The Easytown Box Set Read online

  The lingering smell of paint and mineral spirits told me that the shop doubled as a workspace as well. The lighting in the store wasn’t as bright as I’d have preferred, but it seemed to fit the mood and theme of the hobby shop well. Somewhere toward the back of the store, I heard the soft clacking sound of what I imagined to be a toy train circling a track. Just barely audible above the noise was the soft cry of a woman.

  I followed a walkway formed by shelving units to the counter. As I neared the back of the store, glass-encased cabinets came into view. These held painted figurines and an assortment of expensive-looking handheld electronic games. I gave them a wide berth; my luck with electronic products was downright shitty and I couldn’t afford to break an entire display case of them.

  No one was at the counter, so I tapped the plunger on an old chrome bell. A sharp, metallic ping rewarded my efforts and after a few heartbeats, the beaded curtain leading to the stockroom separated.

  An older Hispanic woman appeared. She had dark circles under red-rimmed eyes. Maybe thirty years and forty pounds ago, she might have even been attractive. Given her current state, I thought I’d found the shop’s co-owner. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Wolfe?” I inquired tentatively.

  “No. My daughter, she is Mrs. Wolfe,” the woman replied in heavily accented English. “But she got bad news today. You leave your number. She call you in a few days.”

  I wanted to comply, to give the widow her space, but this case was strange enough as it was. I didn’t know if the wife was somehow involved, so I needed to talk to her in order to rule her out or add her to my list. I slipped my hand into my duster and pulled out my badge. “I’m Detective Zachary Forrest from the NOPD. I need to speak to your daughter. Only for a few minutes.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Sí, I’ll get her.” She turned and fled into the back room.

  I heard hushed Spanish voices drifting through the curtain and they parted once more. I wasn’t prepared for the person who appeared through the beads.

  The woman was only in her mid-twenties, possibly early thirties, thin through the waist, but curvy up top and down below. She was pretty, with dark skin, wavy black hair and she wore a light green t-shirt with the name of the hobby shop and a phone number. The resemblance between the older woman and her daughter was evident. “Yes, Detective? Have you found my husband’s murderer?”

  While not as heavily accented as her mother, Mrs. Wolfe’s voice did nothing to hide her heritage. “No, but we’re looking.” Then, to be sure, I asked, “Are you Jacqueline Wolfe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ma’am, I know this is hard for you. Do you have a few minutes to talk to me about your husband?”

  “Aye, cabrón,” she muttered. “What do you want?”

  I let the fact that she called me a bastard slide. “I need to talk to you about the whereabouts of your husband last night.”

  Mrs. Wolfe began crying. “He was with his whore. That puta robot he liked so much. I told him that no good would come of it. He said that it wasn’t cheating since it was with a sex bot.”

  I blanched. “You knew about his ah…visitation?”

  “Of course, I knew. Letting him go to the club was the only way I could keep him from finding a mistress. He went every two or three weeks, no matter what I did for him, it wasn’t enough.”

  “Ah… Your husband had a history of dating outside of your marriage?” I asked incredulously. Charles Wolfe was grotesquely obese. How could he find women and I couldn’t find one? Maybe he had a great personality compared to my generally shitty and skeptical outlook on things.

  “Yes.” She pointed toward the parking lot. “You might not understand with your fancy car, nice suit and police department morals, but if a man has money in New Orleans, they can get hundreds of women, no matter what they look like.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to upset you with that question.”

  She wiped away a few tears. “I thought letting him put his little pito into a robot was the best choice. He’d get to fill his perversions and another woman wouldn’t come looking to wreck his home life. I never expected the pendejo to fall in love with the thing. Estúpido.”

  What was Chuck doing fucking a robot when he had a beautiful woman like his wife at home? I asked myself. She certainly claims to be willing to satisfy his desires.

  “Do you know if he visited more than one club or did he always go to the same one?”

  “The credit chip statements say he only went to the one, the Digital Dickhouse or something stupid like that.”

  “He didn’t…try to keep it a secret from you that he went to those types of places?”

  She laughed bitterly. “No. He was comfortable telling me all about it and I let him go to keep him. I even tried to copy the things that the robot did, but I wasn’t enough for him.”

  She was jealous of the robot. Motive? “Mrs. Wolfe, I hate to ask you this, but I have to.”

  “I was here, in the shop last night,” she said before I asked. “We host a weekly tabletop gaming session on Friday nights. Last night, we ended about 4 a.m.”

  “And Charles didn’t attend those gaming sessions?”

  “He always attended. But his character was…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “His character was killed early in the evening. So he went to go see that thing.”

  I thought through her statement. “You said he went to The Digital Diva every two or three weeks. Was it normally on a Friday night?”

  She shrugged. “Whenever the urge hit him, he’d go. I can’t remember him missing a gaming session though.”

  “So, he didn’t usually go on Fridays?”

  Mrs. Wolfe shook her head. “I think it was mostly during the week, after our children go to sleep.”

  I was curious. This was out of my lane, but I felt like I had to ask. “Ma’am, why did you put up with it? It sounds like you tried to give him everything he needed.”

  “I stayed with him because I love him, but it wasn’t enough. He brought my mama and me to this country; gave us a chance when others would have let us starve in the streets of Santiago de Querétaro. He was a good man, Detective. He just had a few flaws.”

  They were illegals—actually, only her mother was; the wife and kids were legal now. Jacqueline Wolfe probably put up with her husband’s fetish because she was afraid he’d tell someone about her mother and she’d be deported back to whatever city it was that she mentioned. She tried to satisfy his needs herself, but didn’t hold enough sway with him to make him stay home. Now Wolfe was dead and it looked like dumb, blind luck that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I laid another of my old-fashioned business cards on the counter. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Wolfe. I don’t have any more questions for you. I’m sorry for your family’s loss.”

  She nodded and I felt her stare at the center of my back as I walked away. “I hope you find that bastard who did this to him and make him pay!”

  The light on my dashboard was flashing when I returned to the hobby shop’s parking lot, indicating that Andi was online and waiting to speak to me. I took my jacket off and sat inside quickly to avoid further rainfall. The rain was driving me nuts; I missed the sun.

  “Zach, are you there?” she asked.

  She must have been monitoring the Jeep’s sensors for when I got in. “Yeah, I’m here, Andi. Can this wait? I’d like to decompress on the ride home, maybe even take a nap.”

  “If you don’t want me to tell you about recent developments, then I’ll wait until you have rested.”

  I sighed. “No. What’s going on?”

  “We had a security violation as soon as I began looking up public information about Paxton Himura. Within nineteen seconds, someone attempted to hack my mainframe. So far, I’ve been able to defeat the attacks, but they seem to be getting more complex.”

  “Hmpf. Okay, go offline and ensure they didn’t get anything. Maybe that’ll discourage
them from continuing the hack.”

  “Alright, boss. I’ll triple my normal firewall protection as well. However, if I go offline you won’t be able to reach me while you’re out.”

  “It’s okay,” I chuckled. “The Jeep knows the way home.”

  “Does that mean you’re returning to the apartment now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good,” Andi replied. “You need more rest.”

  “See ya soon,” I said, punching the manual disconnect button on the dash. The display flared for a moment and then Andi’s icon disappeared.

  “Hmm…” Andi usually input the automatic navigation for me, but this was an easy task that she performed. All I needed to do was type my address into the car’s computer and it’d take me home. I tapped through several screens on the dashboard display to get to the navigation section and within seconds, the Jeep shot off toward Village de L’Est.

  For some reason, I felt much better after talking to Mrs. Wolfe. Obviously, her pain was genuine and she seemed to love the guy, despite his faults. I removed her from the probable category on my non-existent list of suspects over to the unlikely group—along with myself and Sergeant Drake.

  We had four murders with zero suspects, zero motives and little more than a chronological coincidence connecting them. I’d run into a brick wall. Maybe my appointment with Dr. Jones on Monday or reviewing the latest sex bot’s video would yield some clues, or at least point me in the direction to begin searching for clues.

  For the moment, I needed a rest. I can take a thirty-minute catnap and be refreshed, ready to deal with whatever is going on with Andi’s mainframe.

  I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  I was startled awake when something smacked against the windshield. “What the hell?” I sat up and saw trees whipping past the Jeep. There aren’t any trees along the highway.

  The nav system’s display showed swampland on either side of the small two-lane road the car barreled down. I wasn’t in New Orleans anymore; I must have typed in the wrong address on the display.

  A few taps on the touch screen produced no results. “Come on,” I grumbled in frustration.

  I pushed the message button and again, nothing happened. “Shit. The one time Andi goes offline and—”

  The realization hit me like a brick to the back of the head. I hadn’t input the wrong address. Andi wasn’t online. She’d been fending off cyberattacks directed at her mainframe. The hacker piggybacked onto her call earlier to learn my location. Without her monitoring, the only thing keeping a hacker out of the Jeep’s computer system was the factory-installed anti-theft devices, which would be a piece of cake to bypass for someone smart enough to be of a concern for Andi’s security.

  I began to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that something very bad was going to happen.

  The car’s steering wheel spun freely in my hands, disconnected from the axles during automated driving. I pushed the manual start/stop button, but nothing responded.

  I unsnapped the paddle holster and pulled out the SIG Sauer. Wherever the hacker was taking me, he’d get the surprise of his life when I arrived.

  I pressed my back against the seat and tried to think. The map was useless, even if the hacker allowed accurate map data to display, I was in the middle of nowhere; the road wasn’t even labeled. All of this started when Andi tried to check up on Paxton. Was she involved or was someone watching for hits on her information? Regardless of Charles Wolfe’s involvement, this wasn’t a random act of violence. Maybe he’d been a target of opportunity, but this was a well-planned and thought out crime.

  “Zach, you were due back an hour ago.”

  “Andi!” I shouted at her icon displayed on the dashboard. “Andi, override the Jeep’s controls now!”

  “On it,” she replied instantly. “What are you doing outside the city?”

  “Someone hacked the car’s computer.”

  The car’s speed increased. Whoever had been controlling it before had been content to follow the traffic laws, but now that Andi was trying to regain control, they were done playing that game.

  “Zach, the Jeep’s navigational controls have been compromised.”

  “No shit. Turn off the car.”

  The lights on the dashboard flickered and then the headlights went out, plunging me into darkness. “I can’t override the car’s system, Zach.”

  “Can you tell where I am?”

  “The satellite tracking system operates independently of the vehicle’s navigation system. You are currently traveling westbound on Unnamed Road through the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge.”

  “Big Branch? That’s out near Lake Pontchartrain, right?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Call the local sheriff’s department. Tell them the situation.”

  “Zach, my voice connection with you is deteriorating rapidly. This appears to be a result of another attack; this one is riding the data packets back toward my system.”

  Shit. This guy was good. “Andi, can you cut this hack?”

  She didn’t respond and her icon blinked off once again. I hoped she heard my last directive to alert the sheriff.

  I couldn’t see well. Based on the rare glimpses of the moon between breaks in the tree branches overhead, I guessed the Jeep was going upwards of eighty miles per hour. I tried the windows; they didn’t work either, the hacker had disabled every switch.

  I tapped my finger on the slide of the pistol in my lap and considered shooting out the window. And then, what? The car was going too fast to jump out. If I tried that, I’d break my back—or worse.

  The decision was taken away from me as the Jeep’s tires squealed around a curve and the grill shattered a red and white striped wooden barricade. Twenty feet later, the car was airborne.

  It hit the water at a nose-first angle, deploying the airbags and throwing me back against the seat. The back of my head slammed into the headrest and I saw stars before the back end of the car splashed down into the lake.

  I shoved the airbag out of the way with an explosion of white sodium azide powder. It took me a few tries to push the bag out of the way enough to see the dashboard. The navigation display showed that the Jeep was in the middle of the lake. This isn’t good.

  Water was already up to the top of the hood. Cars were designed to maintain buoyancy for a minute or two and the Jeep was sinking fast.

  I searched quickly, but the Sig Sauer had disappeared somewhere in the crash. The windows still didn’t work and I’d run out of time to search for the pistol; it was gone. If I managed to unlock and open the door, the water would rush in and I’d be fucked. The pressure would force me back inside and I’d ride the vehicle to the bottom of the lake.

  I pulled the Aegis from my hip holster and fired into the driver’s side window. It didn’t shatter. Instead, the lasers burned clean through and I could just make out five tiny holes in the glass.

  “Dammit!” I shouted in frustration and pushed myself up on the center console. Thud! I kicked with both feet into the glass with no result. Thud! Thud!

  Still nothing. I fired twice more and kicked again. The glass still held. Thin streams of water began to ooze into the Jeep from the bottom set of holes. I fired several times, completely discharging the Aegis’ battery and then kicked with everything I had. The glass shattered, but the protective coating kept it from falling away.

  I put the Aegis in its holster so I could grab the steering wheel and headrest for leverage. My body lifted off the console as I threw all my weight into the kick. The window bulged outward. Three more kicks and it finally crumpled out into the lake. Water poured in and the Jeep began to list toward the driver’s side.

  My pistol slid back across the dash and I grabbed it. With the Aegis dead, I’d need the weapon if the hacker showed up to examine his handiwork.

  The lake was incredibly cold for late September. I swam underwater for several feet to create separation from the sin
king Jeep and then kicked toward the surface.

  The moon’s reflection on the lake’s surface revealed the remnants of ancient tree trunks, ghosts of the past when this section of the lake wasn’t underwater. Nearby splashing reminded me that I was in a damned swamp and needed to get out of the water as quickly as possible. Alligators were the least of my worries; fishermen caught bull sharks almost every year in Lake Pontchartrain.

  I jammed the pistol into its holster while I treaded water, making sure it was held securely in place before releasing my grasp and snapping the top loop. Then I began swimming in the direction I thought the shore was located based on the Jeep’s direction of travel.

  Swimming in the Oxfords was difficult. I resisted the urge to kick them off. I’d need them if I had to walk back. I had to stop every few kicks to cough. The damn powder from the airbags must have gotten in my lungs.

  After three or four minutes, old concrete pillars materialized in the gloom and I knew why the Jeep was in the middle of the lake. When I was a kid, Hurricane Lillian swept up over the city, missing it, but blasting the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. Three-quarters of the causeway had collapsed into the lake and they never bothered to rebuild it.

  The Jeep had taken the Causeway until the pavement ended, ensuring I was nowhere near the shore.

  I kept the old bridge to my left and swam, dodging submerged trees and floating trash. My mind constantly screamed that I needed to go faster. It was only a matter of time before some behemoth from the deeps realized I was there and decided to investigate. I wasn’t scared of anything on land, at least I had some sort of chance there; but I was terrified of sharks. Suspended in the water, I could do little if something grabbed me and pulled me down.

  My mind began to play tricks on me as I swam. I felt ghostly fins sweep past my legs and floating Styrofoam cups were alligator eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

  I forced myself to keep going until my muscles ached and my lungs burned from exhaustion. The real and imagined threats in the water had to be ignored. If something presented itself, then I’d deal with it, but panicking would only ensure that I drowned.