The Easytown Box Set Read online

  A shadow darkened my periphery and I looked up to see a priest in a simple black outfit with a small white square at his throat.

  “Can I help you, my son?”

  I stared at him mutely, a vision of blood pouring from the pores of his face. I wanted to scream that everyone was in danger and that the priest of the church needed to tell the Pope’s security to change the venue. I wanted to turn him away from this place and to keep the church’s parishioners safe by cordoning off the building. I didn’t. Instead, I kept quiet so as not to incite panic.

  The priest adjusted a knob on the small translator system on his belt and spoke again. I heard his voice ask me again if he could help me, this time in Spanish.

  “I can speak English, Padre. I’m just thinking.”

  “Oh, then by all means, reflect and contemplate all that you need to. I have to lock up, but you may stay as long as your need to speak to the Lord keeps you.”

  “Are you excited that the Pope is coming here tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Of course! We are ecstatic that the Holy Father chose our cathedral as the location for his speech tomorrow night.”

  “Is he going to be speaking inside the church or out front?”

  The priest stepped away from me slightly with a questioning look on his face. I pulled out my badge. “It’s okay. I’m a cop. I want to attend the speech tomorrow, but I’m trying to see if I should arrive early enough to get a spot inside.”

  “Ah. He will be speaking from outside, with the cathedral as a backdrop. We have drones that will hold a giant tarp up high to keep the rain off the dais and not interfere with the scene of our lovely building.”

  “Hmpf,” I grunted as I stood. “Makes it easier on me then. I’ll just arrive a few hours early to make sure I get a good spot.”

  “You’d be better off spending the night. We expect a crowd of at least fifty thousand and we already have several hundred—maybe even a thousand—set up in Jackson Square.”

  I’d noticed the people, but hadn’t given much thought to them. What if Wilson is already here?

  I stood and slapped the back of the pew in front of me. “I’ve got to go, Father. See you around.”

  Before the priest could ask me any questions about the security of the facility or his parishioners, I made my way out of the cathedral. Once outside, I began to walk around the square, idly attempting to identify Wilson or the droid.

  After a quarter of the way around the perimeter, I stopped. “This is pointless,” I muttered.

  “What’s pointless, Zach?”

  “Andi? What are you doing on the line?”

  “You had me stay connected during the parade and we never disconnected the link after that.”

  She did have a point. I never told her to hang up and go do…whatever it was that she did when I wasn’t around. It actually worked to my advantage.

  “I need you to access the security cameras in Jackson Square. Target is Harold Wilson and the Cybertronic Solutions droid, Bobby.”

  “Understood. Give me a moment.”

  I made my way toward the center of the square so I could move in any direction once Andi gave me the results.

  It didn’t take her long. “I’ve analyzed the last six hours of footage at Jackson Square. The killer does not appear to be in the area.”

  “Or he’s successfully changed his appearance enough to fool the facial recognition software,” I countered.

  “This is a correct statement.”

  “Okay. I’m going to come home and—” Explosions in the distance cut me off. I whirled around, hand on the Aegis in its paddle holster at my hip.

  Bright stars of red and blue fireworks burst in the sky to the west.

  “What in the hell?”

  “There are fireworks in conjunction with a home team victory at Xavier University.”

  I searched my memory, but couldn’t remember any mention of a football game tonight. “What game? Why wasn’t that on our list of potential targets?”

  “The previous search parameters only included events occurring on specific days. I eliminated all variables on the subsequent days of the week. Since today is Saturday, the sporting event in question was not included.”

  “Dammit, you’re right. Sorry. I need to get some sleep before tomorrow. My mind is fuzzy.”

  “It’s understandable,” Andi replied. “You’re under a lot of stress, and you have not been eating well.”

  “I never eat well.”

  “It’s been worse since you’ve decided to abandon leaving the apartment and only eat food that is delivered to you.”

  “Eh, you got me there. Amir and Amanda usually make sure I get at least one healthy meal per week. I guess I could use a little more green stuff and less meat product on a bun.”

  “The toilet says— never mind.”

  She was right. Besides this trip, I hadn’t left the apartment in days, and I hadn’t been to the gym since before I was falsely locked up. I needed to take better care of myself. I let the comment slide that she was once again discussing my health with the damn toilet.

  “I’m on my way; can you order me a chef’s salad with oil and vinegar? I promise I’ll hit the gym after tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. I need you to remain alive,” Andi said.

  “Without Zach, Andi gets unplugged,” I finished her statement.

  “Once again, you are correct, boss.”

  My bed vibrated slightly to wake me up. “Huh? Wha—?”

  “Sorry to use the bed, Zach,” Andi apologized. “You weren’t waking for the phone alarm.”

  “Huh?”

  The annoying chime of my phone echoed around the bedroom. “Hello?” I said as I punched the button on the phone.

  “It’s Teagan Thibodaux,” Andi stated. “She wants to video chat with you. Do you want to answer?”

  “Teagan? Uh, yeah.” I shook my head, trying to loosen the sleep and bourbon-induced cobwebs that had settled there.

  Andi authorized the call; the ringing stopped, replaced by loud ambient noise in the background and the sound of people yelling. Then, Teagan’s face materialized on my wall where Andi projected it. Her face was distorted and stretched oddly away from the center of the image. It took me a moment to figure out that she was only a couple of inches from the camera, which was the cause of the distortion.

  “Hello?”

  “Zach?” Teagan asked and then smiled. “Oh my gosh! I’m so glad you’re alive!”

  “Uh, thanks, I think?”

  “Where have you been? I miss you.”

  “How much have you had to drink?” I asked.

  “This many,” she said, lifting her hand and then she tumbled away. The screen went dark.

  I heard several girls laughing and then Teagan’s head came into view once more. The strange blackness was still behind her. She giggled and held both hands over the phone with her fingers splayed wide. She’d dropped the phone and now was on her hands and knees looking into the camera.

  “How are you getting home?”

  “You’re gonna come get me, right?”

  “What?” I laughed. “No, I’m working on an important case, so I’m not going to come get you. I can send a taxi to you though. Where are you?”

  Her bottom lip stuck out. “Why don’t you like me, Zach?”

  “What? I think you’re great, Teagan.”

  “She’s practically thrown herself at you for three semesters, man,” another girl said, edging Teagan out of the frame with her own blonde head.

  “Who are you?” I asked in annoyance.

  “Rebecca. Let me tell you something, Mr. Police Officer Man—”

  “Put Teagan back on the phone, Rebecca,” I ordered.

  “Wait a minute…”

  “Now.”

  Teagan reappeared. “Sorry. We’re just—”

  “Where are you,” I sighed.

  “I’m at school. We won!”

  My mind was still cloudy, but I remembered the
fireworks from the football game earlier. “You’re at Xavier?”

  “Yes!” Teagan giggled.

  “Where at?”

  “The football stadium parking lot.”

  This wasn’t going to be easy. “Hold your phone up, and see if you can find a sign.”

  While Teagan fumbled with her phone, Andi interjected, “I’ve got her location pinpointed based on the GPS in her phone, Zach.”

  “Mute.” I waited until the phone went silent. “Send a taxi to her exact location and bill it to my account.”

  “Got it.”

  “Unmute.”

  “…over there is a bush!” Teagan said as she gestured off-camera.

  “Teagan, I’m coming to get you.”

  “Oh? Can I come back with you so you can keep me safe?”

  “You’ll be safe, don’t worry.”

  “You’re the best. I don’t care what Rebecca says.”

  I kept her talking about meaningless things for several minutes as we waited for the cab. When it arrived, she protested that I’d tricked her.

  “I’m in no shape to drive,” I lied. “This way, we can be alone to talk.”

  “Oh, good point! Too many prying ears,” she whispered.

  During the ride to her apartment, Teagan confessed her undying love for me and that the only reason she was staying in New Orleans was for me. It was a sobering conversation for me. Teagan was just a kid, I couldn’t date her, but I didn’t dare say that to her in her current state. Whatever she’d been drinking had sent her dangerously close to the edge and I didn’t want to break her heart. She was my friend, and I wanted to keep it that way, so I kept everything noncommittal.

  I’d have to have a heart to heart discussion with her about why we couldn’t be together, when she was sober.

  Once the taxi dropped her off and I was satisfied that she was locked safely in her apartment, I bid her good night and went back to bed.

  I really didn’t need to be dealing with this right now.

  TWENTY-ONE: SUNDAY

  My phone woke me up once again. “Ugh… Andi, what time is it?”

  “It’s 6:15.”

  “Who’s calling?” I asked with a slight cringe. I didn’t want a repeat of the conversation with Teagan.

  “Detective Alfonso Cruz,” she replied.

  “Coffee.”

  I tapped the phone and Cruz’s head appeared. “Hey, Forrest. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “It’s alright. What’s up?”

  “We got him!”

  “Huh?”

  “We got the killer. The tech guys were able to detect an outside influence to the droids at The Mother Board and we arrived as a droid was strangling a client. We also sent a team to the guy’s hotel room in Old Aurora, across the river from Easytown… It’s over, buddy, we snatched him! He was online controlling the robot when the assault team moved in.”

  “I… Wow, that’s great,” I stuttered. “You picked up Harold Wilson and the droid, Bobby?”

  Cruz shrugged. “We got the killer. We’ll keep looking for the droid.”

  It felt wrong. Much too easy. “How did the tech department track this guy? He’s been a ghost for months.”

  “Something about an errant signal that they intercepted when he rented the hotel room last night. He was attempting to murder someone when he was apprehended, Forrest. He’s the guy.”

  “I know he is,” I retorted. “I’m the one who found out who he was. Something’s not right though. We caught him too easily.”

  “Hey, now,” Cruz countered. “A lot of hard police work went into this. You wouldn’t know since you’re on administrative leave, but we’ve been working twenty hour shifts since you left trying to get this guy.”

  “I’m not discounting what you’ve done—great job, by the way. I think he wanted to be caught though. Now that we got the killer, we’re going to assume the case will wrap itself up and we’ll find the droid when we have time. He’s pre-programmed the robot. The target is still the Pope.”

  “We’ve got a lot of resources committed to protecting the Holy Father, Forrest. Don’t worry. He’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “Yeah… Uh, great job—again—Cruz. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Alright, see you at the end of next week,” Cruz replied and hung up.

  I jumped out of bed. “Andi, get the Ford spun up. I want to be down at Jackson Square in twenty minutes.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

  “You want me to what?”

  I cringed. I’d known this wouldn’t go over well. “Yeah… I need you to go see the Pope with me.”

  “You know I’m Baptist, Detective. Some dude in a white robe giving a speech doesn’t justify me leaving my family for the day.”

  I could see Genevieve and his daughter, Kelsey, through the door of their home. She didn’t look happy that I was there on a Sunday asking her husband to go to work.

  “I know, Drake. I’m sorry, but I don’t have anyone else. Since Cruz made the arrest on Wilson, the entire department has returned to business as usual, but that droid is still MIA. Something’s not right.”

  He turned and said something about speaking with me outside to his wife and then stepped through the door, pulling it closed behind him. “So, the robot is missing. Now that Wilson’s in lockup and on his way to Sabatier, we can track it down.”

  “How? If you have an answer, I’d love to know. He took it completely off the Cybertronic network, possibly even completely reprogrammed it. They have no trace of this thing and Wilson’s had all week to play around with it.”

  “So, you think he programmed it to carry out the mission, even after he got caught?”

  “That’s right. I think Wilson intentionally allowed himself to get caught to lessen the police presence around the cathedral.”

  “You’re giving this guy a lot of credit.”

  “Oh, come on!” I burst out. “They guy commits eight murders without so much as a trace and then conveniently doesn’t secure his network properly on the day of the attack? Sounds fishy.”

  “You’re forgetting that he operated from his home for all of those other murders. You flushed him out of hiding and he missed a step when he set up at that hotel.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not buying it. It’s too convenient.”

  Drake took a while to respond. I knew he was working it out in his mind. He’d been as frustrated as I was with the total lack of evidence in the case. Harold Wilson was too good to get caught because he forgot to turn on some program that rerouted his digital signature all over the globe. It was probably a program that the hacker had running automatically and had to turn off manually—and then we found him.

  “Maybe you’re right, Forrest. The guy was a ghost…”

  “And caught the day of?” I made a sour face. “Come on. It’s another set up.”

  “Cruz was awfully happy to solve the case and get the credit for stopping the serial killer while you were on administrative leave.”

  “And the department has already shifted the additional resources back to the Secretary of Energy’s event,” I stated. “In their collective mind, this thing is over.”

  “The missing droid is troubling—especially since we know that this guy used his programming skills to murder using the robots.”

  “And tried to kill me on multiple occasions,” I reminded him.

  “And was able to fool the entire NOPD tech department for weeks… Okay, you’ve convinced me that it’s worth going down there and checking things out.”

  “I knew you’d agree with me,” I said with a smile. “If it turns out that I’m wrong, then there’s no harm—other than the missed family time. But, I’m not wrong.”

  “Plus, you need me to make the arrest since you’re suspended,” he surmised.

  “You got it.”

  He nodded. “Let me go talk to Genevieve and smooth things over with her.”

&nb
sp; “I certainly don’t envy you there.”

  “Damned right you don’t.”

  The mood in Jackson Square was festive. People took picture of themselves, danced to street performers’ music and seemed to be genuinely happy, despite the soft drizzle of rain falling from the sky. The excitement was as palpable today as it had been yesterday at the parade. The faithful and the skeptics commingled without issues and people were excited to see the Pope in person.

  I had Andi use the police drones’ cameras to check the crowd from above, but most faces were hidden inside ponchos and under rain jacket hoods. Drake and I worked our way through the crowd on foot. We split up, staying within eyesight of each other as we went person-to-person. Wet faces came and went as I searched for Bobby, a droid I’d only seen in person once when we’d conducted the first investigation at The Stud Farm several weeks ago.

  We searched for hours and there were several times when one of us thought we had the droid, but each event turned out to be a false alarm. It was frustrating and I knew that my partner was past the point of questioning whether we were wasting our time and at the point of plotting outright abandonment.

  Maybe Harold Wilson really did get arrested because he forgot to run the scrambling program while he was in hiding, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d set us up. He’d been a couple of steps ahead of us the entire time, outsmarting us at every turn.

  I wondered if I’d lost my edge as a detective. This case, more so than any in my career, had me questioning my abilities. I didn’t feel like I’d lost a step physically, but maybe I was beginning to fall victim to mental traps, trying to apply the wrong lessons learned from past cases to this one. Maybe the robot wasn’t important; a loose end that the department could tie up at our leisure.

  Another face, another disappointment.

  So it went until I peeked into the shadowy recesses of a poncho’s hood and saw a pair of familiar almond eyes go wide with the invasion of personal space.

  “Yes?” Paxton Himura asked.

  “I, uh… You’re…” I stuttered. What am I doing?

  I’d never imagined running into another Paxton model—or was she the real Paxton Himura, the woman whom the droid was modeled after? Emotions warred within me. I wanted to scream at her in frustration for what she’d done to me and yet, I wanted to beg her not to commit suicide and stay with me.