The Orphans (Orphans Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Charlie burst into
his house and bolted up the stairs. He didn’t have the slightest inkling as to why Walter had mailed the drive to him, why he had sent it using an Abbadon packing label, or why, at the very least, he hadn’t even bothered mentioning it the night before. Charlie had so many questions, but he knew there was only one way he might figure out the answers to any of them: He needed to find out what was on the storage device.

Charlie didn’t slow down until he reached his bedroom. Even then, his momentum almost carried him out of his desk chair as he slid into the seat. He steadied himself and then hit the power button on his computer.

“Come on, come on!” he huffed and puffed, short of breath from his sudden burst of exertion. The machine made no attempt to speed up its booting process. If anything, to Charlie, it seemed to have actually slowed down. He banged the side of his desktop computer, hoping it might respond better to physical intimidation.

After a couple more smacks, Charlie’s computer finally finished booting. He jammed the flash drive into the
usb
port. The drive folder popped up on the screen. Charlie scanned the contents. There were dozens of files. Charlie recognized most of them as programs Walter had developed, programs that Walter had already shown Charlie. Charlie was certain that Walter would have only sent him the drive if he had wanted him to see something else, something more recent. Charlie sorted the folder by creation date. Three files jumped to the top: an
mp4
video file named
watch me first
, a spreadsheet named
contacts
, and a
pdf
file named
contract
.

The video file was the obvious first choice, not just because of its name, but also because it was the most recent of the three files. It had been created around eleven o’clock the night before, only a little more than an hour before Walter’s neighbor discovered his body. Much like the neighbor, nothing could have prepared Charlie for what he was about to see.

Charlie double-clicked the video file, which began to play upon opening. On the screen was a poorly lit webcam shot of Walter. The darkness not only made Walter’s exact location impossible to determine, but also accentuated the whiteness of his eyes, which darted back and forth from the webcam lens to something offscreen—presumably another computer monitor—as he delivered a panicked message.

“Hey, tough guy,” Walter said. “I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m sending you this because you need to know the truth. Your parents didn’t die from the car crash. They were killed. And Terry Heins was behind it all.”

Charlie slapped the space bar on his keyboard, pausing the video. He buried his head in his hands. “You gotta be kidding me,” he said as he tugged his hair so hard it sent tingles throughout his scalp and down his spine.

Not only was the news the last thing Charlie had expected to hear, it was the last thing he had wanted to hear. But now it was all Charlie heard, as Walter’s words played on a loop in his mind like a scratched
cd
that kept skipping back to the worst part of the song.

After a minute, Charlie lifted his head. “No way. No way. This can’t be real. It can’t be,” Charlie said, hoping to stop Walter’s words from repeating. They did.

Charlie considered removing the drive, throwing it away, and never thinking of it again. He got extremely close to doing that much. His fingers gripped the flash drive, ready to pull, but there was another voice inside his head that wouldn’t let him. The voice told him to stop. It told him that he needed to let the video play out. The voice was right. Regardless of whether he wanted to or not, Charlie needed to hear more. Charlie took a deep breath and then tapped the space bar again, restarting the video.

Walter continued, “If I’m right, he’s killed a lot more people than just your parents, like hundreds. I don’t know exactly how he does it. He must drug them or something. I don’t know. I just know that they all had heart attacks. That’s what really killed your parents. They were on their way back from meeting with Terry when they crashed. I was supposed to be there with them, but I—” Walter stopped. His eyes turned to saucers as he spotted something on his second screen.

Walter turned back to the camera and wrapped up the video as fast as he could. “I’ve included a couple files on this flash drive. One’s a list. I think it might be of all the people Terry is working with. The other looks like some kind of contract. I’m not sure what it’s for or what it says. I think it’s in Hebrew, but I’m not positive. It didn’t register with any of the web translators I tried. I gotta go. But you need to be very careful. There are a lot of powerful people on that list. I don’t know how high up this goes, or even where it goes. Just be careful, okay? I love you.”

The video cut out and returned to the beginning image of Walter, his face frozen like he’d just seen a ghost.

Charlie peered deep into Walter’s eyes. The manic urgency they conveyed was a stark contrast to what Charlie was used to—to the man he had known his whole life. Charlie barely even recognized the version of Walter that he was staring at.

As hard as it was for Charlie to reconcile the image of Walter that was stuck on his monitor, the information Walter had imparted was an even greater challenge. Charlie knew that he should believe Walter without question. Walter had never lied to him before, no matter how small the stakes were. And these stakes were anything but small.

Charlie was almost ready to accept everything Walter had said, but there was just one thing holding Charlie back: the reality of what it meant for him and his life if it were actually true. With all the doubt swirling on both sides of Charlie’s mind, there was no doubt when it came to the most important fact—Charlie didn’t want that reality. He didn’t want his parents’ deaths to be anything more than an accident, or Walter’s to be anything more than some combination of genetics and poor dietary choices. He wanted to take the summer internship with Terry. He wanted that to be the launching pad for achieving all of the goals that he had laid out in his notebook. And so, Charlie did what many people do when caught between the pull of the universe and their own worldly desires: He became his very own devil’s advocate.

Charlie rattled off every possible explanation he could think of for not believing Walter. Charlie told himself that Walter was just acting crazy in the video because he had clearly broken into Abbadon’s headquarters—that had to be why the package was sent from their office—and, well, because Walter was kind of crazy. Walter always had a thing for conspiracy theories, whether it was the government or just competing companies, and he rarely trusted anyone outside of his very small circle.

Charlie also noted that Walter had even said in the video, “If I’m right,” which meant he wasn’t 100 percent sure that he was right. He was basically guessing. He had no proof that Charlie’s parents had died of heart attacks. If that had been the case, the police would have said something. It would have shown up in the autopsy.

As persuading as each rebuttal Charlie had conceived was, the most compelling piece of evidence Charlie presented to himself was the lack of motive. There was no feasible reason Terry would want to kill his parents shortly after investing in their business. If their company failed, something that was almost certain to happen now, Terry stood to take a huge financial hit. No one as successful as Terry, or really even anyone who had ever had the slightest hint of success whatsoever, would ever intentionally sabotage their own investment. It went against everything Charlie had ever learned about business, as well as everything Charlie had ever read about Terry.

“Maximizing profit is the most important objective, the second most important objective, and the third most important objective in business,” was the line Charlie recalled Terry saying in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

By the time Charlie had finished his closing arguments, he had successfully swayed his internal jury. Not guilty would be the verdict they would return, without any need for further deliberations. That is, if not for the lone dissenter, the voice in Charlie’s head that was still causing a stir. It refused to go away. It needed more evidence before it could reach any judgment.

Charlie pleaded to the little doubt left in him.

It responded with Walter’s words, “Your parents died of heart attacks. That’s why they crashed.” The words kept repeating, turning jurors with each iteration until the jurors in Charlie’s court were split down the middle.

Frustrated, Charlie chewed on his lip with such force he nearly broke skin. He had been so close to putting it all behind him, but in the end, he had come up short. There would be no quick and easy way out. Charlie was forced to come to terms with the fact that there was only one way that he could close the case and move on.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Before setting off
for the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office, Charlie did a quick scan over the contact spreadsheet on Walter’s flash drive. He surmised that in his worst-case scenario—the one where Walter was correct about Terry—it would be much better to be safe than sorry and know for a fact that the coroner wasn’t secretly a member of this alleged conspiracy prior to asking for his help.

Charlie didn’t find the coroner’s name on the contact list; however, there were a handful of the names in the spreadsheet that he did recognize. He had heard some of them in his Civics class, and a few others were prominent business leaders that he had come across while doing his own research. Of all the names Charlie skimmed, there was one in particular that stood out among the others: James Podesky.

It wasn’t the name itself that caught Charlie’s eye. It was the first time he’d seen the name. It was James’s age that had practically jumped out at Charlie. James was just sixteen years old. Charlie counted this information as another strike against Walter’s theory. As far as Charlie was concerned, there was no way any truly malevolent consortium, no matter how small in size or ambition, could possibly include someone who was barely eight months older than him.

Charlie told his grandfather that he was going to hang out with a friend. He probably could have gotten away with not saying anything to Grandpa Kim before he left—the old man most likely would never have even noticed that he was gone—but he was used to telling his parents where he was going, so it was more a matter of habit.

From his bed, Grandpa Kim just nodded like he had heard and understood Charlie. His eyes never left the
tv
screen at the foot of the bed.

“All right … great talk,” Charlie said sarcastically, and then continued on his way.

◆
◆
◆

Charlie arrived at the Coroner’s Office shortly after five o’clock. He had feverishly pedaled his GT Performer for ten miles—a combination of bike trails and city streets—before skidding to a stop just as the last car was leaving the parking lot. “Wait!” Charlie shouted as he waved his arms, attempting to catch the attention of the driver.

It worked. The
suv
lurched forward a couple feet before slamming on the brakes. The driver backed up to Charlie and lowered his window. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Charlie immediately recognized—based off of the picture he’d seen on the web—that the man was not the coroner. “Uh,” Charlie stammered, buying himself time as he wasn’t quite sure if he should take this man up on the offer. He opted to play things safe and close to the vest. “I don’t know. I was actually hoping to speak to the coroner.”

“Sorry. He took off about a half hour ago, along with everyone else. That’s what happens when the 49
ers
are on Thursday Night Football. They leave the Ravens fan to do all the work. But the good news is that anything he could’ve helped you with, I can help you with, too,” the man said with a smile before introducing himself as Dr. Eugene Huang, the chief medical examiner.

Charlie responded with just his first name. Even though Dr. Huang had identified himself as the medical examiner, Charlie was still hesitant to divulge much else without confirming that his name wasn’t on the contacts list first. If only he had thought to copy the spreadsheet to his phone. But in his hasty exit, Charlie hadn’t thought that far ahead. He hadn’t even thought to bring the flash drive with him. It sat on his desk at home, as useless as the lint in his pocket.

“What can I do for you, Charlie?” Dr. Huang asked. “Are you working on a school paper or something?”

“No,” Charlie said. “I mean, yes, but that’s unrelated.”

“Okay, well, what did you want to ask Coroner Stevens?”

Charlie considered his options. He could let down his guard and trust this eager medical examiner, or he could come back another time. It didn’t take much time or convincing for Charlie to make up his mind. He knew that he didn’t want to wait until later. He wanted to get it over with right then and there. He wanted to wipe it off his books.

Charlie reminded himself that he didn’t actually believe in the significance of the list, anyway. He was only there for that last piece of evidence that he needed, or lack thereof. If Dr. Huang was his only means to obtaining said evidence, so be it. “I wanted to ask him something about my parents,” Charlie said.

Dr. Huang was certain he had heard Charlie correctly; he had said “parents” and not “parent.” Dr. Huang put two and two together. “Your parents were Alan and Mary Kim, weren’t they?”

Charlie nodded solemnly.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dr. Huang said. “I wish I could do more for you. But at the very least, I can help you with whatever you need.”

“Thanks. I just wanted to make sure that my parents didn’t die of heart attacks.”

Dr. Huang was clearly baffled by Charlie’s request. Had nobody explained to Charlie what happened? That didn’t seem possible. “Uh, I don’t know what anyone’s told you,” he said, treading lightly, “but your parents died in a car crash.”

“Yeah, I know about the crash. I wanted to make sure they didn’t have heart attacks first. Like maybe that’s what could’ve have caused them to crash. Not that it did. I just wanna make sure it didn’t.”

Like everyone else, Dr. Huang had heard the rumors. More than anyone, he knew the speculation was supported by a fair amount of forensic evidence, but not so much evidence that he had been willing to make that conclusion in his official report. Instead, he painted a rosier picture, which he repeated to Charlie. “Given the information we accumulated, it appears your father fell asleep at the wheel. That’s what caused the crash.”

“And from that same information, you were able to determine that he didn’t have a heart attack, right?” Charlie said, eagerly awaiting the confirmation he expected to receive. He was so certain it was coming that he had already planted his foot on his bike pedal and was preparing to push off.

“No, not exactly,” Dr. Huang said.

“Wait. What do you mean?” Charlie said, confused. His foot slipped from the pedal and back to the pavement.

“We didn’t perform a full autopsy. So we never actually checked to see if he did or didn’t have a heart attack.”

“Why wasn’t there a full autopsy?”

“Taking into account your father’s age, the nature of death, and probable cause, it wasn’t part of the protocol. But we did perform a series of toxicology exams. The blood alcohol, and everything else, all came back clean.”

“But you never actually checked for a heart attack?”

“No. But trust me, your parents didn’t die of heart attacks. That much I’m pretty sure of.”

Charlie hadn’t ridden all that way for just a “pretty sure.” He needed more than that to put any lingering suspicion to bed and turn out the light. “So you’re not 100 percent sure?”

“No, but only because we didn’t run the tests. I can tell you that I am damn near 99.9 percent sure, though.”

“Well, how about you run whatever test you need to run, and then we both can be 100 percent?”

“I—”

“Said you would help me,” Charlie said, finishing Dr. Huang’s sentence for him, albeit with different words than the medical examiner had intended. “That’s what you said.”

Dr. Huang looked Charlie up and down. He could tell by the desperation in Charlie’s eyes that he wasn’t about to give up easy. The medical examiner shook his head. “Fine.”

◆
◆
◆

Dr. Huang led Charlie inside the forensics laboratory. A series of wash stations lined the wall by the entrance. Empty steel examining tables occupied the center of the room. Along the back wall were all of the medical examiner’s technological toys, some much newer than others.

“I really shouldn’t be doing this,” Dr. Huang said for the fifth time.

Charlie ignored him, just as he had the previous times.

Dr. Huang continued, “Once the test is over, I’m out the door and on my way home to my wife’s chicken parmigiana.”

“Me, too,” Charlie said. “Minus the part about your wife’s chicken parm. Unless she made extras.” He was confident that it would all be over shortly. The test would come back negative and they would both go on with their evenings: the medical examiner to his wife’s home cooked meal, and Charlie to his Language Arts paper that he still hadn’t made a dent in.

Dr. Huang went to the back of the lab and got to work. He readied a vial with solution, added a test strip, and then dripped a few of the leftover drops of Alan’s blood. He capped the vial and gave it a couple firm shakes. “The best way to diagnose a myocardial infarction is through a full autopsy,” he said. “But since we don’t have that option, we’ll have to rely on a rapid test. We’ll give it a minute, and then we should have the results.” He set the vial in a test-tube holder.

“Is that like a litmus test or something?” Charlie asked.

“More or less. Except we obviously aren’t checking the pH. When someone has a heart attack, their body releases enzymes and proteins into their bloodstream. One of those proteins is called troponin. That’s what we’re looking for. Since it’s a rapid test, it won’t reveal the exact levels. But it’ll give us the approximate concentration.”

“What if my dad had a heart attack a while ago?”

“That wouldn’t be an issue. The body absorbs the enzymes and proteins fairly quickly. Anything over a couple weeks wouldn’t register.”

“Okay. Good.” Charlie said.

They both turned their attention to the vial. The test strip was still as white as a brand-new Hanes undershirt.

“It should be done any second,” Dr. Huang said as he checked the time on his cell phone and then started a text to his wife.

“If it turns red,” Charlie inquired, “that means the test was negative, right?”

“Actually, it’s—” Dr. Huang stopped himself, realizing that there was only one reason Charlie would ask such a specific question. His eyes lifted from the cell phone screen and matched Charlie’s gaze, which was locked on the vial.