Spiked (11 page)

A penlight clicked on behind the screen. Vaughn crinkled some papers.

“He had orbital fractures around both eyes, and the zygomatic bones—the bones that lift the cheeks—were beat to shards with a blunt weapon. Terrible injuries, all of them, but probably survivable.”

“That's survivable?”

“Most likely, though he'd need a plastic surgeon to repair the face, like reassembling a mirror that fell off the wall.” He shuffled more papers. “They estimate Danny was struck between six and eight times. The worst of the blows left a depressed skull fracture over his right ear. The epidural bleeding that followed is an awful thing. The expanding clot and the skull work like the jaws of a vice, squeezing the brain as it bleeds. Even with medical attention this is often fatal.”

Vaughn coughed and cleared his throat. “But that's not what killed him.”

“You said it was fatal.”

“In a matter of hours it would have been. But something else got him first.” He shuffled still more papers. “The medical examiner has determined that Daniel P. Nowlin died of diacetylmorphine poisoning.”

“In English,” Eddie demanded.

“Heroin, Eddie. Danny died of a heroin overdose.”

Vaughn let Eddie digest the concept in silence for a full minute. Eddie's brain recalled the image of Leo under the bridge, melting heroin in a tin. Except that the image had Nowlin's face on Leo's malnourished body. Eddie willed the image away and felt the prickle that comes before nausea. Could Leo and Gabrielle have lied about finding Nowlin's body? Could they have attacked him?

Vaughn continued, “The drugs entered through a vein in his upper left thigh and overwhelmed his system. The best guess is a dose of approximately six hundred fifty milligrams.” His voice was flat, like he was dictating scientific notes about an interaction in a test tube.

“Is that a lot of heroin?”

“Depends who you are. That's probably not lethal for a daily user who might inject fifteen hundred milligrams or more, due to a tolerance built up over a long time. But five hundred is plenty to kill a casual user, or someone new to it.”

“I wouldn't have noticed needle marks if Danny shot up into his leg,” Eddie said. “But I can't believe Nowlin was a regular user.”

“Neither does the examiner. She found no other recent needle marks on the body—I mean, on Danny.” Hippo's voice seemed human again. “One more thing, the left elbow was dislocated. But there was no bleeding from a damaged artery. That means no blood pressure, and the elbow was probably a post-mortem injury caused by something jarring.”

Like being dumped in a canal.

“So Danny died of an overdose,” Eddie said. “He certainly didn't smash his own melon.”

“True. The blow that injured his brain came from behind. There were no defensive wounds on his hands, so it's logical Danny didn't fight back. Once a skull is crushed like that, there'd be no fight left in any man.”

“Do the cops have leads?”

“Just that his computer notes were utterly destroyed by a virus, a complex one, apparently. And with nothing else to go on, here's the political reality—there's heavy pressure on the mayor to keep the investigation low-key, to minimize publicity. They assigned the case to Lucy Orr, the least experienced detective on the force. And I imagine the political pressure will make it tempting to write this off as drug-related violence, practically unsolvable.”

Something about Detective Orr—her subtle intensity, maybe?—made it hard to believe she'd ever give up on anything. A detective didn't need experience to be a bulldog.

“Who's applying all this pressure?” Eddie asked.

Vaughn smacked his lips. “I'm hearing lots of things, and some point to your office.”

“To The Empire? But Danny was our employee. We should be pushing the other way, for an ass-kicking investigation. Round up everybody Danny ever talked to and give 'em a polygraph.”

“That would stir controversy,” Vaughn said. “I've noticed the paper has been rather vanilla lately—nothing controversial at all.”

Vaughn was right. “They rewrote a shooting story I did this week,” he said. “Edited out the sexy parts. I heard the order came from Templeton. And Keyes lied to get me to drop Danny's story.”

“Sounds like Templeton and his minions want to keep things calm before the election.”

“That's no way to sell newspapers,” Eddie said. “Alfred Templeton hired me to pump up the political coverage.”

“He did a good thing there, bringing you back. And I'll bet that Dracula was nice to his cocker spaniel, but he still was a goddam vampire.” Hippo chuckled. “I'm still not sure how Templeton ended up in charge of the paper all those years ago.”

“I heard he just showed up at a board meeting in control of a majority of the shares and appointed himself publisher.”

“But how he bought those shares on a journalist's salary has always mystified me,” Hippo said. He fidgeted behind the screen. “His bagman called my office to offer an editorial supporting one of my pet environmental projects—if I got on board with this church redevelopment, and some other crazy project to fix this neighborhood. I'm tempted to have a press conference to expose the whole rotten deal. You know, call all the statewide media, offer them free beer and good story. Except that once I do that, The Empire brass will be out to get me forever.”

“You turned down the editorial?”

“I told them to take their carrot and fuck off,” Vaughn said with a chuckle. “So I got an eye out for the stick. I like this old church. The last priest they had before it closed was a real wordsmith, gave a good sermon.”

“And how would a Methodist know that?”

“Your formerly fine newspaper used to print 'em every week, back in my younger days.”

Eddie laughed. “Back in your younger days the Apostles would autograph your Bible. Find that priest's new church. There's nothing stopping you from hearing his sermons in person.”

“Except that he ain't around—ran off to California, or something.” He sighed. “People have been abandoning this church for years. Not me, though.”

Eddie thanked Hippo for his help, and then got up to leave.

“Don't forget your penance,” Vaughn said. “You should pay in advance for the trouble you're going to cause. Gimme a thousand Hail Marys.”

Chapter 14

The advertising department at The Empire was more corporate-looking than the newsroom. Green fabric cubicles in a maze-like grid accounted for most of the floor space. The desks were neat, the ceiling tiles snowy white, and the computers new. Customers sometimes walked in off the street to do business with the advertising department, so the employees there couldn't curse like the newsroom staff. Poor pent-up bastards.

A night's sleep in his bed, rather than under a bridge, had soothed Eddie's stiff muscles, though his bruised hipbone still ached and his hands had scabbed over. He tried not to dwell on the memory of being thrown in the canal, but the experience had left him jumpy and scatterbrained.

It was just after eight in the morning, an hour before the advertising office opened. The lights were off, the place still empty. Eddie snaked through the cubicles and headed for a former walk-in closet tucked in a back corner. The hand-lettered door read “Intellectual Consultation and Technical Services Department—Stan Popko, Director.”

Eddie knocked and went in. The room was long and narrow, more like a hallway that didn't go anywhere than a room. It smelled like dust and smoldering wire insulation, an odor recycled by tiny fans whirling inside a dozen humming metal boxes. The machines were spaced across steel shelves and connected by a rainbow of tangled wires draped like bunting. A police scanner was relaying the details of a traffic stop.

The computer room was smaller than two cubicles in advertising, yet contained the electronic brains for the entire news department. The shelves and wires ended at a chubby guy seated at a desk, his back to the door. He was playing a video game on a computer screen set between a microwave oven and a chrome toaster. The guy was in his late twenties, and had skin so pale it approached translucent. He thumped his keyboard and guns blazed. Monsters on the screen died in pools of their own pixilated blood.

“Excuse me, Stan?” Eddie said. “How's it goin' man?”

The chubby guy kept his eyes on the game. “I got shingles,” he offered. “And you?”

Eddie needed a favor; he ignored Stan's bad bedside manner and tried for common ground. “So, is that Doom you're playing?”

Stan rolled his eyes. “It's Doom II, a classic, one of the most important games in history, and it came out long after the original Doom.” He shook his head at Eddie's ignorance.

Eddie watched for a minute. “Wow, you're really slaughtering them. Computer monsters everywhere shall come to fear you.”

Stan made a sour face. “Real funny,” he said without smiling. “Who writes your material? Does he still have a job?”

So this is why they call him The Bitter Comic
. Eddie stood by as Stan continued his game. Maybe he'd be more receptive once the universe was safe.

A robotic spider gunned Stan to death. He slammed a fist on the keyboard. “Damn!”

“Stan?” Eddie said.

He looked at the guest in his office. “You're still here?

“I have to talk to you about computers, and I guess I need a favor.”

Stan swirled a finger in his ear. He withdrew the digit and inspected the results. No wax. He frowned at the finger that had failed him. “Of course you need a favor,” he said. “You want to ram some dumb computer project down my throat.”

Eddie forced a chuckle to make another try at common ground. “Good one,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Ram it down your throat. Computer memory is called RAM. I get the joke.”

Stan perked in his chair. “You do?”

“Though it's more of a pun than a joke, right? I'm no expert.”

Stan's eyeballs parked for a moment in the left corner of their sockets as his cranial circuits computed what had just happened.

“You're Bourque,” he said.

Eddie nodded.

“I thought so.” There was cockiness in the way he said it, as if the name was something Stan was not supposed to know. “People say you're funny, Bourque.”

“People say lots of things,” Eddie replied. The conversation began to feel like the stare down across the saloon before they drew their six-shooters.

Stan blurted, “I'm socially awkward.”

“Really?”

“But I want to be funny.”

“Well, we all do, I guess.”

“No, Bourque,” Stan said. “I want to do comedy on stage. I want to do it as a job.”

“You do computers for a job. I hear you're a genius.”

Stan sneered. “I hate computers. I hate people who need help using computers even more.”

“That's a bad quality in the field of tech support, isn't it?”

Stan ignored him. “I've studied the great comedic minds, from Bennett Cerf to Bill Cosby. I've written gigabytes of original material, and polished my delivery, night after night, in a mirror.” Stan looked down to his canvas sneakers. “All while trying to ignore the obvious.”

“Which is?”

“Everybody is funnier than me.”

“I'm sure you're funnier than you think,” Eddie said, convinced that the glummest guy in the leper colony was probably a laugh riot compared to Stan.

“Make me funny, Bourque.”

“What?”

“Make me funny and I'll grant your favor.”

Stan could have asked Eddie to topple the Cross-Point office towers with his bare hands. At least then there'd be some hope.

“Uh, I don't think I'm qualified—”

“Then I don't think I'm qualified to help you with whatever computer problem you have.” He crossed his arms over his chest. The window of opportunity was closing.

“But that's your job,” Eddie protested.

“No. If it was my job, it wouldn't be a favor.”

“All right,” Eddie said with a sigh. “I'll try. But I can't make you funny. I can only try to unlock your—er, natural inner funniness. And no guarantees.”

Stan considered the offer, and then stuck out a pudgy hand. They shook on it.

“Let's get started,” Stan said.

“First, you tell me everything you know about computer viruses.”

Stan took to the task with genuine enthusiasm. He lectured Eddie on what viruses can be programmed to do, and how they hide. He described how they replicate, and what may trigger them to execute their commands.

Eddie told him what had happened when Detective Orr checked Nowlin's computer.

“Sounds like a logic bomb,” Stan said.

“What's that?”

“A virus set to trigger by an event, or series of events. It can sit dormant on the hard drive, or in the RAM, for days or months before it's triggered. You could open your email fifty times without a problem, for example. But the virus is keeping track. And on the fifty-first time—bam!—it drops its payload and reformats your hard drive, or sends a thousand filthy emails to every person in your address book.”

Dabs of pink pooled in Stan's white cheeks. “These are often Trojan Horse programs—technically not viruses because they don't replicate. But they can be just as destructive. The Trojan Horse appears to be a benign application, until the trigger event.”

“So why did it garble the text? Why not just erase it?”

“Because your saboteur is smart, that's why,” Stan said. “Standard deletion doesn't actually destroy files, at least not immediately. It just tells the computer not to list that file anymore, and gives it permission to reuse that storage space on the hard drive. The computer doesn't actually write over the spot until it needs the space for something else. It could be months, depending on your use, before the file is completely written over.”

Stan's breathing grew heavier. He forehead was shiny. “By garbling the files—presumably with a randomized algorithm to prevent any pattern that could be decoded later—the Trojan Horse has eliminated any chance they could be recovered.”

Eddie digested the explanation, and then asked, “How did it get on Danny's computer?”

“That's the tricky part.” Stan pointed to a metal box impaled with fat gray wires. “That's our firewall. All data coming into the building from the Internet must pass through it, and it's programmed to destroy any whiff of a virus.”

“So the virus couldn't have come from the Web?”

The flush in his cheeks spread, as if by osmosis, over his face. “I can't guarantee the network is always clean—nobody can—but our firewall is strict,” he said. “And the anti-virus software on every computer in the building is set to execute local disinfections at three o'clock every morning. I probably could write a virus to defeat our defenses. But even with my knowledge of the network, it might take weeks.”

“Then how would the virus get to the newsroom?”

“I'd say it took the elevator.”

“Is that a computer term?”

“Somebody walked into the newsroom and infected Nowlin's computer directly,” Stan said. “Either knowingly or by accident.”

“Who would know how?”

“It wouldn't take a master hacker to load a virus,” he said. “Anyone with access and opportunity could do it if they knew our system. It would have to be somebody who knew Nowlin's password—either because he told them, or because they saw him type it. Or maybe it's somebody who knew him well enough to guess it.”

Eddie admitted, “Nowlin told me his password on the phone a few months ago. He was home, and needed some numbers from his electronic address book. I don't know if he ever told anybody else.”

“Reporters work odd hours sometimes, with few people around,” Stan said. “So you could have delivered the bomb.” It was an observation on his part, not an accusation. “And, since I maintain password lists for everyone, so could I.”

“Could somebody have lifted Danny's password from your lists?”

Stan shook his head hard enough to disturb his blond wisps. “No way. I store them off-network. They're hidden under false names and encrypted with code I wrote myself. A hacker would need days of uninterrupted time in this room to even find them. And I assure you, nobody but me spends much time here.”

Something in Stan's tone acknowledged that he was generally a bastard. Eddie listened for a hint of regret, but didn't hear any.

“If you and I didn't do it, then who?”

Stan wrenched back his fingers and cracked his knuckles one by one. The last pinkie needed three good yanks before it gave up the pop. “There's one person besides us who had both access and opportunity,” Stan said. “That's Daniel Nowlin himself.”

Eddie had thought the same thing. But why would Danny destroy his own notes? Maybe he knew he was in danger, and left the virus to sanitize his files in case something happened to him. Was he protecting someone? Or protecting his own reputation?

The conversation had reached its natural end and Stan was eager to change the subject. “Now for your part of this bargain,” he said. “Make me funny.”

“Fair enough.” Eddie paused to consider where one begins when tunneling to China with a spoon. A radio test crackled over the police scanner. “Turn that damn scanner off,” Eddie ordered. “And then let's start with your smile, the cornerstone of humor.”

“The smile's important?”

“Are you kidding? You can't tell a decent joke with that vinegar puss. You look like a guy getting the hernia test from his elderly mother.”

Eddie's logic computed, and Stan nodded. He turned down the police scanner—down, not off, but it was a start and Eddie let it slide. “Let me see you smile,” Eddie said.

Stan formed a bug-eyed, jaw-clenched grin. Creepy.

“You look like a serial killer with constipation,” Eddie said.

“What's wrong?”

“Goddam, man—everything.” Eddie polished Stan's toaster with his sleeve. “Watch your reflection. Keep it natural. We can't go any further until we get this right.”

Stan smiled into the chrome. With coaching, his grin grew a little less scary. You wouldn't run screaming from him, though you'd still want a restraining order.

“A little better,” Eddie said. “Make sure you practice in your spare time.”

Eddie turned to leave. Stan jumped up. “Bourque! How much should I practice?”

“Oh, try five sets of twenty smiles, three times a day.”

“Three hundred a day?”

“We gotta overcome years of facial inactivity and build muscle strength. Stick to the program. I'll be in touch.”

***

Back in the newsroom, Eddie found it nearly impossible to work with the dull ache behind his eyes. He distracted himself by checking his voicemail.

The message chilled him, like a recording from Fear herself—it was the chant he had recorded in the old triple-decker, minutes before he had fallen through the floor.

Who were those people? What did they want with Nowlin's hair? Eddie wondered if the police had found them. He called the station and spoke to the detective's bureau—no new information on who might have attacked him and thrown him in the canal.

Eddie hung up and listened to the chant again. This had to mean
something
. He transferred the message to a micro-cassette. Then he searched the Internet for college courses in the Khmer language, and picked one in California, near Long Beach, which had a sizable Cambodian population. The professor's office number was in the on-line campus directory. A teaching assistant answered. She was happy to help. Experts loved to help journalists; it proved they were experts. She listened to the chant three times, left the phone for a full five minutes to look something up, and then offered a translation:

Temples of stone wear to dust in the wind, and so too this body gives out. But the lessons of goodness stand forever against time
.

“What the heck does it mean?” Eddie asked.

“Just what it says,” she said. “It sounds like a Buddhist death chant. A monk would repeat the verse to comfort someone near death.”