Jeffery Deaver - The Broken Window

He claimed not to know Myra Weinburg either. And no one could have gotten access to his passcodes, he assured her. “As for cracking my words, good luck-they’re all sixteen-digit random characters. I’ve never written them down. I’m lucky I’ve got a good memory.”

Gillespie was on his computer “in the system” all the time. He added defensively, “I mean, it’s my job.” Though he frowned in confusion when asked about downloading individual dossiers. “There’s, like, no point. Reading about everything John Doe bought last week at his local grocery store. Hello…I’ve got better things to do.”

He also admitted that he spent a lot of time in the data pens, “tuning the boxes.” Her impression was that he liked it there, found it comfortable-the same place that she couldn’t escape from fast enough.

Gillespie too was unable to recall where he’d been at the times of the other killings. She thanked him and he left, pulling his PDA off his belt before he was through the doorway and typing a message with his thumbs faster than Sachs could use all her fingers.

As they waited for the next all-access suspect to arrive, Sachs asked Pulaski, “Impressions?”

“Okay, I don’t like Cassel.”

“I’m with you there.”

“But he seems too obnoxious to be Five Twenty-Two. Too yuppie, you know? If he could kill somebody with his ego, then, yeah. In a minute…As for Gillespie? I’m not so sure. He tried to seem surprised about Myra’s death but I’m not sure he was. And that attitude of his-‘pianoing’ and ‘nod’? You know what those are? Expressions from the street. ‘Pianoing’ means looking for crack, like your fingers are all over the place. You know, frantic. And ‘nod’ means being drugged out on smack or a tranquilizer. It’s how kids from the burbs talk trying to sound cool when they’re scoring from dealers in Harlem or the Bronx.”

“You think he’s into drugs?”

“Well, he seemed pretty twitchy. But my impression?”

“I asked.”

“It’s not drugs he’s addicted to, it’s this-” The young officer gestured around him. “The data.”

She thought about this and agreed. The atmosphere in SSD was intoxicating, though not in a pleasant way. Eerie and disorienting. It was like being on painkillers.

Another man appeared in the doorway. He was the Human Resources director, a young, trim, light-skinned African American. Peter Arlonzo-Kemper explained that he rarely went into the data pens but had permission to, so that he could meet with employees at their job stations. He did go online into innerCircle from time to time on personnel-related issues-but only to review data on employees of SSD, never the public.

So he had accessed “closets,” despite what Sterling had said about him.

The intense man pasted a smile on his face and answered in monotones, frequently changing the subject, the gist of his message being that Sterling-always “Andrew,” Sachs had noticed-was the “kindest, most considerate boss anybody could ask for.” Nobody would ever think about betraying him or the “ideals” of SSD, whatever those might be. He couldn’t imagine a criminal within the hallowed halls of the company.

His admiration was tedious.

Once she got him off the worship, he explained that he had been with his wife all day on Sunday (making him the only married employee she’d talked to). And he’d been cleaning out his recently deceased mother’s house in the Bronx on the date Alice Sanderson had been killed. He’d been alone but imagined he could find someone who’d seen him. Arlonzo-Kemper couldn’t recall where he’d been during the times of the other killings.

When they had finished the interviews the guard escorted Sachs and Pulaski back to Sterling’s outer office. The CEO was meeting with a man about Sterling’s age, solid and with combed-over dark blond hair. He sat slouching in one of the stiff wooden chairs. He wasn’t an SSD employee: He wore a Polo shirt and a sports jacket. Sterling looked up and saw Sachs. He ended the meeting and rose, then escorted the man out.

Sachs looked at what the visitor was holding, a stack of papers with the name “Associated Warehousing” on top, apparently the name of his company.

“Martin, could you call a car for Mr. Carpenter?”

“Yes, Andrew.”

“We’re all together, are we, Bob?”

“Yes, Andrew.” Carpenter, towering over Sterling, somberly shook the CEO’s hand, then turned and left. A security guard led him down the hall.

The officers accompanied Sterling back into his office.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“Nothing conclusive. Some people have alibis, some don’t. We’ll keep pursuing the case and see if the evidence or witnesses lead us anywhere. There’s one thing I was wondering. Could I get a copy of a dossier? Arthur Rhyme’s.”

“Who?”

“He’s one of the men on the list-one that we think was wrongly arrested.”

“Of course.” Sterling sat at his desk, touched his thumb to a reader beside the keyboard and typed for a few seconds. He paused, eyes on the screen. Then more keyboarding and a document began printing out. He handed the thirty or so pages to her-Arthur Rhyme’s “closet.”

Well, that was easy, she noted. Then Sachs nodded at the computer. “Is there a record of you doing that?”

“A record? Oh, no. We don’t log our internal downloads.” He looked over his notes again. “I’ll have Martin pull the client list together. It might take two or three hours.”

As they walked into the outer office, Sean Cassel stepped inside. He wasn’t smiling. “What’s this about a list of clients, Andrew? You’re going to give that to them?”

“That’s right, Sean.”

“Why clients?”

Pulaski said, “We were thinking that somebody who works for an SSD client got information he used in the crimes.”

The young man scoffed. “Obviously that’s what you think … But why? None of them has direct innerCircle access. They can’t download closets.”

Pulaski explained, “They might’ve bought mailing lists that had the information in them.”

“Mailing lists? Do you know how many times a client would have to be in the system to assemble all the information you’re talking about? It’d be a full-time job. Think about it.”

Pulaski blushed and looked down. “Well…”

Mark Whitcomb, of the Compliance Department, was standing near Martin’s desk. “Sean, he doesn’t know how the business works.”

“Well, Mark, I’m thinking it’s more about logic, really. Doesn’t it seem? Each client would have to buy hundreds of mailing lists. And there are probably three, four hundred of them who’ve been in the closets of the sixteens they’re interested in.”

“Sixteens?” Sachs asked.

“It means ‘people.’” He waved vaguely toward the narrow windows, presumably suggesting humanity outside the Gray Rock. “It comes from the code we use.”

More shorthand. Closets, sixteens, pianoing…There was something smug, if not contemptuous, about the expressions.

Sterling said coolly, “We need to do everything we can to find the truth here.”

Cassel shook his head. “It’s not a client, Andrew. Nobody would dare use our data for a crime. It’d be suicide.”

“Sean, if SSD’s involved in this we have to know.”

“All right, Andrew. Whatever you think best.” Sean Cassel ignored Pulaski, gave a cold, nonflirtatious smile to Sachs and left.

Sachs said to Sterling, “We’ll pick up that client list when we come back to interview the tech managers.”

As the CEO gave instructions to Martin, Sachs heard Mark Whitcomb whisper to Pulaski, “Don’t pay any attention to Cassel. He and Gillespie-they’re the golden boys of this business. Young Turks, you know. I’m a hindrance. You’re a hindrance.”