Salem's Cipher (2 page)

Monday
October 31

1

Uptown, Minneapolis

“
Y
ou've been coming home late. I worry.”

He stared at her.

Salem planted her hands on her hips. “Strong and beautiful,” her mom called her curves, exhorting her to be proud of her half-Persian heritage. The hips and strong thighs came with a head of unruly dark curls and khaki-green eyes that tipped slightly at the outer edges. From her dad, an Iowa transplant, she'd inherited skin that burned easily, an Irish nose more potato than patrician, and a small chest that did not counterbalance her booty. Her best friend, Bel, referred to her as “farm girl on top, phat magic below.”

Her mismatched parts had never bothered
him
, though. He'd always been loyal, neither needy nor distant. A perfect balance. That was, until the past two weeks, when his nights out had inexplicably grown late and then later.

“You're tomcatting around, aren't you?”

He held his tongue, watching her coolly.

She sighed, the puff of air pushing a curl out of her eyes. “I deserve better, you know? Have you even seen this?”

She pointed toward the copy of
Minneapolis Magazine
. The cover headline was “Top Twenty-Somethings to Watch” over a photo of Carl Ivy, a twenty-six-year-old Edina native who'd developed a social media grinder app that simultaneously placed the same photo on a dozen different sites, generating a unique, web-vetted, guaranteed-hilarious caption for each of the twelve posts. He'd named the app Looking Glass. Mark Zuckerberg had offered him $3 million for it.

“I'm on page twenty-seven, not that you'd care.”

Actually, Salem didn't care either, unless embarrassment counted. She'd grown up watching her mom, Vida Wiley, deal with the surprising amount of media attention that came with being one of the country's most controversial history professors, and one of the few specializing in women's history. Whenever a politician stuck his foot in his mouth commenting on rape or reproduction, or Roe v. Wade came under attack, or some new international atrocity was committed, Professor Wiley was called on to comment. Behind closed doors, she joked that the media saw her as the “Woman Whisperer.” Salem thought it was more likely that they knew her mom could be counted on to contribute jet fuel to any fire.

Professor Wiley's comments always made news, typically to the chagrin of the Hill College regents who signed her paycheck. The most recent brouhaha had developed when a
New York Post
reporter called Dr. Wiley's office to ask her opinion on the source of the recent, virulent, and personal media attacks on Democratic Senator Gina Hayes, the first viable female presidential candidate in the history of the United States.

Dr. Wiley had offered to send the reporter a mirror and a greased shoehorn to help her remove her head from her own ass.

Professor Wiley's opinions unsurprisingly generated death threats. Buckets of 'em. For a well-armed segment of the population, there was nothing more unnatural, more threatening, more demanding of elimination than a woman with an opinion and an audience.

Salem had learned that young.

Subsequently, she went out of her way to dodge the public eye. Bel teased her that she even avoided having opinions for fear of turning into her mother.

Bel hadn't been far off.

Salem's chosen field—a double degree in computer science and mathematics with an emphasis in cryptanalysis as an undergrad, and a fresh master of science in Computational Analysis and Public Policy, all from the University of Minnesota—created a perfect place to hide. At least until the news leaked about the breakthrough she'd made two years ago last spring as she was outlining her master's thesis.

It involved two words guaranteed to set the technological community abuzz: quantum computing.

The idea that a computer could run on multidimensional qubits rather than binary digits, processing information a million times faster than the best computer operating today, wasn't new, but the reality of it was fifteen years out. That was, until Salem stumbled across an anomaly while researching Charles Babbage's Difference Engine 2 for her the
sis. Babbage, a polymath famous in the 1800s for his work on
computational design, came as close to being a rock star as a mathematician was allowed. Sure, he'd been a fist-shaking grump, but in addition to conceiving the first computer, he'd established the modern postal system, invented the locomotive cowcatcher and the ophthalmoscope, and cracked Vigenère's autokey cipher, previously believed to be unbreakable.

Salem's Babbage research had been preliminary, really only intended as background for her thesis on cryptanalysis and government security. It was while collating the cipher research with the Difference Engine data that she'd made her unexpected breakthrough. Two seemingly unrelated pages of research had accidentally fallen to the floor. When she reached to pick them up, the link between them shone like a beacon: the modular arithmetic Babbage used to solve Vigenère's cipher could be applied to a binary digit at the atomic level.

Two great tastes that taste great together!

She remembered a cold sweat breaking out. If she was seeing what she thought she was seeing, it would revolutionize the field of computers and computer science.

She'd immediately changed the focus of her research.

The offers to publish her findings began to roll in before she'd even finished her thesis. Every outlet wanted to be the first to announce the quantum computing breakthrough. And indeed, once her thesis was written and published, her discovery turned the security world in particular on its ear. If her innovation played out as hypothesized, it would result in a quantum computer with the power to solve the deepest cryptography and blow through the thickest firewall in less than a second. As a result, the head of the National Security Agency, among others, had been requesting meetings with her for the past two months.

She'd deflected those. Since the day fourteen years earlier when her dad had killed himself, she'd avoided anything that required leaving her familiar path. She was happy teaching North Minneapolis kids how to use the Microsoft Office Suite, her job for the past year. The building was familiar. The kids liked her. She didn't correct them when they called her “Salem Whitey” rather than “Salem Wiley,” didn't back down when they dared her to dance the Nae Nae.

And only last week, her thesis adviser had offered her a research position at the college to supplement her income. She planned on accepting it. The job would mean she'd need to travel to only three places, not counting shopping or doctor's visits: her apartment, the Jordan Neighborhood Community Center, and the University of Minnesota. So what if her adviser had offered the research job as a way to keep her active in computer innovation, a last-ditch effort to save her from “wasting the code-breaking genius” she'd displayed in her thesis?

And anyhow, her idea was only theory at this point.

Enough theory to get her onto page twenty-seven of
Minneapolis Magazine
's “Top Twenty-Somethings to Watch,” though.

Meow
.

“That's all you have to say for yourself?” Salem asked her cat, who was still largely ignoring her. “You finally talk, and that's all I get?”

She scooped up Beans, nuzzling his head in her neck. She loved the softness of his glossy black fur. A purr rumbled just under the surface. “Because I expected more from you. A confession, maybe. You've got a lady kitty out there, don't you?”

She leaned over the windowsill he'd been perched on, hugging her wool cardigan tighter. Beans had come with her Uptown apartment. She knew her mom hadn't wanted her to move out of the house, had in fact assumed she never would. While Salem had turned down several scholarships to colleges on either coast because her palms turned clammy at the thought of venturing outside of the Twin Cities, she'd certainly never confess that to Vida. Instead, she'd enrolled at the U of M, upped her Ativan prescription, and moved to Uptown, quickly establishing a routine to feel safe.

She inhaled deeply, enjoying the greasy sweetness wafting up from Glam Doll donuts. She knew it was leftover smells from yesterday, that the workers wouldn't arrive to begin tomorrow's batch of deep-fried sweetness for a few more hours, but her mouth watered nonetheless. The sour cherry pistachio was her favorite, a fluffy cake donut wrapped around a tart filling.

And they delivered.

Bel, three years older than Salem and in her second year on the Chicago Police force, would ream her inside-out if she knew Salem left her window unlocked on the nights Beans was roaming. Bel—who'd grown up J.Crew beautiful, strawberry blond with skin like cream, who felt any teasing of Salem as her own pain, who'd come out in eleventh grade and never looked back—had always looked out for Salem, knuckle-sandwiching the bullies in elementary school and slaying them with scathing words when they reached South High School.

Salem missed Bel so much. They'd grown apart in the last few years, with Bel in Chicago and Salem not willing to leave Minnesota. Salem did like being able to keep her windows open without getting shit for it, though. She lived on the second floor. Who was going to risk the fire escape to get to her?

She glanced at the clock. Almost bar close, so Connor might stop by soon. She didn't confess to Beans that this was really why she was up so late. Connor Sawyer had read the
Minneapolis Magazine
article and called Salem immediately. He'd said he missed her. She knew he hadn't. A tall Aryan lawyer whom she'd met when she was working at the U of M Law Library and he'd come by to pick up some files, he had only ever found time for her when the bars let out. She knew she deserved better. But who did it hurt to let him stop by every now and again? Anyhow, the guy was a wizard in bed.

She set Beans on the couch and shuffled to the mirror to check her make-up for the fifth time. She tousled her hair, touched up her lip gloss. It took a lot of energy to look natural.

Her phone rang, pulling her out of her contemplation.

She sighed. At least he'd bothered to call. Usually he would either show or he wouldn't.

She addressed her cat before she reached for the phone. “What do you think is the excuse this time, Beansy? Too drunk? Respects me too much to sneak around? It's been at least four months since I heard that one. Maybe it'll sound new all over again.”

Disappointment heavy on her shoulders, she grabbed the iPhone from the table. A photo of Bel's smiling face, all blue eyes and white teeth, flashed at her. Salem's heart tumbled. Bel never called this late. Her hand flew to the scar on her left cheek.

“Isabel?”

“Salem? It's my mom.” Bel's voice cracked. “The police are at her apartment. There's blood everywhere.”

2

Five Years Old

“
Y
ou're the luckiest duck.”

Salem sits back on her haunches and pushes her night-vision goggles onto the top of her head. They don't work very well, but a movie starring children as spies has recently been released, and the secret agent equipment is being peddled at every toy store. Salem's parents and Bel's mom have pooled their money to buy the girls all the fun gear—the goggles, an invisible ink pen, a lie detector that's really an electronic blood pressure cuff. The two of them have built a winding pillow-and-quilt fort and are playing “Escape” during what Gracie jokingly calls “Spy Night,” something they do every Wednesday, with Bel and Salem playing and the three adults drinking wine in the other room.

“Because I got the goggles?” Salem slides them to Bel. “You can have 'em.”

“No.” Bel shakes her head. The quilt fort has slipped at this corner, letting in light, so Salem can see Bel's fine, reddish-blond hair sway toward the static electricity in the blanket like tiny snakes being called out of a basket.

Salem giggles.

“It's not funny.” Bel scowls.

Salem wants to tell her that she's laughing at Bel's hair, not her words, but she isn't sure that would help.

“You're the luckiest duck because your dad is here.”

Salem sets the goggles on the floor in case Bel really does want them. “Where else would he be?”

“My dad isn't here.”

It's true. Salem has never met Bel's dad. Neither has Bel. It's just how things are. Salem has never questioned it. “Do you want him to be?”

Bel licks her palm and runs it through her hair. It makes a crackling noise. “Kids are supposed to have two parents. Everyone knows that.”

Bel is three years older than Salem. She's used to Bel knowing more. She likes hanging out with someone so smart. “I guess.”

Bel touches the edge of the goggles. “I'm going to be a police officer. Then I can find my dad.” She adds an afterthought. “I can help other people too.”

Salem smiles. “If I were a spy, we could work together!”

Bel holds out her hand. Salem grasps it. It feels warm and soft. They shake.

“Best friends forever,” Bel says.

3

Linden Hills, Minneapolis

B
el stepped out of the Minneapolis terminal, a one-hour red-eye flight having delivered her from Chicago to Minneapolis. She was bleary-eyed, face puffy from crying, still beautiful. Salem wanted to hold her but there wasn't time. They sped through the disorienting pre-dawn—fog, henna-colored light, air scented with lake and leaves and eggy car exhaust—toward Grace's four-story Linden Hills apartment building. They gripped hands, Salem unsure if it was her hand or Bel's that was corpse-cold.

Still, the words didn't come, not until they took a quiet corner in one of Minneapolis's tonier residential neighborhoods and Grace's apartment loomed into view.

“Holy shit.” Salem slapped her hand over her mouth. That was the wrong thing to say.

It's just she hadn't expected there to be so many police cars.

Neighborhood Halloween decorations added a level of surrealism to the scene. A witch collided face-first into a tree in the lawn south of the apartment building. A hanged rubber corpse was strung next to it. Fake gravestones decorated the yard of the house on the north side, strung with orange twinkle lights that pierced the predawn murk.

Bel flew out of the car before it rolled to a complete stop. She bounded past the fleet of police cars toward her mom's apartment building and stopped at the nearest uniform, her badge in her hand.

Salem switched off the car in the middle of the street, snatched her purse, and raced to catch up. She scanned the gathering crowd for Vida. She'd tried her mom as soon as she'd hung up with Bel four hours and a lifetime ago, but Vida had never answered. She must be frantic. Gracie was her best friend. They'd been inseparable as long as Salem could remember, and they'd passed on that loyalty to their daughters.

Salem reached Bel's side, out of breath. Bel was asking questions in her police officer voice, controlled and firm. Her hair was tied in a messy pony tail, her expensive jeans and Salvation Army t-shirt rumpled from the flight, but even so, she commanded respect. Salem saw it in the way the officers stood, their heads cocked, hands relaxed near their guns. It had always been this way for Bel. It wasn't her height, though she was almost six feet, or her looks. She had a
presence
.

Still, Bel seemed to be talking too slowly.

“We're here to see her,” Salem blurted. The cool of the morning air turned her breath into white plumes. The sun hadn't yet risen, its promise of light barely agitating the horizon. “To see Grace Odegaard.”

The uniform's eyes slid sideways to his partner. Salem suddenly felt like throwing up. “We'll get the officer in charge,” he said. “Wait here.”

Salem bobbed her head, jittery. She tucked her arm around Bel's waist. Her friend was so stiff she felt corded with steel. The crowd of gawkers kept a respectable distance, milling behind the police tape in their track pants and work suits and dog-walking clothes. Salem counted five women, seven men, two pair of glasses, one hat. Behind them, the water of Lake Harriet was as black as a grave. The proximity to water tightened her throat like it always did, but she went through the mantra her therapist had taught her:
I'm safe on land, I'm safe on land
. She inhaled the smoky, earthy smell of a Minnesota fall. She measured her heartbeats. Finally, a man in his early thirties and wearing a well-cut suit stepped out the main door of the yellow brick apartment building.

The other officers stood straighter when he appeared. He was tall, muscled, clean-shaven, his skin so dark it reflected a deep purple in the walkway lights. He glanced in Bel and Salem's direction as the first officer leaned toward him to speak near his ear. Nodding once, sharply, he began walking toward the two women. Salem's chest grew tighter the closer he came.

“Agent Lucan Stone,” he said, extending his hand toward Bel. “FBI.”

The elevator slid open onto the third-floor landing.

Salem gasped.

She'd been up here hundreds of times, but the crime had morphed it into a stage set. Grace's open apartment door stood directly across the wide hallway, fifteen feet from the elevator. A deep carmine painted the far wall, a firehose-wash of ghoulish spray. The air smelled strongly of urine and something metallic, like wet pennies. A corpse lay to the right of Grace's door, face up. Salem was reminded of the Resusci Annie doll they'd learned CPR on in high school, except this body wore a slipper on one foot and the other was bare, her upper torso shielded from Salem's view by an examiner wearing white.

A second person was taking instructions from the examiner, snapping photos with a flash camera as she pointed. A man and a woman peered at the wall to the right of Grace's door. Everyone wore white latex gloves and shoe covers. Same with the three uniformed police officers standing to the left of the door, and a fourth officer who crossed in front of Grace's open doorway from inside her apartment. A handful of dark yellow evidence markers were stacked across the floor. The foyer, the size of a large room, thrummed with the murmurs of quiet, intense activity.

Salem concentrated on these details to calm her jagged heartbeat.

The authorities are here. They'll take care of everything.

Though she'd never been to church in her life, she fought the urge to cross herself.

Agent Stone nodded toward the technician bent over the corpse. “Forensics is still on scene.”

Bel stood taller, touching her hip for a gun that wasn't there. “Four hours in?”

Agent Stone glanced at his wristwatch, its silver thickness a bright contrast to his skin. “Four hours and thirty-seven minutes since the initial 911 call. You made good time from Chicago.”

“I got in on standby. It's a short flight.” Bel hesitated a moment before stepping off the elevator, followed by Agent Stone and then Salem.

Stone lightly touched Salem's arm. “You okay?”

Salem brushed off his concern and stumbled closer to Bel. Her goal was to comfort her, but from this angle, the entire corpse was in view. It was the body of an older woman dressed for bed. Her robe was tied in front. The hem was blue, but the rest of the terry-cloth was mottled with blood so thick that it turned black at the shoulders. Her neck housed a four-inch, eye-shaped gash, the meat of it gaping at the ceiling. A pile of fur lay next to the woman. At first Salem thought it was an article of clothing, but then she caught the beady black eyes staring at her from the dog's face, its body twisted the opposite direction.

She couldn't blink. Her eye muscles had stopped working.

The terror was a lovely sticky web, adhering to her skin and tugging her down.

A tiny sound from Bel mercifully forced Salem's attention away from the horrific sight. Bel was rocking back and forth, the move so slight that Salem would not have noticed if she hadn't reached for Bel's icy hand. She followed her friend's stare, her eyes landing three feet above the corpse. The investigators were scraping something off the wall. Salem kept her eyes moving, to the open doorway that allowed the beginning rays of the chilly Halloween sunshine to filter into the hallway. The furniture inside Gracie's apartment, at least what Salem could see from this angle, was undisturbed.

“We have one body.” Agent Stone's voice was a deep rumble directly behind them. “She's been positively ID'd as Carla Marie Gladia.”

Bel's hand tightened in Salem's. “Neighbor.” Her eyes flicked to the body.

“That's right. And her dog, Dante.”

Salem spoke past the pressure at the top of her throat. “Someone murdered a
dog
?”

“Probably to keep the animal quiet.” Stone tipped his head toward the two corpses on the floor. “That's exactly as the police discovered them.”

One of the uniformed officers walked over to Agent Stone, whispered something to him, and then stepped onto the elevator. The mechanical door closed behind them as Stone continued. “We have the security tapes from the lobby for the past twenty-four hours. You know this is a women's-only building?”

Both Salem and Bel nodded, their eyes locked on apartment 307 as if love and wishes could coax Grace to walk out of it.

“We'll review the tape, but for now, it appears that no males have been in or out of the building in the past twenty-four hours. Not even a repairman or delivery man. Yet, from the blood pattern, we know at least one of the killers, if there was more than one, entered through the front door. That narrows our suspects to females.” Stone cocked his head, his eyes unreadable. “Ms. Odegaard, did your mother have any enemies that you know of?”

Bel shook her head, the movement slow.

Salem's heartbeat picked up as she connected two dots. “Wait, you have a body. Two, with Dante. Maybe all this blood is from them!” She turned to Agent Stone, realizing too late how excited she sounded about this grotesque reality. She swallowed past the spongy lump lodged between her chest and mouth.

Stone's eyes remained trained on Bel. “I'm afraid that's unlikely. There's a secondary crime scene inside. If you'll follow me?”

He handed them shoe covers before walking along the carefully-marked trail skirting the blood, indicating that Bel and Salem should follow. “Everything in the apartment appears to be in order—all major appliances accounted for, dishes done, bed made. We haven't located a safe.”

“Mom didn't own one.” Bel crossed the threshold and surveyed the apartment, her visual assessment snagged by drops of what looked like dried blood under the far window, two more examiners and a uniformed officer busy with the area. She paled. “You're treating this as a murder-kidnapping?”

Stone followed her glance. “For now.”

She indicated the activity at the window. “The secondary crime scene?”

“Yes, extending outside onto the fire escape.”

“Can I check the bedrooms?” When Stone nodded his assent, Bel marched toward the open doorway.

“Stay here and touch nothing,” Stone commanded, before following Bel.

Stay was all Salem could do. Stay and stare at
anything
but all the blood in the hallway behind her, suffocating her, threatening to drown her like an encroaching crimson ocean, thick and salty, Mrs. Gladia's screams echoing through its depths like whalesong. She reached out to the TV nightstand to steady herself, the glass edge a sharp return to reality. That's when she spotted the wooden jewelry box her father had helped her craft for her mother when Salem was a seventh grader.

What the hell?

She'd sawn the balsa wood herself, loaded the secret spring that would open the box, glued it all together, heat-etched the
om
symbol on the top, and lined the interior with purple felt. She hadn't laid eyes on it since she'd gifted it to her mom. She reached out a trembling hand, surprised at how light the container was. Her finger traced the black, looping groove of the
om
. When she was twelve, before her dad's suicide, she'd been into Buddhism, or at least attracted to the concept of karma and the comfort of stretch pants.

She hardly remembered that girl.

The box made a clinking sound when she turned it over. Her heartbeat picked up. She glanced furtively at the window. The investigators there paid her no heed. Same with the ones behind her in the foyer. She held the box to her ear and shook it. There was definitely something inside. Squeezing the two long sides, she centered her pointer finger in the middle of the bottom to release the spring. The lid slid open. Inside lay a pair of ancient spectacles, and underneath, a note scratched out in her mother's scrawling handwriting. She tugged both out and read the message.

Bits: bwsmttmijwcbzmdmvombpmvowpwumnwttwebpmbziqtbzcabvwwvm

Salem's stomach somersaulted. “Bits” had been Salem's dad's nickname for her growing up. The moniker had cemented itself once she'd discovered her love for computers, though only her mom, Gracie, and Bel had ever called her that.

What followed was a secret code.

Her heartbeat thick and loud, she peeked again at the nearest investigators. They were photographing the base of the window, pointing at a spot, talking. Stone and Bel would return from the other room any second. She floated in a bubble of invisibility for the smallest moment.

What do I do with the box?

Salem felt like she was chewing on alum. She glanced a third time toward the window, a greasy sweat trickling down her neck. She clutched the code and spectacles, unsure if they'd been in the balsa wood box for ten hours or ten years, or if they were even meant for her. She didn't want to steal, or pollute a crime scene. Nor did she want to ignore a message from her mother, not under these circumstances. The indecision was agonizing. She was about to close the box and return it to the TV stand when Bel stepped into the living room, Agent Stone on her heel. Salem instinctively shoved the glasses and note into her purse and slid the box closed, her pulse a rocket in her veins.

Stone's intelligent glance flicked at her hands. She held up the now-empty balsa box like a shield, unable to meet the ink of his eyes. “My mom, Vida Wiley, owns this. I made it for her when I was in middle school.” Her voice quavered. “She might have been here last night.”

Stone stepped toward her and took the balsa box with his gloved hands, examining it from all sides. His voice was a controlled growl. “I told you not to touch anything.”

She didn't respond.

He called over the uniformed officer from the window and commanded him to enter the box into evidence without taking his eyes off of Salem. “Do you have any reason to suspect she might have been here last evening other than this box?”

Salem shook her head, biting her lower lip to keep it steady. “But she's not answering her phone.”