Day 23: 45,761 words and some big reveals (and an even bigger fall)

Surprisingly, Bam Bam was the next person to speak up. “We know that something is going on with the Pettipiece cousins. Both have been seen with an Australian businessman who has been telling people that his name is Jeff. But his name definitely is not Jeff”

Jake and Scottie both looked at Bam Bam, shocked. 

Jake spoke first. “How in the world do you know that?”

Bam Bam was delighted that he knew something that Jake didn’t, for once. That he knew something that anyone else didn’t know, for that matter. “I was at Jackie’s Place the day of their meeting, wasn’t I?”

“I thought you were just there because I wasn’t in the office and you wanted to drink in the afternoon,” Jake replied. 

“Ain’t my first time outrunnin’ bad decisions,” he drawled, throwing in a wink for good measure.
Scottie was sure of three things. First, that that was true. Second, that he had done a ChatGPT search of “cocky but calm things to say when driving a getaway car” in anticipation of his role in their flight from the police station, and that he was using the unused phrases in their discussion right now. As a journalist, she had an ear for such things. And third, that even though his ChatGPT generated quip hadn’t quite made sense, he had nonetheless pulled it off with aplomb. 

She couldn’t help but squint and nod in his direction. He shot her a cheeky grin in return.

“But in all seriousness, Logan,” and they all knew it was serious when Jake started calling Bam Bam by his actual name, “how did you come to be involved in all this?”

“I owe Jackie one. Or five,” Bam Bam started. 

“Naturally,” Scottie thought to herself.

“I owed him some favours and he asked me to do some recon on some people who had been coming into Jackie’s Place. He had some suspicions about what they were getting up to but he knew that they would be unlikely to be able to overhear it. He thought I was just the person to listen in and report back,” Bam Bam explained.

“You must have been proud to have been trusted with something so important,” Jake joked.

“Well, initially I told him, ‘This is not what I meant by Friday night fun!’” Bam Bam beamed. Clearly another cast-off line from his prior ChatGPT search. He delivered the line perfectly. He may have only lived in Texas for one season when he played with the Dallas Stars, but it had clearly had quite the effect on him. The overall effect was pleasing. “But he told me that at one point I would probably get to drive a getaway car.”

How Jackie knew what he knew, and foresaw what he foresaw, would be forever a mystery to everyone who knew him. 

“Well that’s one mystery solved. But what I’m probably most confused about is why Cody Simpson is involved in all this,” Scottie said. 

...

“Did they say anything to you when they picked you up? Is there anything that you can tell us about it, a piece of the puzzle you might understand that we don’t?” Scottie nudged Cody.

“Well, I did find it odd to see Joe Murtaugh at the police station, as they were taking me to the basement,” Cody offered.

“Joe Murtaugh?” Bam Bam questioned.

“Joe Murtaugh,” Scottie repeated. “I’m guessing since you guys probably don’t care as much about media court intrigue as I do, you wouldn’t know who that is?”

“Definitely not,” Jake replied. 

“He’s Ronald Murtaugh’s son,” Jackie said in a gruff voice. He never ceased to surprise about what he knew. 

“But who is Ronald Murtaugh?” Jake asked.

“The Australian Canadian businessman and media mogul,” Cody Simpson helpfully explained.

 
“Why would I know any of that?” Jake asked, annoyed. 

“They are such a messy family. There have been huge fights about the succession of the family business, News Media Corp, once Ronald retires. Some of the kids are idiots. Some of them are evil. Some of them are both,” Scottie explained. “A lot of people just know about stuff like that because it’s fascinating to watch from the outside.”

“I know one of them well. Josh Murtaugh,” Cody Simpson added.  

Scottie’s jaw dropped. This had to be an important connection. 

“How do you know him?” Scottie pressed.

“He’s a swimmer. I knew him in my youth, and then when I put my music career on hold to pursue my dream of competing for the Australian men’s Olympic swim team, he was competing with me for one of the final spots on the team,” Cody Simpson relayed to the group, clearly pained to talk about this still. 

“Well—what happened?” Bam Bam asked.

“He got that last spot. I missed out by the tiniest fraction of a second,” Cody said sadly.

“Well that is incredibly convenient,” Scottie said angrily.

“I didn’t find it convenient to miss out on my life’s dream,” Cody Simpson cried, his voice heavy with emotion.

“No, not that!” Scottie added quickly. “I’m sorry about the death of your dream. That is not what I find convenient. I find it convenient for the Murtaugh family. I have long thought that you were sabotaged and that you should have been one of Australia’s athletes competing in the Paris Olympics. This might be a piece of the puzzle that I was missing,” Scottie said excitedly. “Did you ever directly lose a race to Josh Murtaugh?”

“No,” Cody Simpson said with both sadness and pride. “I beat him every time we raced against each other.”

“Would it be possible for them to change your time in another race? To make it look like he had a faster time than you, but he didn’t?” Scottie queried.

“I guess,” Cody Simpson answered. “You would have to be pretty powerful to do that.”

“There’s almost no one in the world with more power than the Murtaugh family,” Scottie said, and Cody Simpson nodded. “And the fact that they sent another son of theirs, Joe Murtaugh, to detain you—I feel like this is as close as we can get to any proof right now that they were directly involved in you not making the Australian men’s Olympic swim team.”

Cody sat down, overcome with emotion. “Something always felt wrong about it. But I had just assumed that was me trying to comfort myself with a different explanation because I wasn’t good enough.” He cried softly with his head in his hands. 

Jackie walked over to Cody Simpson and kneeled in front of him. “You were good enough, son. You were. And you are.” Cody blinked back tears, and stared at Jackie with a look of gratitude. It was exactly what he needed to hear, and exactly who he needed to hear it from.

That was one of the only outward displays of emotion that Jackie Bauer would ever have in his life. He quickly shook it off and walked over to the bar to make more large sphere ice cubes. His working space was far from clean.

Amidst the ecstasy of solving a puzzle, and Cody Simpson’s anguish as he realized the truth, Scottie noticed that Jake had gotten quiet.

“What’s going on?” she whispered to him, as the others (aside from Jackie) were busy comforting Cody. 

“Would any of the children happen to be called Jeremy?” Jake asked, not looking up. 

“You mean Jeremy Murtaugh, the owner of The Athletic?” Scottie answered.

“Yeah,” Jake said. He stayed quiet. 

“Are you wondering if there is a reason that the photos of you that appear in The Athletic are always terrible?” Scottie asked in a low voice.

“Am I even allowed to say that?” Jake wondered. 

“I wasn’t going to say anything, mate,” Cody Simpson piped up, “but those photos of you that I saw when Scottie asked me to familiarize myself with your career were pretty gross.”

Everyone in the group nodded.

“You know I’m only saying that because you’re objectively handsome,” Cody Simpson added sympathetically. 

“I know,” Jake said kindly. “Thank you.”

“Does Jeremy Murtaugh have something against you?” Scottie probed. 

“He’s famously vindictive,” Jackie offered, once again demonstrating a surprising knowledge of affairs far outside the realm of what you would expect from a surly neighbourhood barkeep. 

“We know that James Mirtle, the head Leafs writer, only uses bad photos of Jake. Photos where he mysteriously looks like he is covered in cheese puff dust. Specifically, Cody Simpson’s Own Artisanal Cheese Puff dust,” Scottie started. 

“The premier brand of cheese puffs in Australia, where the Murtaugh family originated,” Cody offered helpfully. 

“Well, in the Leafs locker room we actually used to talk about this a lot. And it wasn’t just me that seemed to be targeted. There were others.”

“Yeah? Like who?” Scottie pressed.

“William Nylander, for one,” Jake started. “Calle Jarnkrok.”

“So, the hot ones?” Scottie asked. 

“They were going after the hot ones!” Bam Bam looked like he might die from laughing. “It’s genius if you think about it.”

“It isn’t,” Scottie shot back. 

“It’s all starting to come together,” Jake said, eyeing the messy word map that Scottie had been drawing based on all of this. 

Was it coming together? If anything, Scottie was only more confused.

...

Everyone in the room circled around Brandon from IT, who had been silent for the entire conversation. 

“You were the one from inside the police station who tried to communicate to the outside world that something was wrong. So, what do you know?” Scottie probed. 

IT Brandon was starting to sweat. Clearly he would have benefited from the double deodorant system in the Irish Spring body wash. 

“I already told you what I know, and I got in big trouble for it,” he complained. “I was told by someone that I should add a picture to the slide show of the Foucauldian Discourse Analysis Aid Kit. It was oddly specific: a dolphin shaped kazoo. I couldn’t find anything like that anywhere online, so I had to get ChatGPT to do it,” IT Brandon added. Bam Bam nodded. 

“Who told you to add it? Who is trying to communicate with us?” Scottie asked.

“This all makes me feel like I’m going insane! None of this makes any sense!” Jake raged.

“Someone high up in my company,” IT Brandon said quietly.

“Someone high up in the London Police Service? It couldn’t have been the chief, Parm Pettipiece. That wouldn’t make any sense,” Scottie said, confused.

“No. Not the police. My other company. I have two jobs,” he replied.

“Okay. Now would be the time to tell us about that other job,” Jake said with irritation.

“My other job is with Torstar Corporation.”

Scottie was gobsmacked. “Torstar? As in the owners of the Toronto Star? The newspaper where I work? How come you never mentioned this?”

Just as Scottie was about to advance on IT Brandon and start shaking him, she heard a loud gasp from behind her. It was Gordon. The entire room turned to look at him.

“I think I know who has the Foucauldian Discourse Analysis expertise to have orchestrated this whole thing,” Gordon gaped. 

“Is this your way of telling us it was you,” Jake said acidly. 

Gordon shook his head. So did IT Brandon.

“No, it wasn’t me,” Gordon said as if he was surprised that he had not been the one to orchestrate such a genius plan. “I know many people who are quite knowledgeable about Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. In my time at the Jack Kerouac—”

“You are going to have to explain this so much faster than that,” Jackie growled. 

“Okay, okay. Although not getting the full explanation will be akin to reading Michel Foucault translated into English, rather than in the original French,” Gordon huffed.

“I think we’ll take our chances,” Jake replied.

“As you wish,” Gordon said sullenly. “It is clear that someone with expertise in Foucauldian Discourse Analysis has taken an interest in the Wortley Village fires. Who took it upon themselves to communicate to Brandon that he must alter a slide show given in a police press conference. Who told me that I needed to come to Wortley Village and investigate a Toronto Star employee who appeared to be circumventing the compulsory lunchtime runs policy. I had thought that it was surprising that I was getting so much buy in for my running scheme from the top of the company, but now it is very clear to me who it was.”

Gordon ended his monologue with a dramatic flourish, whipping his cape around his shoulders. It sprayed water everywhere. 

“Who?” Scottie finally said, willing Gordon to continue.

“It was—” 

Suddenly, they heard a squelching of shoes on wet linoleum descending the stairs. It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. No one took a breath. 

Every set of eyes turned to follow the sound. 

Scottie did not recognize the man who emerged at the top of the stairs. As she was about to ask him who the hell he was, pandemonium descended in the coaches’ offices. The stairs were wet with Gordon’s cape water, and the man started to slide down the stairs. He might have been able to save himself by grabbing the railing, but unfortunately just as he looked like he might regain his balance, he tripped over a stack of chairs inappropriately placed at the bottom of the staircase. He eventually landed with a crash on an out of place folding table, and slumped to the ground, humiliated. A big fall, indeed.

“Chuck!” Gordon said, rushing towards the man to help him up. 

“Chuck?” Scottie yelled. “Chuck as in, Chuck from HR?”

“I followed your Fitbit,” the man, who was apparently Chuck from HR, said to Gordon. “I knew that something was wrong. I came as soon as I could.”

"Y'all better buckle up," Bam Bam drawled. "This ride ain't stoppin'."