“Please don’t do that again,” she said.
He threw down money and rose from the table.
“Let’s go look at your father’s laptop,” he said.
Chapter 22
“Looks like we had a visitor,” Lancaster said.
He removed the business card stuck in the front door of Martin’s house. It was from the captain of the Saint Augustine Police Department’s CSI team. He flipped the card over and read the note printed on the back.
“Crap,” Beth said, reading over his shoulder. “I forgot that the police were sending a CSI team to check Dad’s study for clues. Think we should call them?”
“The Sokolovs ransacked your father’s study,” he said, tearing the card up. “What else is there to know?”
Beth unlocked the front door, and they headed upstairs. The study looked like a tornado had gone through it, with hundreds of books strewn across the floor. There was a musty odor left by the mummified hand, and he opened the double doors leading to the balcony to air the place out.
“We still don’t know the Sokolovs’ motivation for doing this,” Beth said.
“It’s the same as ours,” he said. “They wanted to look at your father’s laptop. When they realized it was locked up, they got mad, and went on a rampage.”
From his pocket he took the slip of paper with the combination.
“15, 25, 45,” he said.
Beth opened the safe and removed the laptop.
“Let’s do this downstairs,” she said. “The smell is bothering me.”
The dining room table had been in Beth’s family for three generations. They sat at the head, and Beth powered up the laptop. It was an older model Dell Latitude and made a soft purring sound as it slowly came to life.
“You didn’t explain how Nicki figured out the names of the people who got a hand dropped on their doorstep,” she said. “Don’t tell me she was hiding behind the door when Officer Spencer shared that information, and she wrote the names down.”
“Afraid so,” he said. “She ran the names through a search engine and eventually figured out how they were related to your father. She’s turned into a real cybersleuth.”
“Did my sister or her husband know?”
“I don’t think so. Nicki must have told them she was doing homework during the car ride home, when she was running down these names.”
“I really want her to stop. Any suggestions?”
“I’m not a parent. How do you stop a kid from doing something?”
“I’m going to talk to my sister. Nicki needs to be reined in.”
“Can it wait until we’re finished? She’s been a real help.”
Beth gave him a hard look. “These are dangerous people, and if they find out she’s onto them, who knows what might happen? This has to stop now.”
“Roger that.”
The laptop had booted up. On the slip of paper with the combination was a password. Maximilian$*@. Beth typed it in, and unlocked the screen.
“Max was my father’s favorite dog,” she explained. “Big old German shepherd he rescued out of a parking lot. Dog never left his side.”
The screensaver was a sunrise taken from the balcony outside Martin’s study, the glistening ocean visible just above the treetops. Beth clicked on the icon on the lower left, and a list of programs appeared. She ran the mouse over them, trying to decide which folder to open first. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No, I’m not okay,” she said.
When he was six years old, he’d walked into his parents’ bedroom and found them lying naked on the bed, having sex. Thirty-six years later, the memory hadn’t faded. If Beth found lurid videos of her father on the laptop, she’d never forget it either.
“Let me do this,” he said.
He took the laptop and slid it toward himself, positioning it so she was no longer looking at the screen. She looked ready to fall to pieces.
“I’ll let you know if I find anything of interest,” he said.
“Are you suggesting that I leave the room?”
“Isn’t that what you want to do? You don’t want to do this.”
She exhaled deeply. “Is it that obvious?”
“Yes, Beth, it’s that obvious. Why don’t you call Melanie, and see how she’s doing? She’s had a pretty rough time. I’m sure she’d like to hear from you.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Can I get you anything?”
“I’m good.”
She rose and put her hand on his shoulder. Gave him a look that said thank you. Only after she’d left the room did he start his search.
There was nothing there.
There were no incriminating images of Martin having sex with Katya, or for that matter, any other woman. What he found instead were videos of lectures by well-known academics given at the college where Martin taught. He watched snippets of each, and found them as stimulating as staring at a fly crawling up a wall.
In the folder called “Pictures” he found photographs of Martin on his boat with his fishing buddies, photos of Martin riding his motorcycle with Dr. Sircy, and a collection of photos with Martin and his daughters and granddaughter taken during the holidays. What he didn’t find was a single photo that could have been used to hurt Martin.
Not one.
He grew frustrated. If Martin was being blackmailed — and all the evidence they’d uncovered pointed to that being the case — then there were images that Martin didn’t want the world to see. That was how the extortion game worked.
So where were they? Not here. Or, had he missed something?
He decided to start over. There was a reason why Martin had locked the laptop in the wall safe, and there was a reason why the Sokolovs had torn apart the study. The laptop had things on it that Martin didn’t want anyone to see. If he looked hard enough, he would certainly find them.
“How’s it going?” Beth said, standing in the doorway.
“Nothing yet,” he said.
“No porn library, or videos of my dad having wild sex with Katya?”
Two hours had passed, and he still hadn’t found the smoking gun that would explain Martin’s erratic behavior. But he had found something odd, and he pointed at the screen. “Take a look at these, and tell me what you think.”
Beth came into the room to have a look. With the mouse, he scrolled through a dozen photos of what appeared to be a fancy bed-and-breakfast. The photos were divided between the landscaped exterior, and the establishment’s interior, including several of a lavish bedroom with a four-poster bed and a fireplace.
“What is this?” she asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me. On the bedroom wall there’s a map of Saint Augustine. I think this place is local,” he said.
“They’re just photographs. Why did they pique your interest?”
“Because there aren’t any other photos like this stored on his hard drive. Every single shot is either of him and his boating buddies, or family shots of you and Melanie and her family. These look out of place.”
“I don’t know — maybe he was thinking of buying a bed-and-breakfast. He talked about running a small business, to keep himself busy. Is that all you’ve found?”
“Yup. If your father was hiding a raunchy sex tape, it’s not here.” He shut the laptop, and Beth handed him a cold beer. She took a seat beside him at the table.
“I spoke to Melanie,” she said. “She’s going to have a long talk with Nicki. She thinks she knows how to get her to stop running her own investigation.”