“A couple of nine-year-old boys spotted it this afternoon, right about here,” said Officer Libby. “They were playing around skipping stones, and one of ’em noticed something shiny in the water. Waded out up to his knees and got it.”
“How far out was it?”
“The pond’s fifty feet deep at the center, but it stays shallow for quite a ways from the edge. It was maybe ten, fifteen feet in from this bank.”
“Close enough that it could’ve been thrown from here.”
“Yeah.”
“Did the boys see anyone do it? Notice anyone nearby?”
“No, but we don’t know how long it was in the water. Could’ve been tossed in days ago. The kids gave it to their mom, and she brought it to the Jamaica Plain substation. Our IT guy matched the serial number to the laptop you reported stolen. He says the hard drive’s been pulled out, which is weird for a burglar, you know? Who steals a laptop and then goes to the trouble of destroying it?”
“Any fingerprints?”
Libby shook his head. “The water took care of that.”
Jane turned to look at the cars moving past on Perkins Street. “Drive-by disposal. Too bad we don’t have the hard drive to look at.”
“Whoever removed it didn’t care about preserving any data. The laptop looked like someone took a hammer to it.”
Jane turned back to the pond, where ripples gleamed with the last light of day. “Why go to all that trouble? I wonder what was on it?”
“Well, we’re not going to find out now,” said Frost. “That data’s destroyed.”
Jane looked down at shoe prints tracking across the mud, prints left by boys who’d just happened to choose this particular spot, on this particular pond, to skip stones. Until now, Jane had assumed the thief would put the laptop on the market, hoping for a quick buck. Instead, this was where it ended up, ruined and discarded, no longer of use to anyone. This was definitely not what a garden-variety thief would do. What was on that laptop, Sofia? What did you know that was worth killing you for?
The boys’ footprints were fading into the gloom of twilight. Once again the jogger came around, his breaths now quick and labored, his shoes thudding along the path behind them.
“If you want to talk to the boys who found it, I have their contact info,” said Officer Libby. “But I don’t think they can tell you anything useful.”
Jane shook her head. “I don’t think some nine-year-old’s going to crack this case for us.”
“Although they’d probably get a big kick out of talking to a detective. You know how boys are.”
Boys.
Jane stared down at the almost invisible shoe prints and suddenly remembered a pair of blue Nikes lying in a boy’s cluttered bedroom. A boy who just might be able to dig up some answers.
She turned to Frost. “You know the data on that hard drive?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe there’s a way to retrieve it.”
* * *
—
Ariel the mermaid was still reclining on her clamshell bed, surrounded by her usual crustacean admirers, but the watery wonderland was now in Jamal Bird’s bedroom. Jane leaned in close to look at Henry the goldfish, who stared back at her with a gaze so intent she almost believed there was a brain behind those googly eyes.
“The fish looks happy,” Frost said to Jamal. “You must be taking really good care of him.”
“I had to look up a lot of stuff, to make sure I was doing everything right,” said Jamal. “Did you know goldfish can recognize faces? And you can teach them tricks?”
“Did you know they can live up to forty years?” said Jane. “I learned that just the other day.” From a certain know-it-all medical examiner.
Jamal shrugged, unimpressed. “Yeah, I already knew that.” Everyone, it seemed, knew about a goldfish’s lifespan. Everyone except Jane. “I can’t have a dog, ’cause of my asthma,” said Jamal. “But a fish is okay. He’ll live longer too, as long as I take good care of him.”
“Come on, you folks didn’t come here to talk about the fish,” said Jamal’s mother. Mrs. Bird stood watching them from the doorway, her face stony with skepticism. The moment they’d stepped into her house she had pulled out her cell phone and it was in her hand now, ready to record any threat to her son.
“We’re here because we need Jamal’s help,” said Jane.
“Again?”
“Sofia’s laptop was found yesterday afternoon in Jamaica Pond. The hard drive is missing and whatever data she had on it is probably destroyed.”