Донна Эндрюс - Delete all suspects

"They're not sharing much information with us," Turing said, as she walked in.

"Do you really expect them to?" Claudia asked.

"No," Turing said. "I was merely pointing out the fact. As a matter of information."

"As justification for your own reluctance to share information with them," Maude added.

"We shared the program," Turing said.

"Which they might have recovered anyway."

"Do you blame me?" Turing said. "The one thing Norris didn't mention was the possibility that someone in law enforcement was in league with the vigilante."

"They might not move on one of their own quite as fast," Maude said. "We might not be the first to hear about it when they do. They'd probably keep that pretty quiet."

"Then we'll keep quiet, until we hear something to reassure us that their leak has been plugged," Turing said.

Maude nodded. She didn't like the idea, but she couldn't argue with it.

"So this guy Danforth had a copy of the program Nestor stole," Claudia said. "I gather finding this copy doesn't really help?"

"The problem isn't that we needed a copy," Turing said.

"We already had one. The problem is with Nestor having one at all—you see what he's done with it already."

"Another problem is Casey," Tim said. "What do we do with him?"

That stopped conversation for several long moments.

"I'm sorry," Tim said. "I know it's not something anyone really wants to think about."

"But we have to," Maude said. "We have to decide what to do about him."

More silence.

"Do we have to do anything?" Claudia said.

"Yeah," Tim said. "I mean, don't get me wrong—I like Casey. I think he was probably an innocent pawn."

"Nestor's pawn," Claudia put in. "Do you really think Nestor chose him at random?"

"Thinking isn't knowing," Maude said. "Unless we can prove he was innocent, we'll always have the lingering suspicion that he might still be in contact with Nestor. I think its clear what we have to do."

"Definitely," Turing said. "We have to make sure he stays at Alan Grace for the foreseeable future."

"We what?" Tim asked. "I thought you'd be all for getting rid of him."

"If there's even a chance he's in contact with Nestor, we need to keep an eye on him," Turing said. "He could be the trail that leads us to Nestor."

And to her clone, of course, Maude thought. She nodded. Not an easy solution, but she could see why Turing would choose it.

"Keep your friends close," Turing added, "but your enemies closer, as Sun Tzu advises."

"Sun Tzu?" Tim echoed. "I thought it was Don Vito Corleone."

"Him, too," Maude said. "Good advice from either source. My first grade teacher used to put the really naughty kids in the front row, where she could keep a close eye on them."

Delete All Suspects 23^

She wondered, briefly, if that was why Dan Norris hadn't disappeared from her life completely.

I'll find out eventually, won't I? she thought, and then shoved the subject out of her mind.

Tim slumped back in the seat-i happy to let Claudia do the driving.

"So what are you moping about?" she asked.

"Wondering if I'll be a complete laughingstock when people find out I took a case from a phony client," he said.

"It happens," Claudia said, shrugging.

"When was the last time you did anything that stupid?" Tim asked.

"Urn . . . Friday," Claudia said. "Remember Karl Collins?"

"Eddie's pornographer friend?"

"Yeah," Claudia said. "Who seemed like a nice guy. Not bad looking, in a preppie sort of way. Made a big deal about how unattached he was."

"Don't tell me you went out with him."

"No!" she said, laughing. "He is so not my type. But I tried to set him up with a friend of mine."

"Oh, brother," he said, laughing.

"It's a good thing she was out of town this weekend," Claudia said. "But unfortunately, I left her a message about him, and she's left three messages since Sunday night, asking when I'm going to introduce them. How can I break the news that the handsome young software executive is actually a dirty old man in training?"

"You'll manage," Tim said.

"Yeah, right," she said. "But in the short term, I think my job will keep me very, very busy for the next week or so."

"We don't have anything going but routine background investigations," Tim said.

"Hey, donlt knock those background investigations," Claudia said. "Pays the rent. In fact, if we both put in a long

week and finished the latest batch, we could not only pay the rent, we could afford to take next week off and fly down to Miami. Sit on the beach drinking pina coladas, and eating my Tia Yolanda's ropa vieja."

It didn't sound half bad, Tim thought.

"Maybe when I finish my report to Mrs. Stallman," he said. "If nothing else has come up while we were off chasing hackers and vigilantes."

"Good deal," she said, as she pulled up in front of their office building to drop him off. "Catch you later. And cheer up!"

Of course, first he had to finish his report to Mrs. Stall-man. Sometimes that was the hardest part of a case. Because he always wrote his report so it at least sounded as if they knew exactly what they were doing the whole time; as if they had a logical plan and followed it through to a solution. If he admitted that most of the things they did were blind alleys, and a few backfired big time, and that the most important bits of evidence they'd found were only because they stumbled over them by accident—well, it didn't exactly inspire confidence in the client. The client wanted answers, certainties—closure. Tim tried to give them that.

Perhaps by doing so he could reach closure himself. You didn't get much closure any other way in real life. They probably had answers to all the questions Mrs. Stallman had asked—they knew who had killed Eddie and why. The little why of motive, anyway, not the big existential why. She'd probably go to her grave wondering about that.

They'd probably never get definitive answers to the tougher questions, the ones that mattered more to him and to Maude and Turing. Like what was Matt Danforth's real connection to Nestor Garcia, what was Nestor really up to, and was it only a coincidence that their path* an4 his had intersected once again? For stuff like that, they might never get a neat, tidy solution with all the loose ends tied up.'Sometimes closure was a matter of accepting when you knew as much as you were ever going to know and it was time to move on.

So, as he opened the door, he looked forward to the moment when he finished his report. He'd shove a copy in the envelope he'd already addressed to Mrs. Stallman, put a second copy in the case file, and then exile the whole thing to the battered gray filing cabinet in the corner. After that, maybe he could start to move on.

When Tim stepped into his office, he saw the message light blinking on his phone. Good. A new case would help him move on all the faster.

"Hey, Tur," he said, waving at the camera as he reached for the phone and dialed the number to retrieve his message.

Which was puzzling.

"This is Vivien Blair from the Monticello Cattery," a musical voice said. "I just wanted to confirm that tomorrow is fine for the home inspection."

"The what?" he muttered, looking at the receiver.

"Sorry about that," Turing said. "I wanted to talk to you before she called, but I didn't get a chance."

"Someone you referred?" Tim said. "Okay, what's the home inspection deal?"

"I'm buying a kitten from her," Turing said. "A Maine coon, very beautiful. If she approves of me—actually, of you. She has a strict policy of not selling her cats to anyone unless she's met them and inspected their home."

"Ah," Tim said. "So I'm just the front man. Where will the cat really live?"

"I thought maybe we could see how it worked, having it live with you," Turing said.