An Unladylike Murder, page 2
part #1 of Jessica Sloan Mystery Series
Jess saw several jaws drop as the detectives looked at each other.
Brown kept going. “iPoirot aggregates the information, then presents the connections in colorful graphics. You’ll only need to add a summary.”
Sloan could tell that most of the Detectives were still confused.
“We are issuing every Homicide Detective a camera clip, a new iPhone as well as an Apple desktop computer for your use here in the office. A few of you will also be given an iPad to use in the field.”
Jess saw a few smiles blossom.
“At no cost to you.”
Everyone applauded for several seconds.
Even Brown smiled. “You won’t be able to access iPoirot from any other device. This will ensure total security and will keep out hackers… That’s it for now. Throughout the day, I’ll be handing out your new equipment. You are hereby dismissed.”
Chapter 3
After the meeting, John Cutter returned to the squad room feeling like he was staring at the end of his days on the force.
I’m about to be replaced by some magical database in cyberspace.
John’s partner for the past several years had recently retired when he’d hit twenty years. Cutter had considered retiring at the same time but with his divorce and all the resulting changes he’d been going through, he’d decided to hang onto the security of his job a while longer.
An attractive young woman standing in the hallway outside Brown’s office caught his attention.
I saw her downstairs. She must be with the damn iPoirot company.
He was about to ease into his chair when he heard his Lieutenant’s voice. “Cutter. My office. Now.”
Cutter took a deep breath, then entered and closed the door behind him.
This could be it.
Whatever Brown has to say, I don’t need anyone hearing us.
Brown lifted two items from her desk. “Here’s your new camera clip and iPhone. IT will set up your Apple iMac for you when they get a chance. Would you like an iPad as well?”
I’m not being fired.
“No, not yet. Let me get used to the iPhone and camera thing first. Tell me, how can the SFPD afford all of this new equipment?”
“The developer of iPoirot is donating all of it so you can really learn to use their solution.”
Brown handed the clip and iPhone to Cutter. “You just clip the camera to your shirt, chest high. To a person of interest, it looks like an American flag.”
“Is it legal and if it is, do we have to inform anyone that we’re taping them.”
“The answers are; yes it’s legal and no you don’t need to tell them. Look Cutter, I’m going to be honest with you. You’re the oldest detective in my squad. As I told you in your last review, you’re falling way behind in the use of technology. To help you catch up, I’m teaming you with a new detective, Jessica Sloan.”
“Which precinct is he coming from?”
“Jessica is a female and she has been promoted from within.”
Cutter realized he hadn’t been listening. “Please don’t tell me it’s the girl standing out in the hallway?”
“While you and Detective Jessica Sloan are from different generations, you have complementary skills and will bring diverse perspectives to the team.”
“All I can tell you is that I’ve found that millennials like her feel entitled. They need to be coddled and believe that thinking out of the box is a good thing. Which means she’ll show no respect for police traditions.”
Brown furrowed her brows. “I’ll be blunt, John. You need to give her a chance. I’m hoping she’ll acquaint you with the advantages of technology while you coach her using your experience.”
Cutter raised his head as if to speak.
Brown held up her palm. “I’m not making a request, Cutter. It’s an order. Accept it, or I’ll accept your resignation.”
Cutter inhaled deeply and looked away as he swallowed his words.
“Sloan was promoted to detective due to her maturity, work ethic and because she has serious technology skills.”
“Then why not make her a tech consultant to the entire department?”
“Because she’s a San Francisco Police Officer and a damned good one at that. You should know that Sloan came out at the top of her class at the Homicide school. She’s also been in training on the new software for the past two weeks. By being teamed with her, you’ll have the best chance of surviving any future downsizing. ”
Cutter looked away to avoid losing his cool. “Why are you really doing this? Is it another budget issue?”
Brown set her jaw. “It’s no secret the SFPD has been told to cut ten percent out of next year’s operating costs and at the same time increase our case close rate. The new mayor was smart enough to partner with the local tech industry to bring in this new software that should help us do both. The Homicide Division is leading the way. You’ve got to partner up too, John. I’m giving you one of the best new talents you could ask for. If you want to keep your job, you need to get on board or you can retire today.”
Cutter tried to ignore the flash of unemployment terror in his gut. “How old is she? She looks like someone’s kid.”
Brown picked up a file folder and opened it. “Let’s see. She was born in 1992.”
“So she is a friggin’ millennial. What do ya expect, for me to give her an attaboy every day?”
“If that will make you both happy, go ahead.” Brown wasn’t giving in.
When Cutter opened his mouth to respond, Brown lifted her palm in front of his face. “I don’t want to hear it. Give her a chance. Pretend she’s the daughter you never had.”
She’s trying to force me out and get me to retire.
Brown waved to Jessica Sloan who was waiting in the hallway.
Once Sloan was inside, Brown made the formal introductions.
As Cutter and Sloan looked at each other; neither saw the ideal partner. They faked smiles and left Brown’s office.
Resigned to his fate, John Cutter showed Jessica Sloan to his former partner’s desk.
Chapter 4
Monday - 6 p.m.
In the male dominated culture of Silicon Valley, everyone knows that the glass ceiling is really made of hardened steel.
Ever since she had acquired funding for her startup, Jill Gillberry had been a rarity, an inspiration to young women dreaming of getting ahead in the business world.
That’s why every mention of Jill or her company always stated that she was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of a large medical technology startup.
Jill’s startup was now six years old and the latest round of investments had valued it at over ten billion dollars.
That meant that her investors were banking on a multi-billion dollar exit when her company went public. They were about to turn their investment of millions into a return in the billions.
She had broken the norm and yet, Jill Gillberry Technologies and its products were shrouded in secrecy.
Instead of enjoying her celebrity, she had to be coerced into talking to the press about her company or herself.
Unlike social media companies, her user base was tiny.
One couldn’t just download her product from the internet.
From the beginning, the people who worked for her or were being served by her supposedly miraculous product, had to sign iron clad confidentiality agreements.
Those documents prevented them from being interviewed or even admitting they were using the products. “If you tell anyone that you are a test subject, you will be immediately dropped from the program and you acknowledge that doing so will most likely result in irreversible harm to your health and very likely, your demise.”
The rumor that Jill, her investors and her public relations firm repeated, was that she had invented a miraculous product that was similar to what had been seen in the Star Trek science fiction series.
In her only publicity photograph, Jill was dressed in a black turtleneck with black slacks. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail to display her pale white features and pale blue eyes.
When pressed, her public relations firm would confess she did it as homage to her tech idol.
Jill Gillberry wanted to convey to everyone that she was her own woman and did things her own way.
She had the reputation of being a workaholic who shunned the normal high-tech conferences and social scene.
Then her world shattered when a negative article appeared on a financial website and magazine calling the product and Jill Gillberry Technologies a sham.
Overnight her reputation became toxic.
Lawyers, being the jackals they are, immediately launched lawsuits. With them, her mood had turned even darker and she had grown even more withdrawn.
She had even taken to letting her hair down in an effort to hide her identity.
Her Board of Directors became worried. Following her biggest investor’s request, this evening she was wearing a striking black dress with a single strand of pearls and matching pearl earrings.
She’d moved into her pretentious Pacific Heights mansion only a few months before.
Looking at her reflection in her dressing room mirror, she inhaled deeply then let it out.
He was right; I do need to do this.
It didn’t work.
Jill wasn’t relaxed.
She checked the time.
Twenty minutes to go.
I feel the way I did on my prom night.
She had been guaranteed that tonight would go well.
Jill turned to wait in her living room.
Her latest live-in house manager was avoiding her on another floor.
Jill didn’t need the six bedrooms, and had no time to use the two wine cellars or the rooftop barbecue. She’d decorated it with modern furnishings that had clean lines and muted colors. The rooms were clutter free and suited her.
She’d told her live-in that empty space was a luxury in San Francisco.
Like everything in her life, the place was only an investment.
At her father’s insistence she had hired a personal investment advisor who’d told her that she would be able to sell the unique home at a profit whenever she felt so inclined.
When she’d found out the property had fabulous views because it sat on top of a hill and was well hidden from neighbors she’d agreed to the purchase.
The advisor had also told her to sell a small percentage of her shares during the latest round of financing for her company. “It’s time you start to live like the success you are and you never know what’ll happen in the future. You must diversify.”
The latest round of funding was to have been the last one before Jill Gillberry Technologies was to have been taken public.
She had dreamed of ringing the bell to start a trading session on Wall Street.
The lead investment bank had been selected and the prospectus was being written when a well-respected investigative reporter published a critical article that had made her investment bankers back away from the public offering.
They ruined everything.
Being married to her company, she now had no choice but to rely on advisors and lawyers to steer her out of the public relations and legal mess in which she was mired.
Her doorbell rang.
She spoke to her virtual assistant, “Alexa, Show me the front door.”
Jill glanced at her huge flat screen television and saw that her date was as advertised; handsome, trim and wearing a black tuxedo.
“Hello.”
Before he spoke into the Ring doorbell, he showed his whitened teeth for the camera. “Good evening, Miss Gillberry. I’m your date for this evening and I have your limousine waiting for us.”
“I need a moment. Just wait out there.” Jill had just lied and she didn’t care.
Maybe I just shouldn’t go?
David Coyne, her largest investor, the one who had made her into a billionaire had demanded she take a night off. “You need to take your mind off your business even if it’s only for a single evening. I got you front row tickets to this season’s hottest theatre production. ”
“Are you going with me?”
“No. I have however, hired you a perfect companion through Rent-An-Actor. He will be your knight in shining armor and your perfect gentleman for the evening. You can hold onto his arm if you like. You will have nothing to be concerned about.”
“I don’t know. Given all the bad publicity, I don’t want people talking to me right now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve also bought the seats on both sides of you and your escort. Two bodyguards will surround you. Trust me, no one will bother you. This is also a can’t miss opportunity. It’s the San Francisco premier of the hottest Broadway play in the past decade. Tickets are sold out for the next year already.”
“I don’t know…”
“Stop. I need my investments to take my advice in times like this. I need you to take your mind off your troubles even if it’s only for a few hours. If you want me to stay on your board of directors, please, you’ve got to do this.”
Jill had relented.
The time for her to leave the security and privacy of her own home had arrived.
Chapter 5
“Sit up front with the limo driver.”
Feeling unseen and secure behind its darkened windows, Jill sat alone in the middle of the spacious rear passenger seat as they drove along Market Street and neared the Orpheum Theatre.
The limo had two sunroofs and both of the liners were pulled back. She couldn’t help but look up at the forest of lit up cranes that were building skyscrapers.
She was proud that she and her company were part of the wave of technological disruption that was responsible for the latest transformation of San Francisco.
The employees of the bigger firms like Facebook, preferred to live where the action for singles was, and that was in San Francisco. In order to keep growing, those firms had been forced to hire private buses to pick up their employees early in the morning in the city, then return them after work.
With the free buses, even more employees decided to move into San Francisco.
Hungry for office space in the city, the technology companies had started moving in. They’d seen the cheap office space in the run down areas as an opportunity.
Until then, southwest Market Street had been the line separating the glamorous San Francisco that tourists flocked to, from the skid row areas that weren’t on the tourist maps.
With billions of dollars pouring into the small area the consensus was that the homeless, drug addicts and unsavory would naturally be squeezed out.
This is San Francisco however, and it was the middle class being forced to leave.
With nowhere to go and no share in the prosperity, the city's homeless had stayed and spent their days begging for money at freeway on-ramps and wherever tourists roamed. They viewed the well-paid tech workers as interlopers but also as prime targets to bankroll their lifestyle.
At night, the homeless rolled out their tarps and sleeping bags in the doorways of expensive stores and other buildings without nighttime foot traffic, hoping the police wouldn’t notice.
When the police were called and reporters published pictures of the oppressed being handcuffed, the social net advocates come rushing to their aid.
The police had been instructed. “Leave them be.”
As a result, skywalks had to be built to connect buildings so its tech workers didn’t have to leave the safety of the workplace.
In return, the new companies had to bring in free lunches and dinners, lest their staff would have to navigate the hostile dregs and germs of San Francisco.
What had once been a cradle of counterculture was being forced into the mainstream economy.
Jill Gillberry’s limo was trailing behind a private commuter bus used by technology companies.
The distraction of the evening’s entertainment within the Orpheum Theater was only a few blocks away when Jill saw people spilling into the oncoming traffic.
The limo slowed to a crawl.
Her gut tightened telling her a problem was developing.
A growing group of chanting demonstrators suddenly overflowed onto Market Street. They surrounded the bus and blocked traffic in both directions.
The mayhem forced her driver to come to a complete halt.
Every limo driver knew about these flash protest events. “Don’t worry Miss Gillberry, once the bus moves on, so will the protesters.”
Two disheveled agitators, whom she assumed were homeless, passed by her limo carrying a wooden coffin.
They’re so close.
The words ‘Affordable Housing’ had been sprayed onto the coffin.
Fear gripped her stomach.
Jill glanced through the windows seeing several reporters holding microphones. Their camera operators were trying to video a few seconds of action for the ten o’clock news.
The crowd was obliging. They bobbed and waved posters in time to the chanting. The protesters were a mixture of young and old, activists and the homeless.
Placards demanded that tech companies ‘Leave San Francisco,’ or ‘Remove Techies Not Tents’ while others said, ‘They call it Disruption. We call it Displacement.’
Someone shoved a hand painted sign against the limo’s front window. ‘Leave San Francisco or Die.’
Jill Gillberry felt anger rise to replace her fear.
I’m sick of these idiots trying to hold back progress.
They are trying to stop the inevitable. Why don’t they move elsewhere?
