Authors: Jeffery Deaver
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
Page 136
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.
Page 137
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.”
“Not a problem,” the young officer said noncommittally, though Sachs could see he was grateful. He has everything but confidence, she thought.
Whitcomb left, and the two officers said good-bye to Sterling.
Then the CEO touched her arm gently. “There’s something I want to say, Detective.”
She turned to the man, who stood with his arms at his side, feet spread, looking up at her with his intense green eyes. It was impossible to look away from his focused, mesmerizing gaze.
“I’m not going to deny that I’m in the knowledge service provider field to make money. But I’m also in it to improve our society. Think about what we do. Think about the kids who’re going to get decent clothes and nice Christmas presents for the first time because of the money their parents save, thanks to SSD. Or about the young marrieds who can now find a bank that’ll give them a mortgage for their first house because SSD can predict that in fact they’ll be acceptable credit risks. Or the identity thieves that’re caught because our algorithms see a glitch in your credit card spending patterns. Or the RFID tags in a child’s bracelet or wristwatch that tell the parents where they are every minute of the day. The intelligent toilets that diagnose diabetes when you don’t even know you’re at risk.
“And take your line of work, Detective. Say you’re investigating a murder. There’re traces of cocaine on a knife, the murder weapon. Our PublicSure program can tell you who with a cocaine arrest in his background used a knife in the commission of a felony any time in the past twenty years, in any geographic area you like, and whether they were right- or left-handed and what their shoe sizes are.
Before you even ask, their fingerprints pop up on the screen, along with their pictures, and details of their M.O.’s, distinguishing characteristics, disguises they’ve used in the past, distinctive voice patterns and a dozen more attributes.
“We can also tell you who bought that particular brand of knife—or maybe even that very knife. And possibly we know where the purchaser was at the time of the crime and where he is now. If the system can’t find him, it can tell you the percentage likelihood of his being at a known accomplice’s house and display
their
fingerprints and distinguishing characteristics. And this whole bundle of data comes to you in a grand total of about twenty seconds.
“Our society needs help, Detective. Remember the broken windows? Well, SSD is here to help…” He
Page 138
smiled. “That’s the wind-up. Here’s the pitch. I’m asking that you be discreet in the investigation. I’ll do whatever I can—especially if it seems this is somebody from SSD. But if rumors get started about breaches here, careless security, our competitors and critics would jump on that. And jump hard. It could badly interfere with SSD’s job to fix as many windows as we can and make this world better. Are we in agreement?”
Amelia Sachs suddenly felt bad about this duplicitous mission, planting the seeds to encourage their perp to go after the trap without telling Sterling. She struggled to maintain eye contact as she said, “I think we’re in complete agreement.”
“Wonderful. Now, Martin, please show our guests out.”
Broken windows?”
Sachs was telling Rhyme about the SSD logo.
“I like that.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Think about it. It’s a metaphor for what we do here. We find the small bits of evidence and that leads us to the big answer.”
Sellitto nodded toward Rodney Szarnek, sitting in the corner, oblivious to everything but his computer and still whistling. “Kid in the T-shirt’s got the trap in place. And he’s trying to hack in now.” He called,
“Any luck, Officer?”
“Heh—those folk know what they’re doing. But I’ve got a dozen tricks up my sleeve.”
Sachs told them that the head of security didn’t believe that anyone could hack into innerCircle.
“Only makes the game sweeter,” Szarnek said. He finished another coffee and resumed the faint whistling.
Sachs then told them about Sterling, the company and how the data-mining process worked. Despite what Thom had explained yesterday and despite their preliminary research, Rhyme hadn’t realized how extensive the industry was.
“He acting fishy?” Sellitto said. “This Sterling?”
Rhyme grunted at the, to him, pointless question.
“No. He’s cooperative. And, good for us, he’s a true believer. Data’s his god. Anything that jeopardizes his company he wants to root out.”
Sachs then described the tight security at SSD, how very few people had access to all three data pens, and how it was impossible to steal data even if you got inside. “They’ve had one intruder—a
Page 139
reporter—who was just after a story, not even stealing trade secrets. He did time and his career is over with.”
“Vindictive, hm?”
Sachs considered this. “No. I’d say
protective
… Now, as for employees: I interviewed most of them who had access to people’s dossiers. There are a few that weren’t accounted for yesterday afternoon.
Oh, and I asked if they log downloads; they don’t. And we’ll be getting a list of clients who’ve bought data about the vics and fall guys.”
“But the important thing is you let them know about an investigation and gave them all the name Myra Weinburg.”
“Right.”
Then Sachs took a document from her briefcase. Arthur’s dossier, she explained. “Thought it might be helpful. If nothing else, you might be interested in it. Seeing what your cousin’s been up to.” Sachs removed the staple and mounted it on the reading frame near Rhyme—a device that turned pages for him.
He glanced at the document. Then back to the charts.
“Don’t you want to look through it?” she asked.
“Maybe later.”
She returned to her briefcase. “Here’s the list of SSD employees who have access to the dossiers—they’re called ‘closets.’”
“As in secrets?”
“Right. Pulaski’s out checking their alibis. We have to go back to talk to the two technical managers but here’s what we have so far.” On a whiteboard she wrote their names and some comments.
Andrew Sterling, President, Chief Executive Officer
Alibi—on Long Island, to be verified
Sean Cassel, Director of Sales and Marketing
No alibi
Wayne Gillespie, Director of Technical Operations
No alibi
Samuel Brockton, Director, Compliance Department
Alibi—hotel records confirm presence in Washington
Peter Arlonzo-Kemper, Director of Human Resources
Alibi—with wife, to be verified
Steven Shraeder, Technical Service and Support Manager, day shift
To be interviewed
Faruk Mameda, Technical Service and Support Manager, night shift
To be interviewed
Client of SSD (?)
Awaiting list from Sterling
“Mel?” Rhyme called. “Check NCIC and the department.”
Page 140
Cooper ran the names through the National Crime Information Center and the NYPD equivalent, as well as the Justice Department’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
“Wait… may have a hit here.”
“What is it?” Sachs asked, moving forward.
“Arlonzo Kemper. Juvie in Pennsylvania. Assault twenty-five years ago. The record’s still sealed.”
“The age would be right. He’s about thirty-five. And he’s light-skinned.” Sachs nodded at the 522
profile chart.
“Well, get the record unsealed. Or at least find out if it’s the same guy.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Cooper typed some more.
“Any references to the others?” Rhyme nodded toward the suspect list.
“Nope. Just him.”
Cooper ran various state and federal database searches and checked some professional organizations.
The tech shrugged. “Went to UC-Hastings. No connection with Pennsylvania that I can find. Seems like a loner: Aside from college credentials, his only organization is the National Association of Human Resource Professionals. He was on the technology task force two years ago but hasn’t done much since.
“Okay, here’s what they have on the juvie. He attacked another kid in a detention home… Oh.”
“Oh what?”
“It’s not him. No hyphen. The name’s different. The juvenile was first name Arlonzo, last name Kemper.” He glanced at the chart. “He’s ‘Peter,’ last name ‘Arlonzo-Kemper.’ I typed it in wrong. If I’d included the hyphen, it wouldn’t have shown up at all. Sorry.”