I hit play on the first video. Connor stood in front of a Confederate flag, which made no sense because Idaho wasn’t even a state during the Civil War. Though maybe he should’ve declared war on whoever had given him that haircut.
“Hey, guys. What’s up? It’s Idaho Connor the Patriot here,” he said. He shifted from foot to foot, a clear tell he had on-camera nerves. “I’m coming to you from the greatest state in America. Where we have majestic mountains, beautiful hot springs, and some of the most dedicated patriots in this great country.”
Hot springs. He’d said hot springs. My eyes fell on my kids’ tablet. I tapped the screen, and suddenly there wasPaddington 2still on pause, the Brown kids huddled in the iconic London phone booth. A recording of Joanna Lumley’s voice had been enough for them to fool Hugh Grant. Maybe it could work for me.
After downloading an MP3 recorder app, I started the YouTube video over from the beginning, listening for any phrase I might need now, or for future phone communications. “Hey, guys,” Idaho Connor said, by way of salutation. I skipped back a few seconds and recorded thephrase on my phone, labeling the MP3 file “Hey, guys.” The second file was called: “What’s up?”
Much of Idaho Connor’s rambling was useless. But I listened for the short little phrases. “When you hear about rallies at the capitol of your state, rallies to protect our freedom to control women’s bodies,” he said about a quarter of the way through the first video, “I want you to say: ‘Yes! I’ll be there.’ I don’t want to hear: ‘I can’t make it.’” I rewound and hit record right before he said: “Yes! I’ll be there.” I recorded him saying “I can’t make it” as another file.
For tonight at least, I had what I needed.
No solo mom has the bandwidth to crawl around with a corpse every time she has to check messages. So I hit up YouTube to find tricks for overriding iPhone setting glitches. Armed with techy wisdom straight from some generous nerd’s basement—“Try restarting the phone”—I tiptoed down to the kitchen, grabbed a flashlight from the cupboard, and headed out toward the playhouse. When the twins were babies and I was dealing with blocked nipple ducts and double diaper blowouts on the regular, I marveled at the sort of horrors a person could get used to. But this was taking things to a whole new level.
Back at my mom’s desk, I was able to set the lock setting on Idaho Connor’s freshly restarted phone to “Never.” What did it say about my life that this felt like a major accomplishment? No calls had come in to Connor’s phone, but Natty Lite had responded to the text I’d sent.
Natty Lite:This is not cool, man. When will you be back in town? We have work to do.
I typed quickly, not letting myself think too much about who this Natty Lite might be or why he wanted to meet with the dead guy.
Connor:i’m still out of town. and im sick. it’s gonna be a few
I added a green-faced emoji and hit send.
Baylee had texted too.
Baylee:i’m still safe at Ralphie’s. can’t wait to c u saturday. I miss lil connor. can’t wait to give him a kiss.
“Ew!” I said out loud. What I typed was:any way u can meet me inboise?
Baylee:no way. u know how controlling ralphie is.
I shuddered. Thank goodness Baylee didn’t want to talk to Connor on the phone. Probably she didn’t want Ralphie the Lizard to know about her burner.
Connor:Okay. see u at Burgdorf. bring yr old phone please, sweetums
Baylee:u bet. cabin 9. I’ll hang my red swimsuit on the line
Connor:right on
I added a heart emoji for good measure and hit send. Now it was time to deal with Ralphie.
Carefully, so carefully, I held down the voice memo record button on Connor’s phone as I played the MP3 from mine. “Yes!” Connor’s voice said. “I’ll be there.” If Errolhadmurdered Idaho Connor, and he happened to be around when Ralphie the Lizard listened to this voice memo, it would give him quite a shock.
A moment later, Connor’s phone dinged. “Watch out Idaho State Capitol building,” Ralphie growled. “Here we come.”
As a responsible citizen (and an employee of the capitol) I needed to report this impending attack to law enforcement. Day of the Rope was in less than three weeks! I promised myself I’d tell the police—as soon as I had evidence pointing to Errol as a murder suspect. I didn’t trust the cops not to pin Connor’s murder on me. I needed to be absolutely sure there was someone else to take the rap.
After plugging in Connor’s phone, I crawled into bed, hoping my dreams would not be haunted by his slightly blue, slightly contorted, very dead face. But before I even closed my eyes, the phone sounded. I lunged to grab it, knocking a slice of plastic opera cake to the floor. This new voice memo was from a contact called “the Receiver.” Even distorted by a filter, the voice sounded very authoritative.
“Confirm once you’ve picked up the potato mashers,” the voice said, “and we can set a meeting time to trade mashed potato recipes.”
Idaho Connor must be the middleman, slated to pick up the hand grenades and plans for Day of the Rope and deliver them to this mystery person called the Receiver. Obviously Connor wasn’t going to be able to fulfill either of those obligations. But I needed the Receiver—and everyone else—to believe Connor was going about his business as usual. At least for as long as possible.
After a few minutes of pondering my next move, I sent back a voice memo of Connor saying, “Will do, my red, white, and blue.”
Deciding whether Connor should cancel the meeting at the last minute or stand up the Receiver altogether would be a problem for another day.
Twenty
