Trust Me

You interrupt a discussion of a very important topic just to correct me because I used a term you think is inaccurate. That’s an overly precise way of thinking. It gets in the way of real communication.”
    He looked at her in surprise. “I would have thought that it facilitated it.”
    “Trust me, it doesn’t.” Desdemona drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair. “Now, to get back to my point about the similarities between human communication and the problems in chaos theory or complexity science or whatever you call it – “
    “No offense, Desdemona, but you know nothing about the latter.”
    “That’s what you think. What I was trying to say is, you should look for the pattern beneath the words. The real meaning, not the literal one.”
    “People should say what they mean.”
    “Maybe. But they often don’t.” She gave him an unsettlingly perceptive look. “Sometimes they can’t.”
    “Of course they can.” Stark told himself that he was on solid ground here. He could argue this point from a thoroughly rational perspective. The facts were obvious. “A failure to communicate clearly and accurately reflects sloppy thinking and muddled logic.”
    “Yeah, well, that’s most of the human race for you. People get emotional, and when they do, they get sloppy and muddled.”
    That was undoubtedly why she had told him that she loved him a couple of hours earlier, Stark thought glumly. The passion had muddled her thinking processes for a time. “I see.”
    “The reason I told my parents that you and I have a business relationship combined with a casual dating relationship is because I know them. If I imply that you and I have anything more than a casual sort of relationship, if they think we’re really serious, they’ll think that we’re on the brink of marriage.”
    “Marriage.” The word seemed to lodge in his throat.
    “Exactly.” Desdemona swung the chair around to face the computer. She was suddenly very busy at the keyboard. “Wainwrights are a romantic lot. To them a serious affair implies commitment, and that implies marriage. The whole ball of wax.”
    “I see.” Stark watched the computer screen come to life.
    “Don’t worry, I think I managed to distract them from that notion.” Desdemona slanted him a quick, unreadable look. “Wainwrights are a little old-fashioned about some things. Family is very important to them. It comes from years of believing that they can only rely on each other.”
    “I understand.”
    “I know how you feel about marriage, Stark. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure no one brings up the subject again.”
    “How do you feel about it?” Stark asked in a deliberately neutral tone.
    “Marriage? Well, I am a Wainwright.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “Someday…” She raised one shoulder in a small shrug and let the word trail off into the mists.
    “I see.”
    “But, hey, someday is a long time off, isn’t it?” Desdemona gave him a mischievous smile. “And in the meantime I think what you and I have is pretty special, don’t you?”
    “Yes. Special.” He wished to hell he knew what she was really saying.
    He had the distinct impression that he was missing something in the conversation. It was as though Desdemona’s words were locked in code. He could see that there was a pattern, but he did not have the key to it.
    Give him a nice, simple, straightforward problem in complex structures any day.
    “Ah, there we go.” Desdemona studied the screen in front of her. “That gibberish you see there is what I found when I recovered the lost work. Just random characters. Tony’s right. A child could have typed them. What do you think?”
    “Let’s see when this work was done.” Profoundly grateful for an excuse to move on to a topic that he could comprehend, Stark leaned over the keyboard and punched out a command with one hand.
    The time that the gibberish had been entered into the computer appeared on the screen. Eight-fifteen.
    Desdemona stared at the screen. “That was right around the time that Vernon was killed.”
    Stark pondered the gibberish. “The question is, who typed this nonsense? Vernon or the killer?”
    “And why would either of them type it on my computer?”
    “Good question.” Stark studied the long string of characters for a moment. There was a pattern there. He could feel it. “I think it’s more than garbage.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It may be an encrypted phrase.”
    Desdemona’s eyes widened.