A Very Merrimac Thanksgiving
(A sneak preview of Merrimac Murder Mystery #2: Thanks a Million)
Platter 2, Track 1, Sector 1
Monica and Susan had spent the previous Thanksgiving with their friends in Detroit. Monica remembered the picnic they made of cold turkey and stuffing sandwiches in Rouge Park and how Susan pulled the little metal camp stove out of one pocket and a little gas flask out of another. How they made cranberry cocoa in the can that they had just knocked the jellied sauce out of. She had said this was how they did it in the Army but nobody there believed that this existed in any Army field manual. What they did believe is that the miracle workers in the Army Nurse Corps had worked incredible art and magic. If pulling a stove out of her pocket to warm them up was just one more of Susan’s miracles then who were they to complain? Now that she thought about it, where had the cocoa and the sugar and cream come from? They had probably come from the many pockets in that coat of hers.
Monica had been telling herself that this Thanksgiving was bittersweet, a bit like that cocoa in the park, but it was just a new way for her to wear the same lie. It was just bitter. Maybe it was bittersomething, like bitterelsewhere or bittersad, or bitterlater. She was back in Detroit, though, and she thought she should take a walk through Rouge Park tomorrow on Thanksgiving to let the events of the last year settle. Wednesday, today, was not yet the moment for thanks. It was a moment for work and Monica owed that work to some very impatient clients.
University departments did not usually have clients in the regular sense. At Lapointe, there had been patrons and benefactors – programs made possible through the generous support of the Rockefellers, through Denbridge Aldehyde, and through other great American vortices of capital. There had been the Department of State, the Bureau of the Census, and other funding agencies. Clients seemed ... unseemly. Transactional. No, the learned men of the academy would not pursue clients. Monica thought that clients were for lawyers and detectives and engineers and whores.
Monica was none of those. Dr. Monica Lamm was one of the learned men of the academy and she held an appointment as investigative professor in the Department of Computer and Security Sciences at Detroit Central University. In fact, she was the inaugural Charles Llewellyn Professor of Investigative Computing in the new department. This department had clients. These clients had problems.
Lydia also had problems. What Lydia really had was an aging Merrimac 1150 and that's what it was to have problems.
"Monnie, I don't know if we are going to be able to keep running tonight. The weep from transformer 2 is no better and Frank thinks we need to let it cool before we add more oil."
"Lyd ... just another hour. If the machine dies, it dies. If this ballistics code doesn't come up with an answer, then DPD are going home for the long weekend and writing this off as another sad sack holiday concluded courtesy a bottle of Seagrams and a Colt .32 automatic"
"Monnie, that's what it might be. This Merrimac Monte Carlo versus Russian Roulette might come out your way but the guy was playing with an automatic. The house always wins when you play that kind of game. I don't even know how we're going to bill Anchem for this statistical method of yours."
"A nickel for every rock we look under that isn't it. A dollar for the one that is."
"That's a lot of nickels already."
"Lyd, he was alone in his locked apartment and they didn't find the gun, automatic or otherwise. AND NOBODY IN THE ENTIRE STATE OF MICHIGAN DRINKS SEAGRAMS."
"Ok, Monnie, ok. Let it rip until Frank kills the power. But maybe break to the monitor and save to tape. Tape is cheaper than a new transformer."
"Sure, Lyd – but I don't need to save. I wrote the randomizer so it stores its state in one of the console registers. I read the state right off the lamps as it's running now. We can restart from any one of those points. Actually, it’s better than that. Tape 3 is the sequence tape. I can just back that up a bit and pick up from there when machine comes back.”
"You read more languages than I do. I can read a clock and a thermometer alright though and I figure you've only got about a half of that hour to get your answer.”
“Lyd, I already have the answer but it seems like just one in a million. Nobody is going to believe me when I say that this is it. That a computer came up with that. I don’t care anyhow if they believe me but if they don’t believe the machine then what are we doing here?”
“I believe you. Do I believe Merri? Jury’s out on that one. I’ll make you a deal. You let your program run. A program that’s running does a lot more good right now than a program you’re thinking about. Ok?“
“Ok.”
“Then, I want you to stop staring at those flashing lamps. I know it took a dozen tries to get this run started in the first place, but you’re not keeping it on track with psychic energy. It’s just Newton. A computation in motion …”
“Ok, ok”
“Then, only then, you can lift your coffee up off that programming notebook and start writing a new program. Deal?”
“Ok, Lyd. Deal. Do you think I could get a cold turkey sandwich to go with this cold coffee?“
“Monnie, you’re exactly two days too early for that but I’ll split my egg salad with you.“
“Lydia, for that and for everything I give you my thanks.”