Moving Target (7 page)

Ali had booked a suite with two bedrooms on either side of a connecting sitting room, to give them privacy from each other and also from the hotel’s public areas, in case things with the expected onslaught of relatives became dicey. The first of those, Leland’s cousins—the ones Jeffrey and Charlie had referred to as “the aunties”—were due for tea that very afternoon.

Ali and Leland made their way through the check-in process and
up to their suite. The sitting room was spacious, with expansive windows that overlooked the sea. B.’s frequent guest points were paying the bill here, and his membership status was high enough that a bottle of chilled champagne and an enormous basket of fresh fruit awaited them. Walking over to look down at the view of the seaside promenade and the shoreline far below, Leland grew quiet again. “This hotel’s been here for a very long time,” he said. “I never would have thought I’d be staying here as an overnight guest.”

Ali grabbed a pear from the fruit basket and joined Leland at the window. “Didn’t you ever come here as a boy?”

A shadow fell across his face. “Not as a boy,” he said. “My father was a thrifty man, and he maintained that the place was far too grand for us when I was growing up, although my parents did bring me here once. We came to Sunday-afternoon tea after I joined the Royal Marines and before I shipped out for Korea.”

“Oh, my,” Ali said. “If I had known that, I could have booked us somewhere else.”

“No,” Leland said. “This is an excellent choice. I can see that parts of this trip will mean facing down some of my own personal demons, including Daisy and Maisie.”

“We can go down for lunch if you like,” Ali offered.

“No,” he said. “If afternoon tea now is anything like it was then, we won’t find ourselves starving. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll grab a short nap before that. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I want to be at my best.”

Ali smiled at that. “You do that,” she said. “I’m going to order a pot of coffee from room service. I ended up on the short end of the coffee stick this morning. Then I have some work to do.”

Once the coffee arrived, Ali settled at the desk in her own room and pulled out her computer. Her e-mail account was chock-full of the usual spam. Even on the far side of the Atlantic, a Canadian pharmacy wanted to sell her Viagra. Hidden away in all the junk were two real messages. One, from her mother, contained a photo of Colleen looking
darling in her finished flower-girl dress. The other was from B., saying his meetings were going well, but that he was beat and would be hitting the sack early. She replied to both. Then she extracted her thumb drive from the bottom of her purse and returned to the files Stuart had sent in the encrypted photo. This time she went to the opposite end of the string of files and started at the beginning with articles, all of them culled from what was evidently a local newspaper, the
San Leandro Lariat
.

Ali soon realized that in order to keep track of the whole story, she would need to take notes. Not wanting them to be readily accessible, she used the same steganography program to create a separate file on the thumb drive, one she’d be able to put into another photo to send back to Stuart and B.

There was a whole collection of articles dealing with school board meetings, in which the pros and cons of the proposed SFLS—student/faculty location system—were discussed in mind-numbing detail. Ali had reported on enough meetings like that to know how opposing sides had most likely lined up behind a standing microphone to take public potshots at each other. Either the reporter was incredibly evenhanded or the townsfolk had been evenly divided for and against the system, which would allow school administrators to know at all times where each person—visitors included—could be found on the various school campuses.

The program required that everyone involved would be issued a bracelet that contained a GPS tracking device associated with that person’s name, which would allow administrative personnel to instantly locate the targeted individual. The school superintendent, Dr. Richard Garfield, was a huge proponent of instituting the system, which seemed incredibly expensive. For the amount the district would be paying to install and maintain it, they could have hired two to three beginning teachers. From Ali’s point of view, paying teachers to teach was far more important than being able to monitor where everyone was.

People in favor of the system, the ones who spoke out in public
about it, sang its praises from a student-safety point of view. Outspoken opponents, including some students and faculty members, compared it to putting ID chips in dogs or the Nazis requiring every Jew to wear a Star of David sewn on his or her clothing. They objected to the tagging on constitutional grounds as a violation of prohibitions against unlawful searches and seizures. It was from one of those quotes, namely in the dog-ID-chip comparison, where Ali first encountered the name of Everett Jackson, identified as a longtime San Leandro High School faculty member and computer science club adviser. The article mentioned that several club members had been in attendance at the meeting and had applauded Jackson’s statement of objection.

The files dealing with school board meetings were grouped together, so this article was not the only one dealing with the topic; over several months, SFLS was listed under old business in the meeting agendas. In April of the previous year, the school board had approved the purchase at a rancorous meeting where no further provision for public comment was allowed. The next meeting after that, the one in May, dealt with the unauthorized intrusion and interruption of service, by person or persons unknown, of the school district’s server.

Ali made a note in her file. The server disruption had happened in April. When the school board met in May, the culprit, Lance Tucker, had not yet been identified. Between the articles about the April meeting and the one that followed, Stuart had inserted another article, this one from the
Los Angeles Times
, which featured a profile of an up-and-coming businessman named Daniel Crutcher. Ali had to read through the article before she understood his relevance. Mr. Crutcher was United Tracking Incorporated’s ace salesman in the U.S. He spoke enthusiastically about the importance of San Leandro’s pilot use of the program as a model for schools all over the U.S. “Before long,” Crutcher was quoted as saying, “these systems will become a basic part of the country’s educational system, as necessary as pencils.” In another part of the article, he said, “That way, in case of a serious emergency such as a school shooting or an earthquake or flood, school officials will
be able to tell anxious parents exactly where they will be able to find their children.”

Ali stared at the man’s photo for a long time. Was this guy on the moon or what? Did he know any actual kids? More to the point, did he know any teenagers? Ali did, and she understood there was a good chance that those “anxious parents” would still be unable to find their children. Just because the kids were supposed to wear the bracelets didn’t mean they would.

There was a discreet tap on the door to Ali’s room. “Time to go forth and meet our guests,” Leland announced.

Ali looked up in surprise, shocked to see how much time had slipped through her grasp while she was dealing with the minutiae of the San Leandro school board. “I’ll be right there,” she said.

She took a minute to change out of her travel clothing and refresh her makeup before joining Leland in the sitting room. He was nattily dressed, with a brightly colored red vest under a blue sport coat and a matching red bow tie properly tied and sitting at a jaunty angle at the base of his scrawny neck. His white hair was properly combed, and a cloud of musky aftershave wafted into the air as he moved. He stood still while Ali examined him. “Well,” he asked, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. “What’s the verdict?”

“You’ll do,” she said with a smile. “How many years has it been?”

“Sixty plus,” he said.

“Then they’ll be so glad to see you that they won’t pay any attention to what you look like. Come on. Let’s go knock ’em dead.”

Out in the corridor, they called for the lift and waited for it to show up. “What can you tell me about these ladies?’ ” Ali asked.

“They were very young when I saw them last, but the two of them were little demons—always getting into trouble and mean as snakes.”

“Charming,” Ali said. “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this.” From the look on Leland’s face, he obviously felt the same way.

When she was making reservations, Ali had expected the Highcliff
to be a bit on the dowdy side, and it didn’t disappoint. In the conservatory, where afternoon tea was served, they were shown to a pair of brocade-covered sofas facing each other across a low polished wood table. Ali and Leland were comfortably seated on one of the two when the aunties arrived.

As they made their way toward their table, it seemed to Ali that Maisie Longmoor and Daisy Phipps fit right in with their surroundings: They were a bit on the dowdy side as well, women of a certain age, several years north of seventy. Ali had the momentary sensation that the two of them had just walked off the set of the old PBS sitcom
Keeping Up Appearances
. The twins were not dressed alike, but their brightly hennaed hair, tinted to the same shade, indicated that they utilized the services of the same colorist.

As soon as Leland stood to greet them, they dodged away from the hostess and made a mad dash for him, shrieking with joy. “Lee! Lee! Lee! How good to see you again!”

It took a moment for them to stop smothering him with kisses before they turned to Ali so Leland could make the introductions. Ali noted that Daisy was slightly more heavyset, while Maisie was the more outspoken. She was the one who immediately went to work to set the record straight. “I’m Leland’s cousin,” she announced formally. “I’m Maisie Jordan Longmoor, and this is my sister, Daisy Jordan Phipps.”

“I’m Ali,” she replied, holding out her hand in greeting but offering no further explanation of her presence.

Maisie instantly lived up to the advance billing. Remaining standing, she turned back to Leland and went on the attack. “I know there was all that unfortunate business. Still, we could never understand why you took off like that with never a word to anyone. Isn’t that right?” Maisie shot a questioning look in her sister’s direction. “It broke poor Aunt Adele’s heart, I can tell you that.”

Ali noticed the shadow that flitted briefly across Leland’s face. Clearly, he didn’t appreciate having his youthful transgressions bandied about in casual conversation so many years later.

Daisy nodded in vehement agreement to everything her sister said. “Indeed,” she added. “The poor woman was completely devastated.”

“She cried constantly after you left, wept her heart out for weeks and weeks,” Maisie continued, blissfully unaware that her tasteless remarks might be hurtful to Leland. “She was inconsolable, and of course, that was before your father died a few weeks later. That additional awful blow was just too much.”

Daisy nodded again. “Aunt Adele was utterly inconsolable.”

That seemed to be the way the pair of them worked, double-teaming as they went along, with Maisie doing the bulk of the talking and Daisy adding the occasional adverb as the conversation warranted.

They were still standing. From the way Maisie and Daisy goggled at their surroundings, Ali understood that the Highcliff Hotel wasn’t the sort of place the two women visited often, if at all. Maisie and Daisy were here as Ali’s guests, but Ali’s reaction was something less than hospitable. With introductions barely out of the way, she was ready to strangle them both.

Once they finally took their seats on the far side of the coffee table, Maisie turned her laserlike attention on Ali. “I’m so sorry. What was your name again?”

“Ali. Short for Alison.”

“Is this your daughter, then?” Maisie asked Leland.

Despite Maisie’s earlier reference to Leland’s tarnished past, it seemed that she had failed to get the memo about his supposedly being gay. If the secret of Leland’s homosexuality had been kept for all these years, Ali saw no point in arming Maisie with any added ammunition. Ali answered the question without giving Leland an opportunity to speak. “We’re just good friends,” she said with a smile.

“I understand we owe a debt of gratitude to Jeffrey for bringing you back into the family fold,” Maisie said to Leland.

The words were bland enough, but the underlying hint of disapproval in their delivery suggested that Maisie felt Leland’s “cousin” had any number of things to answer for.

“Yes,” Leland said smoothly. “He was the one who initiated the contact. The original idea was for me to come for the family reunion he’s planning for next summer. This opportunity came up, so I decided to drop in somewhat sooner than that.”

The server came to take their order, high tea all around.

“We won’t be going to the reunion, of course,” Maisie said when the waitress went on her way. “Summer is our busy season. Daisy and I run a B and B out of what was once our family home,” she explained for Ali’s benefit. “It’s rather posh—Jordan’s-by-the-Sea. You certainly would have been welcome to stay with us rather than coming here. But as I said, we can’t afford to go gallivanting all over the place during the summers. That’s when someone needs to be here keeping a sharp eye on the business. I’m sure several of the grands will be going. They love the kinds of parties Jeffrey and that partner of his know how to throw. I suppose you know about all that,” she added with a sniff, “about his partner, I mean.”

“We had dinner with Jeffrey and Charlie just last night,” Ali replied with a bright smile. “What a delightful couple.”

A spot of color suddenly appeared through the thick layer of white powder on Maisie’s pale cheek. “Oh yes,” she huffed. “The two of them live together quite openly, but they’re in London, of course. That kind of behavior isn’t as easily overlooked or as easily tolerated here as it is there.”

In a matter of a few minutes, it had become clear that the prejudices that had sent Leland fleeing his homeland years earlier hadn’t disappeared. In fact, they were alive and well, as least as far as these particular members of his family were concerned.