Донна Эндрюс: Click here for murder

“That’s a relief,” Maude said. “I was worried he’d find something about you. ”

“I knew he wouldn’t,” I said. “I already scanned all Ray’s files, long before the police came. I’m impressed; Ray was very meticulous about security. ”

“And fortunately, since you control the system, you could have deleted anything if he hadn’t been.”

“Not safely,” I said. “There’s always a way to retrieve deleted data, if you want to spend enough time and effort. ”

“Okay, I know a deleted document isn’t really deleted,” Mvaude said. “But you could have created documents the same size and saved them over. ”

“And then I’d have to fake the file date,” I said. “And change a couple of logs that showed Yd done all this. And even if I did, these days you can examine a disk drive on a molecular level and retrieve every bit of data ever saved on it—not that the police are likely to have the time or money to do something like that. But it’s possible. ”

“I’m not sure I needed to know that,” Maude said. “I think I shall return to writing personal documents with pen and ink. ”

Click Here for Murder

MS

I fretted, wondering if I had overlooked something important in Ray’s files. Something that might give away more information than is safe if the police expert spotted it. Something we were all overlooking that would help the police solve Ray’s murder, if we brought it to their attention.

I was relieved when the police left. And even more relieved when Rim returned.

The police had come and gone while Tim

was down at the Violent Crimes Branch. That meant they didn’t have just Detective Stowers on the case, he thought. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

Maude bustled Tim into her office and shut the door. Unusual at Alan Grace.

“Won’t the staff wonder what secrets we’re discussing?” he asked, half-joking.

“I sent the staff home after the police finished interrogating them,” Maude said.

“That was nice,” Tim said. “They probably needed a break, after the police finished with them.”

“I confess, I wasn’t thinking about nice,” Maude said. “It wasn’t as if they were going to get any work done, and I didn’t think I could stand having them all around trading rumors and having hysterics.”

“You’ll get credit for being nice, anyway,” Tim said, with a faint smile.

“So what happened down at the Violent Crimes Branch?” Turing asked. “Do we know any more about Ray?”

“No,” Tim said. “In fact, I’d say we know less than we ever did.”

Donna Andrews

Mb

“I wish you’d refrain from being deliberately cryptic,” Maude said, sounding uncharacteristically impatient. “It’s been a trying day.”

“I don’t really know any more about Ray’s murder than I did before I went down there,” Tim said. “And there seems to be some question about who he really was.”

“You mean it might not have been Ray who was murdered?” Turing asked.

“No,” Tim said, controlling a shudder. “They had me ID the body.”

Against his will, the image filled his mind. He hadn’t looked at the face right off. Couldn’t look; couldn’t get beyond the right hand, not for several minutes.

When Tim was eight, he’d seen his grandmother in the funeral home, lying in the casket, and couldn’t get over the thought that she was just asleep. His mother and his aunt discussed how natural she looked, and argued gently over whether her glasses should be on her face or placed on her bosom. He’d watched Gram carefully, confident that any second she would open her eyes and offer her opinion. She looked that lifelike. He’d figured having seen Gram, and a few other relatives, he was prepared for what he’d see when he went to ID the body, and the only problem would be accepting that Ray was really dead.

But down at the morgue, looking at that hand, he’d known. Maybe it was something about the color, or the awkward angle—he still wasn’t sure. But he’d known beyond any doubt that the guy attached to that particular hand was stone-cold dead, and the longer he looked, the less he

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wanted to move his eyes up to the face and see who the dead guy really was. Because—

“It was him, definitely,’’ Tim said. “The guy we knew as Ray Santiago. Trouble is, the police seem to think Ray Santiago may not be his real name.”

Uhy would Ray lie about his identityf I

can think of a number of reasons, of course. But I have a hard time seeing any of them as something that could possibly have anything to do with Ray.

Perhaps it's some silly mistake. Perhaps Ray made an error when he wrote down the phone number for his family. But even if it’s an unlisted number, the police could get it.

Perhaps he was estranged from his family, and made up a fake address so no one would contact them.

Or perhaps he was an orphan, a foster child, and wanted, for some reason, to pretend that he had a family just like anyone else. I don't necessarily understand human psychology as well as I would like, but I think I can see why someone would do that.

Phis is ridiculous. I can keep thinking of more possibilities, each more improbable than the last. That the police killed Ray and are pretending he's an imposter to cover up their crime. That his identity is fake because he’s in the witness protection program. Ridiculous. What we need right now are answers, not more improbable theories.

“1 don’t understand how this happened,’' Maude was saying. “You ran a background check on Ray, right?"

I could see through the camera that Tim looked uncomfortable.

*

u Yeah, but a background check is only going to find so much," he began.

Donna Andrews

MS

“If it doesn't even find that the man’s an imposter, then what good is it?” Maude snapped.

“Let Tim explain,” I said.

Tim looked down at his hands for a few moments. Then he looked up again, glanced at Maude, and fixed his eyes on my camera.

“Turing, I think maybe I blew the background check. Remember, when we hired Ray, I was still taking the PI class. I’d never done a background check before. So I got some help from someone who knew a lot more than I did. ”

“Who was that?” Maude asked.

“Ray,” Tim said.

Maude started to say something, then put her hand over her mouth as if she needed to physically restrain herself.

“I know it sounds stupid now, but it seemed so logical then,” Tim continued. “When he was here for the final interview, you had me talk to Ray, so I could get the information I needed for the background check. And I was nervous because I’d never done it before, only learned about it in class. And we started talking about that, and he said not to worry, he coidd show me a few things that would help me—stuff about using the Internet to do most of the checking. We found a phone jack, plugged in his laptop, and he showed me all kinds of stuff. Used himself as an example, and showed me how to do a credit check, a Nexis search — everything. And he e-mailed me bookmarks for all the sites he used, and printed out everything and explained it all, while I took notes. It was great. ”

“But he was running the show, ” Maude said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it mattered, ” he said. “I mean, I was right there, looking over his shoulder, every minute. I saw where he

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went, what he typed in, what came back. It was all okay. ”

“But he was driving,” Maude said. “He chose the sites; he defined the searches. Of course he wouldn't show you anything that would prove him a fraud. Hell, for all we know, he might have rigged it so when it looked like he was going to the credit agencies, he was calling up a faked page from his hard drive. Can you say for sure he didn’t?”