentials. He glanced over his
reading glasses occasionally, so he wasn’t oblivious to her looks. Finally, she
decided it was time to take the bull by the horns.

“The BBC is a great place,” she acknowledged with a
dismissive wave, “but it’s so my daddy’s kind of place, you know? They’re still
analyzing wars and bombs when everyone knows the real battlefield is
socio-economic. Corner the oil market, and you win. I really want to work with
an organization that understands this.”

Smedbetter scowled and raised his graying eyebrows. “You
have extensive experience in foreign countries.”

“Naturally. My father was a foreign correspondent.” Who
hadn’t taken her with him anywhere, but impressions were everything. “I have
international contacts, but I was hoping for an assignment in the states for a
while, because this is where the action is.”

Smedbetter’s phone rang, and he lifted a finger to indicate
that she wait — as if she had any intention of walking out. Patra fiddled
with the V-neck collar barely concealing her best push-up bra and hid her smile
as her interviewer glazed over and began nodding without speaking. No wonder
these toads feared women if they were so easily led by the balls.

The VP hung up and made a few notes. Patra obligingly put
both feet on the floor and her hands in her lap.

“Your credentials have already been approved by upper
management, Miss Llewellyn, congratulations. You can start Monday at nine in
the entertainment department, if you’ll check in with Human Resources, they’ll
show you around. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

He stood up dismissively. Patra rose and held out her hand
to shake. Had she been interested in a career move, she would have laughed in
his face and told him where to shove his offer. Entertainment, her foot and
eye. They wanted her to hack celebrity phones for gossip for Broderick’s
scandal sheets.

But they were also putting her in a position to hack their
internal files, and that’s what she wanted. This was Friday. Next week, she’d
have them by the short hairs. She accepted Smedbetter’s finger-smashing
handshake and sashayed back to the corridor.

Voices from a meeting room down the hall drew her like an
ant to sugar. Pretending to be absently checking over her employment papers,
she leaned against a wall and listened.

“Look, we’ve got her where we want her. All we have to do is
tap her phone. Leonard is a schmuck. Why haven’t we retired him yet?”

Patra raised her eyebrows. She was pretty certain that
sounded like Broderick, The Man, himself. Whose phone? She listened harder.

“Leonard’s got useful connections,” a different voice
replied. “And he knows where too many bodies are buried. Let’s just see if she
knows anything or if that damned twerp sent Smit’s files to anyone else.”

“Now that he’s had a chance to size her up, I’ll set
Smedbetter to locating Smit’s files. Billy Boy, have we got anything on the
girl’s family? C an we have her discredited if she still has copies?”

Billy Boy — Broderick’s son and next in line to the
media estate. And if they were talking about
her
family
,
they could
find enough to discredit a few presidents, kings, and prime ministers. Might
make for good reading.

Someone closed the meeting room door. Damn. It sure had
sounded like they were talking about her. That pretty much verified this
interview had been the set-up she’d suspected.

Who was Smit?

* * *

Sitting in my basement office, flipping through the file
folders Sean had lifted from Bloom’s apartment, I decided they were mostly old
client files. I set aside a few on politicians talking to local crime bosses
like Salvador DeLuca. That could make interesting reading. I returned the rest
to their sack.

The disks Patra had smuggled out in her purse weren’t helpful
since I didn’t know speech analysis. They were all carefully labeled audios of
people I didn’t know. We needed a new analyst, but I was reluctant to add
another corpse to the count if we were the reason Bill had died. Maybe I’d look
for labs in Seattle.

I was glad we’d made copies of Patra’s recordings because
Bill’s copies weren’t here.

Which led to the interesting question — if we assumed
Bill’s death was related to Patra, had he been killed to prevent telling Patra
what he’d discovered? So now did the Bad Guys think we’d been rendered harmless?

Anyone who knew our family knew better than that.

I checked the time. I had a few more minutes before I needed
to tune in to my on-line English lit class. Now that I had a home and a little
money, I’d resolved to take the classes I’d always wanted. My watch confirmed I
had ten minutes to spare.

I called the Intrepid News website again. This time, I got a
harried female.

I adopted the alter ego I used on my fake business cards.
“Hello, I’m Linda Lane, a friend of Bill Bloom’s. I’m trying to finish up some
of his cases after his tragic death yesterday.” I paused, hoping for a lead to
follow from the person on the other end.

“Bill?” the voice asked in shock, apparently not having heard
the voice mail I’d left earlier. “Bill’s dead?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break the news to you. To whom
am I speaking?”

“Sorry, this is Carla. Bill and I go way back. We worked
together on some projects in college and keep in touch. How did he die?”

“A hit and run accident on Dupont last night. The cops
suspect a drunken driver.”

A telling silence followed. I waited.

“You worked with Bill?” she finally asked, sounding wary.

“Yes, and he was on a fascinating new case, which is what
makes this more tragic. He could have put his name in headlines.” I dragged out
the bluff, hoping she’d take the hook.

“He said something about working on a death threat,” she
said even more carefully. “I sent him some audio clips. I keep a file of
asinine things politicians say.”

“That’s what I needed to ask you,” I said sympathetically,
hiding my eagerness. “Bill filed those clips under their names, but I have no
idea which names in all this mess are the ones you sent. Do you have a list?”
That was such a blatant stupidity I feared she wouldn’t fall for it, but it was
the best I could invent on the spur of the moment.

“I just sent copies…” Her voice trailed off as she
apparently hunted through her computer. “Here’s the email. Don’t you have a
copy of it?”

Stupidity number one and she’d caught it already. “I don’t
have his email password, just his networked files.” Damn, but I was getting
creative.

“Oh, of course. I can’t believe he’s gone, a human life,
poof, just like that. You don’t think . . . that his death had
anything to do with these files?”

“Who would know he had them besides you?” I asked blithely.
“And yes, it’s quite frightening to recognize our mortality. Makes me want to
live every minute as if it’s my last.” I’d lived like that most of my life, but
my version meant avoiding the dangers of living. “You could just forward the
email to me, if that’s easier,” I suggested.

“Okay, I guess,” she said dubiously. “Are you finishing up
all his cases?”

I gave her my Linda email address. “I hate for his clients
to think he left his office in this state. I’m just doing what I can. I don’t
know what else to do. It’s not as if he cares about the help from where he is.”

“Do you know his mother? I’m sure she appreciates what
you’re doing,” Carla said. “I guess I better send a sympathy card.”

“We were just computer colleagues. I never had the pleasure.
But that’s a thought. I’ll send a card, too. Anyone else I should send a card
to?” I was just fishing for information. I could see her email with the
attachments in my box already.