Cyber Genius (18 page)

“You could at least pretend you’re offering a little
respect,” he chided, running his hand regretfully through his thick curls.

“I can’t think of a better way of showing respect than to
find out who killed them. Now, can you get your hair cut before lunch? We can
probably run some dye over it so you won’t look like you. A knit cap is
probably uncool at an indoor funeral.”

“A cap is never uncool. It’s a badge of honor,” he muttered.
“How much do haircuts cost?”

Triumphantly, I handed him some cash and reminded him to
leave through the garage, preferably looking like a bum. That wasn’t hard for
him to do given his current state of grunge.

Heading back down to tell Mallard we’d be gone all
afternoon, I realized I was actually
anticipating
mischief and mayhem. My, my, how times change.

Given that there was a big empty house being renovated
across the street that was a haven for anyone watching our front door, I called
Graham’s car service again. Tudor and I walked out via the backyard tunnel and
the back street to meet the limo on busy Massachusetts where we could blend
into the crowd and traffic.

I’d persuaded Tudor to rub some men’s hair dye on his
newly-scalped hair, but he still kept a black knit cap in the pocket of Nick’s
overlarge blazer. We all had our own comfort zones.

I missed Tudor’s red curls, but the dark military cut and
blazer emphasized his long nose and sharp cheekbones. His big glasses added
years, and he almost looked distinguished sauntering into the hotel lobby—well,
compared to all the other slouchy, badly dressed nerds. I was starting to
understand Nick’s obsession with making me dress properly. It was pretty easy
to stereotype the bigwig families and the worker bees just from their differing
attire.

Earlier, Tudor had dug out the hotel schematics and memorized
the floor plans. He more than happily ditched me in the crowd to work his way
down to the basement kitchen with pockets full of mischief.

I produced my phone and invitation from my attaché, then
balanced the case under my arm as I strode across the lobby. My stupid veil
brushed my nose and got in the way of studying my phone as I joined the stream
of mourners heading for the ballroom. Half the people here had their phones in
hand. Some of the women even wore black feathery fascinators and several wore
hats, so my veil wasn’t a total give-away.

And Tudor was right. Some of the dorks honestly wore knit
caps which they left on even inside the ballroom. Incipient baldness would be
my assumption in the case of a few older men. Bad hair day for the women. I
really wanted to join my tribe, but it was the CEOs I needed to talk to.

There were ushers at the door wearing black suits and mics
that screamed security. I had to hope they were Graham’s minions. They were scanning
the invitations as expected but some of the guests received special treatment.
I watched security escort a stylishly garbed matron to the front of the room.
They knew their audience, so I was betting at least some of the guards were “Thomas
Alexander” hires. From all I’d discovered, Graham’s firm had pretty
high-profile clients.

I watched Brian Livingston, the hotel manager, and Roger
Tulane, the catering director, enter together and take seats toward the back. I
texted Tudor to look for a seat near them.

I stood to one side and read my messages until the usher
returned. Then, with an air of impatient importance, I stepped crisply in front
of someone fumbling for their invite and handed over my stock one.

He didn’t even raise his eyebrows as he offered his elbow
for me to take. I’d guessed right—one of Graham’s plants. The invitation had
probably been coded. It was interesting working
with
the madman for a change, instead of thumping him upside the
head to get his attention.

And it was a major relief knowing the spider was still
alive, just in someone else’s attic for a while.

The usher placed me in the same row with the elegant woman
he’d brought in earlier.
Nice
. Her
ruby-studded rose brooch seemed out of place on her severe black suit, but I
was no fashionista and just admired her attitude.

Several men in tailored suits nodded in my direction. The
women mostly ignored me. There were no young children, although I recognized
several as adult children of the victims. Setting my portfolio attaché on the
floor, I took a chair next to a plump Latino woman in her forties who watched
me with unabashed speculation.

“Linda Alexander,” I murmured and held out my hand. “And you
are?”

Heads perked up all around me. My murmur had been
deliberately carrying.

“Victoria Gomez,” the plump woman said aloud, almost defiantly.
“Are you one of Mr. Stiles’ associates?”

”In a manner of speaking.” Well, I was working for Graham
who had been an associate, close enough. “How is your husband? I heard he’s
awake.” That wasn’t a guess. I’d done my research on the families and knew she
was Enrique Gomez’s wife.

“They say he will recover,” she said in relief. “It will be
months. The poisons caused so much damage—” She drew a deep breath. “We are
luckier than others,” she added sorrowfully, nodding at the stylish matron with
the ruby brooch.

A tall man in a charcoal gray suit sat between me and the
woman I’d followed in. He’d been conversing with her, patting her hand in
sympathy. Now he reached over to shake my hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs.
Alexander. I’m Wyatt Bates. Will Thomas be joining you?”

Bates
. “No, I
believe he’s in Belize, looking into a situation there,” I said warily. “He
sent me in his place. Are you a relation of Henry’s?” Henry Bates was the man
who had died with Stiles—one of the few men capable of overseeing the programming
of a spyhole, or repairing it. I tried not to eye this personage with
suspicion.

“I’m Henry’s brother. I live here in D.C. He only came to
the conference so our families could visit.” He looked a bit gloomy and harried.
“In a way, it’s my fault he’s dead. His family has gone back to the west coast
to arrange the funeral, so I’m sitting in for them.”

“I am so sorry for your loss,” I said, thinking fast. I
didn’t think
Thomas Alexander
was
exactly a well-known figure, but this man had brought up the name with
familiarity. “How do you know my husband?”

“I’m with the D.C. office of MacroWare. We’ve heard his
reputation. I was hoping he was coming close to finding the madman who did
this.” He said this loudly enough for everyone within hearing range to tune in.

Interesting that MacroWare execs thought the killer had to
be insane instead of purposeful.

“I’m not able to discuss my husband’s business, Mr. Bates,”
I said with care. “But I can’t imagine your security would allow Thomas to
continue working on a case in which he was potentially implicated, like this
one. I can’t think Thomas would approve either.”

I didn’t want killers thinking Graham had any answers. It
was bad enough having the feds and cops on our doorstep.

The stylish woman on the far side of Bates unexpectedly
spoke up. “You are quite correct, Mrs. Alexander. Until we know if my husband’s
death was an inside job or the act of a madman, we must be scrupulous about
whom we trust. Thank Thomas for understanding that.”

Oh, wow, this was Stephen Stiles’ wife. What was she doing
here in D.C? Even I didn’t have the nerve to ask.

“Let me convey my husband’s deepest sympathies, Mrs.
Stiles,” I said. “He held your husband in the greatest respect.” Well, Tudor
did, anyway. Who knew what Graham thought?

She nodded graciously and returned her attention to the
stage. I couldn’t tell from her stone-faced expression if the widow was
grieving, furious, or on medication—the true mark of class in my mother’s
world. Scary. Bates returned to murmuring sweet nothings in her ear. She didn’t
appear to notice.

An older woman leaned over my shoulder, offering her hand.
“Good to meet you, Mrs. Alexander. I am Hilda Stark, Bob’s mother. If you would
be so good as to give your husband my card...” She produced a gilt-edged one.
“I would most like to speak with him.”

Bob was the wealthy VP of finance, the one with a loan shark
family. I wish I could swivel around to see his mother better.

“Now, Hilda,” Louisa Stiles said disapprovingly, sending a
warning look over her shoulder. “The police have told us not to speak to
outsiders, and Mr. Alexander must be considered an outsider.”

“My Bob may never be the same,” the older woman protested in
her deep voice.

I had an ear for accents, but hers had been buried beneath
decades of flat west coast dialect. She could have been German, Russian, or
Scandinavian for all I could discern.

“I have a right to find out who did this to a good man,” she
continued.

“
Five
good men,” I
said peaceably. “Thomas assures me that the best people possible are on the
case. But I will happily give him your card so he may reassure you, if you
like.”

Personally, I was hoping her card had fingerprints. One
could never have too much information. I tucked the neat square into my attaché
case.

That Hilda Stark had actually elicited a reaction from
Louisa Stiles spoke of previous unpleasant encounters. MacroWare might not be
one big happy family after all—a point to ponder.

The memorial began before I could learn anything else. I
kept an eye on the service doors to the left side of the ballroom, an aisle
away from where I was sitting. Those were the doors wait staff had entered
during the fatal dinner, so I assumed our kitchen guests would arrive through
there. My seat was angled so I could see this entrance.

I couldn’t tell if Tudor had entered behind me yet. He
hadn’t responded to my text about sitting near hotel management, but I hoped he
was watching my back. I waited to see if my extra invitations had reached their
uninvited targets.

A few minutes into the service, Maggie O’Ryan in a white
serving uniform slipped in through the same service door she’d used at the
banquet. She stood unobtrusively behind a pillar and bowed her head when the
minister opened with a prayer. My bet was that her prayer was genuine.

A black suit accosted her, and she handed him one of my
printed invites. I smiled proudly as the suit accepted it. Tudor had done well.
Staff would never have been invited to this event, but I needed them up here
where I could see them—the ones who interested me, at least.

Adolph arrived a few minutes later through a door closer to
the chairs. He flashed his faux invitation boldly and stalked to an empty seat
somewhere behind me. I hadn’t met the hotel’s chef, but I’d studied his
photos—tall, stout, commanding dark eyes, thinning brownish hair with too much
pomade. He was wearing his chef’s whites and didn’t look grief-stricken or
guilty, just officious.

I was wired and impatient, ready for the next act. But I
waited respectfully and was rewarded half an hour into the service when still
another kitchen worker slipped through the doors on my left. This one, I
recognized, Goatee Man—Wilhelm—although he wasn’t wearing a white coat.

He couldn’t carry off Adolph’s arrogance, not with those
skinny, slumped shoulders. He glanced nervously in the direction of his
presumed lover but waited for security to accept his faux invite. He took a
seat along the wall. Adolph hadn’t taken a row with an empty chair where
Wilhelm might join him.

I waited just a little longer, until the crowd started to
rustle and murmur during a particularly long-winded speech by a well-known
conservative politician. Presumably, the widow had invited him. Interesting. Stiles
had been a well-known liberal, so this really wasn’t the right audience.

The guests were making that obvious. They shifted and looked
at their phones as the windbag prosed on.

I set my attaché in my lap and removed my phone, glancing
down just long enough to unlock it and find the app Tudor had programmed for
the occasion. Not for the first time, I wished Graham had been available to
help me organize this better. My level of mischief sophistication is nowhere
near his.

Within seconds of my phone signal, Tudor set off the first
of my pranks. Graham would seriously regret not staying in contact.

A round of loud pops reverberated like gunshots in the
high-ceilinged ballroom.

Alarmed, the politician ducked and ran for the stage door. The
rest of the speakers hurriedly filed off the stage under the direction of
security, raising the room’s level of fear. Frightened murmurs rippled through
the crowd. Trapped in their chairs, the intelligent guests anxiously looked for
the source of the disruption rather than panic. A few of the more hysterical
types stood up and tried to push their way out even though there was nothing to
be seen and they were trapped by a mass of bodies.

Another round popped. People hit the floor or threw chairs
out of their way in their effort to escape. Security drew guns and motioned
everyone down as they edged toward the sounds.

My group in front had plenty of room to escape—and me to
shepherd them. I waved off a security guard coming our way and grabbed Mrs.
Gomez by her elbow. “Gunfire,” I said curtly and authoritatively. I stashed the
awkward attaché under my arm. “There’s a safe room to our left. Hurry.”

Tudor had located the small reception room on the maps
before our arrival. Presumably it was too small and not any safer than the
ballroom or security would be rushing us toward it. Considering Tudor was in
charge of the noisemakers, it was safe for our purposes.

I shoved Gomez in the right direction, released her arm, and
whispered the same to Bates, Mrs. Stiles, and the other immediate families.
Once I had them moving in the right direction, I hurried in front of my little
lambs to open the concealed door.