joke of a state slogan that is. Harry spent the rest of the journey to New York trying to think up an alternative. The best he could come up with was: “NEW JERSEY – A STATE TO GET THROUGH.”
* * *
There was a typical half hour traffic build-up at the Holland Tunnel and Harry used the free time, as he usually did, by searching the FBI missing children database. He didn’t get far before his phone rang.
“Harry Cull, can I help you?”
“Harry, this is Edward Cirba.”
“Trooper Cirba,” Harry said with glee, “the last time I saw you was… let me think, it was a Buddhist temple, wasn’t it—?”
“You promised,” interrupted the caller, “not to ever mention that again.”
Harry laughed. He had met Pennsylvania State Trooper Edward Cirba at a national state police conference in Las Vegas. Harry had been speaking on interrogation techniques – specifically on how to spot lying. In the hotel bar that night Trooper Ed had told Harry “with all due respect,” that he was full of shit. Harry had ordered two shots of Patron and proposed a bet. He would ask a handful of questions in pairs. The cop would have to lie to one question and tell the truth to the other. If Harry could figure out which was the truth and which was a lie, he would pay for the twenty-dollar tequila shots. If he got it wrong, Trooper Ed would pay. Harry drank free all night and they ended up in a strip club called Nirvana. That was the thing that Ed Cirba asked Harry never to mention again.
“What can I do you for, trooper?”
“I was wondering if you wanted to spend a couple of days on a lake in the Poconos?”
“If I hadn’t seen with my own eyes the effect that lap dancer had on you I would wonder if your proposal was homoerotic.”
“There you go mentioning that supposedly unmentionable thing again – but no, Harry, I’m not suggesting a dirty weekend. I’ve got an honest-to-goodness murder up here and I could use some help interrogating people without them thinking they’re being interrogated, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“I have a budget for it; it’s not your corporate rate but you did say you work cheap if it’s real. This is real real.”
“Murder, you say?”
“Yeah, gangland style, shot in the back of the head.”
“Suspects?”
“All of north-eastern Pennsylvania.”
“Well at least that rules me out.”
“Now that I think of it, where were you yesterday morning?”
“What if I said I was murdering somebody in the Poconos?”
“It would make my life easier.”
“Sorry, trooper, I only kill locally.”
“Worth a try; I’ll fill you in when you get here.”
“I didn’t say I was coming.”
“I know the mayor. He’s a real estate guy and I got you a house lakeside – on the Commonwealth’s tab.”
“I gotta a job today in Manhattan. How long will it take me to get there?”
“Two hours – two and a half if you stop to buy a bathing suit.”
“If I can finish this corporate thing by closing time today, I’ll be there tomorrow by ten. I’ll call you tonight. Should I really buy a bathing suit?”
“Oh yeah. It’s a little corner of paradise. I’ll text you directions.”
* * *
The corporate thing in New York was the usual. Harry would show up with his oversize polygraph machine, which he would use to intimidate whoever had embezzled the cyber-millions that had vanished from some cyber-account somewhere. It was the kind of gig that Harry could usually stretch out for two or three glorious New York expense-filled days and it annoyed him that he would have to do a rush job. Not that his rush job would be any less thorough than his usual job, it’s just that if he did it quick this time, they might be suspicious when next time it took a week.
Harry dragged his equipment into the downtown offices of Harcom, Eckart, and McCarty. They were an overseas investment firm that made sure rich Americans didn’t get their savings diluted by that pesky Internal Revenue Service.
He spotted the guilty guy within the first five minutes. A youngish junior exec with foppish hair popped his head over a cubicle divider. To Harry’s trained eyes it was almost as if he’d jumped up and down and shouted, “It was me!” He was so highly strung that Harry was amazed they had even bothered to call him. But experience had taught Harry that signals he could see as easily as a dog could smell a buried bone were invisible to the general population. Normally Harry would have spent the morning setting up his polygraph, going for a leisurely lunch, and then the rest of the day interviewing all of the office staff. But Trooper Cirba’s phone call made it hard to concentrate on or, to be honest, even care about this job.
Harry waved off the office formalities and niceties and asked where he could set up his equipment without being disturbed. He was ushered into a conference room where he laid his flight case on the table and then asked for directions to the washroom.
Walking back while still drying his hands on a paper towel, Harry stuck his head into suspect number one’s cubicle and said: “Mr?”
The young man stared at Harry like a rabbit caught in headlights.
“Your name?” Harry asked again.
“Ah… Toliph.”
“Do you have a first name, Mr Toliph?”
“Of course I do,” Toliph said with nervous laughter. “Doesn’t everybody?”
Harry laughed dutifully and said: “Could you help me set up my stuff?”
“Oh… ah, no,” he said pointing to his computer screen. “I have to monitor the Asian markets.”
“It will only take a moment; your boss said you would help me.”
“Which boss?”
“The one that hired me to…” Harry lowered his voice. “You know why I’m here, don’t you?”
“I uh… you’re investigating the Isle of Man account?”
“That’s right,” Harry said even though he hadn’t yet been told what he was investigating. “So you know how important this is. I just need a hand setting up; my assistant isn’t here today.”
* * *
In the conference room Toliph stood on the other side of the table while Harry opened the flight case that held his polygraph. It was a standard Dermograph 793, top of the range as far as polygraphs go, but you wouldn’t know it by looking
