Питер Ловси - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018

Michael Sears is the author of four thrillers in the series to which this story belongs, the latest 2016’s Saving Jason. “If someone had told me one of my favorite new series would he about a disgraced Wall Street trader turned financial wrongdoings investigator,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s reviewer said, “I would not have put money on it. But Sears’ Jason Stafford series is so compelling you’ll he turning pages even fall you balance is your checkbook.”

“Jason! Come here, please,” the love of my life called. Skeli’s voice, though controlled, revealed a nervousness bordering on panic.

Skeli rarely succumbed to panic, though there were, and had been, any number of instances that might have warranted such a response. There was my career investigating financial fraud, which had often led me into life-threatening situations; our daughter, two months past her first birthday and frighteningly mobile; and there was my beautiful eight-year-old son, Jay, a.k.a. the Kid, whose life was always in a state of chaos. I was betting on the last of these.

“Coming,” I yelled before rinsing the last bits of shaving cream from my face and racing the length of our apartment to the kitchen table where Skeli was feeding Tessa, and Jay was, one hoped, feeding himself the scrambled eggs (no spots!) which were the only food he allowed on a Saturday morning.

“What can I do for you? How can I help?” The scene before me was ordered and surprisingly peaceful, but I knew that cataclysms could be lurking just beneath this tranquil surface.

Skeli shot a quick glance in my direction and smiled. I was wearing a towel around my waist and nothing else. It was an appreciative and alluring smile — one that recalled our few moments of stolen privacy that morning — that disappeared even as it registered. There were important matters that took precedence.

“Sit down and listen. I want you to hear something.”

I sat. I listened. Hearing nothing — our apartment building had once housed musicians and opera singers and had been built with extremely thick walls — I raised both eyebrows and widened my eyes in the facial expression universally indicating the question, “Well?”

Skeli pointedly looked at my son and then back to me. I nodded and waited.

The Kid and I had a date for a Yankees game that afternoon. It was a working date for me and I would have appreciated another few minutes in the bathroom to make sure I looked my best. Virgil Becker, my employer, had asked that we join him and a baker’s dozen top traders and salespeople — and their children — in a skybox. The only reason I would have been included in such an august group was because Virgil suspected one or more of them of some kind of unlawful dealing. He had not provided me with any clues or even hints. I was going in blind, which made me uncomfortable. But I was going to a Yankees game.

The Kid finished eating his eggs and swallowed all of his meds, washing them down with the thimble-sized glass of orange juice. This was not normal, but hardly cause for concern. Quiet celebration, perhaps, but not panic. He was now staring intently at his computer tablet. He gave it a swipe and frowned, apparently waiting for a video or sound bit to reboot.

Skeli shot me a message with her eyes. The moment was upon us.

“Mmmm,” Tessa said around a blueberry, while reaching for another. Without constant monitoring, she would have continued stuffing berries into her mouth much faster than she could possibly chew and swallow them. Coughing blue explosions often followed. Skeli moved the bowl just out of reach.

Sound began to emanate from the computer and Jay giggled. His laughter overrode the audio loop at first and I couldn’t make out what he had recorded. The giggling crescendoed.

When the Kid came to live with me, after the divorce and my ex’s remarriage, his only method of communication involved echolalia, using advertising jingles and other sounds he picked up while listening to his grandmother’s radio. Joining forces with his teachers and his behavioral therapist, I (we) struggled to get him to use words — and it had worked. The more recent intrusion into his life of his half-sister had created a new set of symptoms and the return of others that we all thought were well in the past. The repetition of sounds and words that amused him was one of the least offensive of these traits, so we all ignored the condition as long as he was still communicating with words. The tablet had a recording app that he used to entertain himself and whoever else might be around. There was one loop — of my father muttering and cursing under his breath as he tried to work the TV remote — that both the Kid and I found to be most enjoyable.

The Kid stopped giggling and I could hear the sounds clearly for the first time.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Oh yes,” Skeli said.

A woman softly moaned. In pleasure. A bed rocked rhythmically. It wasn’t raucous or particularly loud. The participants probably thought they were being extremely quiet. There was a gasp and the rocking stopped. A moment later, the woman made a different sound. A hum. Or possibly a purr. The audio came to an end and the Kid giggled once more. He swiped the screen again and waited for the loop to restart.

I knew the participants. Intimately.

“What will we do?” Skeli asked.

“Cold showers?” I said.

“No, you idiot. What are you going to do about that audio loop.”

The rhythmic sounds started up again. The Kid giggled.

“Put it up on Facebook?” I said.

“That would be funnier if you actually had a Facebook account.”

“I’ll erase it.”

“When? Before you get to Yankee Stadium? Please.”

“I’ll think of something,” I said. We both saw this quite clearly as a cowardly stall tactic. Skeli, thankfully, didn’t push it. I had no idea of how to get that tablet without a full frontal assault that would leave the Kid in tears and me with bruises, bite marks, and multiple scratches. And a guilty conscience. I would have to resort to stealth or subterfuge.

“Why am I here?” I said.

This was not an idle question. Virgil had welcomed the kid and me, introduced me to the few there who didn’t already know who I was, offered us food and drink, and then promptly ignored us. What he had not done was give me some scent of which of these big hitters in attendance I was supposed to be tracking.

“Don’t go all existential on me, Jason. Enjoy the game.” Virgil smiled, his long face tanned to a deep mahogany from a summer of weekends on Nantucket, and patted me on the back.

“You know something,” I said.

“Rumors. Rather, a rumor. Singular.”

“There’re always rumors, Virgil. This is a waste of time.”

“I thought you liked the Yankees.”

“You suspect something. Or some one .”

“How’s your daughter?”

I had trouble reading people when they asked that question. Did they mean had she shown any signs of developmental problems? Was she going to be like her brother? Or were they simply being polite and making conversation? Were they genuinely concerned, having heard about her TTNB after birth and the week she spent in the hospital receiving oxygen and antibiotics while Skeli and I held hands and prayed for the day we could take her home? Virgil was neither a gossip nor a ghoul. Therefore he was either being polite, or was showing unaffected concern. Either deserved a civil response. I would bury my curiosity for the moment. He would tell me why I had been invited when he thought it important for me to know. Meantime, I would keep my eyes open.