Mystery

Milo said, “We have an alternative explanation.”

“What?”

He showed her an enlargement of Steven Muhrmann’s DMV photo. “He look like a sharing type to you?”

Suki Agajanian’s mouth dropped open. “Him?”

“Well, look at that,” said Milo. “A spontaneous reaction.”

She gaped.

He said, “Obviously you’ve had the pleasure.”

“Stefan whatwashislastname—Moore,” she said. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

“His real name’s Steven Muhrmann.”

“I knew him as Stefan Moore.”

“How do you know him, Suki?”

“He worked for us, okay? Only for a short time, no big whoop.”

“When?”

She clicked keys. Gasped. Sat back and stared at the ceiling. “Oh, shit.”

Milo said, “The date, please, Suki.”

“Right around the same time.”

“As …?”

“As him registering. Stylemaven—Suss.”

“The date,” he repeated.

She read it off woodenly.

Milo said, “That’s two days after Stylemaven came on and one day before Mystery registered.”

“Shit.”

“How long did he work for you, Suki?”

“Less than two weeks—hold on.” Click click. “Guess I don’t have a record but it wasn’t long, maybe a week, a week and a half.”

“Looks like he used his first day on the job to access your database.”

“No way,” she said. “He didn’t even have computer skills.”

I said, “And you know that because …”

“He told us, up front.”

“What an honest guy.”

“Shit.”

“I’ll bet he made a big deal about being a computer dummy, Suki. I’ll bet you and Rose were impressed by all that upfront honesty.”

She closed her eyes. Massaged her brow. “I’ve got a crazy headache.”

I said, “His ignorance of computers made you feel comfortable. No way he could mess with your data.”

She sat up straight. “That bastard—but no way, he’d never be able to get into the profiles, we’re security- paranoid, you want to know how paranoid we are? We double-encrypt everything, use layers of firewall, it’s like the Pentagon—Brian says the Pentagon should be as secure. We do everything to maintain the integrity of the data because without our data, we’re toast.”

“What exactly were Stefan’s duties?”

“He was a gofer, ran errands, took deliveries.”

“Did he answer the phone?”

“Sometimes.”

“When?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was he limited to when you and Rose were here or did he work the phones when you went out to lunch?”

Silence.

Her whisper was fierce. “Oh, fuck.”

I said, “You never bothered to turn the computers off because Stefan was a computer dummy.”

The sound that she made next was hard to characterize. Part laughter, part cackle, part bronchial congestion. “Shit, shit, shit, how could we be so … no, no way, I can’t believe …”

I said, “Did you fire him?”

“No, he quit.”

“Did he give a reason?”

“He just stopped showing up.”

“So he didn’t officially quit, he just flaked. Because his real job was over.”

Her head dropped as if yoked by sudden, crushing weight. “I am so sorry. But you’re not saying that caused … what happened to her. You’re not saying that, right?”

Milo said, “One way or the other Tara Sly got aimed at Markham Suss. If Stefan ripped you off, that’s one thing. But if you broke your own rules and took a bribe to guide the process, that’s a whole different kettle of scrod.”

“No, no, we’d never do that, there’s nothing personal going on here, everything’s done online.”

“Romantic.”

I said, “You had no idea she matched him that precisely?”

“Why would we? We don’t look at that kind of thing.”

He said, “How about after we came in with Tara’s picture? You didn’t get curious.”

Her jaw swung from side to side. “Sure we did but all we learned was she only matched one Daddy and that was good, we figured at the worst we’d give you that and you’d leave us alone.”

“The fact that they registered within days of each other and hooked up nearly immediately didn’t impress you?”

“I swear,” she said. “That didn’t even register with us, we were just trying to cover our—to stay out of a mess. We’re sorry, okay? And we never connected it to him—that bastard. Why would we? He came across like a dummy. Even now, you can’t prove he had anything to do with it—that our data was even corrupted.”

“A five-word match, Suki? Cohibas.”

“What I said, another girl shared.”

Milo and I didn’t speak.

“Okay,” she said. “It could also have been a glitch.”

He said, “What kind of glitch?”

“Programming errors, it happens, we fix them. But really, it could’ve been another girl. Maybe they traded.”

“Like baseball cards,” said Milo. “Hey, here’s an idea for a spin-off: Daddy and Sweetie cards, collect them all, kids.”

“Whatever.”

“ ‘Gee, Tara, I was surfing with my username and password and just happened to come across this rich old dude who has a thing for Cuban cigars and I thought, hey, that’s perfect for you, you love rich old dudes who stink of tobacco and talk about karma, here you go, honey. And once you get your very own username and password you can return the favor—and, oh yeah, homegirl, here’s four other words you can stick in your profile to form a mathematically improbable coincidence because I ran a careful word-search in order to maximize your success.’ ” He slapped his cheek. “ ‘Oops. You lost your face.’ ”

Suki Agajanian’s eyes filled with tears. “I said I was sorry.”

“Then how about you channel all that remorse into action, Suki. As in no more delays and legal bullshit and you tell us the address Stefan gave when he applied for his ten-day job.”

“Of course, no problem.” Click. “Here it is.” She printed a single sheet.

The same defunct mail-drop Connie Longellos had given to Muhrmann’s landlord.

Milo said, “Where’s the rest of his job application?”

“That’s it, I promise. I know it looks skimpy but we were working day and night to accomplish the important