Stu was poring over Graciella Miramar’s history when Cami reappeared, coming back downstairs bearing gifts. “I brought you a bowl of Alonso’s stew and some homemade bread,” she said, setting the food on the table next to his elbow. “You look puzzled. What’s wrong?”
“I’m going back over the report Frigg sent me earlier—the one on Graciella Miramar. It’s puzzling. Between the time she was born and age six, there’s no record of her at all, including no enrollment in any kind of school.”
“Maybe she was being home schooled,” Cami suggested.
“I doubt that. The Panama City address I found for her and her mother during those early years no longer exists. I’m guessing the area was a slum back then. Now it’s full of high-rises. There are several references to some kind of serious incident in which the mother was the victim of a gang rape. Shortly after that is when the first school records show up, only now she’s no longer in Panama, she’s in the US and attending first-rate schools—private boarding schools with eye-popping tuitions. By the way, that situation continued for years. Someone paid for her education all the way along—through grade school and high school and during her college years as well.”
“Sounds like some kind of Cinderella story,” Cami said.
“Yes,” Stu agreed, “but who paid the freight there? Who’s our Prince Charming?”
“Graciella’s father, maybe?” Cami asked.
“No,” Stu replied, “not possible. According to what I’m seeing here, Graciella’s birth father, Guillermo Octavio Miramar, never lived at any of the addresses listed for Christina and Graciella. He got sent up for drug dealing shortly after Graciella was born and died in prison when she was three.”
“If he wasn’t paying her way,” Cami asked, “who was?”
Stu put on the headset. “Frigg,” he said.
“How can I help?”
Stu smiled to himself. On her own, Frigg had dropped the formality quotient down another notch.
“I’m looking at the Miramar report. Can you tell me who funded the tuition payments for Graciella’s schooling?”
“Let me think about that for a moment.”
And that was all it took—a moment—before Frigg was back with an answer. “As far as I can see, her tuition fees were paid anonymously while her living arrangements and expenses were handled through a series of trust officers at various private banking firms. At this time there’s no way to do any sourcing on the accounts involved or on the person or persons behind them.”
“Graciella’s mother, Christina, evidently suffered serious injuries during an attack by some thugs who were stationed in Panama with the US Air Force,” Stu continued. “That happened when Graciella was around six or so. There was only one brief mention of it in the material you gave me earlier. Is there any more information available on that?”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
“So things with Frigg are going well, then,” Cami asked as Stu mopped out his bowl with the last of the bread. “Are you going to keep her?”
“The jury’s still out on that,” Stu replied. “Frigg is a piece of work. She installed a key-logging Trojan on Graciella Miramar’s computers.”
“A key logger? Why?”
“It sounds as though she thought Graciella was getting a little too chummy with Odin.”
“Was she jealous?”
“She claims it was part of her threat-assessment protocol, but it turns out her key logger has been gathering intelligence on Graciella’s devices the whole time Frigg was off-line. Oh, and remember all those self-deleting texts Odin used on other people’s devices? The same thing is going on here. The voice messages that come through the headset and the text exchanges that show up on the monitors or the Macintosh are all supposedly self-erasing.”
“Supposedly?”
“What if Frigg is lying about that?” Stu asked. “What if the cops could come in here and read through everything that showed up on the monitors today? In fact, Frigg might be lying to us about any number of things. What if the whole headset BS is just that—a scam? For all I know, she could be listening in on everything we’re saying right now.”
“You really don’t trust her, do you?”
“No,” Stu agreed definitively. “I don’t trust her at all.”
“Are you familiar with the opera called Thaïs?” Cami asked.
Cami’s question was from so far out in left field that Stuart was caught flat-footed. “An opera? Who do you think you’re talking to, Cami? You do remember that I grew up in a trailer park in South Phoenix, right?”
“Sorry,” Cami said quickly. “I had the misfortune of growing up with a mother who majored in French literature. Thaïs is a French opera by Jules Massenet and Louis Gallet, based on a novel by Anatole France. A few years ago when the Met did a production, my mother insisted on taking me. The opera takes place in fourth-century Egypt. It’s the story of a devout monk who tries to change Thaïs, a beautiful pagan courtesan, into a Christian. He succeeds beyond his wildest expectations, but when Thaïs asks him to drop her off at a convent, he realizes that he has fallen in love with her. Back at the monastery he renounces his vows and returns to find her. When he arrives at the convent, he discovers that he’s too late and Thaïs is dying.”
“Not a happy ending, then,” Stu said.
“No, it’s not,” Cami agreed.
“And your point is?”
“I think Frigg is Thaïs, and you’re the monk who’s trying to fix her.”
“And you’re convinced this isn’t going to end well?”
“I’m hoping it ends well,” Cami countered. “But if it does work out and you do fix her, maybe you should change her name.”
A monitor lit up. The words Mr. Ramey, are you available? were written there in bright red letters.
Stu switched the headset to speaker. “Yes, Frigg,” he said. “I’m here. Why the red letters?”
“Red indicates an emergency flash briefing,” Frigg replied. “Odin referred to those as Howlers, from Harry Potter.”
“I know all about Howlers,” Stu said impatiently.
“My preferred audio indicator for those has always been a klaxon but since we have yet to establish your preferences . . .”
“For right now printing in red is fine,” Stu told her. “So what’s up?”
“I’m in the process of analyzing Ms. Miramar’s recent search histories, and some of them are troubling.”
“How so?”
“Ms. Miramar’s mother, Christina, was found dead on the morning of Thursday, October 19. She had been in ill health for some time, and her death has now been ruled a suicide. I’m attaching a copy of the autopsy.”
Stu wasn’t exactly reassured to learn that Frigg had unauthorized access to police records in Panama in much the same way she did in the US. Sure enough, a moment later an autopsy form with the term COPY stamped across it appeared on one of the monitors. He enlarged the form enough so that both he and Cami could read it. The document was in Spanish, but the word “Suicidio” was self-explanatory.
“What are we supposed to be seeing here?” Stu asked.
At once one line of the form was highlighted in yellow. “Please note that the victim’s blood alcohol content was listed as 0.35.” Frigg replied. “A reading that high would indicate severe alcohol poisoning and might have been fatal in and of itself. However, in addition to dangerous amounts of alcohol, Christina Miramar had also ingested a lethal combination of prescription medications, all of which were identified by toxicology screening and are also listed on the form.” At once another section of the report was highlighted.
“So?”
“Weeks before Christina’s death, her daughter, Graciella, spent several hours online, searching for each of those drugs by name and researching their possible side effects.”
“Are you suggesting that Graciella might be responsible for her mother’s death?” Stu asked.
“In terms of threat assessment I thought it appropriate to bring this information to your attention,” Frigg responded.
“Because you think she might pose a threat to me?” Stu asked.
“I do,” Frigg replied.
“But wait,” Cami objected, “if the mother had been ill, maybe Graciella was concerned about the possibility of adverse interactions among her medications.”
“That is true,” Frigg agreed. “Had the authorities been made aware of that search history, they might have made a determination other than suicide or at least examined the death more closely.”
“But of course, that search history had already been erased by the time the authorities got there, right?” Stu asked.
“That is correct. Ms. Miramar deleted them at the end of her session along with her browsing history. They were deleted but not erased. The same is true of the photos. If the computer was handed over to a software technician, I’m sure they could be located.”
“But that’s never going to happen,” Stu said. “The only reason you know about it and the only reason we know about it is because of the key logger you installed on her computer, which actually constitutes an illegal search. Which also means, even if Graciella did murder her mother, we can’t do a damned thing about it. If I were to attempt to report this information to the authorities in Panama City, I’d probably end up in jail.”
“Nonetheless,” Frigg replied, “someone capable of that kind of behavior might be considered both unstable and—to use your terminology—untrustworthy. As a precaution, I suggest you avoid doing business with Ms. Miramar if at all possible.”
“Right,” Stu grumbled, “but because of the way you set up the banking codes, that isn’t possible. You’ve maneuvered me into a position where I have no choice but to deal with her.”
“I believe Ms. Miramar’s interest in you goes far beyond the banking codes,” Frigg said.
“What are you saying now?”
“In the past few weeks Ms. Miramar has done extensive research on you and on everyone related to High Noon Enterprises. She also seems to have taken a relatively recent but intense interest in artificial intelligence.”
“Maybe she wants to do more than just borrow you,” Stu said.
“Ms. Miramar is well aware of the money to be made in Bitcoin mining. She might be planning on establishing her own Bitcoin enterprise. She has some computer skills but not nearly enough to operate a complex AI system. In order to do that, she would require the services of an experienced software engineer.”
“In that case it would make sense that she’s targeting both you and Frigg,” Cami said. “Maybe she’s hoping to lure you away with some kind of job offer. So what are the chances that she’s the one behind the bugging?”
Obviously Frigg overheard the comment. “By bugging, you mean some kind of covert surveillance?”
“Yes,” Stu replied. “Ron Webster, the guy you did the background check on earlier and who is now deceased, gained unauthorized access to our building last week for the sole purpose of planting surveillance devices on the property. We need to find out everything there is to know about any links between Ron Webster and Graciella Miramar.”
“Yes, Mr. Ramey. Will there be anything else?”
“Send the drug search materials, please—in both English and Spanish.”
“Of course,” Frigg replied. “I’ll get right on it.”