The Koala of Death (34 page)
Another laugh.
He was enjoying this.
I tasted blood. The sandpaper bark had ripped along my face, but worse damage occurred when I’d fallen face down on a rock. The pain told me my nose was probably broken, that I’d look like Robin Chase in the morning.
If I ever saw the morning.
I scrambled to my feet, not only winded, but dizzy, too. There was no way I would make it to Gunn Castle, no way to summon help, no way to…
“
Ready or not, here I come!”
This was just a game to Bronson, a game he’d play to win.
But I refused to lose without a fight.
Kneeling back down, I searched through the bark strips and found the rock that had damaged my face. I raised it…
And heard something crashing through the forest toward me.
From the other direction.
While I stood there with the rock in my hand, a doe and her fawn—the deer I had braked for earlier?—dashed past me, making an ungodly racket as they fled up the slope. Fooled, Bronson chased after them. Using the resulting noise as cover, I stumbled along in the opposite direction, finally clearing the stand of new growth and entering a grove in the older section of the forest where the blue gums’ trunks were thick enough to hide behind.
That was all I could do, now. Hide until found.
Bronson would eventually realize his mistake and double back. When he did, well…
I was too sore and tired to run any further.
Kneeling behind the largest eucalyptus in the grove—a monster whose trunk was as wide as a car door—I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. Flipped it open. Got a signal. Hunching over so the light from the display wouldn’t give my presence away, I speed-dialed Joe.
Got voice mail.
Punched in another number. Heard the ring.
Then…
“San Sebastian Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Ralph Lazlo speaking.”
“It’s Teddy,” I whispered. “Don’t say anything, just let me talk.” I told him where I was and how I’d come to be there, told him to dispatch cruisers down Bentley Road, told him Helen had proof, told him…
The nearby snapping of dried blue gum bark signaled that my time was up.
“My, my, Teddy. If I’d had a rifle, I’d be dining on venison tonight,” Bronson chortled, less than a few yards from my hiding place. “Oh, well. Another time.”
“Teddy, is that…?” Ralph began.
“Shhh,” I shushed Ralph. The fact that he’d heard Bronson’s shout gave me an idea.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
my pursuer called.
I placed the cell down as close to the tree trunk as possible and covered its glowing screen with leaves and bark. Then I cleared the remaining bark strips away from the tree so that I’d be able to move around silently. I picked up my rock. If he liked to play, we’d play.
“Don’t come near me, Ford Bronson!” I yelled, making myself sound more terrified than resigned. Not that it was difficult.
“Gave yourself away, didn’t you?” More laughter. The suave golf partner to presidents had long since disappeared, leaving behind the heartless predator he truly was. As Bronson stepped from behind a tree almost as large as my own, I saw a faint gleam of white shirt. He’d always been a snappy dresser.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you now, Teddy,” he said.
“I’ve got a rock!”
“Teddy’s got a rock! Ooooh, I’m so scared!”
“It’s a b-
big
rock!”
White teeth flashed as he erupted into laughter. “Oh, I’ll bet it’s big. But guess what, sweetheart, my gun is even bigger! And if you think the shots will make those folks in the Castle come running, think again. You’re so stupid you doubled back on yourself! We’re almost at our starting point, so they won’t hear a thing.”
Considering the gravity of my situation, it wasn’t too hard to fake sobs. “Why, B-B-Bronson? Why are you doing this? I thought we were f-f-friends.”
“You know why.” At least he stopped laughing.
“No, I d-don’t!” I wailed.
The helpless female act might make him drop his guard.
“Oh, c’mon, Teddy. I heard you on your cell phone down at the station. I was leaving my office, but when I opened the door, there you were in the hall, yammering away to someone about piracy.”
“Piracy?” I thought fast. “I was t-talking about that oil t-tanker off the coast of S-Somalia!”
A sigh. “Give me a break. You were talking about software piracy, so stop trying to pretend you weren’t. What I want to know is, who were you talking to?”
This was good, very good. He wanted to know so he could kill them, too. “All r-right. I won’t lie. I was t-talking to the s-sheriff!”
He started laughing again. “You think I can’t tell when a woman is talking to her lover? You were talking to a friend, and it wasn’t about some oil tanker. I don’t know how you did it, but you figured out why I killed Kate, didn’t you? Fess up, Teddy, or I’ll shoot you in the kneecap first. Then the other one. Then…Believe me when I tell you that you will die slow.” He jiggled the gun up and down for emphasis.
Time to play the game in earnest. If nothing else, the delay would buy me time—not that it would be enough. I gave a couple of loud sniffles. “Figuring it out w-wasn’t all that hard.”
“Hmmm. I’ve changed my mind. If you tell me who you were talking to, I won’t shoot you. Hell, I won’t hurt you,
or
your friend, whoever she was. And yes, I’m betting it was a ‘she,’ because I didn’t hear any sexual tension.” His tone was sly.
“P-promise?”
“Promise. I’ll just…Let me see, if I remember correctly, your father escaped to Costa Rica. Maybe that’s where I should go. I hear the weather’s nice.”
Pretending to believe him, I took a deep breath and began. “I found the key to Kate’s storage unit on her boat, so I drove to Oakland…”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard about your little excursion at the party. What I want to know is, what exactly did you find, and who did you tell?”
“I found old computers. Discs and printouts. A big stack of Kate’s father’s software programs, including the one you stole and founded SoftSol with—the PCIFS, the Personal Computer InterFile Search.”
Bronson grunted. “Nice try, but no cigar. Tyler didn’t bother to copyright it, so there was no piracy. Didn’t know that, did you? That little money-maker was just sitting around in his crappy workshop, gathering dust. The hippie fool had no head for business, so I just snuck into his workshop and copied the discs. No problem there, since his workshop was actually my parents’ garage. Is that a riot, or what? A few years later, I copyrighted the program myself, making it legally mine. Tyler could whine all he wanted, but it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Over the year, he eventually forgot about it.”
Bronson moved closer. “Old history. My company’s sold and leased hundreds of software programs since then. Even if Kate had taken me to court and won—which is doubtful, because my attorneys would have tied the case until the end of time—I’d still have billions left over.”
“S- so why kill her?” As if I didn’t know.
This time the sound that emerged from his mouth resembled a growl more than a laugh. “Don’t play coy with me, Teddy. You said it yourself.
Loss of face.
An antiquated term, but hey, I run with some pretty important people, and reputation means everything in those circles. Why should I let that greedy little bitch threaten that?”
Because Kate wanted the money for her sick father’s care, you heartless monster.
“Okay, I understand. But why kill Heck?”
“Are you dense? Because he and Kate were thick as thieves. I couldn’t take any chances.”
Keep him talking. As long as he’s talking, he’s not shooting.
“Was that you who shot at me the other night?”
“Aren’t
you
the smart one!” With that, he ambled casually toward my tree, secure in his triumph.
My cue.
As I slipped the cell phone from its hiding place under the forest debris, I whined, “You promised not to hurt me as long as I told you who I was talking to!”
“Oops, I forgot. Say, I’ve got an even better idea. Let’s compromise and have a little fun. Who knows? You might even like it.
Then
you can tell me. After that…”
I sidled to the left. With the tree trunk still sheltering my body, I stretched out my left arm, revealing the cell phone and its lighted display. “See this? It’s an open line to the sheriff’s office. They’ve heard everything.”
At that, Deputy Ralph Lazlo shouted loudly enough that every deer in the forest could probably hear him. “Bronson! Touch that woman and you’re a dead man!”
The glee vanished from Bronson’s face. “Teddy, you
bitch!”
Time’s up.
I threw the rock with all my might. My aim was good, but not perfect. I’d wanted to hit him in the face. Instead, the rock bounced off the side of his head. While the blow didn’t knock him out, it did make him stumble backwards, where he stepped on…
A koala.
“Eeeeeeep!!!”
Wanchu screeched.
“Eeeeeeep!!!”
As furious as she was terrified, she wrapped herself around Bronson’s shin, dug in her claws, and began biting. His screams blended with hers. Tossing the cell phone aside, I dashed forward and snatched up Bronson’s fallen handgun. I don’t know anything about guns, only that this one was big and ugly.
“For God’s sake, Teddy, shoot!” Bronson yelled.
“You or the koala?” Wanchu was dug in deep and going in deeper with her sharp teeth. Bronson’s frantic efforts to pull her away just made her bite harder.
Figuring that the zoo’s emergency mantra “humans first, animals second” didn’t apply in attempted murder situations, I answered, “Sorry, Bronson. I might—just might—shoot if I thought she could kill you, but so far, you’re looking good, give or take some blood spatter here and there. Too bad about the suit, but you’ll soon get fitted with a new one. Prison stripes.
Très chic
.”
While Bronson rolled around on the forest floor with Wanchu firmly adhered to his shin, I picked up the cell phone again. “Ralph, did you get all that?”
“On the speaker phone, no less, with four other deputies listening in. Keep that gun on him, girl. Help’s on its way.”
Watching as the koala munched on Bronson’s leg, I smiled.
“Tell them to take their time.”
Now that I was no longer running for my life, and Bronson lay handcuffed to a stretcher while having his leg attended to, I’d begun to feel chilly, so it was nice to have a warm koala wrapped around my neck while giving my statement at the San Sebastian Sheriff’s office.
“We need to turn that koala over to Animal Control,” Joe said, frowning. “She attacked someone.”
I shook my head. “Wanchu’s had all her shots. If you don’t believe me, they’re on file at the zoo. As for that so-called ‘attack,’ that only happened after Bronson stepped on her, so it was self-defense. Plus, I want our vet to look at her foot and make sure nothing’s broken.”
Before Joe could protest, I hauled out my phone again and called Zorah’s cell, catching her not long after she’d arrived home from the marathon. After I’d explained where I was and why, she volunteered to pick Wanchu up and return her to the zoo. That accomplished, I called Helen.
Fifteen minutes later, Helen—who lived nearby—was sitting across from Joe, explaining the import of Tyler Everts’ old printouts in language that even the computer-challenged could understand. She’d brought along two of Tyler’s computers and all of his discs and printouts to give to Sergeant Kevin Turow, the department’s computer crimes specialist.
Turow didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a computer geek. Around six-foot-six, he had massive shoulders and hands, but as he walked, he leaned to the side like a boxer who had taken one too many hits. Maybe he had. Joe once told me that before Turow went back to school to obtain a degree in computer science, he’d been a beat cop in San Francisco’s rough Tenderloin District.
The big man rubbed his meaty hands in anticipation. He sat down at the ancient IBM-compatible, inserted a floppy disc, and scrolled through the files. Seconds later, he gave a happy little yip. “MS-DOS 3.1! Speak to me, you sexy little bitch.”
“Keep it clean, Kev,” Joe warned. “And in English.”
“Sorry, Sheriff. Well, Helen’s right. The shi…uh, the you-know-what’s gonna hit the fan over at SoftSol if they wind up losing the rights to PCIFS.”
Joe cut in. “Like I said, Kev. Keep it clean
and
in English. What’s PCIFS?”
Turow grabbed a printout and flapped it at Joe. “You’re looking at it. Personal Computer InterFile Search. Hit a couple of simple commands on any keyboard and within seconds, your computer finds whatever phrase or number series you’re looking for, no matter how many files you have cluttering up your hard drive, or whatever mislabeled folder the little bas…oops, the little dears are hiding in.”
“Which means?” Joe looked puzzled.
“It means money, Sheriff, lots of it.” After emitting a high-pitched cackle that sounded startling coming from a man of such size, he sobered up. “At the time this here Everts guy wrote this program, he obviously didn’t think it was worth all that much. And why would he? In 1985, the few PCs out there weren’t as crowded with files as they eventually became. But flash forward ten years later, when everybody and his dog were using PCs and files were breeding like maggots on hot sh…, uh, hot stuff, data started getting lost. Congressmen lost the love letters they were typing to their mistresses, their wives lost the list of assets they’d compiled for their divorce attorneys…Don’t you see? Any program that would help users locate lost data more quickly would make the designer some serious money.”
At the mention of money, Joe’s eyes lost their glazed look. “How much?”
Turow cackled again. “Millions, at the very least. Seriously, have you ever tried to find wordage you used once but can’t remember which file you put it in? And you’ve got more than
five hundred
files on your PC? Well, before Ford Bronson copyrighted what he claimed was
his
PCIFS, that kind of computer search could take hours. Even if you had the patience to wait that long, the search might result in some indecipherable coding—to you, anyway—not the actual wordage itself.”