Retiree 2.0 Read online

  Brett picked up the envelope and waited for Alana to lead the way. She did, without saying a word. After Bennett’s door had slid all the way shut and they were on their way down the corridor toward their office, Brett asked, “Please tell me what you’re really thinking.”

  Alana said only, “Not here.”

  A couple minutes later, Alana was shoving the door into its frame. She engaged the lock the instant it made contact.

  Brett sat down behind his desk, expecting an immediate tirade, but it did not materialize. Alana sat down behind her desk, crossed her arms, and leaned forward, resting them on her desktop. She stared directly at Brett, stone-faced.

  Brett said, “Whatever it is, say it.”

  Alana said, “You’re an inspector now. You tell me what I’m thinking.”

  Brett took a deep breath, “I had nothing to do with—”

  Alana was curt, “Just tell me what I’m thinking.”

  “Based on what I know of your past, you’ll be thinking that I just got promoted past Detective Rhys because he’s a cyborg now, and you’re mad about it. Am I in the ball park?”

  Alana said, “You just used a baseball analogy. Does that mean you know anything about the game?”

  “Now you’re changing the sub—”

  Alana said, “It’s relevant to the case.”

  Brett decided to meet Alana’s gaze head-on. He mimicked her pose, “It’s not because you’re mad at me, or at Chief Bennett. You’re simply mad and you don’t want to say anything because you agree with the Chief’s rationale.”

  “The only thing I need to say is, ‘congratulations.’ Having said it twice already, I now want to know how much you know about baseball.”

  Brett tried forcing himself to relax by breathing deeply and exhaling slowly, but he discovered that the goal and the means of arriving at it were mutually exclusive. He said, “I don’t want you to be angry over this, ma’am.”

  Alana said, “You haven’t opened your envelope yet, Inspector Crabtree.”

  Brett suddenly leapt from his chair and strode to his locker, “All right, boss, cut the crap.” He flung open his locker door and grabbed a vintage, hardcover copy of To Kill a Mockingbird off the top shelf. He walked over to Alana’s desk and slammed the book down. “I finally read this book just this week. That story was unfair! Is it fair that I’ve been offered an early promotion? No! But there’s a question you need to ask me now! And you’re the goddamned Chief Inspector, a fact of which you remind everyone at every opportunity, so you should know what it is. Now ask it!”

  Alana nodded, “All right. What do you want for lunch?”

  Brett slapped his forehead and put the full weight of his facial muscles into clamping his eyes shut, “When I die of natural causes in about a minute, I want it treated as if it were a murder.”

  Alana said, “That was the question I wanted to ask you. The question you wanted me to ask was this. ‘Are you going to accept the promotion?’ I know that because of your expressions ever since the Chief mentioned it, coupled with the fact that you’re still refusing to open the envelope he gave you. Either you don’t want the promotion, or, minimally, you’re unsure about it. Now, the real question is, ‘Why not?’”

  Brett took several deep breaths and somehow managed to turn in circles twice while keeping his eyes shut. Finally, he peeked, regaining his orientation. He walked back to his desk and flopped down in his chair, “Tell me I’m right about your being mad.”

  Alana nodded, “All right. I am mad. I’m mad as hell that Rhys was passed over, and for exactly the reasons you said. But that doesn’t take away the fact that you really did deserve the promotion. You came here from the intelligence services, which means you have more experience in security work than Rhys does when you factor that job in, and you have the spook training that no other detective in the department has. You and he are, from what I’ve seen, almost equally qualified in terms of talent.”

  Brett said, “Almost?”

  “Almost. Now, tell me why you don’t want the promotion, because I can’t read that.”

  Brett stared up at the corner of the room and took several deep breaths before he finally said, “It’s a pay rise and an increase in responsibility, but it’s not a promotion.”

  Alana said, “Go on.”

  Brett struggled to keep his voice calm in the wake of his sudden surge of adrenalin, “While I’m working for the only chief inspector in the department, I get to work on the cases that other detectives and inspectors don’t. The interesting ones. The ones that don’t involve random shootings, hit-and-run vehicle collisions, or robotic security system malfunctions. I’ve studied your case history from before I was assigned to you. It’s mostly high-profile shit. Serial murders and complicated cyber-crimes. Since I’ve been your assistant, it’s been a huge terrorism plot, a raid on some kind of cyber-smuggling ring, and the baseball case is already a media sensation—that’s before it comes out that it’s a murder investigation. It’s the kind of stuff that the Security Division recruiters told me I’d be working on.”

  Alana said, as if she was reading Brett as quickly as he had apparently read Harper Lee’s only novel, “That’s not everything. What else?”

  Brett looked at Alana when he said, “I’ve also been thinking about resigning.”

  Alana asked, deadpan, “Is it my breath?”

  “No. That’s improved now that you’re washing your mouth out after meals.”

  Alana pressed, “Then why?”

  Brett looked away again, this time at a different corner of the room, “Personal reasons.”

  “Wendy?”

  Brett didn’t answer. He just kept staring at the corner.

  Alana said, “All right. Here is what we’ll do about it. You don’t have to accept the promotion, and the inevitable transfer, but you’ll still be the lead investigator, under my tutelage. We swap roles. You boss me around for a little while. If you like it, take the promotion. If you don’t, then tell the chief. Will that work for you?”

  Brett sighed, “I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’m not getting enough sleep lately.”

  Alana nodded, “Too many hours playing games?”

  Brett locked his gaze back onto Alana, “How—”

  “Everything you do in this world that involves data moving from one place to another can be, and usually is, monitored by someone or something. Plus, I talked to Wendy, and she explained it all to me, albeit in terms I barely understood. Keep the online immersion to less than twenty hours a week and no one will ever notice it again. Now, what do you want for your celebratory lunch? I’m buying, but you have to tell me everything you know about baseball.”

  Sunday, 9 July, 12:05

  As it turned out, Brett knew more than Alana did about baseball, but far less than Rhys did. He understood the game, but he was only a casual observer of the sport. In the time it took them to walk to the Kangaroo Jack’s meat pie chain restaurant down the street, partake of some passable dinner pastries, and finally make their way back to the office, Alana had caught Brett up on the details she knew. She mentioned the unusually forward nature of her interview with Jenkins, who was still her prime suspect if only by virtue of being the only known person with opportunity. Brett agreed with her that the case was odd, and should bear thorough scrutiny, but he was less than completely convinced that it was a murder.

  Brett opened his envelope and perused the printed instructions, the still omnipresent bureaucratic bane that clung onto civilization like a famished lamprey more than a century into the digital data age. They explained in detail which electronic forms he would need to complete, where to sign them, and where to submit them. He stopped there, short of submitting the required information. He slipped the temporary Inspector’s rank badge and ID transponder he found inside the packet into his pants pocket, just in case he needed it.

  Alana and Brett walked down to the cyberforensics lab at about three-thirty in the afternoon to find the door propped open, contrary
to proper security procedures. A crowd was gathered around one of the tables near the center of the room, and the conversation was boisterous, occasionally punctuated by laughter. Wen Jing’s high-pitched voice was clearly emanating from somewhere within the mass of technicians and police officers, but her petite frame was hidden from view.

  Brett broke away from Alana’s side and worked his way into the social scrum, while Alana looked for the bronze-skinned Srinivas. The Indian-American head of the cyberforensics department’s haircut stood out. Alana had always assumed that his wife placed a bowl over his head and buzzed around it to save money, as Srinu was an infamous cheapskate. As the crowd quickly broke off into twos and threes for shoptalk or social chatter, with Chief Bennett, Brett, and Wen Jing forming a hub around which the other groups hovered, Srinivas and Alana went into a quieter corner where they had access to a computer workstation.

  Srinu began, in his distinctive Mumbai regional accent, “One day, I’ll go to a party that you don’t transmogrify into overtime.”

  Alana asked, “Did Wendy tell you about our conundrum?”

  Srinivas said, “You are referring to the timing of this man—Veedock’s—file purge?”

  “Yes. That was it. Is there any way you can tell whether it was done after he was hard-killed or before it?”

  Srinivas nodded confidently, “Child’s play, I think they call it over here?”

  Alana said, “Then you should be able to tell me.”

  Srinu wagged his finger, grinning, “I said it was easy. I did not say that it would be quick.”

  “When?”

  Srinivas said, “This is Sunday afternoon, is it not? How about first thing Monday morning?”

  Alana first pursed her lips, and then asked, “Is there any way to expedite it?”

  “Will you approve the overtime?”

  Alana tilted her head backward and cried, “Chief Bennnnnett!”

  A few seconds later, the Chief wandered over and said, “Yeeeeesss?”

  Alana said, “I need Srinu to do some overtime on the Veedock case, and he wants to get paid for it.”

  Chief Bennett tilted his head backward and cried, “Inspector Craaaaabtreeeee!”

  A few seconds later, Brett wandered over and said, “Yeeeeeesss?”

  Bennett asked him, “Do you want Srinu to do some overtime on the Veedock case for you?”

  Brett shrugged, “Sure. Why not?”

  Bennett asked Srinivas, “Can you do it in less than eight hours?”

  Srinivas nodded, “Yes.”

  Bennett said, “Approved,” and walked off, heading back to the table just in time for the technicians to heft a cooler on top. He held out his hand and someone placed a freshly opened beer bottle in it as he walked by.

  Brett said, “I forgot to mention it. I’m in charge of the Veedock case now. Inspector Graves is working with me on it. Assume that anything she asks for was approved by me.”

  As Brett walked away to rejoin Wen Jing, Alana reminded him, “Chief Inspector.”

  Brett smiled for the first time in the already long day.

  Alana asked Srinivas, “So, then, by about midnight tonight?”

  Srinivas nodded, “I’ll start the job presently, and I’ll have Wendy give you the results by the end of her shift.”

  Alana walked away, once again forgetting to thank Srinivas for his efforts. There was something about the man that just made Alana uncivil. That was not to say that she was abusive, but rather that she became impolite in his presence. Srinivas once told her that his native tongue, Marathi, was not a ‘polite’ language, and went on to mention that if she lived in a city with a population density of over twenty-five thousand per square kilometer, she’d understand why.

  In total opposition to her behavior around Srinivas, Alana stopped to congratulate Wen Jing on her promotion, and thanked her for the work that earned it for her. She then pulled Brett to the side and suggested that they visit the regular forensics department before the day shift leaves to follow up on the results of Comerford’s analysis of Veedock’s body.

  Brett hugged Wen Jing, making it obvious to anyone who did not already know that the pair had become involved. He said that he’d drop by later to bring her dinner, but she declined the offer, saying that she had already brought some leftovers that she both wanted and needed to eat. But she also told him that she would welcome the visit, noting that he could ask her about the technical details of her work, and perhaps learn more about her department’s capabilities. Ultimately, Alana had to take Brett by the hand and coax him out the door.

  Once outside, and walking toward the elevator to the basement, where both the morgue and the forensics lab were located, Brett said, “Okay, I get it. No need to be rude.”

  Alana began lecturing, “These things can be time-sensitive. If Veedock was murdered, the trail might get cold fast. With a cyborg, there won’t be a rush to dispose of the body like there would be with a living corpse—”

  “That’s an oxymoron.”

  Alana said, “You’re right. Well observed. And that’s a great segue to my next point. Language can also provide clues. For example, in this case, the first thing I noticed about Veedock’s alleged suicide note was that the author used the word ‘cannot,’ which is formal usage. That made me look into the victim’s history, and guess what I found?”

  Brett shook his head, “I cannot possibly guess.”

  “I had my Vira search all of his known writings and media appearances, and he never—not once in his entire life—going all the way back to his high school exit exam essay—never did he ever use ‘cannot’ in a sentence. Until he wrote his suicide note.”

  Brett cautioned, “It’s not proof that he didn’t write it. Or dictate it. Could it have been text to speech? But then, why not just record a video suicide note?”

  Alana said, “If he was already hard-killed, then he would not have been able to.”

  The pair reached the elevator, and Brett pushed the down button. As they waited for the lift to arrive, Brett said, “That makes zero sense. It can’t be right. He bought a notepad just before the game, carried it with him into the clubhouse, accidentally killed Phil Robertson, went back into the clubhouse, killed himself, and then typed out a suicide note?”

  Alana said, “Jenkins, the reporter, could have typed it.”

  Brett said, “Not without leaving evidence of it on the screen.”

  A bell rang and the elevator door opened. The two inspectors stepped inside and simultaneously pushed both of the [B] buttons on the side panels flanking the doorway. As the elevator accelerated downward, Alana asked, “Hear that?”

  Brett said, “What?”

  “Cables. Gears. Hardware. It’s a very old elevator. Details. Always details. Could Jenkins have been wearing gloves?”

  Brett continued, “That’s a great detail! The screen on an electronic notepad is piezoelectric. It responds to the electrical impulses in living fingertips when they are pressed against the sensor’s surface.”

  “Then how can I use touchscreens?”

  Brett took great, if momentary, pride in having the opportunity to school her mentor, “I’m guessing that there is some kind of transmitter built into your fingers that simulate the electrical activity. I mean, there would have to be, or else cyborgs and robots would have a tough time using any tactile interface.”

  As the elevator car stopped, and the doors slid open, Alana nodded, “So, if Jenkins messed with the screen, there would be some kind of biological trace, even if it’s just a finger smudge or partial print?”

  Brett stepped out first and turned left, heading toward the lab, “He might have had a special glove that would let him manipulate the touchscreen, but he would have to have known that Veedock had the notepad in the first place to plan for it. It’s just an impossible scenario. Unless there are obvious traces of his having messed with it, then he’s clear. And in his testimony to you, he said he did not touch the notepad.”

  Following cl
osely behind Brett, Alana mused, “He could have cleaned the screen, couldn’t he?”

  Brett said, “There would be a trace of some kind, even if it was just a smudge pattern.”

  Alana asked, “Have you dealt with evidence like this before?”

  Brett nodded, “Yes, at Security Division. We got hold of a terrorist’s notepad, and we went over it with everything from electron microscans to some kind of double-secret quantum bullshit analysis that I still don’t understand. The labs here can do microscans, I’m sure. I don’t think Captain Science from the 25th Century could do the quantum bullshit, though. That was just weird. But the point is that if Jenkins touched the pad, and the evidence doesn’t get damaged somehow, we can find out about it.”

  Alana pushed the button beneath the sign that read, “Authorized Personnel Only. Ring Bell.” The door slid open, admitting Alana and Brett to the ‘normal’ forensics laboratory. The room smelled of antiseptic spray, no doubt to suppress airborne pathogens, mold, and decayed body odors alike. Superficially, the main lab was similar to the cyberforensics lab, except for the adjacency to the morgue and the separate clean-room facility. There was an assortment of electronic equipment stacked on tables and shelves that packed the walls to capacity.

  Alana was surprised to see Ben Rhys standing in the middle of the room, holding a baseball bat. He was talking to Brian Comerford, who was still buttoning up his lab coat. Rhys nodded toward Alana and Brett, letting them know he had seen them, but he kept talking to Comerford. He was shifting the baseball bat around in his hands, as if demonstrating different ways to hold it.

  After closing the distance between them, Alana said, “So, is that a baseball bat in your hands, or are you just glad to see me?”

  Rhys said, “Yes. And you’re just in time.”

  Alana asked, “For?”

  “For me to help solve your case. Brian here asked me to help him out, since he knew I'm something of a baseball fanatic.”

  Comerford said, “I was trying to figure out how Veedock could have killed himself. It turns out that it was a complicated matter.”