[To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) (22 page)

Taylor stood behind me, watching over my shoulder when I started to work. It was exactly what I thought he might do which is why Megan and I had cooked up a plan the night before to distract him. I looked at the time in the lower corner of the screen, and I wondered why she hadn’t called. It was already fifteen after one. She was supposed to call fifteen minutes ago. I pressed the CTL, ALT, and Delete buttons at the same time to start the Task Manager.

“Won’t that reboot the computer?” Taylor asked.

“It can, but it is also a shortcut to show me which processes are running and the resources they are using.”

Taylor started to say something else when his cell finally rang. “Hello… Hi, Meg… Sure, I’ll be right back.”

I waited until I heard the truck leave the drive before I started going through Hal’s desk. I didn’t know how long Megan would be able to keep Taylor away with her plea to help Kevin move Mike’s old beer refrigerator to my mother’s. Hal’s computer could wait. I had just been given the chance to solve the murders in one fell swoop.
He never bothered to backup data until a few weeks ago?
Now why would he decide all of a sudden to start backing up at the same time everyone started to die? There must be something on that DVD he thought was mighty important. My guess was that it was a record of Born2fish meeting him at the house. All I needed to do was find where he kept the DVD backups and make a copy of that meeting.

I tried the large file-folder drawer first, thinking he may store them there instead of files. No such luck. He actually used the drawer for files and a few porn magazines. I was tempted to look through the other drawers – not for DVDs but just to snoop – when I remembered the file cabinet in the hidden closet. I left the desk and opened the concealed door of his security system.

Surveillance systems were something new to me. They would have been a complete waste of money for my little cabin - most of them cost more than anything I owned. It would be like renting a safe deposit box to safeguard my rejection letters. Besides, I already had the best security alarm money could buy. I had Fred. But even though I had never programmed a system like the Surveillance Net 1000, it didn’t look any more difficult than a TV remote. I would have to play with it if I had time before Taylor came back.

The file cabinet was locked, so I went back to the desk to search for a key. It wasn’t in the top-center draw, so I did a Kinsey Millhone trick and felt under the bottom of it. I had read enough Grafton novels to know where to look for hidden keys. Kinsey, Grafton’s infamous PI, would have been proud. The key was taped right where she would have found it.

All I found for my clever impersonation of the alphabet sleuth was more girlie magazines and some old VCR tapes. How he managed to watch those was another mystery. Did he have a hidden tape player somewhere? Next, I checked out a box of computer paper in the corner. I’ve used empty boxes for storage. Maybe Hal did, too. Bingo. There were five DVDs in the box. They were labeled 6-1, 6-2, etc. I took the disk that read 6-1, as it must be the first week of June, and Mike died on the fourth.

Once back at Hal’s desk, I inserted my pilfered DVD into the computer. Then I thought better of it and pushed the eject button. There would never be time to copy the disk. I removed it and returned it to its jewel case. Then I slipped the case in a pocket of my laptop carrying case. I would have to find a way to return it later – hopefully before Hal returned from his trip. Now all I had to do was delete any record of my spyware program, and I could once more sleep at nights.

My little spy was still running. It hadn’t been deleted after all. Then I saw why it wasn’t sending me any data. Hal’s internet connection wasn’t working. My program had not been able to connect to me and had been using most of the system resources trying. No wonder the computer was so slow. I immediately stopped my Trojan and copied its log files to a flash drive I had inserted into a USB port. I deleted the program and every trace of its existence. I started to check what had happened to the internet connection when I heard a car outside.

Just as I finished, I heard the front door open and smelled the scent of expensive perfume. “Hi, Amy. I didn’t expect you. I thought you were chained to that hospital,” I said in a voice that did nothing to hide my surprise.

“Only when Hal’s home,” she said without a hint of catching me off-guard. “Where’s Taylor? I didn’t see his truck.”

“He went to help move a refrigerator for my mother. I would have gone too, but I thought I’d better fix this computer and get Hal off my back.”

Amy came up behind me and looked over my head at the computer. Then she put both hands on my shoulders and started giving me a massage. “Did you find what the bastard did to slow it down?”

Her little massage was starting to get me aroused. I just sat there like a golden retriever and couldn’t say a word. I half expected to see my leg start to shake the way Fred does when I rub his back. Words finally found their way out of my mouth. “Looks like some kind of spyware he must have picked up from a download. I killed it and am running a malware check as we speak. This could take a while, but please don’t stop. That feels so good.”

She stopped with her massage, so I turned around in the swivel chair to face her. It was the first I’d looked at her since she came in. She looked so sad, yet at the same time, she was trying to smile. “Are you okay, Amy?”

“It’s been a rough day, but thank you for asking, Jake.” She was looking at me in a way I’ve only seen in movies: the kind of scene where the girl has fallen for her lover. “I’ll get changed and meet you on the deck. I hope you don’t mind Budweiser; I don’t have any Colorado beer.”

“Taylor won’t be back for a while,” I rose to my feet and softly took her head in my hands. Then, without another word, I bent down and kissed her. She didn’t resist or act surprised.

When we finally stopped for a breath, she took me by the hand, led me out of the office, and to the curved staircase leading to her bedroom.

* * *

Fred woke me late the next morning, wanting to go outside and do his thing. “Okay, Fred, alright already.” I got up just when Amy was about to kiss me again in my dream. “Couldn’t you hold it for a few more minutes?”

I opened the door to the lower level deck, and Fred quickly ran down the stairs to his favorite patch of ground, where he started his circling, sniffing, and circling. He finally did his thing after he found the perfect spot. It made me want to do the same, so I headed toward the bathroom where I had installed a toilet a few days earlier. I had no need to circle the room. I knew where the bathroom was without smelling every spot on the carpet to find it.

I looked at my face in the mirror and wondered what Amy saw in me. The face staring back at me reminded me of the hunchback in The Beauty and the Beast. It wasn’t that I was bad looking. But my three-day beard, and hair that hadn’t seen a barber in months, should have been enough to make her run screaming for help. I was so glad she didn’t.

Our little tryst was fantastic, while it lasted. We had finished with the bed and were in the shower when Taylor returned with Kevin. I don’t know if they believed my excuse of fixing the upstairs toilet, and I really didn’t care. All I could think about was Amy. I even had a hard time concentrating on the DVD when I showed it to Megan later.

Fred was already watching Megan in the kitchen when I flushed and joined them. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Megan said. She was making French toast and sausage while Fred waited patiently for her to burn the sausage.

“Now I know what woke Fred,” I said. “That smells great.”

Megan soaked another slice of bread in her egg batter then threw it in the skillet. “How’d it go with the DVD last night? I’m sorry I couldn’t help, but you were making me dizzy with the fast forward, then reverse, then fast forward again and again.”

“It’s the only way to find what we want without spending days watching them,” I said while taking a cup from a hook under one of the upper kitchen cabinets. I chose one with the picture of a John Deere tractor she had picked up at a garage sale. “Too bad the fool didn’t set the date on his system or we could have fast forwarded to the date Born2fish was supposed to meet Hal.”

“I take it you never found it then?” she asked.

“No. I finally gave up when I realized I didn’t have the June disk after all. He must have labeled the disk with the month he removed it from the system, and that makes the video over a month old.”

Megan flipped over the toast in the pan and looked at me strangely. “How on earth did you figure that out?”

I poured my coffee and went back to sit down. I slowly took a sip just to create a little suspense. “That clip you pointed out of the Paddlefish snaggers. You know, where those fishermen were swinging their poles back and forth like they were trying to snag something.”

“Spoonbill,” she said. “We call them Spoonbill.”

“The article I googled called them Paddlefish,” I said grinning. “But regardless, your snagging season on those monsters is in the Spring. From March fifteen until April thirtieth. That means Hal labeled April’s recordings as June. I had assumed 6-1 was the first week of June, but June must have been when he did the backup. My guess is he copied everything on the hard drive until he got to what he wanted. The meeting with born2fish is probably on the last disk.”

“I should have caught that. Mike use to go every spring,” she said, looking like a kid who just flunked a math test. “So are you going back for June?”

“As soon as I figure out a way to get back in. In the meantime, are you going to cook that so only Fred will eat it, or do I get some first?”

“Fred needs to learn to eat his own food. This may be our last meal for a while unless one of us gets a job pretty soon, so I hope you enjoy it.”

I finished my coffee and made a show of the empty cup. “Damn if you don’t sound like Natalie. But don’t worry. I bought us a little more time last night after watching the DVD.”

Megan came over with the coffee pot and filled my cup. “And just how did you do that, Mister Chauvinist?”

“I borrowed twenty thousand on my 401K. If we watch our money, it should be enough to catch up your payments and get us by a few more months,” I answered. “You can pay me back when you sell the house.”

“Jake,” she started to say before throwing her arms around my neck to hug me. “You’re the best brother in the whole world.” She said between sobs.

Fred loved the burnt French toast and sausage. Meg and I settled for some pop tarts and scrambled eggs. A combination I don’t ever recall seeing on a four star menu.

We had just finished our breakfast when we heard Taylor’s truck. The boys had stayed at Taylor’s since Hal was on the road. Megan pretended to look at a watch on her wrist that didn’t exist. “Whatever got those two up so early?” she asked.

Kevin was the first one to walk into the kitchen and went straight to the refrigerator. Taylor sat down at the kitchen table next to Fred and patted him on the head. “Good morning, Mrs. Carver. Jake,” he said.

“Thank you Taylor,” she answered. “Aren’t you going to say ‘good morning’ too, Kevin?”

“We’re all out of energy drinks, Mom,” he said while staring inside the refrigerator.

“Yes, I know. You’ll have to settle for coffee until I can get to the store,” she answered. “I didn’t expect you guys up before noon. What’s up?”

“My dad came home this morning and started a big fight with Mom,” Taylor said. He now had Fred’s head between his hands and was rubbing Fred’s ears. The boy didn’t seem to be the least bit upset.

“Yeah, we had to get out of there,” Kevin said after pouring the last of the coffee.

Megan’s expression turned solemn at the news. “Is she okay?”

“Where’s the sugar, Mom? There ain’t no sugar in the bowl?”

Taylor stopped petting Fred and turned to Megan. “Yeah, she’ll probably go to grandma’s in Clinton. That’s what she usually does when they get into it.”

Megan got up, went to her pantry at the far end of the kitchen, and came back with a nearly empty bag of sugar. “What happened to get him so mad?” she asked.

Kevin left his cup on the counter and took a seat at the table. I saw he wasn’t going to make another pot of coffee, so I got up and started rinsing out the pot. I wanted to ask about Amy but decided to just wait and hear what the boys had to say first.

“Dad came back from his trip in a foul mood and started calling Mom names,” Taylor said. He didn’t look at anyone in particular – just stared out the sliding glass door. “He’s not my real father, you know. Mom says my real father bolted when he found out she was pregnant, and Hal came along just in time. The SOB never lets her forget it.”

Megan filled the sugar bowl, then put three spoonfuls in Kevin’s coffee before throwing the empty bag in the trash. “Why doesn’t your mom just leave him?” she asked when she returned to the table and gave Kevin his cup.

“She loves that freaking house. Sometimes I think she loves it more than me. Says she’ll lose everything if Hal walks out,” he answered, then started to rise from his chair. “Is it okay if I go out on the deck to have a smoke?”

“Yeah. This coffee tastes like shit anyway, “ Kevin said and slid his cup toward Megan. “Then I gotta get some sleep.”

Fred followed the boys out to the deck. Maybe he thought they might be hiding a treat in their pockets, or more likely, he was hoping for another ear massage. Next to food, there is nothing a Golden Retriever likes more than having someone rub his ears.

Fred started barking the minute he went through the open door. I had just finished with the coffee pot, so I went out to see what he was barking at. “What is it, Boy? Don’t tell me we have another intruder,” I said as I looked to see what he was growling at. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

A huge bald eagle was perched in an oak tree overlooking the lake. It couldn’t be more than fifty feet away, and it had turned its head toward us. I swear I could see it blink. It must have heard Fred, for it spread its wings and swooped down toward the water before catching an updraft. It was amazing to watch the beautiful creature fly with hardly flapping a wing.