Chapter 6
I had weird dreams of bees, one fat orange bee had Trump’s head on a bee's body like Vincent Price’s the fly. But Trump’s bee was much more terrifying as it flew from immigrant kid to immigrant kid and stung them mercilessly while laughing maniacally. It was horrifying, any dream that dumpy trumpy appears in is instantly ruined. Last week I dreamed I was in Lothlorien with Galadriel and she took me to use the Mirror of Galadriel. At first I saw the store, Lucy and Lis were playing Vaesen, then suddenly the mirror only showed a huge bloodshot eye, then it pulled back again, dumpy trumpy. Woke me right up, first he invaded Venezuela now he wants Greenland and Lothlorien.
But I drag myself out of bed, eight o’clock again. Why? I just got to bed a little over six hours ago. They say the older you get the less sleep you need. If that is true why couldn’t I fall back to sleep. Well, I’ll blame it on the stressful night, a near death and a near arrest. Here’s hoping it will be a better day. I felt better after my shower and even better chatting with Amy over a cup of tea.
“Geez Amy, you should have moved in years ago. I almost don’t feel so bad waking up early when we get to chat over tea. I may even have time for breakfast today. I’ll bet you those cops eat all of your pastries this morning. They were delicious, I’d risk overdosing just to have a few more of those mini raspberry turnovers.”
“Thanks, Laura, I’m glad you liked them. I just hope that no one used the pastries to dose Niall. I called the hospital, they let him leave last night around three. Or rather he checked himself out, over the objections of the doctor in emergency.”
“Hmm Amy, I wonder why he would do that? But I’m so glad that he was well enough to check out. I share his aversion for the hospital but they took such good care of me, when I was in there with a concussion. This whole situation is just weird. Who could be going to such lengths to stop a two bit cooking show, on a one bit network?”
“I don’t know Laura, I expected drama during the cooking competition but I didn’t expect it, at the welcoming party that is for sure. Do you have any suspects?”
“I don’t know anything about any of the contestants, but to be honest if Roberta were my mother and she treated me like she treats Bobby. I’d be tempted to do worse than sabotage stuff. The problem is with a big party including cast, crew, outside guests like the mayor and his wife. That’s a lot of suspects and we don’t even know for sure that Niall didn’t just overdose on his own, however with all of the other things that have been purposely sabotaged it certainly seems highly likely that Niall is just a victim. But was he the target, or did the perpetrator just want to cause more chaos. Because if he were the target then we need to find out who has motive to hurt or kill him.”
“How can you figure that out, Laura?”
“Well I texted Bobby that I wanted all the background information that they have on the cast and crew, and I’m going to try and find out more about Roberta and Bobby. We have a resource, but there is probably just so much that she can say. Roberta was one of Eve’s clients. If a dollar buys a lawyer's confidentiality I’d be willing to bet that Roberta bought thousands of dollars worth.”
“Maybe she can give you some background on Bobby or do you suppose she is covered as well?”
“I’m really not sure following the law is not my speciality, it seems like lately it’s been breaking the law. But if that means I’m following in the footsteps of Thoreau, what’s a few felonies?”
We chatted for a little while longer then I went back to my room to work on the Protestor’s Handbook. I want to get this out, and I have almost all of the essays that we need. How to stay safe and yet still have your voice heard. I’m hoping that while people might still get arrested, injuries on both sides will be reduced if a protestor knows what to expect. I’m no expert in the subject but I’m trying to get as many essays by people who have stood on the front lines of a nonviolent protest, and have been gassed and beaten. I wrote a little page at the end of the book asking that people donate to the various organizations that are defending the protestors for free with links to the appropriate websites. For people outside of the US, I include links to Amnesty International where hopefully they will donate.
Then a little before ten, I went down to the store to see how Lucy and Lis were doing. But instead of walking in the front door the two of them came down the stairs from the second floor.
“Did you two come in early or are you both here from last night? You didn’t play video games all night did you?”
“Not all night,” was Lucy's reply.
“Just most of the night? Well that’s all right then. So Miss Manager, what is the plan for today?”
“Well, we hoped we’d be busy with sales all day. But now the contest might not even go forward right? How is that guy Laura?”
“He was well enough to check himself out of the hospital, so that’s both a good sign and a bad sign. Good that he was physically able to walk out of there, and bad as a college professor ought to be smart enough to follow a doctor's advice.”
“Well I’m glad he’s alright, it didn’t look good when he keeled over.”
“You were both all over the tent handing out pastries, did either of you see any bees flying around?”
“Not me, what about you Lucy?”
“No, the only insect I saw was a few moths drawn to the lights and I got bit by a few mosquitoes.”
“How about Niall did either of you see him get stung?”
“No, I was too busy watching the woman who was screaming, you’d have thought that she was being attacked by a bear. Say she was alright, right?”
“Yes, she stayed in the restroom for quite a while but maybe she was just embarrassed over what a fuss she made, especially when the other person stung was taken away by ambulance. Plus everyone has a different tolerance for pain.”
“What about you Lis, did you see Niall get stung?”
“No, I heard him swear, but that was just a split second before the woman started screaming.”
“What exactly did he say Lis?”
“He said what the F was that.”
“He did say at the hospital that he hadn’t been stung since he was a little kid. I’m surprised that he still remembers to bring the pen if it’s been so long. I have an eidetic memory and I have a feeling, I’d forget to carry that around if it had been thirty or more years since you used it. Maybe his doctor is always on his case about carrying it or something like that. Alright, I’m going up to work on an eBook, if Roberta or Bobby arrive just call me on my cell and I’ll be right down.”
“Okay Laura, Lis, I’m going to work on the physical eBook store. I was hoping we could open it next week. It may not generate a lot of sales, especially since the only eBooks I have so far are public domain that we are giving away for free. Laura, I need your essay about the writer’s collective, you didn’t forget did you?”
“No, I didn’t forget, how many times do I have to tell you, I have an eidetic memory.”
“Then why haven’t you sent the essay?”
“Lucy, check your email in five minutes it will be there. I’ve been a little bit busy lately.”
It was about eleven o’clock when my phone rang.
“Laura, Roberta is here to see you.”
“Thanks Lis, please tell her I’ll be right down.”
I hurried downstairs to see what Roberta had to say about the contest. She was standing at the counter pointedly ignoring Lis. I knew this because Lis would chat with anyone about anything and currently Lis was just standing at the counter. Roberta really is awful with people. But she’s likely more stressed than ever after the occurrences of the previous evening.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“Hi Roberta, have you heard from Niall, I hear he checked himself out of the hospital in the middle of the night.”
“Yes he called me at eight thirty this morning and wanted to know what time the first competition would take place. Up to that point I had fully intended to cancel the whole mess. But I don’t like to be pushed around, I like doing the pushing. So we are going to start filming today at five. We’ll already be two sessions behind. The five o’clock session was supposed to be the last of three. But we did build some spare time into the filming schedule, so if we can get through the next ten days without another incident. We’ll make it in time, and close to budget. So I’m here to take Amy to the dress shop on Main St. As a judge, she needs a different outfit everyday, if we need to tape four sessions in one day we will both need to change into a different outfit.”
“If you’d like a cup of coffee or tea you can come up with me, otherwise I’ll be happy to get Amy for you. I texted Bobby last night, I wanted access to all the show information and everything you have on the case and crew. Also you and I need to have a serious chat before your first session. I also want access to any video that your crew filmed last night. Hopefully they didn’t just hand over the originals to the police or it’ll be months or years before you get them back from the police.”
“Let’s go have tea and you can ask me what you want to ask me. Bobby did tell me that you wanted all of that so I told her to gather everything up and bring it over. Eve says you are very good at this investigation stuff, so I’d welcome any help you are willing to give.”
We started upstairs and I waited until we were alone in the hallway.
“You may not be so happy after we have our chat, Roberta. But we’ll do it in the privacy of my room, and while I’m not an attorney. Anything that you say to me will be strictly between you and me.”
We went up and Roberta told Amy about the shopping trip and the new schedule. I told Amy I could handle making dinner. But Amy as always was prepared, the stew was already done and the thirty six fresh baked rolls were either already baked or in the oven baking as we spoke. Then we went to my bedroom and I sat in my desk chair and opened a folding chair for Roberta to sit on. I suddenly wondered if the rich socialite had ever sat in a folding chair before. I wondered if she even knew how to open one?
But she didn’t complain, which I took as a good sign, then I began.
“Roberta, this is not meant as an insult, it is a genuine question that I’m going to need the answer to before we can move forward, this is just the first of about five difficult questions. Why are you even doing this show, obviously it’s not the reason most people would do it, for the money. So unless your family fortune suddenly disappeared. Why?”
“Because of the family fortune, that’s why. No it hasn’t disappeared, unless we have a gambler in our future line, it is unlikely to ever disappear. But that is exactly as people see me, the rich girl, the girl who has never proven herself. I can speak French and play the piano fairly well, I abhor golf and I’m just fair at tennis. We have no family business for me to run, I suppose I could buy a company but I have no business skills. Our family business is just money, we have oodles of the best stocks and bonds and sometimes I think the deficit is half owned by my family. I could try my hand at the stock market but we have people with advanced degrees in economics for that and even if I managed to pick a winning stock it would be blind luck and everyone would know that it was blind luck. I’d have to pick ten in a row before anyone would take me even a little bit seriously. This is a throwaway show on a throwaway network. But I’ve already learned a lot about this business. So this is my first and best chance to achieve something on my own. I won’t have many more opportunities like this, unless I can say that I nailed this, and prove that I nailed it, despite the setbacks. Everyone has setbacks. They are to be expected, like I said we even planned for them, we can even survive one or two more. I don’t suppose that a hippie would believe that money can be a burden.”
“I don’t think you know anything about hippies. Pappy hasn’t bought anything new since the nineteen seventies, except for underwear. Always buy underwear new but for the rest, used will do. Thoreau was a hippie before they had hippies and he said "creeping down the road of life, pushing before them a barn seventy-five feet by forty... and one hundred acres of land." He was talking about the burden of inheritance. So yes I can relate. I ran away to New York City to prove that I could make it on my own, and only came back when my aunt got sick. I loved my job in New York as an editor, but I’m sorry that I felt the need to do that. Living in a collective is very easy, because you are not carrying the weight of the world, you are sharing a burden. Epicurus said if you want to be happy, be happy with what you have.”
“What are you, some kind of hippie philosopher?”
“No, I think all hippies are philosophers after a fashion. But the main tenet is you don’t own things, things own you. Epicurus says that as soon as you have a reliable source of food and a safe place to live you have everything you need to be happy. He was the very first hippie communist, Thoreau said almost the same things as did Buddha. So yes I believe you, but now that brings me to the second difficult question. You proved to me that you are invested, very invested in this project right?”
“Yes absolutely, this may be my last chance to prove to the world that I wasn’t just the rich girl who leeched off the family fortune for her whole life.”
“Then how do I know that you aren’t the one behind the sabotage?”
“Well first off, why would I ruin my own production and cost me thousands of dollars?”
“Too get people talking about the show. Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee made a movie ‘The Crow’. He was killed while filming but the film brought in four times what it cost. It also had three sequels, a TV show and a reboot movie. None of them did anywhere near as good as the original. I loved the original and Brandon Lee gave a wonderful performance. But the movie generated a lot of buzz because of the tragic nature of Lee’s death. Lots of people went to see a wonderful movie because of the tragedy.”
“I may be rude, pushy and demanding but I’m not so Machiavellian to invent drama when there is none. We were planning to do like all reality shows do, make the contestants bring the drama, or edit it to look like drama. I can’t prove that I haven’t been doing it but how much buzz was a canceled venue, and the caterer really going to generate Laura. If I was the person behind the sabotage, why would I be stressed out about it? I brought my laptop, would I really plant a virus in my own laptop? You are going to test it for me aren’t you, otherwise, I’ll just buy a new one and throw this one away.”
“First off, electronic waste is out of control, don’t just throw something away like that. Second, an identity thief would have a field day, harvesting your personal information. When a computer is ready to be properly disposed of, first you need to clean the hard drive to make sure your personal information can be easily recovered. When you are ready to throw away a computer just drop it off here, I’ll clean off the hard drive, install a new operating system and give it to someone who needs a computer. Alright?”
“Yes, well, why don’t you just give this one to somebody and I’ll get a new one, problem solved.”
“First I want to know what your computer is infected with and I’d really be happy if I could figure out how it was infected. But this leads me to the third and probably worst question I’ll ask. How certain are you that it wasn’t your daughter that infected the computer and did all of the sabotage.”
“Again something I can’t prove, but my daughter is a mouse. She has no drive, no ambition. The reason that she works for me is because the few jobs that she has held outside of the family have ended poorly. She makes a poor assistant, but she is my daughter so I am doing the very best to train her to be at least competent. I know that she will never pass that mark. She never achieved any grade higher than a C as far as I can recall. No, I honestly would faint if Bobby were behind this. In a way, I think that I’d be a little bit proud. Extremely angry, but definitely proud, that she finally found some initiative.”
“So nobody ever stands up to you?”
“No, Laura, I think you were the first. I can see why you get away with it, you live in a mansion, but simply, but with an amazing cook. But you really don’t need a lot of money? I can’t imagine that a bookstore owner is rolling in money.”
“No, money, a tiny pension, but more than the poverty line which sucks, because if I made just a few thousand less I wouldn’t have to pay federal tax. That’s why I don’t take a salary in the bookstore, I just take the profits and pay the staff and hopefully make improvements. Alright so I’ll take you at your word that you are not behind the sabotage, and that you can’t see Bobby doing it, but I’ll want to question her myself and I'm going to ask her pointblank if she is behind it.”
“I’m fine with that, Laura. I’m just glad that you are willing to look into it.”
“Well, I guess that’s about all I have to ask you at the moment, I might think of other stuff, I’ll need to know. Will you please call Bobby and tell her I want all of the video that they shot last night. I’ll take your laptop and have it back to you before the taping tonight.”
I took her laptop, plugged in a USB stick with malware bytes installed and updated. I didn’t want that machine infecting my network, that’s why I used the usb instead of just downloading it over the internet and installing malwarebytes directly. After a quick scan malwarebytes identified and removed njRAT. I searched through her gmail account and found a pdf sent supposedly by a Foodie Network executive. But it wasn’t a pdf it was an executable file made to look like a pdf. The first thing I do when I install windows is to open file explorer and change the stupid default setting ‘hide extensions for known file types’. The file that Roberta had clicked on was contract.pdf.exe. Now I don’t know if Roberta even knows what an exe file is and she might have clicked it even if she could have seen the .exe extension.
But Microsoft really should change that default setting. It is dangerous, even for people who know what they are doing. There should be classes for this type of thing. I rebooted her laptop and attached it to our guest wifi network, downloaded Defender updates and then started a Microsoft Defender Offline Scan. Just to be sure that Malwarebytes got everything. So I had an hour to kill waiting for the scan to complete.
I texted Bobby asking for an ETA on all the info I had requested including all the video files. She texted back that she hoped to be here in the store in about two hours. Her mother had told her that I also want to interview her. That's why she is bringing me paper and digital files and a usb stick with the video files, that’s what she was doing now, getting the camera man to transfer the files to USB.
So with an hour to kill while the scan completed and two hours before Bobby would arrive and the store covered by both Lis and Lucy. I walked down to the library, to talk to Sarah about my idea. The library was crowded, it always was on a Saturday but the checkout line wasn’t too bad, so I got in line and waited patiently. I let a couple of people go in front of me, because I didn’t want them waiting to check out while I told Sarah my idea.
“Well if it isn’t the competition.”
“Hiya Sarah. I was just cleaning a virus off of an older person's hard drive for her and I was ruminating on the fact that the virus, actually not exactly a virus, it was a RAT, where a person took over full control of the computer while it was on. Anyways the point is the person if they had even the barest knowledge of computer security would never have open the file and become infected. So I thought of the library and how great it would be if you did a class on computer security.”
“Laura please step to the side and let me checkout Tom, Hi Tom, come right ahead, this is Laura, she owns the bookstore is is constantly down here trying to steal my patrons and turn them into her customers.”
I smiled at Tom, “It only happened one time Tom, Sarah had just disappointed yet another patron with that old line, I can add you to the wait list, but the book is really popular right now. I pointed out to the patron that my bookstore had the book in stock and because he was a regular library patron I offered them a twenty percent discount. Sarah’s been mad about that since it happened Tom, I wasn’t trying to drum up business, I was just trying to help out a person looking for a book. I know what it’s like two am and jonesing for that particular book.”
Tom nodded his head at Sarah, grabbed his book and fled. Sarah started laughing.
“I think I scared him with the jonesing line. Maybe he thought that we sell drugs with the books.”
