“This is beyond belief!” His face burned bright red as he shoved to his feet. “I’m calling my lawyer.”
“Fine. Tell him to meet us down at Cop Central.” Cool and calm in contrast, Eve rose. “Where you can chill in Holding until he arrives, at which time we’ll filter our questions through your representative on both matters—your involvement in corporate espionage and your connection to Bart Minnock’s murder.”
“Just a minute, just one damn minute. I was nowhere near Minnock’s apartment yesterday. I’ve never been to his apartment.”
“You’ve requested a lawyer, Mr. DuVaugne,” Eve reminded him. “We’re obliged to wait until your representative meets with you before we take any statements or continue this interview. We’ll hold you at Central prior to that, and prior to booking you on the pending charges.”
“Arresting me? You’re arresting me? Wait. Just wait.” He didn’t sweat like Roland, but his hand trembled as he pushed it through his glossy mane of hair. “We’ll hold on the lawyer; we’ll keep this here.”
“That’s your choice.”
“Martinis!” Taija announced in a bright singsong as she preceded Derby into the room. “Let’s all sit down and have a nice drink. Oh, honey, look at you! All red in the face.” She walked over, patted his cheeks. “Derby, pour the drinks. Mr. DuVaugne needs a little pick-me-up.”
“Give me that.” DuVaugne grabbed the oversized shaker, dumped the contents into a glass to the rim. Then downed it.
“Oops! You forgot the olives. Derby, pour our guests drinks.”
“We’re not allowed to drink on duty, Mrs. DuVaugne, but thanks.”
Taija’s mouth turned down in a sympathetic frown. “Geezy, that doesn’t seem fair.”
“Taija, go upstairs. I have business to discuss here.”
“Oh.” After shooting her husband a hurt glance, she turned to Eve and Peabody. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you, too.”
“Derby, leave us alone.” DuVaugne sat, rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “I didn’t have anything to do with Minnock’s murder. I was at my office until four. My driver brought me home. I didn’t leave the house again until seven. You can check all this.”
“Can and will. But when a man pays someone to steal for him, it’s a short step up to paying someone to kill for him.”
DuVaugne dropped his hands. “I don’t know what this Dubrosky character’s told you, but he’s a thief and a liar. He’s not to be trusted.”
“You trusted him with about a hundred and fifty thousand,” Eve pointed out.
“That’s business, just the price of doing business.” He waved that away, then settled his hands on his knees. “And he came to me. He said he wanted to develop a game, and was working on some new technology, but needed backing. Normally, I’d have dismissed him, but he was persuasive, and the idea was interesting, so I gave him a few thousand to continue the work. And a bit more shortly after as I confess I was caught up. I should know better, of course, but poor judgment’s no crime. Then, after I’d invested considerable time and money, he told me he’d stolen the data from U-Play.”
On a huff of breath, DuVaugne poured a second martini—and
remembered the olives. “I was shocked, outraged, threatened to turn him in, but he blackmailed me. I’d paid him, you see, so it would look as if I’d hired him to access the information. I continued to pay him. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Eve sat for a moment. “Do you buy any of that, Peabody?”
“No, sir. Not a word.”
Obviously stunned, he lowered the glass. “You’d believe a common criminal over me?”
“In this case,” Eve considered, “oh yeah. You’re not naive, DuVaugne. Not like your very nice wife. And you wouldn’t take a big chunk of cash out of your own pocket to help some struggling programmer develop a game. You hired Dubrosky, and you paid him to do exactly what he did—use some silly sap to feed him the data you wanted. You bring the game and the technology to your company, which is downsizing rapidly, you get to be the hero. Your investment pays off several hundred times. The only hitch to pulling it off? Bart Minnock.”
“I’m not a murderer!” DuVaugne downed half the second martini before slapping the glass down. “If Dubrosky killed that man, he did it on his own. I had nothing to do with it.”
“You just paid him to steal?”
“It’s business,” DuVaugne insisted. “It’s just business. My company’s in some trouble, that’s true. We need an infusion, some fresh ideas, a boost in the market. When information comes my way, I use it. That’s good business. It’s the way of the industry. It’s very competitive.”
“When you pay someone to steal and/or transfer proprietary information it’s called theft. And guess what? You go to jail. And if that theft is linked to murder you get the bonus prize of accessory thereto.”
“This is insane. I’m a businessman doing my job. I’d never hurt anyone or have a part in it.”
“Stealing the results of someone else’s sweat hurts, and we’ll see what we add to that before we’re done. You can call that lawyer on the way downtown. Lane DuVaugne, you’re under arrest for the solicitation of theft of proprietary information, and for the receipt of same, for conspiracy to commit corporate espionage. Cuff him, Peabody.”
“No. Please, please. My wife. You have to let me explain to my wife. Let me tell her I’m going with you to—to help you with your investigation. Please, I don’t want to upset her.”
“Call her down. Tell her whatever you want. But she’s going to find out when she has to post bail—if you get it.”
She hadn’t done it for him, Eve thought as she let Peabody handle the booking. She’d done it to give his wife a little more time to adjust to the coming change. DuVaugne could talk with his lawyer, could try to wheedle, but there was no way they’d have a bail hearing until morning.
She’d see what he had to say after a night in a cell.
In her office, she tagged Roarke to let him know she was back, then wrote and filed her report.
While waiting for him she did what she hadn’t had time to do all day. She started her murder board.
When it was done, she sat, put her feet on the desk, sipped coffee, and studied it.
Bart Minnock, his pleasant face, slightly goofy smile, rode beside the grisly shots from the crime scene, the stills from the morgue, and the people she knew connected to him.
His friends and partners, his girlfriend, the sad sack Roland, Dubrosky, DuVaugne. She scanned the list of employees, of accounts, the financial data, the time line as she knew it and the sweepers’ reports.
Competition, she thought, business, ego, money, money, money, passion, naivete, security. Games.
Games equaled big business, big egos, big money, big passions, and the development thereof, big security.
Somewhere along the line that security had failed and one or more of the other elements snuck through to kill Minnock.
“I heard you made an arrest,” Roarke said from behind her.
“Not on the murder, not yet. But it may connect. They’ll push this project through, this game, without him. Not just because it’s what they do, but because they wouldn’t want to let him down.”
“Yes, it’ll be bumpier, and there may be a delay, but they’ll push it through.”
“Then what’s the point of killing him.” She shook her head, dropped her feet back to the floor. “Let’s go take a walk through the scene.”
6
She let Roarke drive so she could continue to work on her notes, determine who among those interviewed needed a second pass, and who she still needed to contact.
“I’ve got a buzz out to his lawyer—on vacation. She’s cutting it short and I’m meeting with her in the morning. She was a friend,” Eve added. “She seems inclined to give me whatever I need, and already outlined some basic terms of his partnership agreement and will. Nearly everything goes to his parents, but his share of U-
Play is to be divided among the three remaining partners. It’s a chunk.”
“Are you thinking one or more of them decided to eliminate him so they’d have a bigger slice of the pie?”
“Can’t write it off. But sometimes money isn’t the whole deal.” Money, she thought, was often the easiest button to push but not the only button. “Sometimes it’s not even in the deal. Still, I can’t write it off. You said they’d probably have some bumps and some delay in getting this new game out, but they’re going to reap a whirlwind of publicity so it seems to me when it hits, it’ll hit big. Would that be your take?”
“It would—and it will. Even though we have a similar game and system about to launch, it’s a considerable leap in gaming tech. And they’ll have a lot of media focused on them due to Bart’s death, and the method. It’ll give them a push, but for the long haul? Losing him is a serious blow.”
“Yeah, but some don’t think long haul. And conversely, from a competitive standpoint, if you cut off the head—literally and figuratively—you’re banking that the delay’s long enough to give you time to beat the jump. They may be partners, and all bright lights, but Bart was the head. That’s how it strikes me.”
“I’d agree. And, if it’s business? It feels more like competition than any sort of bid for splashy media attention. I can’t see that, Eve.”
Maybe not, she thought, but it was a by-product. “What do you know about game weapons—the toys used in a game, vid props, replicas, collector’s items.”
“They can be and are intriguing, and certainly can command stiff prices, particularly at auction.”
“You collect.” She shifted to study his profile. “But you mostly collect real.”
“Primarily, yes. Still, it’s an area of interest for anyone in the field, or serious about gaming. Game weapons run from the basic and simple to the intricate and complex, and everything between. They can and do add an element of immediacy and realism, a hands-on.”
He glanced at her. “You enjoy weapons.”
“I like knowing I’ve got one. One that does what it needs to do when I need it to do it.”
“You’ve played the games. You’re a competitive soul.”
“What’s the point of playing if winning isn’t the goal?”
“We stand on the same side there.”
“But a game’s still a game,” she pointed out. “A toy’s a toy. I don’t understand the compulsion to live the fantasy. To outfit your office like the command center of some fictional starship.”
“Well, for the fun or the escape, though no doubt some take it too far. We should go to an auction some time, just so you can experience it. Gaming and the collecting that’s attached to it, it’s an interesting world.”
“I like toys.” She shrugged. “What I don’t get is why anyone would spend millions on some play sword wielded by some play warrior in a vid or interactive.”
“Some might say the same about art. It’s all a matter of interest. In any case, some pieces of interest to collectors would be based on those vid props, and used in various games, or simply displayed. Depending on the accessibility, the age, the use, the base, they can be valuable to collectors. We routinely issue special limited editions of some weapons and accessories, just for that reason.”
“How about an electrified sword?”
He braked for a red light, then smiled at her. “You’d have your fire sword, your charged-by-lightning, your stunner sword and so on. They’d give off a light show, appropriate sound effects—glow, sizzle, vibrate, that sort of thing. But no game prop would do more than give an opponent a bit of a buzz. They’re harmless.”
“You could doctor one?”
“I could, and bottom out its value on any legitimate market. There are regulations, Eve, safety requirements—and very strict ones. You’d never get anything capable of being turned into an actual weapon through screening. It wasn’t a game prop that killed Bart.”
“A replica then, made specifically for the purpose. A killing blade that carries enough of an electric current to burn.”
He cruised through the green, said nothing for a moment as he swung toward the curb in front of Bart’s building. “Is that what did him?”
“That’s what we have at this point.” She got out after Roarke parked. “That tells me it wasn’t enough to kill. There had to be gamesmanship, too. It had to be fun or exciting for the killer. Whoever did it had to be part of it, part of the game. And he played to win. I have to figure out what he took home as his prize.”
“Lieutenant.” The doorman stepped away from his post. “Is there any progress? Do you know who killed Bart—Mr. Minnock?”
“The investigation’s ongoing. We’re pursuing all leads. Has anyone tried to gain access to his apartment?”
“No. No one’s been up there since your people left. He was a nice guy. Hardly older than my son.”
“You were on duty when he got home yesterday.” It had all been asked before, she knew, but sometimes details shook out in the repetition. “How was his mood?”
“He was whistling. Grinning. I remember how it made me grin right back. He looked so damn happy.”
“And no one came in after him, or before him, who might have access to his apartment?”
“No one. Quiet yesterday. You remember the weather we had? People stayed in, mostly, if they didn’t have to go anywhere. Hardly anyone in or out all day, and I knew all of them.”
“Did he have any trouble with anyone in the building? Any complaints?”
“He was a friendly guy, easygoing, but maybe a little shy, a little quiet. I never heard him complain about anybody, or anybody complain about him.”
She shifted angles. “Maybe he was particularly friendly with one of the other tenants?”
“Well, the kids, sure.”
And there, she thought, a new detail. “What kids?”
“The Sing kids, and the Trevor boy. We don’t have a lot of kids in the building. Couple of teenage girls, but they’re not so into the game scene. But the younger boys, they were big for Bart.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, he let them come up and play now and then, said they were his market research. Gave them some demos here and there, passed them new games before they hit the stores.”
“Were the parents okay with that?”
“Sure. He wouldn’t’ve done it otherwise. In fact, Dr. Sing joined in sometimes. He’s more into strategy games and like that than the action stuff the kids like. Those kids are taking it hard, really hard, since the news got out. Well, the Sing kids. The Trevors are on vacation, so I don’t know if they heard about it.”
“What’s the Sings’ apartment?”
“They’re in five-ten if you want the main. It’s a nice two-level job. The whole family’s up there now, if you want to talk to them. I can buzz up, let them know.”
“Why don’t you do that? After, we’ll be working in Mr. Minnock’s for a while.”
“It’s good you’re keeping on it. That’s good. Whoever hurt that boy . . .” His lips thinned as he looked away. “Well, I can’t even say what I think about it. We get fired for that kind of language.”
Roarke keyed up his PPC as they got in the elevator. “Sing,
Dr. David—neurologist. His wife’s a pediatric surgeon. Susan. Boys, Steven and Michael, ages ten and eight respectively. Married twelve years. Both graduated from Harvard Medical School, and both are attendings at Mount Sinai. No criminal on either.”
“Since when do you access criminal records on that?”
“Since I consult with my lovely wife.” Roarke slipped the PPC back in his pocket.
“I’ve got a guy in a cage right now for accessing proprietary information.”
Roarke merely smiled, held his hands out, wrists up. “Want to take me in, darling?”
The elevator doors opened and spared her from an answer. “I just want a look, a sense. Maybe the whole deal was some sort of accident. Everybody’s playing, hav
ing fun, until somebody gets their head chopped off.”
“And a couple of kids clean up after themselves, reset the security, reprogram a very sophisticated droid?”
“No, but they have really smart parents. I assume smart given the Harvard Medical. It’s not likely, but—”
“You can’t write it off,” Roarke finished, and pressed the bell for 510 himself.
“Try to look like Peabody.”
“Sorry?”
“Serious, official, yet approachable.”
“You forgot adorable.”
“Peabody is not adorable.”
“She is from my perspective. Besides, I was talking about me.”
She barely smothered the laugh before the door opened.
David Sing wore jeans and a spotless white shirt. In her boots Eve had an inch on him, and his weary eyes skimmed from her to Roarke.
He spoke with a precision that told her English wasn’t his first language, but he’d learned it very well.
“You’re the police. I’m David Sing. Please, come in.”
There were touches of his Asian heritage in the decor—the pretty colors, the collection of carved dragons, the pattern of the silk throws. He ushered them to a bright blue sofa that showed both care and wear.
“We’ll have tea,” he said. “My sons’ nanny is preparing it. She stayed late this evening as our children are very upset by what happened to our friend. Please sit. Tell me how I might help you.”
He hadn’t asked for ID, but Eve took out her badge. “I’m Lieutenant Dallas. I’m primary investigator in the matter of Bart Minnock’s murder.”
“Yes. Jackie explained when he called up. And I recognize you. Both of you. We heard of Bart’s death this afternoon, and my wife and I took leave immediately. We didn’t want our sons to hear of it before we could speak with them, prepare them. Ah, here is our tea. Min, this is Lieutenant Dallas and Roarke.”
The woman who rolled in the tray was tiny and hadn’t seen seventy for a number of years. She bowed slightly, then spoke in a quiet voice in a language Eve didn’t understand. Then she laid a hand on Sing’s shoulder in a gesture that spoke clearly of a long and deep connection.