Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery by Clare O'Donohue Page A

around her. “But this call turns everything upside down.”
    “Why?”
    “They’re all here,” she said. “They’re all inside. So who made the phone call?”
    Victor shook his head. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Someone taped that, then used voice-changing software to disguise their identity. They might have programmed their computer to make the call at a predetermined time. The person who did it could be standing right next to you when you get the call.”
    “Orhe could be around the corner. Maybe drove off pretending to be upset so he could send the message,” I pointed out. “Erik does seem to take his vision for the place very seriously. If Vera were looking to change his plans, he might be upset. Except he doesn’t strike me as a techie type.”
    “Any ten-year-old could do this,” Victor said. “You download the software off the Internet. You can even compose the call, like a draft e-mail, and then when you’re ready, tap into your account from a smartphone, and press ‘send.’”
    I looked back at the restaurant. I could see Doug and Walt through the window, but Roman and Ilena weren’t in view. “So pretty much anyone with a cell phone and a computer?”
    Victor nodded. “Pretty much.”
    That wasn’t our only problem. “What did the caller mean by saying Vera was ‘next to be slashed’?” I asked.
    “That he’s going to hurt her,” Andres said.
    “But he said ‘next.’ Who was first?”
    “Everyone’s fine, right?” Victor said. “All the investors are alive and healthy? So maybe it’s something else.”
    “What about my car?” Vera asked. “Tires get slashed. Maybe that’s what he meant.”
    The four of us ran the four blocks to where Vera had found the only available parking space in a three-mile radius. By the time we reached it, we were coughing from the below-zero air filling our lungs, and I was feeling a sharp pain in my chest, the kind you get from the lack of a consistent exercise program that would help you build the stamina to run four lousy blocks.
    Each of the four tires on Vera’s Mercedes was as good as new.
    “God, I was really worried there for a minute,” Vera said.
    “I think you should keep worrying,” I told her. “If it’s not your tires the caller was talking about, then what was it?”

Nineteen
    I curled up on my couch and did a sudoku puzzle online. I started with the hardest one, and after I failed at that I went to medium, and finally gave up and chose an easy one. I got an amazing sense of accomplishment when I typed the final number into the box and an electronic fireworks display indicated that I had solved it.
    After that minor intellectual stretch, I opened up a Word document and started to make a list of all the things I had to do around the house. Things like go through my closet and weed out the clothes I didn’t wear, and throw out the long-past-their-expiration-date spices in my kitchen cabinet. As I typed I knew I wouldn’t do any of it. Even writing the list seemed like too much work. I deleted it and instead made a list of all the reasons someone would go to the trouble of computerizing their voice just to scare Vera.
    There was Doug’s reason: an old girlfriend who wanted Vera out of Doug’s life. But that made sense only if you didn’t think about it too much. Wouldn’t threats make the two of them closer? If Doug really believed it was someone from his past, it would make him less likely to rekindle that romance and more likely to feel protective of Vera. Of course, that didn’t mean an old girlfriend would think logically, but it just seemed far-fetched, particularly that the ex would go to so much trouble to disguise her identity. If she wanted Doug back, why not just tell Vera who she was? I deleted that option.
    Then there was Vera’s reason: She’d been asking about financials. Something fishy was going on and somehow Vera had managed to stumble across something. Maybe she’d seen a document or