Michael Connelly - The Scarecrow

Carver smiled broadly and nodded.

“To be honest, Rachel-can I call you Rachel?”

“That’s my name.”

“To be honest, when Declan is here and I know a prospective client is coming in on tour, I usually send those two out back for a smoke break. But the reality of this facility and the reality of the world is that those young men are the best and the brightest when it comes to this work. I’m being straight with you. Yes, there is no doubt that some of our employees have done their share of hacking and mischief before coming to work here. And that’s because sometimes it takes a sly fox to catch a sly fox or at least to know how he thinks. But every employee here is thoroughly vetted for criminal records and tendencies, as well as the content of their character and psychological makeup.

“We have never had an employee break company protocols or make an unauthorized intrusion into client data, if that’s what your concern is. Not only do we qualify each individual for employment, but we closely watch them after. You could say that we are our own best clients. Every keystroke made on a keyboard in this building is backed up. We can look at what an employee is doing in real time or has done at any time prior. We randomly exercise both of those options routinely.”

Rachel and I nodded in unison. But we knew something Carver either didn’t know or was expertly covering up. Someone here had dipped into client data. A killer had stalked his prey in the digital fields of the farm.

“What happened to the guy who worked out there?” I asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of the outer room. “I think they said his name was Fred. It looks like he’s gone and his stuff is in a box. Why did he leave without taking his personal things?”

Carver hesitated before answering. I could tell he was being cautious.

“Yes, Mr. McEvoy. He has not picked up his belongings yet. But he will and that is why we placed them in a box for him.”

I noticed that I was still Mr. McEvoy with him, while Rachel had moved on to being on a first-name basis.

“Well, was he fired? What did he do?”

“No, he was not fired. He quit for unknown reasons. He failed to show up for his shift Friday night and instead sent me an e-mail saying he resigned to pursue other things. That is all there is to it. These young kids, they are in high demand. I’m assuming Freddy was lured away by a competitor. We pay well here but somebody else can always pay better.”

I nodded as if I agreed completely but I was thinking about the contents of the box out there and putting other things with it. The FBI visits and asks questions about the trunk murder website on Friday and Freddy splits without so much as coming back in for his iPod.

And what about McGinnis? I was about to ask if his disappearance could be related to Freddy’s abrupt departure but was interrupted by the mantrap buzzer. The screen beneath Carver’s glass desk automatically switched to the camera in the mantrap and I saw Yolanda Chavez coming back in to collect us. Rachel leaned forward, inadvertently putting an urgent spin on her question.

“What is Freddy’s last name?”

As if they had a prescribed length of buffer space between them, Carver leaned back a distance equal to Rachel’s forward movement. She was still acting like an agent, asking direct questions and expecting answers because of the juice the bureau carried.

“Why would you want his name? He no longer works here.”

“I don’t know. I just…”

Rachel was cornered. There was no good answer to the question, at least from Carver’s point of view. The question alone threw suspicion on our motives. But we got lucky when Chavez poked her head in through the door.

“So how are we doing in here?” she asked.

Carver kept his eyes on Rachel.

“We’re doing fine,” he said. “Are there any other questions I can answer?”

Still backpedaling, Rachel looked at me and I shook my head.

“I think I’ve seen all I need to see,” I said. “I appreciate the information and the tour.”

“Yes, thank you,” Rachel said. “Your facility is very impressive.”

“Then I’ll take you back up to the surface now and let you sit down with an account representative if you wish.”

Rachel got up and turned toward the door. I pushed back my chair and stood up. I thanked Carver again and reached across the table to shake his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Jack,” he said. “I hope to see you again.”

I nodded. I had made it to the first-name list.

“Me, too.”

The car was as hot as an oven when we got back into it. I quickly turned the key, cranked the air conditioning to high and lowered my window until the car started to cool.

“What do you think?” I asked Rachel.

“Let’s get out of here first,” she replied.

“Okay.”

The steering wheel burned my hands. Using just the heel of my left palm I backed out of the space. But I didn’t drive immediately to the exit. Instead I drove to the far corner of the lot and made a U-turn at the back of the Western Data building.

“What are you doing?” Rachel asked.

“I just wanted to see what was back here. We’re allowed. We’re prospective clients, remember?”

As we made the turn and headed toward the exit, I caught a passing glimpse of the rear of the building. More cameras. And there was an exit door and a bench beneath a small awning. On either side was a sand jar ashtray, and there, sitting on a bench, was the server engineer named Mizzou. He was smoking a cigarette.

“The smokers’ porch,” Rachel asked. “Satisfied?”

I waved to Mizzou through the open window and he nodded back. We headed toward the gate.

“I thought he was working in the server room. I saw him on Carver’s screen.”

“Well, when addiction calls…”

“But can you imagine having to come out here in the thick of the summer just to smoke? You’d get fried, even with that awning.”

“I guess that’s what they make SPF ninety for.”

I closed my window after I turned back out onto the main road. When we were no longer in view of Western Data I thought it was finally safe to ask my question again.

“So what do you think?”

“I think I almost blew it. Maybe I did.”

“You mean at the end? I think we’re fine. We were saved by Chavez. You just have to remember you no longer carry that badge that opens all doors and makes people quiver and answer your questions.”

“Thanks, Jack. I’ll remember that.”

I realized how callous I must have sounded.

“Sorry, Rachel. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay. I know what you meant. I’m just touchy because you’re right and I know it. I’m not what I was twenty-four hours ago. I guess I have to relearn my finesse. My days of bowling people over with the power and the might are gone.”

She looked out her window, so I couldn’t see her face.

“Look, right now, I don’t care about your finesse. What about your vibe back there? What do you think of Carver and everybody else? What do we do now?”

She turned back to me.

“I’m more interested in who I didn’t see than who I did see.”

“You mean Freddy?”

“And McGinnis. I think we have to find out who this Freddy who quit is and what the deal is with McGinnis.”

I nodded. We were on the same page.

“You think they’re connected, Freddy quitting and McGinnis not showing up?”

“We won’t know until we talk to them both.”

“Yeah, how do we find them? We don’t even know Freddy’s last name.”

She hesitated before answering.

“I could try to make some calls, see if anybody is still talking to me. I am sure that when they went in there last week with a warrant, they got a list of names of all employees. That would have been standard procedure.”