Dollar Down (10 page)

"I can do better than that. With the historical data from
earlier trades, I have enough hypotheses to write an
instrument that will match the payout in the future. That is if
my assumptions, such as the flow of money into the cash
market, have similar effects."

"When in the future? Could you make it tomorrow?
That'd be the next strike date on the charts."

"PetaGrid can."

Good answer. If the network delivered, I had a plan to
make the tree of Mumby drop apples like hail stones. I had just
started writing a tough-guy scenario for McNulty and me when
the doorbell rang.

It was Oddsson. He looked tired and wore a wan smile.
"May I come in?"

I stepped back." I didn't know you'd been freed."

"I was released just a short while ago. I came directly
here."

"Sit down. You could use a glass, I expect."

He nodded as he passed me on his way to a chair.

I went to open a bottle of claret.

Neither of us spoke, but there was a tacit
communication of the ordeal he'd been through. His faced was
pinched. The corners of his mouth twitched now and again as
though he was trying to say something. Finally, he did.

"I'm still under suspicion." His air of resignation was
more appropriate for someone who'd just been
sentenced.

"Geir, I think you need someone else. If you want me to
stay, I will, but at least hire a local agency. I'll help where I
can."

He shook his head. "I haven't been fair with you Mick. I
didn't tell you everything, because I didn't want to prejudice
your investigation." He fell silent.

I did too, as I waited for the other shoe to drop.

Oddsson clasped his hands and touched his thumbs to
his chin.

"Sabine and Trevor were..." He laced his fingers
together.

Hushed voice—loud shoe.

He didn't say anything else as he waited for me to stack
the bricks of the story before he filled in the mortar.

"Sabine... That is, her passions were abundant. It was
her nature, and as I've said, I had learned to accept it. Trevor,
though, became obsessed. She's a captivating woman." His face
darkened. "Was."

He unclasped his hands and gripped the arms of the
chair. "He threatened her, if she didn't leave me. Not physically,
but he made subtle threats to sabotage her career. Even though
he was junior to her in the firm, he had powerful allies."
Oddsson squeezed his eyes closed. "Of course, she would never
leave me. She told him so. She also challenged him to a
professional battle. Even if he won and forced her out of the
firm, she could easily find offers elsewhere. Trevor raged. He
knew there was nothing he could do to harm her outside the
firm. Nothing, unless..."

There had been no sign of forced entry the day Sabine
died. She probably knew her killer.

I excused myself and went to the bedroom. I started
punching in Alexandra's number, then thought better of it and
hung up. I called the firm's main desk and asked for Sabine's
secretary. After a little prodding, she confirmed most of
Oddsson's story. I asked her to look for any correspondence
between Sabine and Trevor, any memos, letters or computer
files.

I'd been following the English tabloids' coverage of
Trevor's death. His body had been found two days after Sabine
died. The scandal sheets had many theories about Trevor,
including one that involved Druid religious rites. Another had
him taking a fatal dose of sedatives and being set upon by
hounds as he lay dying.

A crime of passion, murder, followed by attempted
suicide. It was a pattern that has probably been with
humankind since the inventions of jealously and guilt. The
calculated nature of Sabine's death belied an act of passion, but
Trevor and Sabine had both operated on planes a step beyond
most mortals. Maybe that's what had blinded me to such
possibilities in the first place. They were two exceptional
individuals. I had been looking for extraordinary cause.

I'd seen the Orimulsion study as the key to Sabine's
death and to Trevor's disappearance and subsequent death. I
had followed bizarre leads, from sulfur-eating microbes to
exotic financial instruments. Scientific and mathematical
esoterica had morphed into a multi-hued mist. I'd been chasing
rainbows across the rapidly eroding vista of my ego.

If I had focused on human frailty, I might have seen the
danger and been able to save Sabine, and with her Trevor. I'd
oversold myself in a delusion that had betrayed the trust of
both of them. Even as self-doubt grew, I knew it was transitory.
Over time, I would convince myself there was nothing I nor
anyone else could have done.

Oddsson had called me an avenging angel with an
implication that I could set things right.
Sorry Geir, you
shouldn't bet on angels.

"Good-bye" sounded like a good word right now. The
easy road away was a strong temptation, just sidle out of a case
I couldn't crack. I'd almost decided to take that route, until
Sabine's memory interfered. It wasn't a memory of her face but
of her scent—our scents—that infused a primal drive. An ache
squeezed my belly and groin in a visceral recollection of her
physical poetry. Smells and tastes seeped deep into the
reptilian node. I was Ferlinghetti's dog, seeing things bigger
than himself, smaller than himself, as he trotted freely through
the streets.

Free from the fear of failure.

Sabine's secretary had found a few messages from
Trevor. She didn't go into detail, but yes some were flirtatious,
even risqué. I asked her to copy them and get the
originals to Oddsson. Since he was the cuckold, risqué
notes might incriminate him more than they would an illicit
lover. We needed evidence of a threat from Trevor or at least a
rejection from Sabine.

I called Alexandra. "Can you get me access to Sabine's
office computer?"

"No, I can't. I'm sorry Mick, I'm under pressure right
now. We'll talk later." She hung up.

Oddsson was more accommodating, but then he had
more at stake. He would give me access to her home
computer.

I was on his doorstep in less than two hours.

"I don't mind if you see her files, but you should know
I've already been through them several times."

I took a flash drive out of my pocket and held it up. "Do
you mind if I install software that will let me read deleted
files?"

Oddsson looked as though someone had dropped ice
down his trousers like a cold dose of logic that he hadn't
expected. In a moment, his expression shifted to a wry smile. "I
am familiar with many types of application software, but I
actually know very little about the inner workings of
computers. I hadn't thought of that. Yes, of course."

He repeated "of course" or "certainly" or some other
variant of that idea every fourth or fifth second as he lead me
to Sabine's office.

"She may already have some software like that
installed, but if you want to use your own, please do. Just delete
it when you finish."

I did use my own. It was industrial strength and would
obliterate any evidence that it or I had been there.

In a short time, I had found several messages from
Trevor, inviting Sabine to move in with him. Other notes with
later dates sought to entice in other ways. Later still, the
messages pleaded. In the most recent letters, Trevor
threatened harm to himself, then finally to her or to Oddsson.
Not that I'm naÏve about the human condition, but I felt
nauseous. When I read the sordid messages from a person I
had known and respected addressed to one I had been
infatuated with, the psychological underpinning of faith in my
species went from sand to water.

It never had been rock.

Still, there was that mustard seed of optimism. The
messages at least might help Oddsson with his legal issues. I
copied each onto a disk as I dug for the missing link, the
mutation from tease into threat.

One message may not have been either. Only snippets
were recoverable. I doubted that Sabine's under-the-hood
utility would have been able to find it at all.

"...stolen samples...problem is what to do now...taped
under the bedroom bureau...and the trades. Getting close.
Don't..."

The date was also recoverable. The message was
received the day before Trevor disappeared, which meant it
was sent after his mails had turned nasty. Was he making good
on his threat to harm Sabine's career, accusing her of theft?
Getting close to what? Don't do what?

I jotted the message on paper and overwrote its
remains with 0s three times. No one else would be reading it.
Then I went to find Oddsson and give him the "good" news.
Trevor had in fact sent threatening messages. Oddsson wanted
a copy of my drive, so he would know what I had taken off
Sabine's computer. When I left, he took my hand in both of his
and congratulated me on a job well done. Not even my stated
opinion that this was not yet a closed issue damped his
gratitude.

When I got back to Sabine's flat, I had a fax from
Burroughs that described a foreign exchange trade.
Considering what I'd learned from Oddsson and what I found
on Sabine's computer, it might have been better to stop chasing
financial rainbows. But curiosity had already sunk its
claws.

I reread the fax and then added a couple of lines to
it.

"Check the figures, Mumby. We know what you're
doing and when you're going to do it."

I sent a copy of the fax to McNulty with instructions for
him to break into Mumby's house again and pin it to his
wall.

I still had Trevor's key. I took an evasive route just in
case anyone was tracking me. The place was dark when I let
myself inside. Nothing had been moved that I could see. The
message on Sabine's computer had read "taped under the
bedroom bureau." I went upstairs. When I turned on the light, I
had a vision of Sabine standing there, blushing, holding a
bracelet with an Arabic inscription. I felt under the bureau,
then pulled it away from the wall and laid it on its side to check
the bottom. There was nothing but a faint residue of adhesive
near the right front corner. I imagined that Sabine's bracelet
had been taped at that spot. She could easily have reached
under the bureau and pulled off the tape just before I walked in
on her. But why hide a bracelet that way, unless it was more
than it seemed.

I could ask Oddsson about it, but Alexandra might also
know. I called. "How about dinner?"

She said OK.

We met at the same place where I'd commented on the
faint imperfection of her skin. I vowed to leave her beauty out
of the conversation this time, but it was difficult. She wore
scant traces of makeup for the first time I'd seen. The thing that
stirred was not the enhancement of her beauty—she didn't
need it—but rather the tacit statement that she cared to
impress. She might have put it on earlier for another reason.
The gloss on her lips looked freshly applied.

If I'd known, I'd have worn a tie, combed my hair. Mick
"The Dapper" Sanchez.

"Here," Alexandra laid an envelope on the table.
"Sabine's secretary told me you asked her to look for any
correspondence between her and Trevor. This is what she
found."

"Thanks, I saw Oddsson today. He let me check
Sabine's computer at their home."

"He told me he had already done that."

"I looked at deleted files. They wouldn't show up
ordinarily. I almost wish I hadn't."

"Why?"

"He said that Trevor had threatened Sabine. Some of
the messages I found from Trevor support the accusation.
That's a hard concept for me to deal with."

I had expected a commiserating "me too" from
Alexandra. All she did was nibble at her paté.

When she spoke, her voice was scarcely audible. "Hard
to deal with, yes, but I can't say I'm shocked. There was tension
between them for a long time, or at least it seemed like a long
time. Two or three weeks, I guess."

"I thought tension was normal, clash of ideas, that sort
of thing."

"Professional tension is normal." Alexandra's frown cut
thin lines around her eyes. "This was different. There was an
aura of meanness that you don't normally sense with
professional differences. I'm not saying I expected anything
like this to happen. It's just that in retrospect, it is not
inconceivable to me. The way Sabine lived her life—"
Alexandra's eyes were again hazel lasers, burning into mine.
"You could almost say it was inevitable."

Deep cut, Alexandra. Let's take this someplace
else.
"Did you and she talk about personal things?"

"Of course. We were friendly. I didn't mean to imply
otherwise."

"The reason I ask, is about a piece of jewelry. Did you
ever see or did she ever mention a blue-green bracelet. It had
an Arabic inscription on it."

"I certainly do, it was a recent acquisition that she was
quite proud of. It's hundreds of years old and should have been
in a museum, but she wore it as a simple accessory. Why do
you ask?"

"There was an inscription."

"Yes, it was a line from a poem about the Alhambra,
supposedly written by a prince for his lover."

"And Sabine wanted to know the words."

"She knew the words. She told them to me. I don't
recall exactly, but the line was something about moonlight
shining through latticework."

"Trevor told her?"

"Trevor? Why would he know?"

I kept the circumstances of that supposition to myself.
"She showed it to me and said she had lent it to Trevor to
translate. He was studying Arabic."

"Trevor didn't speak Arabic. If he was studying the
language, it must have been a recent endeavor. He'd have to be
quite a genius to translate the inscription, don't you think. As I
say, it was hundreds of years old and was a line from a poem.
That sounds to me rather like an inexperienced English
conversation student translating Chaucer."