Devoted, page 8
Tragedy.
The montage of images and audio began to play once more. As the newsreaders and others spoke of the deaths, Woody jotted down the names of the victims.
He was prepared for the photo of his dad. As before, the still shot was followed by video of the smoldering helicopter. “Jason Bookman, right hand to Parable founder, Dorian Purcell, and his pilot died today in the crash of a helicopter owned by the company.”
At the end of this introduction, the screen again instructed Enter Your Password.
Woody had exited the Dark Web site, backed out of the computer system that included the Alexander Gordius email archives, raveled backward through his spoof chain to quiet Pinehaven, this house, this room, and switched off his computer.
That had been months earlier. Since then, he diligently researched the circumstances of the forty-one deaths that had been referenced in the video introduction to the website.
If any of the accidents seemed suspicious to the authorities, none had been reassessed as anything else.
The suicides were confirmed as suicides by medical examiners in the various cities where they had occurred.
None of the gang shootings and terrorist acts had resulted in the arrest of perpetrators.
Certain subtle patterns in these events were apparent perhaps only to an obsessed high-functioning autistic boy with an IQ of 186, who had thousands of hours to devote to such an investigation. Of the forty-one deaths reported, only two others seemed to have ties to Dorian Purcell.
Which meant nothing more than that Purcell wasn’t the exclusive user of this Dark Web service.
The site was not a statement about the fragility of life. It wasn’t a memorial, an internet wailing wall against which to lament the role of tragedy in the human experience.
Week by week, month by month, Woody had gathered compelling circumstantial evidence that Tragedy was a murder-for-hire operation.
He had been careful not to return to Tragedy, for fear that they might have a way to detect repeated visits that did not result in the input of a password. He’d prowled through Dorian Purcell’s email archives both under the billionaire’s name and the Gordius identity, but he had not been able to ferret out any password related to the Dark Web site.
Now it was a fateful Wednesday, exactly 164 weeks after Jason Bookman died, sixty weeks to the day since Woodrow Bookman began his investigation. One hundred sixty-four minus sixty equaled the number of pages in “The Son’s Revenge: Faithfully Compiled Evidence of Monstrous Evil,” though he hadn’t crafted it to achieve that length. Mere coincidence. Or a consequence of mysterious algorithms by which the universe functioned.
Woody planned to present the document to his mother in the morning. First, however, he intended to return to the Dark Web to confirm that the wicked site was still in operation and that its introductory video remained as it had been months earlier.
As before, he spoofed through several telecom exchanges before invading the Refine computer by the back door that he had long ago established. He used the Alexander Gordius email account to enter the forty-six characters in the Dark Web address.
Black screen, white letters: Tragedy.
His vision blurred with tears when he saw his father’s face.
For the most part, he hid his grief from his mother. On those occasions when she caught him in his anguish, Woody smiled or even laughed. She asked if they were happy tears, and he nodded, yes.
When he saw her crying, her tears embarrassed him, because he knew they weren’t happy tears, also because he felt he should do something to comfort her. But he was who he was—Woody the Mess—and there wasn’t anything he could do, so his embarrassment grew into mortification. He didn’t want his tears to mortify his mother.
The video ended, and the screen presented him with the command: Enter Your Password.
He stared at the three words, wondering how much you had to pay to have someone killed so that it looked like an accident or suicide or a terrorist attack. He didn’t have any money. His mom bought him what he needed. He couldn’t ask her to pay to have Dorian Purcell killed by a runaway truck or by a fall down a long flight of stairs. She might be sent to prison. She wouldn’t like it there.
Woody would be okay with going to prison himself; he didn’t mind being alone in a small room, with nothing to do but read and think. But of course they didn’t send eleven-year-old kids to the stir. Anyway, the murderers behind Tragedy probably wouldn’t kill Purcell even for a gajillion dollars. As far as Woody could tell, this murder-for-hire website catered exclusively to evil people who really, really, really wanted good people to die. If it had been the other way around, if their business model had been to wait for good people to pay for evil people to be killed, they probably wouldn’t have a lot of customers for their service. Good people didn’t solve their problems that way. Which was one reason why bad people got away with being bad for so long.
He might have continued staring at Enter Your Password and brooding about good and evil, but a strange and disturbing thing happened. The three words vanished from the screen, and after a few seconds of blackness, two words in white letters appeared before him: You again.
19
In the study of the house above the lake, through a series of videos, the late Dorothy Hummel chronicled her wonder-filled time with Kipp. Rosa Leon, still in a pleasant state of shock occasioned by the news that she had inherited her employer’s estate, watched one after the other with fascination.
Speaking to the camera, Dorothy said that she had bought Kipp from a breeder when he was sixteen weeks old, a fast-growing ball of fur, full of spirit and curiosity. She’d had dogs before, all golden retrievers, and she knew how puppies usually were, so in just a few days, she realized that Kipp was different from others of his kind.
She fed him two meals a day, one at seven o’clock in the morning and one at three thirty in the afternoon. By the third day in her company, Kipp fell into the habit of coming to Dorothy five minutes before each feeding. He’d sit before her and gently, politely tap her foot with a forepaw. Dorothy said she’d previously had dogs with an intuitive sense of time, but little Kipp took it one step further a week into their relationship. Dorothy was curled up in an armchair, engrossed in a novel, and Kipp had no foot to tap. He wasn’t a barker, so when she failed to notice his impatient pacing, he went into the kitchen, leaped onto a chair, retrieved her wristwatch, which she’d taken off and left on the table, brought it to her in his mouth, and dropped it on her lap.
When Dorothy realized it was feeding time, Kipp’s act stunned her. She got up from the armchair and stood looking at him, and he returned her stare as if to say, What do you think about that?
She had always talked to dogs as if they understood her, and she didn’t feel the least bit foolish when she asked him if he knew the purpose of a watch. In answer, he went to the archway between the living room and the downstairs hall, and she followed him as he led her to the grandfather clock in the entrance foyer. Wristwatch and clock. He turned and padded along the hallway to the kitchen, with Dorothy close behind; she found him standing past the pantry door, gazing up at the wall clock.
Snatching her iPhone from the table, she had made a video that she later imported to her computer and that now replayed for Rosa. Dorothy asked Kipp to identify the refrigerator, and he went to it. She asked him to go to the sink, and he did. She asked him to go to the cooktop, to the back door, to the trash compactor, to the hall door, to the laundry room door, which he did, did, did, did, did, tail wagging the whole time.
The next day, Dorothy had bought a video camera.
As if he had second thoughts about revealing his extraordinary nature, Kipp refused to repeat his performance. He reacted to her entreaties with yawns and puzzled expressions, wandered away, found his nearest bed, and took a nap.
Over the next couple of weeks, however, Kipp discovered he was a dog who loved stories. He was unable to play dumb dog any longer.
20
You again.
As Woody considered those ominous words, his mouth flooded with saliva, as if maybe he was going to throw up, his heart pounded, and he felt as if the o in You was an eye that stared at him without blinking.
They couldn’t be looking at him. For one thing, he had a piece of painters’ tape over the camera in his computer. Besides, he had spoofed to them through multiple exchanges; and there was no way that they could track him to source in the short amount of time that he had been on their site today.
The two words blinked off the screen, and letters appeared from left to right, as if someone was texting him: Y-o-u a-r-e n-o-t . . .
Woody watched with growing horror as the message completed: You are not Alexander Gordius.
They couldn’t know all the exchanges through which he’d jumped to get there, couldn’t know his origin, not this fast, but they knew whose account he had hijacked to visit them.
Those words blinked off the screen, and four more appeared letter by letter: we will find you.
He bailed out of the site, dropped off the internet, switched off his computer. He wheeled his chair backward, crawled into the knee space of his workstation, and pulled the computer plugs, though that precaution seemed both unnecessary and pointless.
The security program at Tragedy evidently monitored the origin of each visitor to the site. And if someone visited but had no password to enter, the program apparently issued an alert to the effect that they might be the target of a fishing expedition by someone not on their client list. He had gone to the site twice before. Although months had passed between those contacts and his third visit today, their security system had been lying in wait for him.
Okay.
All right.
Stay cool. No reason to sweat it. No problemo. Zip, zero, nada. In such a short time, they can’t possibly have tracked him to source through a series of nine exchanges. Anyway, he had used a few other deceptions to cover his trail. And he would never, never, never go back there.
Sweat broke out on his brow, and nausea rolled through him. He needed something to settle his stomach. A Coca-Cola. That was all he needed, a Coca-Cola, and then he’d feel all right.
21
Kipp in the kingdom of the Hater.
Stitched on the pocket of the man’s khaki uniform shirt was the name Frank.
He had a black mustache and eyebrows almost thick enough to be two more mustaches. His eyes were hard little green marbles.
Frank smelled not only of hatred but also of garlic, verbena aftershave, coconut-scented hand sanitizer, antiperspirant, and ChapStick, among other things.
His work shoes exuded the odor of fresh human urine, suggesting that when he had most recently peed, he’d not at first aimed well.
In addition to a metal desk and two visitor chairs and an office chair and file cabinets, the front room of the cabin contained a grizzly bear.
The life-size sculpture had been carved out of a log. The seven-foot-tall bear stood on its hind feet, arms reaching, teeth bared.
The bruin looked so fierce that Kipp whimpered even though he knew it wasn’t real.
Evidently out of concern that the grizzly would topple over in a quake and crush someone, two steel rods extruded from its back and were bolted to the wall.
Frank the Hater tied Kipp’s leash to one of those rods.
Pretending meek submission, Kipp settled at the feet of the bear and sighed as if with resignation.
In fact, he was waiting patiently for an opportunity to escape.
Dogs were the most patient creatures on the planet. They passed their lives waiting for their humans to walk them, play with them, cuddle them.
No matter how attentive their people were, dogs spent more time waiting than doing.
Which was okay. Humans were busy, with more responsibilities than dogs would ever have. Most dogs.
Frank the Hater went around behind his desk and sat in his chair and plucked the handset from his phone. He keyed in a number.
When someone answered, the Hater said, “I have us a good one, Fred. He’s a golden, maybe from pure stock. Looks like a show dog.”
After a listening pause, Frank continued. “Didn’t have to nab him from anyone. He’s a stray.”
I’m not a stray, Kipp thought. I’m an orphan on a mission.
“If we breed him to every golden bitch we can find,” Frank said, “it’ll be like printing money.”
Fred said something, and Frank replied. “He’s the docile kind. He’ll take to a cage and do what he’s told. See you in an hour?”
After he hung up, the Hater looked across his desk at Kipp. Now he also smelled of greed.
“My brother’s gonna breed you till you drop, young fella. There’s worse ways to spend a life.”
They were puppy-mill operators.
The breeder dogs in those operations lived their entire lives in small cages. Poorly fed. Rarely if ever exercised. No medical care. Never bathed, their coats matted, bodies riddled with ticks.
Puppy-mill dogs lived in despair. They never knew affection or play, only cruelty.
Kipp gave no indication of alarm. He yawned and sighed and closed his eyes as though to take a nap.
Maybe the time was coming when the protocols of the Mysterium would allow him to bite Frank the Hater.
22
Rosa Leon needed a drink. She didn’t use alcohol often, just an ice-cold bottle of Corona now and then. Becoming a millionaire and the caretaker of a superintelligent dog, both in one day, called for something stronger than beer.
Dorothy had liked a cocktail or two in the evening. Her study included an under-the-counter refrigerator and an icemaker. The refrigerator contained, among other things, lemon-flavored vodka.
Rosa found a glass, put some ice in it, and poured a double shot. She returned to the office chair and the computer—and the amazing videos.
After the day of the watch and the clocks, almost two weeks passed while Kipp had played dumb puppy. He was concerned that he should not have revealed his true nature so soon after coming to live with Dorothy—or perhaps ever.
Those in the Mysterium had different views about to whom and when the truth of them should be revealed. Their protocols forbade making such revelations to anyone who smelled of hatred. They were to take into their confidence only those who smelled of kindness and love, who had about them no scent of envy or greed.
Dorothy was certainly a person of righteous qualities, but young Kipp had been impetuous when he did the trick with the watch and all that followed. In the experience of the Mysterium, people needed to be carefully prepared for this revelation. They handled it better if they first had slowly come to suspect they were dealing with a dog who was more than a dog.
Kipp’s love of stories made it impossible for him to keep his great secret for years or even months. Dorothy had been a lifelong heavy reader, as had been her husband, Arthur. Books were a key decor item in their house, rooms shaped around shelves. When she cooked or worked one of the large jigsaw puzzles she enjoyed, she didn’t listen to music, but instead to audiobooks. The dog could not conceal that the narrator’s voice enthralled him. Whether he sat or stretched out in one position or another, his eyes remained on the MP3 player. He never napped when a book was playing. Dorothy watched him surreptitiously and saw how reliably startled he was by unexpected twists in the story and how certain emotional scenes caused him to pant or whimper or chuff in ways quite appropriate to the circumstances of the characters.
As Dorothy had spent a December morning and afternoon in the kitchen, baking for the coming holiday, the audiobook they listened to was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. In the chapter titled “The Last of the Spirits,” when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed Scrooge into the Cratchit house on the day of Tiny Tim’s death, Kipp retreated to the farther end of the kitchen and sat facing into the corner, his head hung low. Dorothy watched him for a moment and then paused the audio to ask if he was sad. Kipp turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, and he issued a sorrowful whimper.
Now, as Rosa watched the video of Dorothy recounting all this, she realized that she had become as enchanted with her benefactor’s story as Kipp had been with A Christmas Carol, and she wondered why she had no doubt whatsoever that it was true. Well, for one thing, Dorothy had been neither delusional nor a liar. And in retrospect, Rosa saw that in her own interactions with Kipp, there had been moments when he had charmed her with behavior that seemed unlike that of an average dog; on other occasions, he had been so quick-witted that he briefly disquieted her. Intuitively she had known something about Kipp was wonderfully strange, but the hard life that she had led conditioned her to reject any consideration that there might be magic in the world and instead to resort always to cold reason.
On the computer screen, Dorothy introduced the rest of her story with a wide smile and a shake of her head. “And so I told him that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was showing Scrooge not what would be, but only what might be. I put the MP3 player on the floor and told him that Tiny Tim wouldn’t die, that I’d play the rest of the book for him only if he stopped this pretense of ordinariness.
“He ran to the player and stood over it, staring down at it, wagging his tail furiously. I turned it on, and he sat listening to the rest without moving. That night, I designed a rather clumsy version of the pedal-operated laser pointer that would eventually be refined, and which Kipp would use to spotlight letters of the alphabet to communicate with me. I must tell you, Rosa, I felt like a bespelled child in a fairy tale or some little girl in a Spielberg movie, and at the same time I wondered if I might be going mad, a doddering old woman who could no longer trust her senses. But if I doddered into anything, I doddered into the fantastic truth of what Kipp is.”
