Part 1 is available here.
If you’d like a complete book, visit https://calm.li/DeathByAdvertising
Four
The offices outside had become quiet. The few staff present earlier were now gone. For lunch or gone for the day. Even the receptionist had left her empty desk in front silent elevators. The big mahogany and glass doors were closed, shutting off the lobby noise from the elevators. Sealed windows and buffered AC soundproofed the room from outside street noise stories far below.
The ticking clock on the wall seemed louder now in the quiet. Tess’ keyboarding had stopped.
“Oh, sorry.” Tess spoke at last.”Didn’t mean to drop you out of the loop. There are subscriptions to what looks like all the digital versions of newspapers and magazines in New York. Judy had to keep up on these, and it looks like this data is sent directly to the AI boys for their project.
“I see several folders of test layouts and text they’ve sent over to her. Looks like she would grade and correct them. It’s been going on for years. Longer than I knew about.
“Her emails go way back with these guys. Mainly with the project head. That must be the one she’s been taking long lunches with. And why her weekends were quiet and why she showed up with a smile on her face most Monday’s.”
The detective was back on his perch at the edge of the upholstered chair and desk. His scribbling could be heard between Tess’ staccato keyboard strokes. He paused.
“So she had a lover. How did they get along?”
“She didn’t talk much about him. Oh, here’s a photo of them together, taken in this office. Funny I never noticed this, but you can see her desk gets piled up. Today is a slow day, as you can imagine.” She handed the frame over to his hands.
He took out his smartphone and took a picture of the photo, then stood it back up on its stand., near the piles of papers, facing toward Tess.
“The last email to her between them was for a meeting. That was last Thursday.”
Johnson looked up from his notes. “But her death certificate said she died on Friday, at midnight.”
“Well, she was here on Friday. Had to work late, actually. I left her working when I went home.”
“So she was here alone.”
“Pretty much. Anyone else working here wouldn’t bother her. The receptionist was gone by then. Only people with a pass card could get in.”
“And you share passwords to each other’s computers.”
“Sure, we’ve always done that. Our work is tight.”
“Anyone else have access?”
“No. Not that I know of. But these programs that Judy has running will scrape her magazine feeds. Unless she gave this grad student her passwords without telling me.”
“Does that grad student have a name?”
“She called him Chuck, I think. Didn’t say much about him. Just some smiles when she talked about their project work.”
At that point, the “toaster” robot rolled back in. Sandwiches, chip bags, and tall drinks on its top. “Excuse me ma’am. Your lunch is ready.”
Tess rose to pick up the packages. Detective Johnston rose in courtesy, accepting his sandwich bag and cup.
Tess said, “I hope there’s enough room on that corner for you. Just shove anything out of your way.
The detective placed the bag and cup on the desk corner, shrugged out of his trench coat, and draped it over the red chair. He then sat again, regardless of the coat, to unwrap his sandwich at one end.
Tess crossed back to her side of the big black desk to set her own meal down. Moving the keyboard away, and pushing the whole blotter forward a few inches gave her room to eat. Unwrapping the entire sandwich on top of the flattened bag protected any spills. She sipped her coffee through the opening in the lid.
Raising it up to examine the cup, she said, “Love these things. I always study the packaging evolution. It’s part of the marketing for sandwiches and the restaurants. They’ve evolved to fit the mobile lifestyle we have now. At least in cities. I haven’t been back to compare the local eateries in the Midwest for years.”
“You don’t seem city born and raised.”
“And that phrase means you weren’t, either.”
“No, I was from upstate, a smaller town squeezed among all the cities that have grown up there. You?”
“Iowa. Then a graphic arts college in Kansas. That’s where Judy and I shared classes. We got a big contract here, and used that to leverage into some big connections and steady work. To speed our turnaround, we moved everything to New York.”
“Hey, you want to see something interesting?” She sat the cup down on the sandwich wrapper, then clicked on the keyboard. By the side of the desk, where the toaster-robot had stayed, a hologram of Tess appeared on top of it. She was, dressed in a simple peasant outfit, gingham dress with a ruffled white apron, and her long hair coiled in braids around her head.
“I posed for that one day as a test. The outfit is comfortable. Just not for meeting clients and crunching spreadsheets. The pace is too hectic here. That dress was designed from what east-coasters think rural women used to dress like. Maybe for a dance. Not for work.
“Looks good on you, though.”
“Thanks. It gets a lot of compliments.”
The eyes on the hologram followed the conversation, and almost twinkled to match the smile.
“Go ahead, ask it something. It’s programmed with some of that AI Chuck and those guys have been working on.”
“What do I call it?”
“Tessie. Just so we keep them separate.”
“Tessie, how do you like the weather?”
Tessie turned her head toward him. “It’s fine for a New York climate. Though farther south usually gets it worse than we do.”
“Do you keep track of the weather?”
“Yes, I find that when the weather changes for the worse, we have to change our ads to match their moods.”
Surprised at this insight, the detective pursued the point. “And how should your ads look when the weather is bitter cold.”
“Warm and uplifting. And they need a bit more copy than usual, as people will read them more closely. Your headlines need to be inviting, and not just clickbait. Also, your weekend ads will be even longer, more text and smaller graphics. Full page is a good choice to keep them reading and coming back. Would you like us to work with you on an ad for your department, Detective? We can fit any budget your precinct allows.”
The surprised look on his face made Tess almost laugh, if her mouth weren’t already full of sandwich. She swallowed and reached for her drink again.
“Tessie has been listening to our entire conversation. She identified you when you introduced yourself, then cross-referenced it with the city database. I’d be surprised if she doesn’t have your badge number.”
“Does she record these?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think you could access anything she heard Friday night?”
Tess clicked on the keyboard. A new 3D hologram appeared. This was in the image of Judy. She was dressed in a conservatively tailored dark suit, with a high lace-collared silk blouse. Her brunette hair was just beyond shoulder length and styled in natural waves, parted on one side and tucked behind an ear. As the other hologram, she was smiling. Her eyes flicked from Tess to Detective Johnston, nodding to each as if in greeting.
“This is called Judith. Let me rewind the records to just after I left for the day. The recordings show a conversation about an hour later. Listen:”
“Chuck, this is me. Everything set?
A pause.
“Good, I’ll be over shortly. Just a few details to care for.”
Tess stopped the recording. “Chuck’s end of the conversation isn’t recorded, since we don’t have permission. Unless it’s on speaker-phone.” She tapped and the recording resumed.
“Send me over what you have. Judith has prepared the copy. It will arrive on Monday. I think we’re set now. I’ve thought this over and over. Up one side and down the other. It’s not like we are breaking any laws, so nobody should get hurt.
Chuck’s reply was inaudible, but a long pause occurred.
“No, that’s fine. You’ve got this right. The packages are weatherproof, the certificate, too?
“Great. You’re a doll. Perfect. This all makes me nervous, but excited. I hope Tess will understand.
“Thanks. Love you,too. See you in a few. Bye.”
Tess clicked the keyboard again. “That was all for the night. Her last entry was about 8pm.”
Tess sniffed, then dabbed the edges of her eyes with a napkin. “It was good to hear her again.”
The detective paused before asking his next question. “And did she send any email?”
Tess clicked for a bit. “No.”
“How about your email?”
Another few clicks. “The only email afterwards came near midnight. The one with that attachment you have. I can’t tell from here where it originated, as anyone on this system can login from a remote location. The mail system is local, but can be logged in from anywhere.
“Oh, wait, I can get the IP address.” A few more clicks.
“That shows it was a local IP, but it was placed from the university server.”
“So this ‘Chuck’ may have been involved.”
“Yes, it wasn’t just me.” Tess smiled at this, relieved to be finding evidence in this puzzle.
Johnson continued, “Now, I checked the coroners records and police reports. No body was reported found that would match Judy’s height and build. Nothing upstate, either. Some of these outlying districts don’t update their weekend activities until Monday and often they aren’t in the database until Tuesday.”
“So the cremation and service would have covered any foul play?”
“And that’s why it’s not a case at this point. No sign or evidence.”
“Do you think the death was staged?”
“That’s my idea right now. The examining doctor had died before the ‘body’ was delivered, no report of a body found, and the remains shipped to a mortuary in another city with a forged death certificate. Mortuaries don’t make a habit of testing ashes they receive, especially when they are just going to be spread over the harbor.”
“And why the full page ad? Why send the certificate from my account to the corner?”
“Makes it simple to explain. Just like you just did.”
“But if it had gone wrong, it would have ruined me and the company. As it is, we’ve lost the main art director and creative resource. I’m not sure how we are going to continue without Judy.” Tears welled in her eyes.
The computer beeped just as she finished.welled
Tess clicked on the keyboard, looked surprised at what she saw. Then clicked some more. “These are the layouts for the next week’s ads. And they are all stunning, like Judy did them. But I’ve never seen them before. No one in the office or our stringers were assigned to do artwork on these accounts.”
Detective Johnson rose, set down his half-finished sandwich, and rounded the desk to look over her shoulder.
Tess pointed to the screen at artwork she had opened from email attachments. “Look, these are all Judy’s style. But they were created after her death. And we only got these accounts at the end of last week. This art and copy would take days to work up. Most would need surveys and cross-checks. But the copy is all perfect. Even if Judy did these herself, it would have taken a week. That’s why we hired all these people.”
“Do you have access to her accounts?”
“Sure, it’s the company account. Her own personal bank accounts aren’t there, but we can see transfers.” Clicking away brought up the bank records.
“Looks like Judy did some major withdrawals, all on Friday evening.” The detective peered at the time stamps.
“And look where they went to. That’s a new start-up that deals in untraceable crypto-currency. Like BitCoin.”
“Meaning that her money can’t tell where it went or how it was spent.”
“Wait, here’s another entry. It looks like a that crypto-account is already sending interest back into the firm.”
The detective noted, “Might put you back on the hook. You have access to the accounts and benefit from the income.”
“Well, the business would.”
“With your partner gone, you are the business.”
Tears seeped again into Tess’s eyes. She turned to look at the detective, his face just above her shoulder.
“It’s not the same thing at all. This business is all I have left. After all our years together. Now she’s gone. Alive or dead, I don’t care where these ads are coming from.”
She grabbed a tissue from the box on the desk, putting both hands to her eyes, working to breathe more slowly to avoid sobbing.
Detective Johnston stood back, then put a light hand on her shoulder for a moment. He returned around the desk to the trench coat cover chair. He looked out across the office, through its glassed walls to the lined up desks beyond.
“I know none of this can give you any comfort. Again, I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
Tess looked up to where he stood, waiting for him to turn around.
Then ‘Judith’ spoke from her position on top the robot-toaster base.
The detective turned around, toward her voice.
Five
“Tess, Detective. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you’ve guessed most of the details. As you now know, it’s all a hoax. But it was bought and paid for outside the company. The only reason the clues pointed back to you, Tess, was to tickle your curiosity to solve the details.
“In fact, this recording wasn’t going to trigger until you had. So, congratulations.
“I’m alive and well. On a long vacation right now. Somewhere out of New York’s grit and cold.
“Those ads will keep coming, as they are all AI’d. Actually, I haven’t done much designing for the last month, as the AI was that good.”
Tess nodded. “We’ve sent less work to freelancers recently, but I never connected it, as our clients have kept us swamped with their work requests.”
Judith continued, “Yes, you were too much into your spreadsheets and billings to see it. I didn’t want to bring you into the tests we’ve been doing until they were complete.”
Tess and the detective just looked at the hologram. It was like Judy was talking to them from wherever she was right now.
“And I know what you’re thinking right now. But I should let you get back to your lunch. I just wanted to assure you that everything is fine. I apologize for putting you through this. You know my flair for the dramatic. Sorry.
“Oh, Detective, you’ve got a spot on your shirt that you might want to daub with some cold water before it sets.”
The detective looked down at his shirt, then back to the hologram. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. We are a full service organization here. If you want some tips on your wardrobe, Tess can give you some excellent outfitters we’ve done ads for.”
The hologram turned to Tess.
”One last thing. I know living in the city has been eating at you. So I’ve left some hints here and there. What you can do and stuff. I’m not one to put ideas into your head. (OK, you’ve got me there. But we do tend to think alike.) Just know that I’ll be in touch again when the time is right.”
With a smile and a nod, the hologram disappeared.
The detective looked over at Tess. Her hands still clutched the napkin below her chin. She hadn’t turned off the hologram.
The detective asked, “Let me guess, the AI is tied into the university.”
“Sure. That could have been her actually speaking. Or it could have just been AI.”
“I think the spot on the shirt gave her away, though.”
“Maybe. We’ll never know. No paper trail.”
Six
I was back on my usual homicide investigations after that.
And I got a postcard from Tess a couple of months later. She had moved the company back to Iowa and was running it from there. It seems you can do everything online these days. So the postcard was a nice touch.
I checked into “Chuck” and found there was no grad student with that name working in AI studies or robotics. There was a program that had nearly mastered ad design, but had been shut down when the last research paper was published and the students moved on. The professor told me it still looked promising, but would take a lot of work.
No other “bodies” turned up cremated at mortuaries since. At least none that couldn’t be traced to an actual accident or death.
Then one day, I got a job offer from a private investigation firm in the same Iowa city Tess’ postcard came from. It arrived inside a large manila envelope, along with a prepaid airline ticket. That envelope had a return address from social media consulting firm operating out of the Caribbean.
Part 1 is available here.
If you’d like a complete book, visit https://calm.li/DeathByAdvertising
Coming Next: Two Bonus Short Stories from this book.