2 The Dante Connection (13 page)

Refreshed after my shower and dressed for work, I walked into the wonderful smell of Vinnie’s breakfast. It triggered the memories of when he had stayed with me and the emotional warmth I experienced confirmed yet again that I was glad to have him back. Back in my apartment and in my privacy. They were all seated at the table and obviously waiting for me. Vinnie and Francine seated on one side and Colin across from them in his usual seat.

“Good timing, Jen-girl. I have your toast the way you like it.” He pointed at the chair that had become mine over the long-gone weeks of sharing meals with them. I sat down next to Colin and folded my hands on my lap. This was not as easy as I would’ve liked it to be. I pulled my shoulders back and looked at them.

“I’m sorry about my outburst earlier. I know that you respect me. You’ve only ever shown me kindness. I’m just not always good with knowing how to return it. I’m usually much more rational in my behaviour.” I struggled to keep my head up, facing them. “At the moment I’m… just… I don’t know how to deal with all these emotions I’m experiencing. I truly like it when you are here.”

Colin put his hand gently on my clenched hands. I looked at him. His eyes and mouth showed all the nonverbal cues exhibited when talking to a loved one. I felt confused. Again. His hand squeezed mine. “We know, Jenny. You are an extraordinary person and we sometimes forget that.”

“I don’t,” Vinnie said. He groaned when Colin gave him a dirty look. “Okay, sometimes I forget. I’m sorry that I walked in without knocking. I should’ve known you wouldn’t like it.”

I looked down at Colin’s hand on mine. He was rubbing slow circles on the back of my left hand with his thumb. It was oddly calming. I took a deep breath before I looked up at Vinnie. “I mind and I don’t. When you stayed here six months ago, it was normal for you to come and go as if this was your home. I just got used to living alone again. And I don’t know how I feel about all of you having a key to my apartment.”

“That was not the right thing for us to do,” Colin said. “I was the one who insisted on it when we came here. I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“I know. This is the reason you’ve given for all your unacceptable behaviour. Making me feel weak and unable to protect myself is not helping me accept this new situation any better.” I looked around the table. “I’m talking about all of you. In your different ways you act as if I’m not able to look after myself. Yet I’ve been doing exactly that since I was sixteen. From the age of eighteen I was completely responsible for myself. All my studies were paid for with scholarships. I did not accept money from my parents. I earned extra money by doing research and sometimes that even earned me extra credit. I’ve travelled to every continent on this planet and I did that alone. I’m not helpless.”

What I didn’t tell them was the constant panic that had accompanied me with every single decision I had made. Sometimes I had spent weeks not sleeping, mentally writing Mozart before I travelled to a country for a measly five-day visit.

“I have always been determined to not allow being non-neurotypical to be a prison from which I could never leave. With your actions you are putting me in that prison. There. I’ve said everything I wanted to.”

It was quiet around the table. Nobody was eating, they weren’t even moving. The food and coffee was getting cold.

“I’m sorry, Jenny.” Colin’s hand tightened around mine. I nodded stiffly. “Tell us what we can do to make this better.”

Vinnie nodded emphatically. “Yes, Jen-girl. I don’t want to make you unhappy. How do we fix this?”

“I don’t know.” My tone was defensive. Never before was I asked to explain to people how they should behave towards me. “Just… just don’t treat me as less than I am.”

“Oh, honey,” Francine laughed. “That is impossible. You are far too much for any of us to comprehend. How about we treat you like one of us?”

I didn’t think that was a good idea. They were often involved in criminal activities, which most definitely didn’t make me like one of them. I thought about it some more. Francine might be implying that they treated me with the same familiarity they were showing each other. Familiarity they had been showing me, but I had perceived it as intrusive and disrespectful. Everyone was waiting for my response. “Maybe we should try this only on a trial basis. I don’t know if I would understand you as well if you spoke to me the way you speak to each other.”

“Don’t you worry none about that, Jen-girl. I’ll still use my boring vocab with you.” Vinnie’s shoulders lost their tension and he picked up his utensils to start eating. I must have said the right thing, because everyone seemed more relaxed. Colin gave my fists one last squeeze before he took his hand away. I was relieved. Physical affection was unknown territory for me. Even though his touch had been light, I had felt increasingly uncomfortable. The reason for that discomfort was not entirely clear.

For a few minutes I ate and listened to their light conversation. They were posing the most improbable theories imaginable about the hacker, his boss, government conspiracies and Francine even talked about aliens. My eyebrows shot up when I realised she wasn’t talking about illegal immigrants.

“Phillip asked if you could secure the system at Rousseau & Rousseau. He’s concerned about the safety of our clients.” My sudden interruption to their speculation about life on other planets brought interesting expressions to Francine’s face. “Why are you feeling guilty? What have you done?”

“Um, I… uh…” She threw her hands in the air. “That happened before we had this talk, okay? I’ve already secured the system.”

“You did that remotely?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ve also sent everyone requests to update their passwords and will give you the override password. Or should I give it to Phillip?”

“Phillip. But why did you do this? Did Phillip ask you?”

“No.” She looked as if she was in pain and I was sure it wasn’t physical. “I did this to protect you. Genevieve, I’m sorry. You’re my friend and you are so… so superwoman. You always know what people are thinking and you are a very controlled and contained individual. You are everything Sister Agnes wanted me to be. I just wanted to do something for you, something that I’m really good at.”

“Oh.” I sat back in my chair, my mind racing. The new conclusions I came to worried me. “Does that mean that I’m being selfish by asking you to only tend to my needs by not protecting me? Is this something that you want to do? Is this what friends do?”

On my last question I turned to Colin. His genuine smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Yes, Jenny. Friends look out for each other.”

“Oh. Okay.” I thought about this some more. “I find this confusing. How do you keep a balance between being supportive of your friends and becoming an intrusive entity in their lives? Do you know how to do this?”

“We try,” Colin said. “This is what life is about. We try and if we make mistakes, we apologise and try again. There is no either-or. Finding the balance you are talking about is fluid. It changes all the time and that is why we should keep an open mind and forgive our friends when they make mistakes. Most of the time the intentions are good, but the action may be not so good.”

Any type of relationship was a mystery to me. It would appear that I had a lot to learn. I would have to research this and purchase more books.

I looked at Francine. “Who’s Sister Agnes?”

Francine froze. She had clearly spoken without thinking. After a few moments she smiled, her attempt resulting in a textbook social smile. An insincere, non-genuine smile.

“Sister Agnes is the woman who guided me to the life I live now.” With that, she stood up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a hacker to track down.”

Chapter TWELVE

I stared at the monitors in front of me. I had been staring at these monitors for the last thirty-four minutes. To no avail. Logically I knew that looking at all ten screens filled with information was not going to give me any additional data. I leaned back in my chair and allowed my mind to wander.

Yesterday had been just as unproductive as the two hours I had been working in my viewing room this morning. And it hadn’t been only me. Francine was growing more frustrated with the hacker by the minute. Breakfast had ended abruptly after Francine’s exit. Neither of the men had known anything about this Sister Agnes. I had thought it prudent to not pursue this. If Francine wanted to talk about her past, she could tell Vinnie. He was good at listening.

The door to my viewing room whooshed open. Phillip walked in, pulled a chair closer and sat down. “Good morning, Genevieve.”

“Good morning, Phillip.” I swivelled my chair to face him.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, how are you?”

“Fine.” He wasn’t fine. There was too much tension in his voice. That same tension was visible all over his body and face.

“Why are we being so overly polite? Are you angry with me? Did I do or say something wrong again?”

“I just had a long conversation with Manny.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Genevieve, why don’t you answer your phone?”

“What phone? Oh, my smartphone. I didn’t hear it ring.”

“Where is it?”

“In my handbag, in its usual place.” I got up to retrieve my handbag from the antique-looking filing cabinets and took my smartphone from an inside pocket. After replacing my bag and closing the drawer, I walked back to my chair and lifted the device in front of me. “See, here it is.”

Phillip looked from me to the filing cabinet and back. He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “How many missed calls do you have?”

I sat down, checked and frowned. “Seventeen.”

“Could you please explain to me why you don’t have your phone close enough to hear it ring?”

“Why would I? You are the only person who might want to speak to me during the day and you are right here. I have no reason to have the phone next to me if I know no one is going to phone me. There is no one who wants to.”

Phillip stared at me for a long time. Long enough for me to reconsider my answer. I closed my eyes for a second.

“Colin, Vinnie, Francine.”

“And Manny,” Phillip added. “He was furious that you were not picking up your phone. Promise me that you will keep your phone close at all times.”

“That is a ludicrous request. I will not sleep with it next to me or shower with it in the bathroom.” I slowed down when I saw Phillip’s expression. The corners of his mouth were pulling down. I lowered my tone. “That is not what you meant.”

“No, that is not what I meant. Let me be more specific. Would you please, for the love of all the saints and my sanity, keep your phone with you while you are working?”

“That is most of the day.” I pushed back into my chair when Phillip stared at me. He was displeased. “Okay. I will promise to try my best to remember to have my phone nearby.”

“Okay, now let’s get down to business.” He took out his smartphone and tapped on the screen.

“Yes?” Manny’s tinny voice answered.

“I have Genevieve here with me on speakerphone.”

“At bloody last. Missy, are you going to have your phone with you from now on?”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“Good enough,” Manny said. “Now let me tell you what I happened in the last eight hours. Today has been quite a scoop for us. We caught us a thief.”

“Am I to assume that this thief is connected to the other burglary cases?” I received a grunt as an affirmative reply. “How did you catch him? Is it a him?”

“Yes, it is a man. A young man. We caught him because someone gave a tip.”

My mind immediately went to Francine. “Was the tipster male or female?”

“We don’t know.” Suspicion tightened Manny’s tone. “I was thinking that it might be your little friend who emailed me from my own email address.”

“If you are hinting at Francine in such an unsophisticated manner, I think you are right. She mentioned yesterday morning that she had knowledge of where the next burglary was to take place.”

It was silent on the other side of the line for a few seconds. “And could you please tell me why you did not inform me about this?”

“I asked her to inform you and she agreed. She obviously informed you, so you have no reason to take that tone with me.”

“Genevieve.” Phillip gave me a warning look before leaning towards the phone. “Tell us about the burglar, Manny.”

“I emailed you the video footage of his interrogation.” He grunted. “His interview. That is what the PC people call it nowadays. Anyway, he is not a very bright young man. We had him in the interview room for less than ten minutes before he spilled all the beans.”

I remembered the metaphor from primary school. It had never made any sense to me. “Did he tell you who the hacker is?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Well, then he didn’t spill all the beans, now did he?”

Phillip frowned at me again, but Manny’s chuckle placated him.

“I’m pulling into your street now, so I’ll be with you in a few minutes. Set up that video, Doc. I think you’ll find a few interesting things there to see.” Without another word, he disconnected the call.

Phillip placed his phone on my desk, but immediately picked it up again and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. After six and a half years of working with me, he knew that I could not tolerate clutter on my desk. His smartphone would qualify as clutter. My smartphone was still lying on my lap and I didn’t know what to do with it. If I were to have it within reach at all times, I was going to have to find a logical place for it. I exhaled in annoyance and then put it on the stand of the computer monitor in front of me.

Tuning back in to work, I turned to face the bank of monitors against the wall and opened my inbox. I had three new emails. Two were from Manny. I only opened the one with the attachments. Deduction told me that the other email with ‘Answer your bloody phone’ in the subject line was not going to be of any use. The files were large and were going to take a few minutes to download.

“Francine has been busy,” Phillip said.

“Are you satisfied with her work?” She had spent a few hours yesterday afternoon in Rousseau & Rousseau explaining the new computer security to Phillip.

“She’s a competent young woman,” he answered. Despite my misgivings he had actually been relieved that Francine had taken the initiative to secure the company’s entire system.

The quiet whoosh of my viewing room door drew both Phillip’s and my attention. Angelique stood outside the room. “Mister Millard is here, sir.”

“Show him in, Angelique.”

She lifted her hand in a polite gesture to invite Manny in. I wasn’t fooled by her apparent respectful behaviour. Angelique was uncomfortable around me and did not like Manny. He walked past her with his
buccinator
muscles pulling his mouth into a smirk. He also knew her opinion of him. The door closed quietly behind him.

“Doc. Phillip.” Manny nodded at us as he pulled a chair closer. When I lifted an eyebrow at him, he grunted and moved the chair a bit away from me. “Is this fifty centimetres?”

“I would estimate that at about sixty centimetres.” I tilted my head. “No, sixty-five. Yes, definitely sixty-five centimetres.”

“Just play that bloody video, missy.” He sat down heavily in the chair. “You can skip the first ten minutes. He only starts talking after that.”

“But there might be much to learn from him in that first ten minutes,” I said. “It would give me a baseline and a much more accurate read on him.”

Phillip stopped whatever Manny was going to say with a chopping hand motion. “Let her do what she does best, Manny.”

I ignored the sighs and grunts, and turned to the monitors in front of me. The videos had finished downloading. There were three videos from three cameras of the interview. This was even better than I had hoped for. With so many angles to watch nonverbal cues from, I would get a much better read.

I chose the video titled, ‘suspect face’. Filling the screens was a room about half the size of my viewing room. Unlike my workspace, this room had bare walls, painted a cream colour. The floor was covered in what looked like blue industrial carpeting. A generic steel table stood in the centre of the room with two chairs on each side of the table.

A young man in his early twenties sat on the one side, two men dressed in suits on the other. It was easy to see who was the suspect and who were the law enforcement agents. The young man was hiding his hands under the table on his lap, slouching in his chair, trying to look nonchalant. The camera was behind the two men, aimed at the suspect’s face. I had chosen the right video to watch first. I leaned a bit closer to observe.

“Where’s the sound?” Manny’s question broke into my concentration.

I waved him away. “If he’s not saying anything important right now, I will do better just observing him.”

The young man shifted in his chair, aiming his whole body at the door. He wanted to leave. I couldn’t see his hands, which was a pity. We revealed a significant amount with our hands and feet. Body language had to be interpreted as a whole. Taken into context with the hands, arms, legs and feet, a frown could often mean something completely different than if it were read in isolation.

The suited men interrogating him were becoming increasingly aggressive. They were leaning forward, their chests puffed and their elbows away from their bodies. The thief had the opposite body language. His elbows were tucked in close to his sides, the insides of his arms visible. Submissive behaviour. His shoulders were hunched, ready to protect his vulnerable spots from attack. I paused the video.

“Is this his first offence?” I asked, turning to Manny.

“Yes. The kid is a total amateur. And a student.”

I was pleased that Manny had confirmed my suspicion about the young man.

“Who are the men in suits?” Phillip asked.

“Police detectives. This is their case, their jurisdiction and their interview. We are just here as assistance.”

My eyebrows lifted. “And there are no territorial arguments or ambitious egos impeding the investigation?”

“Some of us have evolved from the Ice Age, missy. These two detectives were pleased to have the strength of Interpol aiding them in their investigation.”

“Oh. That’s good then.” I had said something to upset Manny. Again. The video was much more appealing than trying to work on my social skills, so I turned back to the monitors and clicked on the play button. This time I turned up the sound.

“… you don’t tell us everything, your grandmother is going to be alone in her flat. Who is going to make sure she takes her medicine then?”

The young man’s shoulders raised to his ears as if in an attempt to hide his head. A sign of weakness and insecurity. He was scared. Still he didn’t speak. The two detectives looked at each other in silent communication. That was something that fascinated me. Couples, friends and work partners who had spent years together had the ability to read paragraphs of silent communication by interpreting a single facial expression. They didn’t have doctorate degrees in reading body language, only an understanding of the other person. An understanding that stemmed from experience, trust and openness so complete that they were able to predict the other’s words and actions.

The detective on the left leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. He appeared relaxed, but his eyes were trained on the young man. “If you tell us everything, and I mean everything, right now, we might be able to make this go away.”

The young man’s head lifted and his eyes widened briefly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that if we get the right judge, he can enter a plea bargain with you that might mean no prison time. You might have to do some community service, but this way you can continue your studies and still look after your grandmother.”

“Can I have that on paper before I tell you everything?” The student might have been a first-time offender, but he was not dumb. A lot of the tension in his body had left. “Signed and sealed is always better, my
grandmère
taught me. Especially since I don’t know if I can trust you guys.”

The other detective pointed at the three cameras. “This interview is being recorded as we told you in the beginning. Everything we say here, any promise we make here you can lay claim to.”

“Unless someone steals the videos or destroys it.” The young man shook his head. “No, I want it on paper. I’ve watched enough movies about this sort of thing.”

The second detective dropped his head back in frustration, but the other one knocked with both fists lightly on the table. “Let’s see what we can do for you.”

There was a few seconds of quiet when the detectives left and the video was switched off. When it resumed, there were sheets of paper in the centre of the table.