Marshland

By D. R. Bell

A man trying to understand a friend's death is caught in a web of intrigue: someone used resources of social media, internet and surveillance to destroy a neighborhood - but who and why? Searching for answers can be deadly.
"A remarkable detective novel, thanks in part to its sincere, exemplary protagonist." -- Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. R. Bell
• Release date: Jun 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463934289

Book preview

PART 1: DEATH ON A QUIET STREET

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1

The stage is set against the ocean bay, with cliffs framing it on both sides. The beautiful timbre of a singer’s voice fills me up. The sound carries higher and higher and my soul feels like it’s about to overflow beyond its physical confines.

Ben, Ben … someone shakes my shoulder.

Damn it! Leave me alone! I contain myself and remove the VR goggles with built-in headphones. I’m back in the old study where I sleep now.

Yes, Dad?

Someone here to see you, his voice barely above whispering.

Who?

Your friend from high school. Alex … Alex …, Dad’s struggling to remember the last name.

OK, Dad.

Alex Martinez is a couple of steps inside the open front door. A year behind me at Franklin High School, my top wide receiver back then, now a detective with LAPD. I’m fairly tall at 6’1" but he is even taller, my eyes level with the thin mustache under his hawk-like nose. Alex’s dark hair had receded quite a bit since the last time I saw him.

Hi, Ben. Didn’t know you’re back in the old house.

I moved three weeks ago after Mom passed away. What brings you here?

I feel stupid as the words leave my mouth. The rectangle of the open door is filled with flashing red lights. Sounds of helicopters circling above.

I’m sorry, I didn’t know about your mom, Alex instinctively raises a hand to his chest. I must have missed … his voice trails off.

You didn’t. Dad wasn’t up for a big funeral.

She’d been sick for a long time, right?

Yes.

Alex senses that I don’t want to talk about this.

Ben, it’s Evan.

What about Evan?

Looks like he killed himself. Right after he killed Rose.

Dad gasps behind me. I turn around, help him into a chair and point Alex to sit across from us. Last time Alex and I saw each other was at Evan and Rose’s wedding three years ago.

Have you seen Evan recently? Alex asks.

No, not since the wedding.

He looks at me questioningly and I feel necessary to add a meaningless:

I was planning to.

Hard to explain why in three weeks I haven’t gone to see an old friend living only a few doors away.

Alex nods.

Are you sure that’s what happened? I still struggle to comprehend what Alex just told us.

From the look of it, Evan shot Rose, blew a hole in his computer, then shot himself.

Why? whispers Dad.

Don’t know yet. I’m going around talking to neighbors. I told you more than others, so …

We don’t talk to neighbors much, Dad shakes his head. Most people we knew, they moved away.

Yes, the street seems different now, Alex agrees. I knocked on doors and nobody answered. Well, if you think of anything …

He gets up to leave, then turns around and points to an old school picture on the wall. Four of us in football uniforms: Evan, Deion, Alex, and I.

Evan had the same picture on his desk. May have looked at it before … before …

I stand up, walk to Alex, put a hand on his shoulder.

Alex grabs me in a tight hug. We stand like this for a minute, then gently separate. Alex fishes a card from his wallet.

Ben, I am not sure if you have our address. We are close, in Ladera Heights. Come for dinner on Friday, Mai would be glad to see you.

I demur: Thank you, Alex. I am not sure; have to check my schedule …

Well, just show up around 6:30 if you can. It’s easy for us to put another plate on the table.

Not sure Mai would agree with that, I think.

Why don’t you go? says Dad after Alex leaves. All you’ve done for the three weeks you’ve been here is go to work, come back and hide in your room with that thing on your head.

That thing? You mean the VR goggles?

Years of Arizona sun-leathered his face. When he closes eyes in frustration the skin of his forehead tightens into a brownish map of wrinkles.

Whatever. Wake up, you’re starting to get on my nerves. These were your best friends.

Many years ago, Dad.

Friends are friends. It’s not like you acquired many others.

I toss and turn into the early hours of the morning. Alex, Deion, Evan and I – the four musketeers. We all lived in Three Fingers, we played together, we partied together, we even dated together. Thirty-four years ago, we brought Franklin Cougars the only division championship in the school’s history. Which for a while displaced Franklin’s main claim to fame of having the most elaborate high school yearbooks in the city, if not the state or the country as some claimed.

Since I moved back, I kept planning to go see Evan. Just couldn’t quite bring myself up to it. Too late now.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 2

Did you see workers downstairs? Ernie greets me as I walk into our office.

It’s a warm morning and beads of sweat already glisten on his round face, while dark semi-circles formed in the armpits of a light blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves. I think he has five of these shirts, one for each day of the week. Unless he washes them daily.

Ernie Burstein is my officemate. He is in his sixties, portly and bald, our resident computer security expert and philosopher who’s been around Space Systems for almost ten years. Ernie is smart and cynical and, while good at designing secure software and fixing project problems, is prone to reminding the people in power which of their bad decisions led to these problems in the first place. He can’t advance in the company because of that, but he also can’t quit. He has three ex-wives and four kids, two of the kids are in college and one still in high school.

Years ago, I had hired Ernie when his big mouth created difficulties in his previous work and he had no references. He returned the favor by helping me get this contract at Space Systems when no one would touch me. Ernie is the kind of a guy that pays his debts. Which is more than I can say for many of those I considered friends: when things got rough for me, they gently disappeared.

I did. So what, Ernie? I ask. Probably installing a new advertising display.

But we never had one here, in R7! Ernie exclaims. They are not supposed to make any improvements here.

R7 is the official designation of our building in the company’s directory. The great advantage of R7 is that it has no executive management of any kind. The building was supposed to come off the lease in December and all managers hurried to get themselves offices elsewhere. But there was not enough room for all the worker bees and the building’s owner offered a good deal on a lease extension. Now R7 is half-empty and largely forgotten. Nobody with any ambition wants to move here and be away from the centers of power. Which is a bonus for misfits like Ernie and me – we have no advancement aspirations and welcome maintaining a healthy distance from the management. Thus, we abandoned our assigned cubicles elsewhere and found ourselves a large executive office in R7 to share.

The R7 situation is somewhat of a secret that people find out through word of mouth. Ernie’s always concerned that the management will rediscover it.

Aren’t you off tomorrow? I change the subject. Going away with Bao?

Bao is Ernie’s new girlfriend. Why a gorgeous Thai woman would be with Ernie, who is 25 years her senior, broke, and not a looker, is a mystery. But they’ve been together for six months now.

Yes! Ernie lights up and I wonder whether it’s this boyish smile that got her. Heading north for a long weekend.

Someone starting the weekend early … I am jealous!

Kenya Jordan chimes in from the doorway. Kenya and Ron Takano share the other executive office across the way, with two secretarial desks in-between. Secretaries are long gone, together with the executives they worked for. Our two offices and the secretarial space – which we call DMZ – form a nice private area where the four of us congregate to discuss projects, management, politics, and our love lives, not necessarily in that order. In violation of the company’s rules – and because all of us hate the Keurig cups coffee - Ron plugged in a coffeemaker to brew our own stuff.

Space Systems is a very casual place. But Kenya doesn’t do casual. Today she is wearing a nicely tailored knee-length light grey suit with a white blouse. Shiny black high heels compensate for what she lacks in height. Her hair parted on the left and a longish straight jet-black bob rests slightly on the right shoulder. Old-fashioned glasses - that she doesn’t actually need - complete the serious business look.

Ernie doesn’t buy it. There is a devil inside Ms. Jordan, he wags a finger. Not to her face, of course.

Most of our time at Space Systems is spent in meetings. In my first month here, I pointed out to a certain project manager that perhaps calling so many meetings is counter-productive. She cut me off with That’s teamwork! Obviously, one can’t be against teamwork, so that was the end of the discussion.

I have a document that’s due today. I beg off from three different meeting requests and focus on writing. Ernie and Kenya are out most of the day and Ron is on the business trip, leaving me to work in peace and quiet. Thoughts about Evan intrude and I try to chase them away. Back in our Franklin High days, he would usually block for me on passing plays. He was a good blocker, throwing himself at blitzing linebackers and defensive ends. And when someone would get past him and level me, Evan would be the one helping me up with a guilty: I’m sorry. Someone leveled Evan for good and I did not block for him.

In the few weeks that we’ve lived together, Dad and I had fallen into a bit of a dining routine. One day he cooks, the next day he orders takeout and texts me where to pick it up. He is proud that he learned to text. Today it's takeout from a local Thai restaurant.

When we’re done with the noodles, Dad says:

I want to move some of Mom’s things out. John said he doesn’t want them. Can you help me?

I follow him to the master bedroom. Ours is an unexceptional one-story ranch style three-bedroom house. They built them cookie-cutter style back in the 1960s: the aerospace industry just south of here was taking off and required housing for engineers and technicians. The master bedroom is large and airy, the other two are smallish and dark. I’m in the one that used to be the office. Joshua’s room is closed. Even though his things are gone, I stay out. The memories of our lives are mostly in boxes in the attached garage, except for various sports awards that for some reason now sit in my room. I’m still dislocated over being back, the house feels like a foreign country.

It’s the first time I enter the main bedroom since the day when the hospice took the special hospital bed away. A smell of death still lingers in the air. They couldn’t close her mouth and she lay like that for hours. Indignity in the end.

It’s just … well … it makes it harder to have them … her things here, Dad stumbles. You know, where I see them every day. Just the clothing and shoes. I brought some empty boxes.

Dad, do you want to put them in the garage?

No, no … The garage is full. And what’s the point of keeping them there? Let’s pack and take them to Goodwill.

I avoid looking at individual items. Put a box together, grab a handful of clothes, drop them in the box, repeat. I’ve done this once before, four years ago, and the process is awfully familiar.

Dad suddenly stops, sits down on the bed with a shoe in his hands. It’s a bright green sandal.

I think that’s the last pair of shoes she bought. She liked shoes.

I stop, watch him.

OK, he gets up, avoids looking at me.

After we’re done, I take boxes to my car and drive to Goodwill.

When I walk back into the house, Dad studies the view out of the kitchen window.

When did you move out, Ben?

Come on, Dad, you know.

He ignores the tinge of irritation in my voice.

Indulge me, Ben. My memory is not what it used to be.

I get up, pour myself another cup, and remain by the counter.

OK, Dad. I moved out four years ago.

Right, he nods matter-of-factly. We bought the house in 1975. You were nine. And you and June and Joshua lived here from 2002.

I pick up my plate from the table, throw away a pile of half-eaten noodles.

Where’re you going with this, Dad?

I’m sorry. What I mean is that we, the Feldmans, lived here for over forty years except for the time it was rented after you moved out and before we moved in. But it doesn’t feel like the same neighborhood.

Our neighborhood is locally referred to as Three Fingers. It really is three streets. The one we are on, Illinois Ave, is the longest. It’s sandwiched by shorter Idaho Ave and Nebraska Ave, forming a badly shaped triangle. 33rd Street forms the southern border with Rochester of which Three Fingers is technically a part of, while Pantano Wetlands stopped the builders from spreading north, east or west. On the map, it looks like a hand that’s missing a thumb and a little finger. The joke is that the neighborhood is one fat finger pointing at Santa Monica to the north.

I don’t know, Dad, I shrug. Seems like pretty much the same old neighborhood. Well, perhaps not quite the same … Coffeehouses instead of local markets … Things change, people change, neighborhoods change. ‘The circle of life,’ right?

Sometimes people go back thinking they can recapture the good memories, but I’m not sure there’s anything here.

Dad gets up, shuffles to the kitchen sink, washes his plate. We used to be roughly the same height and weight. Now he is much thinner and a couple of inches shorter. His cheeks have fallen in and his nose sticks out even more prominently than before. But the old engineer’s mind is still as sharp as a knife.

How long do you plan to stay here, Ben?

Dad, I just moved in three weeks ago.

I know that you’re worried about me now that your mother is gone. And the money is tight. So - thank you. But you must find a way to live again. A fresh start might do us both some good. You’ve been sleepwalking ever since …

He lets the words hang in the air without finishing, shuffles around the kitchen.

Ben, have you thought of talking to someone again? To a psychologist or a rabbi?

Come on, Dad, not this again.

I turn around and go back to my room.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 3

This morning Kenya is doing a presentation on her project, the one I was supposed to work on with her. I am late and I have only a few minutes, so I quietly sneak into the conference room and lean against the back wall. She smiles imperceptibly when she sees me, does not skip a beat in her talk. She is working on improving marketing and recommendations targeted at twenty million customers of our systems.

We have a data warehouse filled with billions of records of our consumers’ purchases, viewing usage, calls to customer care centers, etc. And we have mined it for years to try to improve their experience, tell them what new movies they might like, upsell them on new packages, offer incentives, and more. But there is a whole other dimension of their lives that we have not integrated. Until now.

Kenya switches to the new slide with a graph of interconnected network nodes of different colors and sizes.

People exist within their communities, their social networks. They interact, they talk, they recommend, they share. By detecting their communities and piecing together data from these different domains, we can create a more complete intelligence picture of our customers. We can determine who and what influences their decisions. And then, we can better message and market to them.

She flips to the slide with a bored-looking couple staring at a TV screen.

Take Richard and Jane, our loyal customers. They look to us for recommendations on the new movies and shows they might like. Which we do, based on what they have watched before. But watching similar plots time after time bores them. Until Jane says ‘Let’s try this new on-demand service, I saw them offering a one-month free trial.’ And at this point, we are half-way towards losing them.

On the next slide, the same couple is laughing merrily.

But our new recommendation tool does not limit itself to their past usage data. It looks at their whole network, at who do they follow socially, who do they trust so to speak.

Does this mean you collect even more data about them? asks someone in the audience.

Oh, yes! We learn all we can about our customers and their friends and their friends’ friends. And then we rapidly integrate all this information to recommend something different to them. Here are the top ten recommendations for an actual family using the old tool. And here are the top ten for the new one. As you can see, only two out of ten are present in both lists.

So what? an executive at the head of the table shrugs skeptically, Do I care what movies friends of my friends like? We are just wasting money on this nonsense!

To Kenya’s credit, she keeps her cool, only a stilted smile betrays her anger. But then she had practice, a black woman engineer had to learn to hold her own in a male-dominated field.

I understand the skepticism. Fortunately, we have been able to measure the impact. We found across the board that the recommendations are more effective when larger social media impact is accounted for. The average rating of the shows in the new set of recommendations jumped from three stars to almost four stars. That’s a significant improvement and a good way to retain our customers.

I’d love to listen longer, but I have to run.

Later in the afternoon, I come across her making coffee in the area between our offices.

Sorry I had to leave. Did that guy give you any more trouble?

He tried, she nods. He is a VP, so I had to be diplomatic.

Don’t let them get to you.

I won’t, Kenya shrugs. Not the first time, not the last. Hey, do you have exciting plans for the weekend?

Yes, I smile. A hot date on Saturday night.

That’s funny, so do I. We might both get lucky.

We just might.

I stop by a wine shop on the way to Alex’s place. I recall that he likes Central Coast wines and pick out a Syrah from Paso Robles.

Ben! Mai hugs me at the door. Alex told me you might be coming. We missed you. How long’s it been?

Three years, since Evan’s wedding.

I awkwardly hand over a brown bag with the bottle, thinking that I should have gotten a proper wine bag.

It’s four of us at the table: me, Alex, Mai, and their younger daughter Joy.

Joy is deciding whether to apply to UCLA, proudly announces Mai.

I don’t know, shrugs Joy. Lisa loves it at Berkeley.

You don’t have to copy everything that Lisa does, replies Alex.

Sounds like he wants Joy close to home.

Lisa is a sophomore in biomedical engineering, he explains to me.

Joy takes a deep breath, seems to be a bit of family tension here.

Can’t believe you are a senior now, I turn to Joy before she has a chance to say anything. Do you remember me?

She hesitates, then brightens up: Yes, we had a BBQ picnic in that little park in the Marina with you, your wife, and your son …

Mai coughs: Joy, can you pass the water please?

We eat in silence for a while.

Mai, your orange chicken is so good! I interrupt the quiet.

It’s not just good, it’s a work of art, smiles Alex.

Oh, you guys are just saying this, Mai waives us off. But thank you anyway.

After dinner, Alex and I take our glasses outside, to the little backyard.

My parents send their condolences about your mom, he says. They would have come.

It was a very small funeral, I explain again. Dad was just too exhausted to do anything big.

Your dad has always been a private person, nods Alex.

You guys added a second story, I point to the house to change the subject.

Yes, Mai wanted to have a studio for her artwork. We bought at the right time, so we could take an equity loan and build up. He doesn’t have to remind me that it was June who was his real estate broker and practically twisted his arm to buy the place back in 2011.

I can’t believe about Evan, I say.

Neither can I. All day I’ve been seeing him in that championship game, how he dragged two backers into the end zone in the last minute. Alex inhales hard. Ben, this won’t be my case. I got called in only because the two detectives that would normally work this were out of town on training. I tried to do as much as I could today before I have to hand the case over.

He stands up, paces for a minute, turns to me.

I don’t know if you want to get involved, Ben. You have had enough bad shit happen to you. But Evan was our friend …

Yes, he was, I reply neutrally.

Alex disappears back into the house, comes out with a laptop and a thin file and places them on the small round table between us. He hesitates, then shows me a tiny USB drive in his hand.

Evan literally put a bullet through his computer. I gave it to our expert to look at. The expert managed to recover a few seconds of video that have been buffered in the memory cache and survived. That’s the last thing that Evan must have watched.

Alex stares at me, the hand with the drive inches from the laptop. It’s awkward to keep him waiting.

Just show it to me, I say.

The video is only a few seconds long, but it’s unmistakably Rose Johnson. The camera is focused on her. She is naked, riding a man whose face we can’t see, throaty moans coming from her open mouth.

That’s it? I ask because I don’t know what to say.

Yes, that’s all we salvaged.