The Broken Window (29 page)

Just like mine, he reflected. “You do?”

“Put that together myself,” she said.

“Excellent. And?”

“The only brewery that uses this hop is near Birmingham. Now, we got an image of the NGO intruder on CCTV and, because of the hop, I thought I’d check the Birmingham CCTV tapes. Indeed, the same man arrived at New Street station several hours later, getting off the train with a large rucksack. We lost him in the crowds, I’m afraid.”

Rhyme considered this. The big question was: Were the hops planted on the tool to lead them off? That was the sort of thing that he could only get a feel for if he had examined the scene himself or had possession of the evidence. But now it was just down to what Sachs called a gut feel.

Planted or not?

Rhyme decided. “Inspector, I don’t believe it. I think Logan’s pulling a double reversal. He’s done this before. He wants us focused on Birmingham while he goes ahead with the hit in London.”

“I’m glad you say that, Detective. I was leaning that way myself.”

“We should play along. Where is everyone on the team?”

“Danny Krueger’s in London with his people. So’s your FBI man. The French agent and the Interpol chap were checking out leads in Oxford and Surrey. They didn’t play out, though.”

“I’d get them all to Birmingham. Immediately. In a subtle but obvious way.”

The inspector laughed. “Making sure Logan thinks we’ve swallowed the bait.”

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“Exactly. I want him to think we believe we have a chance to catch him there. And send some tactical people too. Make a noise about it, make it look as if you’re pulling them back from the shooting zone in London.”

“But in fact beef up the surveillance there.”

“Right. And tell them he’s going for the long shot. He’ll be blond and dressed in a gray uniform.”

“Brilliant, Detective. I’ll get right to it.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Cheers.”

Rhyme ordered the phone to disconnect, just as a voice from across the room intruded. “Heh, the long and the short of it is your friends at SSD are good. I can’t get to first base, hacking in.” It was Rodney Szarnek. Rhyme had forgotten about him.

He rose and joined the officers. “innerCircle’s tighter than Fort Knox. And so is their database management system, Watchtower. I really doubt somebody could break in without a massive array of supercomputers, which you just aren’t going to find at Best Buy or RadioShack.”

“But?” Rhyme could see that his face was troubled.

“Well, SSD’s got some security on the system I’ve never seen before. It’s pretty robust. And, I’ve got to say, scary. I had an anonymous ID and was wiping my tracks as I went. But what happens? Their security bot broke into
my
system and tried to identify me from what it found in the free space.”

“And, Rodney, what exactly does that mean?” Rhyme was trying to be patient. “Free space?”

He explained that fragments of data, even deleted data, could be found in the empty space of hard drives. Software could often reassemble it into readable form. The SSD security system knew that Szarnek had covered his tracks so it had slipped inside his computer to read the data in the empty space and find out who he was. “It’s pretty freaky. I just happened to catch it. Otherwise…” He shrugged and took comfort in his coffee.

Rhyme had a thought. The more he considered the idea, the more he liked it. He looked over at the skinny Szarnek. “Hey, Rodney, how’d you like to play real cop for a change?”

The carefree-geek visage disappeared. “You know, I don’t really think I’m up for that.”

Sellitto finished chewing the last of his sandwich. “You haven’t
lived
till a bullet breaks the sound barrier right next to your ear.”

“Wait, wait, wait… The only time I do any shooting is role-playing games and—”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be the one at risk,” Rhyme said to the computer man, as his amused gaze slipped to Ron Pulaski, who was closing his phone.

“What?” the rookie asked with a frown.

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Anything else you need, Officer?”

Sitting in the SSD conference room, Ron Pulaski looked up into the emotionless face of Sterling’s second assistant, Jeremy Mills. He was the “outside” assistant, the young officer recalled. “No, I’m fine, thanks. But I wonder if you could check with Mr. Sterling about some files he was getting together for us.

A list of clients. I think Martin was handling it.”

“I’d be happy to bring it up with Andrew when he’s out of his meeting.” Then the broad-shouldered man walked around the room, pointing out the air-conditioning and light switches like the bellboy who’d escorted Jenny and Pulaski to their fancy room on their honeymoon.

Which reminded Pulaski again of how Jenny resembled Myra, the woman who’d been raped and killed yesterday. The way her hair lay, the slightly crooked smile he loved, the—

“Officer?”

Pulaski glanced up, realized his mind had been wandering. “Sorry.”

The assistant was studying him as he pointed out a small refrigerator. “Soda and water in here.”

“Thanks. I’m all set.”

Pay attention, he told himself angrily. Forget Jenny. Forget the children. People’s lives are at stake here.

Amelia thinks you can handle these interviews. So handle them.

You with us, rookie? I need you with us.

“If you want to make a call you can use this one. Dial nine for an outside line. Or you can just push this button, then speak the number. It’s voice activated.” He pointed at Pulaski’s cell phone. “That probably won’t work too well here. Lot of shielding, you know. For security.”

“Really? Okay.” Pulaski thought back; hadn’t he seen somebody using a phone or BlackBerry here earlier? He couldn’t recall.

“I’ll have those employees come in. If you’re ready.”

“That’d be great.”

The young man headed down the hall. Pulaski took his notebook out of his briefcase. Glanced at the names of the employees he had yet to interview.

Steven Shraeder, Technical Service and Support Manager, day shift.

Faruk Mameda, Technical Service and Support Manager, night shift.

He rose and peered into the hall. Nearby a janitor was emptying trash cans. He recalled he’d seen him
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yesterday, doing the same; it was as if Sterling was afraid that any brimming garbage would give the company a bad name. The solid man glanced at Pulaski’s uniform without reaction and returned to his task, which he performed methodically. Looking farther down the immaculate corridor, the young cop could see a security guard standing at attention. Pulaski couldn’t even get to the restroom without passing him. He returned to his seat to await the two men on the suspect list.

Faruk Mameda was first, a young man of Middle Eastern ancestry, Pulaski judged. He was very handsome, solemn-faced and confident. He held Pulaski’s eye easily. The young man explained that he’d been with a small company SSD had acquired five or six years ago. His job was to supervise the technical-service staff. Single, with no family, he preferred working nights.

The cop was surprised that he didn’t have a trace of foreign accent. Pulaski asked if Mameda had heard about the investigation. He claimed he hadn’t heard the details—which could have been true, since he worked the night shift and had just gotten to work. All he knew was that Andrew Sterling had called and told him to speak to the police about a crime that had occurred.

He frowned as the police officer explained, “There’ve been several murders recently. We think information from SSD was used in planning the crimes.”

“Information?”

“About the victims’ whereabouts, some items they’d bought.”

Curiously Mameda’s next question was “Are you talking to all the employees?”

How much to tell, how much not to? That was one thing Pulaski never knew. Amelia always said it was important to grease the interview wheel, to keep the conversation going but never to give too much away.

After the head injury, he believed his judgment had worsened and was nervous about what to say to wits and suspects. “Not all of them, no.”

“Just certain ones who’re suspicious. Or you’ve
decided
ahead of time are suspicious.” The employee’s voice was defensive now, his jaw tight. “I see. Sure. Happens a lot nowadays.”

“The person we’re interested in is a man, and he has full access to innerCircle and Watchtower. We’re talking to everyone who fits that description.” Pulaski had figured out Mameda’s concern. “Nothing to do with your nationality.”

The attempt at reassurance missed the mark. Mameda snapped, “Ah, well, my nationality is American.

I’m a U.S. citizen. Like you. That is, I
assume
you’re a citizen. But maybe not. After all, very few people in this country were here originally.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mameda shrugged. “Some things in life you have to get used to. It’s unfortunate. The land of the free is also the land of the prejudiced. I…” His voice faded as he glanced past and above Pulaski, as if someone were standing behind him. The cop turned slightly. No one was there. Mameda said, “Andrew said he wants full cooperation. So I’m cooperating. Could you ask me what you need to, please? It’s a busy evening.”

“People’s dossiers—closets, you call them?”

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“Yes. Closets.”

“Do you ever download them?”

“Why would I download a dossier? Andrew wouldn’t tolerate that.”

Interesting: the wrath of Andrew Sterling was the first deterrent. Not the police or the courts.

“So you haven’t?”

“Never. If there’s a bug of some sort or the data are corrupt or there’s an interface problem, I may look at a portion of the entries or the headers but that’s it. Only enough to figure out the problem and write a patch or debug the code.”

“Could somebody have found your passcodes and gotten into innerCircle? And downloaded dossiers that way?”

He paused. “Not from me they couldn’t. I don’t have them written down.”

“And you go to the data pens frequently, all of them? And Intake too?”

“Yes, of course. That’s my job. Repair the computers. Make sure the data are flowing smoothly.”

“Could you tell me where you were on Sunday afternoon between twelve and four?”

“Ah.” A nod. “So that’s what this is really about. Was I at the scene of the crime?”

Pulaski had trouble looking at the man’s dark, angry eyes.

Mameda put his hands flat on the table, as if he were going to rise in anger and storm out. But he sat back and said, “I had breakfast in the morning with some friends…” He added, “They’re from the mosque—you’ll probably want to know.”

“I—”

“After that I spent the rest of the day alone. I went to the movies.”

“By yourself?”

“Fewer distractions. I usually go alone. It was a film by Jafar Panahi—the Iranian director. Have you ever see—” His mouth tightened. “Never mind.”

“You have the ticket stub?”

“No… After that I did some shopping. I got home at six, I’d guess. Checked to see if they needed me here but the boxes were running smoothly so I had dinner with a friend.”

“In the afternoon did you buy anything with a credit card?”

He bristled. “It was window-shopping. I got some coffee, a sandwich. Paid
cash
for it…” He leaned forward, whispered harshly, “I don’t really think you asked everybody all these questions. I know what
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you think of us. You think we treat women like animals. I can’t believe you’d actually accuse me of raping someone. That’s barbaric. And you’re insulting!”

Pulaski struggled to look Mameda in the eye as he said, “Well, sir, we
are
asking everybody with access to innerCircle about their whereabouts yesterday. Including Mr. Sterling. We’re just doing our job.”

He calmed slightly but continued to fume when Pulaski asked his whereabouts at the times of the other killings. “I don’t have any idea.” He refused to say any more and with a grim nod, stood and walked out.

Pulaski tried to figure out what had just happened. Was Mameda acting guilty or innocent? He couldn’t tell. Mostly he felt outmaneuvered.

Think harder, he told himself.

The second employee to be interviewed, Shraeder, was the opposite of Mameda: pure geek. He was gawky, the clothes ill-fitting and wrinkled, ink stains on his hands. His glasses were owlish and the lenses smeared. Definitely not in the SSD mold. While Mameda was defensive, Shraeder seemed oblivious. He apologized for being late—which he wasn’t—and explained that he’d been in the middle of debugging a patch. He then embarked on the details, speaking as if the cop had a degree in computer science, and Pulaski had to steer him back on track.

His fingers twitching, as if he were typing on an imaginary keyboard, Shraeder listened in surprise—or feigned surprise—when Pulaski told him about the murders. He expressed sympathy and then, in answer to the young officer’s questions, said he was in the pens frequently and
could
download dossiers, though he never did. He too expressed confidence that nobody could get access to his passcodes.

As for Sunday he had an alibi—he’d come into the office around 1 P.M. to follow up after a big problem on Friday, which he again tried to explain to Pulaski before the cop cut him off. The young man walked to the computer in the corner of the conference room, typed and then swiveled the screen for Pulaski to see. It was his time sheets. Pulaski looked over the entries for Sunday. He had indeed clocked in at 12:58 P.M. and didn’t leave until after five.

Since Shraeder had been here at the time Myra was killed Pulaski didn’t bother to ask about the other crimes. “I think that’ll be all. Thanks.” The man left and Pulaski sat back, staring out a narrow window.

His palms were sweating, his stomach in a knot. He pulled his cell phone off its holster. Jeremy, the sullen assistant, was right. No damn reception.

“Hi, there.”

Pulaski jumped. Gasping, he looked up to see Mark Whitcomb in the doorway, several yellow pads under his arm and two cups of coffee in his hands. He lifted an eyebrow. Beside him was a slightly older man, with prematurely salt-and-pepper hair. Pulaski figured this had to be an SSD employee—since he was in the uniform of white dress shirt and dark suit.