“You clown,” David groused. “Walter G. is a national joke.”
“He’s really not—” Megan began.
But Andy blithely went right on. “Callivant Lite is the candidate for me. If there are going to be any dirty tricks in this campaign, his side will have access to the best government technology.”
He laughed, but quickly shut up when he saw nobody else thought it was funny.
Matt shook his head. Maybe Andy finally realized what he had to say wasn’t exactly in the best of taste.
“Andy,” he said, “for my sake, you’d better hope that you are wrong. Because, otherwise, the list of people in that sim who might be victims is getting awfully short. I could be next.”
Any illusions Andy may have created about luck were quickly dispelled when Matt got home. He opened the door to find a cream-colored envelope lying on the rug — honest to gosh snail-mail! It was so unexpected, he nearly stepped on it.
Then Matt picked the thing up and recognized the return address. He’d seen it on the letterhead of the law firm that had been making Ed Saunders’s life miserable.
The other shoe drops, Matt thought gloomily, slitting the envelope open. It’s funny how legal people have stuck to paper. Is it just tradition?
As he read the couple of paragraphs on expensive stationery, he came up with a new theory. If he’d gotten an electronic letter like this, he’d have simply yelled for his computer to vaporize it.
The letter was addressed both to Matt and his parents, and it demanded that Matt cease and desist all activities which might be construed as harassing the firm’s clients (never named), including (but not limited to) attempts at fraternization, telecommunication, and unauthorized abstraction of personal or legal information, to name a few.
And what exactly would authorize abstraction of information look like? Matt silently wondered as he read on.
Failure to knock off the above activities, or ones like them, would result in civil action in the courts, and possible criminal complaints, specifically for the continuing offense of felonious use of computer equipment for the purposes of illegally obtaining sealed records pertaining to the firm’s clients.
Carefully refolding the heavy document, Matt took it into the kitchen to post on the refrigerator door. Initially he’d intended to raid the fridge as well, but all of a sudden that cafeteria sandwich wasn’t sitting too well in his stomach.
The sudden chime of the call announcer sent the paper flying one way and the refrigerator magnet flying another. “Nerves,” Matt muttered as he scooped them both up, plunked the magnet in place, and then went to the living room computer console.
Captain Winters’s face appeared when Matt ordered the computer to make the connection.
“Did you have someone watching for me?” Matt asked. “I just got in.”
The captain shook his head. “Guess my sense of timing is on today. I managed to get a look at a draft of the report on last night’s fire as it came into the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety.”
“And?” Matt said.
“It wasn’t easy for the investigators to sift through all that debris,” Winters went on. “Did you know how much paper was in that wood-frame house? I didn’t think people did that anymore. Must have been a regular firetrap.”
An image popped up in Matt’s mind — all those lovingly shelved books. Oswald Derbent must have skimped his whole life to have collected so many.
Matt forced himself back to the present. “What did the investigators have to say about the cause of the fire?”
“As far as they can determine, the blaze started in one of the lamps in the front parlor — or reading room, or library, whatever you want to call it,” Captain Winters said. “The socket on that style of lamp is safety rated for one hundred watts, but there was a two hundred-watt bulb in there. It burned too hot, drew too much power through the wiring, and burst into flames.”
Matt put his hands behind his back — he didn’t want Winters to know how his fingers were knotting together. “I was in that room just days ago,” he said, “and Derbent kept it as dim as a church. He had two lamps, and they were burning forty-watt bulbs. I think he considered bright light an extravagance, and maybe a risk that might make his precious books fade. Or maybe he was just cheap — he said he was tight with a buck.”
James Winters sighed. “I’ll relay that to the authorities, but I doubt they’ll act on it. Maybe Derbent got hold of a brighter bulb at a discount store and figured the savings on the price of the bulb offset the higher electricity cost to run it — or maybe he was just going blind from reading all those books and decided to up the wattage.”
“Or maybe somebody could have gotten into his house — his nice, dry-as-kindling, wooden, paper-filled house — and stuck an industrial-strength bulb in that old lamp.”
Winters’s face looked as if it were carved from stone. “Without evidence to the contrary, the public safety people are classifying the fire as accidental.”
“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of evidence left to support that,” Matt said bitterly. “Just like the last two ‘accidents.’”
“There were no traces of accelerants, no oily rags, and the only signs that the place had been disturbed could be attributed to Derbent himself, who apparently discovered the fire and called it in.”
Matt swallowed. “He was there? The news didn’t say anything about Derbent, so I assumed he wasn’t home. How is he? How did he take it?”
Winters glanced at an off-screen display. “Oswald Derbent came home from a local store to find the fire pretty well established. He ran inside — why, the local fire people have no idea.”
To save his books. Matt thought. “What happened?”
“The ceiling fell on him. Firefighters managed to get him out of the place, and he’s in the hospital.” Winters hesitated. “He’s not expected to make it. If he dies, they plan on ruling it accidental death.”
“Uh-huh!” Matt said. “Some accident!”
The captain winced as if he’d been punched. “Matt!” He took a deep breath and moderated his tone. “I have to accept what’s reported. I can’t just throw Net Force into this until we have some evidence of wrongdoing that falls under our jurisdiction.”
“And how does it stack up with the incidents I reported to you?” Matt demanded. “Put them together, and I’d say something stinks! Don’t you think three people dead out of seven in unrelated accidents inside of a couple of weeks constitutes evidence of wrongdoing?”
“I’m not disagreeing.” The muscles along Winters’s jawbone bunched. “In this job I’m supposed to think like a cop. But I also have to make sure each I is dotted and every “T” crossed. I can’t take official notice of something until I have solid evidence that a crime has taken place. ‘Information received’ doesn’t make the burden of proof.”
His eyes speared into Matt’s. “I pushed on this one, Matt. Talked to the chief investigator out there. You can imagine how pleased he was to find a federal agent nosing into his case. I told the guy that several of Derbent’s associates had recently suffered apparent accidents and advised him to keep a careful eye out for suspicious elements.”
Winters shook his head. “And the verdict still came back as ‘fire by accidental causes.’”
Matt could see that the man on the other end of the connection wasn’t happy. It was obvious that Captain Winters had his hands tied. For that matter, what could Matt himself do?
“I’m glad you tried,” Matt finally said. “If I find anything out. I’ll get it to you right away. Until then, I hope you’re keeping — well, maybe not an eye on us. Call it a Net search.” Matt smiled, but there was no humor in his voice as he said, “I’d hate to electrocute myself turning off this system and have you be the last to know.”