Chapter 19

  Grace sputtered, "Excuse me, did you just accuse me of attempted murder?”

  “Why yes, I did, Grace. Look, you can either talk to me about it, or you can talk to my cousin August, the chief of police.” She really didn’t look like she wanted to do either. “Or you could kill me and push my body into the lake, but you know, DNA. It’d only be a matter of time before they came for you. And this time instead of an attempt, it’d be actual murder. You get that right? Did Professor Malone do something to you when you were in school?”

  I gave her a chance to open up; now I needed to just give her a second to think through her options. She was a computer programmer; I believe that she will make a logical choice.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she couldn’t see me; maybe I wasn’t really here, but eventually she opened them and looked at me. She had made up her mind; she was going to talk. But would she be lying or telling the truth? That was the big question. Someone who was capable of killing someone in a premeditated manner wouldn't think twice about lying to cover it up.

  Luckily she hadn’t taken me up on my suggestion that she might murder me to delay the inevitable. You might think that I was an idiot for even mentioning murdering me. But if she had thought it up on her own and acted on it before logically thinking it through, I might already be in the lake. Anyone who can get through a school like RPI in three years, well, they have to be smart, smarter than me. So it really wasn’t as reckless as you might imagine.

  “Yes, you can say that he did something to me; he stole something from me, and then he sold what I had created to arguably some of the worst people on the planet from my point of view. But no, I did not try to kill him; my plan, dumb as it sounds now, was to get him to admit what he had done on camera. Just so all the world could see him for what he really is.”

  My basic problem with the crime, aside from it being a horrible thing for a person to do to another, was after the initial attempt failed, why hadn’t there been another attack? I thought there were two possible reasons. The first was that the ‘killer’ was just waiting for another opportunity. The second was that the killer regretted the first attack, and thus no second attack was coming.

  I hadn’t considered that the perpetrator might have botched the entire job from the very start, because it was so well done, or at least I had thought that it was well done. It was only thwarted because Amy was there to save the victim’s life. How can a smart young woman inject someone with fentanyl without wanting to kill him? It doesn’t make any sense.

  "Look, Grace, you claim that you didn’t want to kill him, but you injected him with fentanyl. Can you understand why I’m having a hard time believing that you hadn’t meant to kill him and Amy just happened to save his life?"

  "I wasn’t trying to inject him with fentanyl; I was trying to inject him with ecstasy. I wanted to get him really high and confront him on camera. The man is brilliant; I knew that if I confronted him and he wasn’t intoxicated, I would have no chance of getting him to admit what he’d done. I couldn’t exactly go to a pharmacy and ask for ecstasy, so I had to go down under the Hoosick Street bridge in Troy and find a drug dealer. Which was scary as hell; I told him I needed an injectable drug to make people friendly and talkative. He told me I wanted MDMA, or ecstasy; he said injectable ecstasy was hard to obtain, but he just happened to have some. I was extremely stupid; I took a drug dealer at his word. After buying the drug, I did some research online and found that injectable ecstasy is rare and also painful. I didn’t care about the pain it caused; I was only concerned that Malone be high and talkative," she gritted her teeth while talking about her encounter with the drug dealer.

  “Let’s assume for a second that I believe what you say and that if I go to Troy and find this drug dealer, he backs up your assertions. Why would you go through all of this? What did Malone take from you that was worth going to jail for to establish what he’d done?”

  “My cousin, Manon, has locked-in syndrome; she hit a tree while skiing. Her helmet saved her life but also caused damage to her brain stem. She no longer speaks, and the only muscles in her body that she can control are her facial muscles. This happened when we were in middle school. My aunt's mother suffered from depression, and about a year of watching Manon lie in bed drove her to take her own life. Her father had never been in the picture. So she was moved into my room, and cousins became more like sisters. She could communicate after a fashion by blinking her eyes. But conversations were more like twenty questions. I was good with computers, even in middle school. While the other kids wanted to play games, I wanted to build worlds. Once I learned that computers could be used for facial recognition. I had two goals: the first was to create sophisticated software that could learn to read Manon’s expressions, and the second was to build a digital world where Manon could do everything she could before the accident. That’s why I took the job with the game company; that is going to be our world. At least that was the plan; now I’ll be going to prison, and Manon will lie there thinking that she destroyed my life as she blames herself for her mother’s suicide.”

  This software sounded suspiciously like the software the professor had told me was sold to the government. That made him rich. But he must have known Grace right away. After he was injected and we made it clear that it was fentanyl, why didn’t he just tell us that he knew and suspected Grace? The only way that made sense was if he felt guilty or was afraid of what would happen to his public persona if Grace accused him.

  “Alright, so this is some kind of revenge plot. Get back at the man who stole from you to punish him. Why? So you could sue him? To get the money and do what exactly?”

  “Yes, the money would be helpful. I don’t think you understand what it costs to keep Manon alive. Medical expenses alone have nearly bankrupted my family; my student debt just compounds that. But mainly what I wanted was for the government to give back the software and to stop using it. It’s mine, not theirs, and I didn’t give permission for the government to use it. My family are immigrants. I would never have sold my facial recognition software to Homeland Security for ICE to use against innocent people who are just trying to make a better life for their families. I believe that if an illegal immigrant is convicted of a felony, then they should be deported. But I don’t want something I created for a totally different reason to be used to terrorize people.”

  “You’ve made this all sound very noble, and no matter what I think of her personally. You have no right to try and pin your crime on an innocent person, now do you, Grace?”

  She looked genuinely confused by my statement, “I haven’t tried to divert attention onto anyone. I swear. I admit that I injected Niall. Sure, I’d prefer if everyone thought he overdosed on his own. But now that I’m caught, that obviously isn’t going to happen. Once he crumpled to the floor, I was scared to death. I went into the bathroom and tried to come up with some kind of plan. I wanted to run, but I knew if I did that, I'd be giving the police a reason to suspect me. So eventually I came out of the bathroom to thankfully find out that your friend had saved his life and people thought it was either a reaction to a bee sting or an overdose. I felt like I had been granted a second chance. I swear to you I haven’t done anything since then.”

  I believed her, but what about her accomplice? “You might not have done anything, Grace, since the overdose, but what about your accomplice? They certainly have been busy.”

  “I don’t have an accomplice; I told you I got the drugs and injected him. It was all me. No one helped me. Who is even being blamed, if not me, another one of the bakers? I swear, I’m not trying to frame anyone. That would make me as vile as Malone. I tried to drug, Malone, but everything else I told you is true; you can check. I haven’t lied about anything.”

  “It’s improbable that two felonies were being committed at the same time on the same TV show, don’t you think?”

  It’s improbable that two crimes are being committed simultaneously, but certainly not a zero-sum chance. Roberta must have ruffled a lot of feathers in her day. Also, if you had planned on pinning a crime on someone, something much worse than messing up their TV production. You would be much smarter to not commit multiple crimes against her. If she hadn’t been hacked the first time, I might not have rushed to her defense when she was anonymously accused. Given her entitled behavior, I might very well have believed it.

  “Improbable maybe, but I swear to you, I didn’t do anything, besides inject Niall. What could be worse than that? Why admit to a serious crime only to deny involvement in a lesser one?”

  “You know what, Grace, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. But in the meantime you are going to have to trust me that if everything you say is true, I’m going to try—I do stress try. To help you, but I can’t do that alone; I need help from a friend who will be willing to commit a felony for me. Will you give me a chance to try?”

  So I called Anais. “Can you come over? I really could use some advice.”

  “Laura, you want my advice? What have you done now?”

  “Nothing yet, and I’d really prefer not to talk about it on the phone.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Anais, thanks, we’re down on the dock.”

  “Alright.”

  Ten minutes later, on the dot, she was standing on the dock, and I filled her in.

  “Laura, you are just assuming that Malone won't want to prosecute. It’s not really his decision.”

  “It kind of is his decision if we give him the facts and he either notifies the police or he doesn’t.”

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  “The police might solve this on their own if they run detailed backgrounds on all of the people who were at the party and notice that Grace and Niall were both at RPI at the same time.”

  “Anais, I looked it up. RPI has about seventy-five hundred students, and the town of Lake Placid has about twenty-five hundred. Do you know everyone in the town?”

  “Alright, good point, Laura. But there is something you both need to know, and I can’t say that either one of you is going to be happy about it. Grace, you were under the impression that if Niall admitted that he didn’t own the software, you could make the government delete it, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s what I want them to do.”

  “Well, that’s where you run into trouble; even if you could prove that the government stole the software from you, the court couldn’t make them stop using or delete the software. The government essentially has the power to take a compulsory license of any software it wants, paying only damages. So you might get some money out of them, but you couldn’t get ICE to stop using it. Congress passed a law, 28 U.S.C. § 1498, which is the key statute. It says that when the government (or a contractor acting with government authorization) infringes a copyright, the exclusive remedy is a money damages claim in the Court of Federal Claims. That’s a paraphrase from Wikipedia.”

  “But that’s not fair.”

  "No, it’s not fair; it’s the law. Just look at all the laws on the books; I’d be willing to bet that a fair percentage of them aren’t fair to some or most of the citizens living in the country. It’s even less fair if you aren’t a citizen. I’d also be willing to bet that Laura thinks it’s an even higher percentage of laws that are unfair. But the only way to change any of that is to either change the law or change the government.”

  “So, I’m going to prison, and Niall just gets away with theft, and the government can use my invention to terrorize and harm people.” Grace looked like she might be sick.

  “Yes, legally that is about the size of it, unless Laura has an idea, and I expect that she does; otherwise, she wouldn’t have asked for my advice or for me to come over here.”

  I had been thinking this all over; I thought if Niall admitted he had no right to sell the software, then the government had bought stolen goods and would be subject to the same laws it imposes on its citizens. I should have known; rich people have the deck stacked in their favor. Would a government allow any less for itself?

  “It appears that there is nothing we can do about your software and the government short of a new revolution for the semiquincentennial, and I’m far too old to be a revolutionary. But maybe there is a way to keep you out of prison and get something for your cousin at the same time. But first I want to hear about whether you believe that you should get revenge on Niall for the way things ended up.”

  Grace looked somber. “I never wanted revenge; I wanted justice. While Malone stole my software, it is the government that is denying me justice. So I’m powerless in any case. I’m not sure that I know what you want me to say."

  “Grace, what I want is that no one gets hurt any further by this series of bad decisions. Niall made a bad decision when he attempted to get rich off of your work, and you made a couple of them, first trusting a drug dealer. A person who makes a living causing other people misery. Second, injecting Malone. Are you through with this chain of events?”

  "Yes, Laura, I swear it; you have to believe it.”

  “No, I really don't; you don’t have to convince me. You are going to have to convince Niall. I can’t make this decision. It’d be like if you went up to Trump and slapped him across the face and then asked me to forgive you. When really I would have wished that you slapped him again.”

  “What?” Grace looked perplexed.

  Anais tsked at me, “Don’t pay any attention to the hippie, Grace. She is obsessed with the orange buffoon.”

  “So what now, Laura?”

  “I guess if we don’t want anyone else to find out what is going on, we go back to the tent and Grace bakes her next challenge. After that is over, then maybe we can resolve the whole mess.”

  ***

  So that’s what we did. Grace protested that she didn’t think that she could do it. I countered with if she withdrew now, then suspicion would fall on her again. She could have accomplished the same thing if she just had thrown the competition. But the thought had never even crossed her mind. So the three of us went back to the tent. It must be very close to baking time; Amy and the mayor were already seated at the judges' table, while Roberta stood in the middle of the tent talking to the director.

  One of the stage crew called all of the bakers to the stage, and Roberta took her place in the center of the tent. “Welcome back for your last bake in week three, and for your bake, the judges want you to make a pavlova; it should be both crisp and chewy. Your perfect Pavlova will be topped with fresh fruit of your choice and freshly whipped cream. You have two hours starting now.”

  The bakers all started scurrying around their kitchens with purpose. While I turned to Anais, “I have to verify something with Willow about our hacker. Would you mind staying here and keeping an eye on things? I believe Grace that she is done trying to get justice for herself, but it also wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her. I’ll need your help once this bake is over with."

  “Yes, it’s fine, Laura. But for once I actually agree with you. I think that his almost dying was the end of her quest for revenge/justice, whatever you want to call it.”

  "Thanks, Anais, I’ll be back shortly.”

  I walked over to Urge, and again there was a line waiting to get on the bus. Pappy sat in the driver's seat and was the official greeter and also self-appointed fire warden. Keeping the crowd safe by limiting how many people could be on the bus at any given time. At first I thought it was a good idea, even though he is probably turning away business. But now when I look at the constant line, I think maybe this is just brilliant marketing. By limiting access, aside from keeping people safe, you are also artificially creating scarcity. For some reason when a resource gets scarce, people want it even more. It makes sense when it is something that you need to survive, like food or water, but really makes no ‘common sense’ at all when the resource is some really cool artwork and used books. But people don’t use a lot of common sense. If they did, the world would be considerably better governed, wars would cease, and people would share instead of hoard.

  Of course, when you looked at it that way, rich people were the pinnacle of hoarders. According to Harvard Medical, ‘Hoarding is a mental health condition characterized by an inability to discard certain belongings to the point of unhealthy accumulation.’ Doesn’t this statement fit every billionaire on the planet? They have more money than they or their family could spend in several lifetimes. Yet they seem positively possessed to accumulate more and fearful that they might lose some.

  Maybe we should send them all away to some treatment camp. So that they can get the mental health treatment they so desperately need. Hoarders have been killed in their homes when piles of junk have fallen on the unfortunate hoarder. But what about the stress a billionaire is under, making sure that his hoard grows and grows? If it’s not growing, you are losing; that’s the capitalism game after all.

  I explained to the person at the front of the line that I was staff and not cutting the line, nor would I count against the number of people on the bus. So he graciously allowed me to pass and get on the bus.

  Willow was at the far end of the bus, so I said hello to Pappy and waved to Phoebe as she chatted with a customer, and finally lined up behind the customer that Willow was chatting with. I was in no rush; the bakers still had at least an hour and a half to finish their bakes, and Anais had her eyes on both Niall and Grace.

  While I waited around, I could see lots of holes in the inventory. So I texted Lucy to have Luke bring another box of used books out to the bus when he had the time. I also let her know that I was probably going to be busy for the next couple of hours.

  Willow jotted something down on a slip of paper and handed it to the customer she was speaking with, then the customer moved away towards the front of the bus.

  “Hi Laura, Phoebe said you needed to chat; what’s up?"

  “Willow, Phoebe told me that she sent a young man to you yesterday or the day before; he had been looking for a computer book.”

  “Yep, I remember. We had just what he was looking for.”

  I pulled out my phone and opened a browser to the Bake Off website that had pictures and mini bios of all the contestants.

  “Is this the person who bought the book?”

  “Laura, you of all people want me to break the booksellers' code of confidentiality.”

  “Yes, they have been actively trying to sabotage the Bake Off and now are trying to pin a crime on the organizer. I don’t know why, but I plan on finding out.”

  She smiled. “Fine, I’ll tell you, but I want to be there at the denouncement.”

  “Sorry Willow, there isn’t going to be a denouncement this time.”

  “Well, will you at least tell me the whole story when it’s over?”

  “It’s a promise.”

  “Okay, but next time you solve a mystery, I want to be there for the denouncement, okay? But yes, that’s them. They bought The Hardware Hacker."

  "Thanks, Willow, you are the best. But I’m not going to be solving any more mysteries. From now on it’s just going to be me in the store trying to help the community and getting in some reading time. All these mysteries, they are just a distraction from what I want to be doing.”

  “Laura, I’m sure Pappy and Phoebe don’t feel that way. If you hadn’t helped, then Pappy would still be hiding in the salvage yard and Phoebe would have moved on with the Renaissance Festival, so I for one am thankful that you are good at solving mysteries. Don’t quit; people need your help. You can’t just say, "Sorry, I’m retired." Besides, you love a good puzzle. Isn’t it more fun than watching TikTok videos and playing Wordle?" she grinned.

  I laughed. “Anything is better than watching TikTok videos.”

  I went back to the tent, and Anais filled me in on all I missed: nothing. The bakers moved around the kitchen and did things to ingredients, then they put those ingredients into their ovens, and then everyone stood around waiting. Or the bakers played around with more ingredients and then waited some more.

  I laughed at the most boring description of a baking competition I had ever heard before. “Not a big fan of baking shows, Anais.”

  “No, they are really boring, not as bad as watching golf or bowling but pretty darn close.”

  After a little while, Roberta announced first ten minutes left, then five. Then she was instructing the bakers to bring their Pavlovas up to the judges' table to be scored. The bakers lined up, and one by one they handed their bakes to the judges. All done in silence.

  Roberta should have at least watched a baking show before hosting one. She’s rich; she should have hired Noel Fielding. He is the perfect host, funny, compassionate, and everything that Roberta is not.

  The bakers all made their way back to their stations, and everyone stood stock still, not a smile on any of the bakers. Finally, after thirty seconds or so, the director called cut. Then Roberta shouted to the bakers one hour before the next challenge.

  Anais went and grabbed Grace, and after she disappeared, I went over to Niall; he was tidying up his station.

  “Niall, we really need to have another chat.”

  “Right now, Laura. I’m trying to get prepared for our next challenge.”

  I lowered my voice so only he could hear me. “Aren’t you interested in who tried to kill you and why?”