6

Later that afternoon Grady and Woods hold a press conference outside the gates to Viveca Canning’s subdivision. They’ve conferred with Mills and are releasing only surface details for now.

“Not going to the media circus?” Powell asks him.

He shakes his head and feels a smile emerge. “No. I have a fear of clowns.”

“One of these days you’re going to find a reporter you actually like,” she says.

“I like Sally Tobin from The Republic, but she’s about to retire.” They’ve gathered again under the porte cochere where they’re sheltered from the blistering sun. Lower in the driveway, Preston emerges from his car. He’s carrying his tablet. He steps into the square of shade and says, “Just a simple Google search tells quite a story about Viveca Canning.”

Mills looks over his shoulder as Preston reads from various headlines. Seems the Internet is gushing about her. Praise for her philanthropy, her kindness, her compassion. Last year she went with church leaders to Africa to pray for children suffering a famine. She’s building a clinic in Bangladesh, another in Haiti. She’s featured in magazine articles and TV stories. She has a Twitter and a Facebook account. Her Facebook feed is a Who’s Who of gala life and gowns galore. Nothing about her family, Mills notices. Her tweets feature the See and Be Seen nonsense, as well, but ever since she created the Twitter account two years ago, she’s also been tweeting regularly about her church along with photos of functions and outreach; there’s a post about a church dinner at a homeless shelter; she sent a series of tweets from a literacy event where her church donated five thousand books. She tweeted a photo of her pastor shaking hands with one of the U.S. senators from Arizona.

Thanks to @SenWayneGooding for helping @CAR with our #AbstinenceforTeens campaign.

A #righteous effort. #Purity #Chastity #Elevate

“Okay . . .” Powell says. “Looks like we have a holy roller on our hands.”

Mills just stares at the screen and says nothing for a moment. The holy roller thing is obvious, and while he doesn’t want to overlook the obvious, he also doesn’t want to neglect that which hides beneath. He remembers the days before social media when virtually everything hid beneath. There was no immediate window into anyone’s life, no gaping wide window, no selfies. And yet, even in this era of oversharing, Mills is mindful that social media only shows what people want it to show; it’s the Greatest Hits of someone’s life, the Profile of a Winner, the Resume of a Star, the Happiest Family on Earth. And dogs. Dogs that are never quite as entertaining as their owners think. The only person in the world he knows without a Facebook or Twitter account is Gus Parker. But that doesn’t surprise him. Mills, himself, is on social media. If you can call one post every two months a social media presence. And it’s mostly dedicated to his son, Trevor, winning games at U of A. “If you notice,” he tells the gang, “she stopped tweeting about church sometime in May. It’s August now. Does church go on summer break?”

“No, but apparently she did,” Preston says, scrolling down. “Looks like she was having a busy summer of travel. There are all kinds of photos here from Greece, the Canary Islands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland . . .”

“Maybe she just got home,” Powell says. “Which would explain why her shit’s all over the place. Maybe this isn’t about someone trying to make it look like a robbery. Maybe she just got home from summer vacation and dumped everything everywhere.”

Mills shrugs, indicating he’s not convinced one way or another. He asks Preston to go back to Google and search the son’s name. He watches as the other detective types in V-i-v-e-c-a by mistake, and before Mills has a chance to stop him, Preston hits “search.” A page of bright blue headlines appear. Bright blue and brand new.

VALLEY SOCIALITE FOUND DEAD IN HER PHOENIX HOME

“Wow, that was fucking fast,” Powell says.

POLICE SAY SOCIALITE’S DEATH LIKELY HOMICIDE

The press conference hasn’t even ended and reporters are already pumping out news copy.

WHO KILLED VIVECA CANNING? THE FAMOUS PHOENICIAN GUNNED DOWN

Three stories from an ongoing press conference and it won’t stop there. Reporters are now primed to post from the scene, tweet from the yellow tape, and Instagram the instacrime. The competition is as hot as a fever. In the old days Alex Mills was not affected by the competition. But now his boss expects him to be faster than an iPhone because technology, after all, has reset the speed of society. Now, not later. This second, not this minute. Yesterday, what the hell is that? Yeah, he gets it. If the average person can find all the answers in less than .46 seconds on Google, surely we can solve cases faster. “At least that’s the expectation,” Sergeant Woods had warned him a few years ago. “People don’t understand the concept of waiting anymore.”

Yeah, he gets it. The case of dead valley darling Viveca Canning will spin exponentially into a shitstorm before he even leaves the scene. His jaw aches from grinding his teeth.