“Great.”
Outside, the patrol car was gone. Laughton went to his truck as Mathews got into his own car. Laughton called up McCardy and Smythe’s house in the truck’s memory, and hit go. The truck began to back out of the spot.
Had nine months really made him this inept?
He looked at his tablet and saw Ontero’s name on the screen.
The autopsy! He erased Ontero’s name and called Dunrich.
“Dunrich.”
“What happened to the body?” Laughton said.
“Went to the hospital in Charleston. Nowhere else to keep a body.”
Then they were really lucky it hadn’t hit the news. “I better get down there.”
“You want me to go, Chief?”
“No. Bars. Liquor stores. Talk to everyone.” He hung up without waiting for a response.
He punched in Ontero’s personal cell phone number. It rang once and then Ontero’s voice filled the car. “Ontero.”
“Chris, it’s Jesse.”
“What do you need?” the commissioner said.
“Know the name of the medical examiner?”
“Why do you need a medical examiner?” his voice cautious.
“We sent a body down yesterday.”
“Homicide?”
“Looks like it.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“That about says it,” Laughton said.
“I don’t know who the fuck the medical examiner is. I don’t even know if we have one.”
“Can you find out for me? I’m on my way to the victim’s house. Tell whoever it is to wait for me for the autopsy.”
“You should have called me yesterday.”
“I was a little busy.”
“Damn it, Jesse.”
“Oh, I need a computer team too. Vic was a hacker. Need someone to go through his computers.”
“Tell me you know who did this?”
“I have no idea,” Laughton said.
“Well, find the fuck out.”
“Get me those computer techs and an ME.”
The phone went dead. Ontero’d hung up.
Laughton took the truck off of auto, and gave it gas, impatient with the speed.
McCardy better not be dead.
Chief Laughton manually parked the car across the street from the hackers’ house. Mathews pulled up behind him. A two-door, orange microcar that had not been there the night before was in front of the house.
Laughton got out of the truck, and Mathews joined him. “Someone’s here,” Mathews said.
“Maybe McCardy had a friend come stay with him. Didn’t want to be alone after his best friend was murdered.”
“He said he didn’t know anyone else.”
“Well, here we go,” Laughton said.
A man in a black collarless T-shirt and a sky-blue jacket came around the side of the house. He was tall, Laughton estimated at least six foot two, with a well-groomed beard trimmed close to his face.
Laughton started to cross the street. “Excuse me!” he called. “Excuse me.”
The man froze, then took a half step back, as though he was going to retreat, only to stop himself, and took a step forward.
Laughton was on him now. Mathews went and immediately stood behind the man and to the side.
“I’m just walking here,” the man said.
“Guy whose house it is know you’re walking here?” Laughton said. He pushed a button on his body cam, and his phone buzzed. He looked at it, and it showed a picture of the man, but without a beard. “Carter Jones,” Laughton said, reading the name off the face recognition ID.
“No shit,” Mathews said.
“We’re looking for a Jones.”
eyebrows down and together, both eyelids narrowed, chin pulled back—concern
“Why?”
“You friends with the people who own the house?”
“Yeah,” Jones said, trying to figure out what the police wanted. “Did I do anything, Officers?”
“You’re going to tell us. But first, let’s see if your friend is home.”
“No answer. That’s why I was around the back. To see if there was another way in.”
No answer, Laughton thought. He didn’t like that. “Come on,” he said.
Jones hesitated, but Mathews poked him in the back, and the sims dealer walked forward. The police flanked him.
They went to the front door. The outlay of black solar panels sucked in the light, leaving not even a reflection of the sky, just a harsh, hard darkness that stripped away any sense of being in the natural world, the grass beneath all dead or dying.
The chief knocked. “Body camera,” he said.
“Already on,” Mathews said.
Laughton knocked again.
“Was there anything out back?” Mathews said.
Jones shook his head.
The chief went back to the truck and retrieved a crowbar. At the door, he handed the crowbar to Mathews, letting the younger officer fit it into the space between the door and the jamb. Mathews pulled back, and the doorjamb splintered. He reset it and applied more force, causing the wood to crack further, then he put his shoulder against the door and it popped open.
The whirring of the computer fans met them, and nothing else. “Mr. McCardy!” Laughton called.
There was no answer.
He pushed Jones in ahead of him. Inside, he pointed to the stairs, and Mathews started up while Laughton headed back to the room where they had spoken to McCardy the day before, herding Jones before him. It was deserted. He continued through the kitchen and out to a little sunroom off the back of the house. No one was there either. The backyard was fenced in by a six-foot-high wooden fence. The back gate was open. The rear of the house from the neighboring street was visible through a sparse stand of trees.
Laughton went back to the room where the hackers’ workstations were set up just as Mathews came in shaking his head. “Nothing.”
Laughton pointed to a door in the kitchen. “Check the basement.”
Mathews crossed to the door. Laughton examined the desk where McCardy had sat last night. Jones had wandered over to the shelf of memory sticks. He reached for one, and Laughton said, “Don’t touch anything. It’s all evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” Jones said.
Laughton didn’t bother to answer, continuing to examine the desk. One of the screens showed a distorted, wide-angle view of the front of the house. They had cameras, but if McCardy was telling the truth about Smythe’s programming, if they tried to access any recordings, the whole place would probably burn down. It’d have to wait for the tech team.
Mathews returned from the basement. “Place is empty.”
“Shit,” Laughton said. “The idiot must have panicked.” He damned himself again for not leaving someone posted the night before. That should have been automatic. Now they’d lost the one person they knew knew Smythe well.
“Guess Jones is in the clear,” Mathews said. “He’d be pretty stupid to come here if he’d killed Smythe.”
“Wait, what?” Jones said.
jaw dangling, eyes wide—surprise
“Someone killed Carl? Carl’s dead.”
“Unless he was coming to kill McCardy,” Laughton said, “and that’s why McCardy ran.”