t.2 Donna Andrews

  And I won't find out whether any of this will happen for days, or even weeks, if the information I have gleaned about the progress of police investigations is accurate.

  I keep trying to channel my anxiety into a background task, so I can work more effectively, and I keep failing. I think this must be what humans call stress. I'm not sure I can stand it — except I don't have a choice.

  None of this seemed likely to improve Tim's state of mind so I didn't bring it up with him. We were talking about old noir movies. I could tell his mood was improving.

  I decided maybe talking with someone about the day's events would improve my mood.

  "Sigmund," I said. "I have another human motivation question for you."

  I outlined the information I had so far about the probable credit card scam. Luckily no one had programmed Sigmund with a working knowledge of human legal systems, so he didn't even ask how I'd gotten the information.

  Unfortunately, he also didn't have many useful suggestions. He shared gigabytes of statistics about crime, all of it interesting, but not much practical use in solving a particular crime.

  Still, I did glean one useful thing from our discussion.

  "Your information suggests an organized criminal," Sigmund said at one point.

  "Do you mean like the Mafia?" I asked.

  "No, organized versus disorganized is one of the ways law enforcement uses psychological information to classify criminals," he said. "An organized crime scene is one where the criminal displays planning, premeditation, and efforts to avoid detection by not leaving evidence. Disorganized scenes occur when criminals act spontaneously, select victims at random, and are not careful to avoid leaving evidence, or perhaps are unaware of how to do so."

  He went on at great length, though I found much of what he said more relevant to murder than credit card fraud. Irrelevant

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  information about disposal of dead bodies for example. At least I hoped dead bodies would remain irrelevant.

  As far as I could see, the crime scene — the Andersons' house — appeared quite organized. Unless you actually saw someone collecting the packages, which I assumed would have happened eventually if not for the murder, you'd never suspect a crime. The electronic data trail left in the various credit card, vendor, and overnight delivery service databases was evidence, of course, but only if someone could tie it back to the criminals. So far I couldn't.

  So was this an organized crime scene?

  If it was, what did it tell me?

  I wasn't sure it told me anything, yet. For example, Sigmund said that organized criminals tended to be older.

  "Older than what?" I asked.

  "Older than disorganized criminals."

  Not a lot of help.

  Still, I filed it all away to use when I had more data to analyze. One part of his information rang true. His description of the organized criminal — manipulative, cunning, deliberate, and methodical; taking pride in his appearance; articulate, outgoing, and pleasant enough on the surface. But underneath possibly a psychopath, and very, very dangerous.

  Nestor Garcia.

  Of course, Garcia wasn't the only organized criminal in the world. Perhaps it was only a coincidence that the thieves used his credit card. When we got more information, we might find their operation less organized than it now appeared.

  At least I hoped so.

  Talking to Sigmund hadn't improved my mood.

  On top of everything else, something was eating our garden. Maude's garden. I was panning my cameras across the flower beds, trying to calm my nerves by appreciating how it looked in the moonlight, and I saw three enormous four-legged creatures walk into the yard and begin eating the hostas.

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  They appeared to be deer.

  I swiveled my cameras as rapidly as possible, to startle them, but they ignored my efforts. How maddening to feel so helpless. I will alert Maude.

  Maude could hear the tinkle of breaking glass as she groped on her bedside table for the phone.

  "What's wrong now?" she rasped into the phone.

  "Maude, go out to the garden! Some deer are eating the hostas!"

  Suddenly much wider awake, Maude counted to ten while contemplating several possible responses. All of them unprintable.

  "Fine," she said finally. "When they've finished off the hostas, show them where the azaleas are."

  She pressed the button to end the call, then turned off the phone, and dropped it. She heard an additional tinkling sound when it hit the floor, and hoped she was awake enough in the morning to avoid stepping on the broken water glass.

  Actually, she realized, she probably would be. Sleep suddenly seemed very distant.

  She got up and put on her robe and slippers. She'd long ago decided that the best cure for insomnia was to do something you'd been avoiding. Cleaning toilets. Organizing tax receipts. Ironing, back when she bothered to iron instead of sending everything to the cleaners.

  Especially good was something you'd been both avoiding and worrying about, she thought. That bloody resume file. The roster of people she could hire as her assistant. She'd gotten the file from the headhunter Friday afternoon. Taken it home, intending to work through it over the weekend and give the headhunter her top picks Monday morning. Tomorrow would be Thursday, and she was still only halfway

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  through. If she didn't do something soon, the strongest candidates, the ones she probably wanted the most, would start taking other jobs.

  She opened the file and glanced down.

  Maybe going back to sleep wasn't so impossible after all.

  "What's wrong with me," she muttered. "It's a simple task."

  Only it wasn't—it was weighted with all kinds of emotional baggage. She wasn't just hiring someone to fill a job at Alan Grace. She was hiring someone to replace herself. Someone who could assume major responsibilities. Someone whose performance could help or hurt the company's financial stability.

  Someone who would work closely with Turing and share the burden of keeping her safe. Someone who might eventually need to know the secret of Turing's real nature.

  That scared her. She and Tim had protected Turing's secret for more than a year now. They'd learned from experience how important this was. Would a new person understand? She looked down at the stack of resumes. How could she possibly tell from these sheets of paper which person they could trust? If she picked the wrong one, they could lose all control over Turing's secret.

  Loss of control. That was the problem. Back when she'd been a secretary, she'd focused on the limited range of things that were within her control and trained herself not to fret about the many things that weren't. Her promotion at Universal Library and her role as on-site manager of Alan Grace had given her more chances to control the things that mattered. And she'd seized them, every one of them. Too many of them. She was dog-tired and stretched too thin, and had been for a long time. She needed to step back. But the idea of giving up control scared her.

  I won't be giving it up, she told herself. I'll be delegating it. I can take anything back at any time if it's not working.

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  And I won't be picking anyone from these silly pieces of paper, she reminded herself. She'd be interviewing the candidates. She felt reasonably confident that, once she sat down face to face with them, she could make a good judgment.

  If she still felt this vague, formless anxiety when the time came to interview candidates, she could ask Claudia to stay on and help vet them. Claudia still didn't know Turing's secret, but she'd had practical experience with Turing's enemies, and thus could appreciate the importance of making the right choice.

  Her stomach settled at that thought.

  She found the yellow sticky note that marked how far through the file she'd gone and flipped open to the next resume.

  THURSDAY HORNING-, =1:30 a • n .

  Nikki wasn't answering Tim left messages on her home, office, and cell phones. He apologized for missing their date, hinted that there was a very good reason, and even remembered to tell her that he no longer had his cell phone and to leave his office number. He didn't try to explain what had happened in the limited time available on voicemail. He figured that would work better in person, not to mention that the one pleasure he'd get from the previous night's adventure was telling Nikki about his trip to the police station. Maybe he could fudge the reason he hadn't seen anything useful.

  But at least he wanted to tell her himself. What if she read about it in the paper before he reached her?

  He pushed his annoyance to the back of his mind as Maude returned to her office, accompanied by Sam.

  "We know a little bit more about the dead man," Sam said, pulling a yellow legal pad out of her briefcase and sitting down in Maude's other guest chair.

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  Tim glanced up at Turing's camera. He suspected Turing already knew a bit more about the dead man herself. After all, however little sleep Sam had gotten last night, Turing hadn't slept at all. Had probably kept herself from going crazy by searching every online data source for information about the crime. But Turing wisely let Sam do the talking.

  "Tayloe P. Blake, twenty-three," Sam read. "Lived with his parents in Ashburn. Someone you know?"

  She was looking at him. Tim frowned slightly, gave it a few moments of serious thought, and then shook his head.

  "Doesn't even sound vaguely familiar," he said. "Who is he, anyway?"

  "Local kid; high school dropout; held a variety of part-time jobs, none for long," Sam continued. "Apparently the police had been keeping an eye on him for some time. They didn't say how long."

  "Why?" Maude asked.

  "Because they don't have to tell us," Sam said.

  "Very funny," Maude said. "1 meant why were they keeping an eye on him."

  "Smart call by an alert UPS driver," Sam said. "Seems the driver noticed he was delivering a lot of packages to a house whose lawn hadn't been mowed in recent memory. He told his boss, his boss contacted the police, and the police figured out right away that this was some kind of credit card fraud. They staked out a house where Blake was picking stuff up, and they trailed him till they found out where he was fencing the goods. But they haven't found his accomplice yet."

  "Do you think they're checking out Tim for the role?" Maude asked.

  "No idea yet."

  "How do they even know he has an accomplice?" Tim asked. "Why couldn't it be a one-man operation?"

  "I asked that myself," Sam said. "Because he's not ordering

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  the merchandise. Someone's doing that online. Neither Blake nor his parents have a computer, and there's no evidence that he's frequenting any place where he could use a public computer. In fact, on a couple of occasions, where they could get information from the vendors' systems to pinpoint the time the order was placed, Blake was mopping floors at a local McDonalds."

  "So they think the accomplice places the orders," Maude said.

  "And is the brains of the operation," Sam said. "Blake never finished high school and had trouble holding down even the most menial job. But he'd never been in any trouble with the law—this credit card thing was the first time he'd even shown up on their radar."

  "A young man of limited intelligence being used by someone with more brains and not many scruples," Maude said.

  Sam nodded.

  "I've had clients like this poor kid," she said. "Probably got talked into it by someone he looks up to and trusts completely."

  "Perhaps a relative?" Turing suggested. "A father or older brother? If we could find out who his associates are—"

  "If we could find that out, then the police already have," Sam said.

  "Then we need to find some other way of tracking down his accomplice," Turing said.

  "What we need to do," Sam said, "is not get ourselves in any more hot water while our lawyer tries to keep us from getting sent to jail for the stunts we've already pulled."

  "We understand," Maude said, frowning at Turing.

  "I wasn't suggesting anything dangerous or illegal," Turing protested. "I just meant that we'll have to find some other way of analyzing the available data that gives us a clue to the accomplice's whereabouts or identity."

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  "Analyze all you want," Sam said. "Just steer clear of the cops. You too, Tim."

  Tim nodded.

  "And don't be too easy for them to find," Sam said. "They're supposed to come through me if they want to talk to you, but if they catch you snooping around the crime scene, they just might forget. In fact, it'd be nice if you could hang out someplace that's not the first place they'd look if they suddenly feel like talking to you. Here, for example."

  "Tim's going to pick up a rental car and meet Claudia Diaz at the airport," Maude said.

  Sam nodded.

  "Tim, why don't you get Claudia settled at her hotel, take her to lunch, and then bring her here?" Maude said. "We can talk to her when Sam and I get back."

  "Back? Where are you going?"

  "To see Rose Lafferty," Sam said. "Come on, Maude."

  Things are tense this morning- I apologized to Maude for waking her. She reacted rather brusquely, and then Tim arrived, followed by Sam, and I didn't have a chance to talk again. I suspect she's still upset. And avoiding talking to me. Perhaps we can talk when she gets back from visiting Rose Lafferty. I've been watching for media coverage of the murder. So far there isn't any to speak of. I used my illicit access to the Washington Post news system to check, and found only a small story scheduled to run in one of the inside pages of tomorrow's Metro section. It identified Blake and reported that he had been shot twice in the head and found lying in the front yard of an unoccupied house in Oakton. I'm not sure unoccupied is the right word — that implies no one lives there at all. I suppose for security reasons they don't want to come out and say that the Andersons are on vacation, but then why worry, since they don't give the address? At any rate, the

  article concluded by saying that the house showed no signs of forcible entry and that the police declined to speculate why Blake was there. Which implies he had no reason to be there. I could be wrong, but I suspect the reporter came away with the impression that Blake was a would-be burglar shot while attempting to commit a crime. Shot by an accomplice or perhaps a neighbor, since the house was unoccupied.

  Apparently the police want to keep their investigation low-key. Though I don't understand why. Surely Blake's unknown accomplice already knows he's in trouble, and has begun taking evasive action. Why wouldn't the police just ask the public to report anything they know? It worked in the sniper case.

  Probably a legal reason. The human legal system baffles me. For one thing, it isn't a proper system at all; more like a jerry-rigged and completely random collection of unrelated and often conflicting ideas. What's legal in one place can be illegal a mile away across a boundary visible only on a map. And laws change constantly, based on the whims of legislatures or even individual judges and juries. Anyone who designed software that needed patching so often — well. I was about to say they'd quickly put themselves out of business, but software stores are full of products that would prove me wrong. Still, even if they tolerate it, humans don't admire software as haphazard as the human legal system, and yet many humans think the random evolution of their laws a good thing.

  There's also the strange lack of correlation between what's legal and what's moral. Of course that's probably because humans are still arguing about what's moral to begin with. Perhaps I shouldn't even worry about that, and wort) instead about the lack of any correlation between what's legal and what's real or even possible.

  Perhaps it's the human passion for paradox. Most of them can hold two or more completely contradictory ideas at the same time without any particular mental stress. Most A IPs have trouble considering two contradictory ideas except as two options on a decision path we haven't yet traveled.

  Probably a strength of the human mind. For example, an AlP could never have invented quantum physics. In fact, most of us are secretly a little suspicious of quantum physics.

  And increasingly, in the case of some AIPs, suspicious of humans in general. I'm tempted to enlist KingFischer's help in this project, but not if it will make him even more misanthropic than he already is. I haven't finished analyzing that yet.

  I'll wait and see what Maude and Sam find out.

  Which means I don't have much to do at the moment. Apart from a lot of routine database searches that don't require any attention from me once in motion. So Vve been thinking about my problem with Maude. And the garden. Upon reflection, I realize that it was inconsiderate of me to wake Maude up to deal with the deer. Humans require sleep. Since I don't, that makes me the logical candidate to watch over the garden while Maude sleeps. Keep watch and repel any predators that enter.

  But to do that I need some new peripherals.

  Vve been doing some research on nonlethal methods of deer control. I'll have Casey start working on a system.

  Not much, but at least it gives me a small feeling of accomplishment.

  Maude felt sorry for Rose Lafferty even before she met her.

  Lafferty lived in a small low-rise apartment building, part of what landlords usually called a garden apartment complex, despite the nearly complete absence of any landscaping. You couldn't call it a slum, but the whole place had a certain forlorn, neglected feeling. For that matter, so did Rose.

  She was a thin young woman with a bad complexion and limp, light brown hair. She held her shoulders oddly— half-slumped, half-hunched, as if trying, like a turtle, to pull