father.
Martin Gray was a detective for the D.C. police — on the homicide squad. He looked almost as surprised to see Matt as Matt was to see him. “You’re a long way from home — on a night when most people would prefer to stay there,” David’s dad said.
Matt replied with a bone-cracking yawn. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I was dozing off in here.” He blinked. “My father and I were going to see Ed Saunders, the — the man out there.” Matt pointed through the fogged window toward the curbside.
“It must have been pretty important to come out in the middle of a storm,” Martin Gray prompted.
“Seemed so at the time,” Matt said. “I’d better start at the beginning.” He told the detective about the sim and the resulting problems. “Is there some reason to think that Saunders was killed?” he asked when he’d finished.
“I wouldn’t exactly call you a suspect,” Martin Gray replied dryly. “But what you tell me does explain something we found on the late Mr. Saunders.” He held up a piece of paper. “I guess you didn’t notice this in his pocket.”
Matt shuddered. “I was just trying to give him CPR.” An unpleasant memory intruded — how Saunders’s ice- impregnated coat had crackled under his hands while Matt tried to revive him.
“Saunders must have been working on an answer for those lawyers you mentioned.” Detective Gray held out the paper. It was a computer printout, but somebody had attacked the crisp letters with a smeary ballpoint pen. Lots of words had been scribbled over, with whole new sections of the letter put in by hand. “Is that the name of the law firm? Do you recognize any of the names in the list down here?”
Matt looked over out the top of the letter for the address and name of the law firm, and got a quick glimpse of the list of what he guessed were Ed’s sim users before Martin Gray covered the addresses. A line of names ran down the left in the body of the letter, with addresses on the right. “That’s the firm,” he said. “As I told you before, I don’t know the real names of the sim users, only the names of the characters they were playing.”
Even as he spoke, though, Matt was frantically trying to memorize those real names now. He only caught one name and address, and another name from the next line.
“I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t necessarily be here, except that the sector sergeant is a friend of mine…and I happened to be in the neighborhood.” Detective Gray shrugged. “Whenever anybody who’s not directly under a doctor’s care passes away, the case is treated as a possibly suspicious death.”
Matt shook his head. “Boy, I thought school was tough — but if you need a doctor’s note for
His half-punchy comment got a laugh out of Martin Gray. Then the expression on the police officer’s face sobered.
“Yeah, well,” David’s dad said. “On the other hand, Mr. Saunders isn’t really going to care about it, now…is he?”
Leif was lying in bed, surrounded by books about the Callivants, when the chimes announcing an incoming call began to ring. He swung both feet to the floor and activated his bedroom console. A second later a holo image swam into view — a very pink-faced Matt Hunter. Before he could speak, Leif erupted in a thunderous sneeze.
“I guess I wasn’t the only one who was out in the weather,” Matt said, massaging his cheeks. “I still can’t quite feel my face.”
“Sounds charming,” Leif sneezed again and scrabbled for a tissue to wipe his runny nose.
“Not as charming as what you’ve got,” Matt shot back with a grin. “You don’t look your usual suave self.”
Leif looked down at the old sweatsuit he was using as pajamas, his nose wrinkling from the pungent scent of the herbal rub his mother had insisted on slathering over his chest. “Just be glad you can’t smell me.” He looked keenly at his friend. “What sent you out into the howling blizzard? Is it something to do with your problems?”
Matt nodded. “I’ve got a new one now. Ed Saunders is dead and the cops are investigating.”
Leif stopped dabbing at his nose. “You think one of your playmates resented this deadline of his that much?”
“Who knows? As far as I can tell, he didn’t let us know how things had turned out. When I tried to call, I got his automatic message system. Dad and I finally took the Metro, hoping to talk this out face-to-face. We were half a block from his address when we found him — literally in the gutter.”
“What happened? Murder most foul? Hit-and-run? A falling icicle?” Leif was downright disappointed when he heard that Saunders had most likely been the victim of a fatal slip on the icy sidewalk.
“David’s dad has no sense of drama,” Leif complained.
“I’m sure that’s the last thing he wants in his job,” Matt agreed. When he went on to describe the letter and the attached list, Leif’s interest quickened.
“
“Be hard to top the book you’ve got in your hand,” Matt replied. “What is that?
Leif held up the book he’d brought along with him. “Just something I borrowed from Mrs. O’Malley,” he said. “It’s got some stuff about the death in Haddington.”
“That’s the last thing I have to worry about,” Matt said. “Right now I have to see how this death in Washington affects what’s going on with the Callivant lawyers.” Matt hesitated for a second. “I got a look at that list you were kidding about.”
“Really? I don’t suppose there was anybody you recognized.” Leif grinned. “I always figured Maj Greene for a secret Lucullus Marten fan.”
Matt shook his head. “No friends, no enemies, no obvious murderers. Just a bunch of unknown names.”
Leif looked expectantly at his friend’s image. “So did you copy them all down? We could check them out.”
“I got one name and address, and one more name.” He looked embarrassed.
“That’s it?” Leif asked.
“Hey, I’d just struggled through a storm with a lawsuit hanging over my head, I found a body and gave CPR to a cold corpse, and when I was just about frozen stiff, then I was put as a possible homicide suspect into a police car with the heater doing overtime. I had just about zonked off when David’s dad started talking to me.”
“At least you got two out of five.”
Matt scowled. “More like one out of five. Do you know how many K. Joneses there are in this city?”
Leif laughed, then coughed. “Not to mention the surrounding suburban counties. I take it that’s the name that didn’t have the address?”
Matt nodded. “The other is T. Flannery.” He reeled off the rest of the address.
“Decatur Place?” Leif closed his eyes, calling up a mental map. “That’s a street up by Dupont Circle. Pretty nice address.” The area was in Northwest Washington, where developers now waged a continual war with people who wanted to preserve the old buildings in the neighborhood. “Have you checked it out?”
“There’s no listing for a T. Flannery at that address,” Matt replied.
“And why would anybody give an unlisted connection, even for a noncommercial test sim like Saunders was running?” Leif felt his lips twitch into a smile. “I begin to see why you decided to call me.”
Still maintaining his connection with Matt, Leif warmed up his computer and began giving some orders. Besides communications codes, he had access to a wider range of trace programs and databases — some of them even legal — than Matt did.
“The city directory doesn’t show a T. Flannery living at that address,” Leif announced, looking at the print display now floating beside the image of Matt’s head. “No rent records, or condo mortgages. But I’ve got clear indications of electrical bills, water bills, and sewage lines going to the property. It’s not empty land. So who owns
