Outfoxed: An Andy Carpenter Mystery by David Rosenfelt Page B

it?”
    Mrs. Dembeck is right; this is one smart kid.
    “I’ll tell you what: Let’s both stop,” I say. “No more gambling for us.”
    “Is this Mom’s idea?”
    “Nope,” I lie. “It’s mine. We have a deal?”
    He shrugs. “Okay. But can we still watch football together?”
    “Absolutely,” I say, sticking out my hand. He shakes it and the deal is done.
    I am not pleased.
    I drop Ricky off and head down to my office for our initial case meeting. Laurie arrives as I do, and we walk in together. Everyone is there: Sam Willis, Willie, Edna, Marcus Clark, and Hike, the other lawyer in my firm.
    They are sitting at the long table in what serves as my conference room. The way they are situated makes the table look like a park seesaw. Marcus is at one end, and all the others are at the other end. Everyone here is afraid of Marcus, which makes perfect sense, since Marcus is one scary human being.
    Hike is in the middle of one of his rants, talking to anyone who will listen, which as far as I can tell is no one. Hike is a complete and total pessimist, as distinguished from a worrier, since a worrier fears the worst but recognizes the possibility that it might not happen. Hike does not allow for the chance that there will ever be a good outcome of anything.
    Hike’s discourse today is on alien life and the certainty that it’s out there. “You know how many planets there are? Three trillion. You think they’re all just sitting out there with no one on them? Come on.”
    I’m not sure why nobody at the table answers him. It could be one of two things. Either they are not listening at all, or they don’t want to encourage him to continue speaking.
    Unfortunately, he doesn’t need any encouragement. “You can be sure they’re coming here,” he says. “And they’re not coming to hang out, you know? Before they even get here, they’ll send a weird virus into our atmosphere. By the time they arrive, we’ll all either be dead or have sores all over our bodies and a body temperature of a hundred and twelve. It’s going to make Independence Day look like a Saturday-morning cartoon.”
    On the one hand, I’d like to see how long Hike can go on with absolutely no encouragement from his audience, but I need to interrupt. “On the off chance that the invaders don’t get here before the trial, we probably should prepare,” I say.
    I bring everyone up to date on the basics, starting with Brian’s escape, which they already know about from newspaper accounts. When I tell them about Pete’s following Willie and me and capturing Brian, I look over at Marcus expecting disapproval at our carelessness. I don’t find any; he is expressionless, either unconscious or asleep or both.
    Willie jumps in to mention that Brian risked his life to save Boomer, and Hike and Edna nod, understanding that this is why we are taking the case.
    “I think the answer lies in their business,” I say, “and Sam, we’re going to need your expertise in this area. I know nothing about computers and all that technological stuff … my eyes start to glaze over when I hear it. So you’re going to have to study their company and educate me in a way that I can understand it.”
    “I’m on it,” Sam says, though I think he’s disappointed he won’t get to shoot anybody.
    “If I’m right, then we are dealing with people capable of framing Brian using computer expertise, and also of stabbing two people to death in cold blood.”
    “Denise Atkins worked at Starlight as well, didn’t she?” Laurie asks.
    I nod. “According to Brian, she’s been there from the beginning; she was a technology whiz in her own right. Brian says that his being there kept her from advancing too far; the board was concerned about nepotism. She works in the technology area.”
    “So you don’t think she was at least one of the targets in these killings?” Laurie asks.
    “I don’t, but I don’t want us to take that for granted. My guess is that she was in