Chain of Evidence

CHAPTER 29

Over the course of the transition between day and night tours, detectives worked poorly, sometimes falling asleep at their desks, in the middle of interrogations, or even during phone calls. Moods went sour, and tempers flared. Haite’s unit, including Dart and Kowalski, had just switched to the graveyard shift, and walking through CAPers was like entering an area laden with land mines. To make matters worse, the building was going to shit; a leak that no one seemed able to stop ran a slow but constant drip into a five-gallon white plastic container in the far corner by the coffee machine. The uninterrupted sound of it was a source of constant irritation, covered only by the drone of activity to which Dart and his colleagues had long since become accustomed.

Dart cleared a domestic stabbing in the north end-a black woman had killed her drunken lover. He felt lucky because it was an early call, eight-thirty at night, and that took his name off the phone list. The rest of the night would be spent writing up an easy report, speaking with the on-call prosecuting attorney, and waiting for sunrise to free him.

He was midway into his report when the familiar banter inside CAPers slowly trickled down to nothing and the room was silent. This took a moment to register, at which point Dart looked up and spun around to see Ginny Rice standing in the CAPers’ doorway. Everyone in the division had closely followed the drama of their split, and her unexpected appearance had quieted his colleagues.

She wore a pair of Gap khakis and a white shirt under a green sweater. She had two earrings in her left ear and a small gold chain worn as a necklace.

Dart stood and walked over to greet here, doing so in as quiet a voice as possible. “Hey there,” he said.

“Hey, Dart. Somewhere where we can talk?”

He lead Ginny to the crib and sat down with her at the scarred table, where a copy of Guns and Ammo lay open.

“I may be in some trouble,” she said. Up close, she appeared dazed, or overtired. Worn at the edges.

“What kind of trouble?”

“It may be nothing.”

He reached over and took her hand, a mass of confusion. He wondered how, after the pain she had caused him, he could feel so instantly comfortable with her.

She said, “The new policies. Remember? I accessed billing-” Twice Dart had covered for her, had helped her out of a legal knothole, only to have her caught hacking a third time. That had brought a federal conviction, something that Dart could not help with. Now he found himself feeling guilty about having asked her to do this.

“It turns out, there are dozens of new accounts, all paid for by fund transfers from the same account. It’s a Union Bank corporate account.”

“Dozens?”

She nodded. “All males, and though I haven’t confirmed all of them, I know that at least three have wives who were kicked by the system as victims of abuse.”

The tests, Dart thought. He said nothing.

“I think what happened was that I tripped a security gate going into Union Trust.”

“You broke into a bank.”

“Electronically,” she said, adding defensively. “How else could I identify who paid for all this insurance?”

“It was a perk,” he said, guessing that the insurance coverage had been used as an incentive to gain test subjects.

“What?”

“Never mind,” he said.

“I thought I had a hole in the firewall,” she explained. “I thought I had a clean entry. But maybe I stepped on something getting out. I’m not sure. All I know is that my software detected surveillance-”

“They watched you?” he exclaimed.

She nodded. “Chances are, they know what I went after.”

“And did you come straight here?”

Her face tightened. “I shouldn’t have done that, should I?”

“You never know,” Dart said. “It’s doubtful they would have put you under physical surveillance. If it was federal-”

“They would have busted me,” she answered. “You see?” She craned forward, “That’s one reason I came straight here. I’m hoping-hell, I’m praying-that maybe you, HPD, has some kind of white-collar crime thing in place. Because other-wise-”

“It’s private,” he answered.

“Yeah, private. And shit, they could sue the pants off me. I’d rather face you guys than a corporation any day.”

“They can sue you either way.” He added, “They won’t, though.” Corporations rarely sued. That brought the case public, and exposed their system as vulnerable to electronic attack. They preferred keeping things as quiet as possible, often dropping all charges in exchange for a gag order against the hacker. On occasion the hacker got a job offer from that very same company. He reminded, “And you wouldn’t rather face us. You’re on probation. A second conviction-”

“And I do time. I know.” She crossed her arms and shuddered. “I’m scared to death, Dartelli,” She said, “But hey, I got the name of the company for you. At least I didn’t come out empty-handed.”

“The people buying these policies?”

“Paid out of a corporate account under the name Roxin Incorporated.”

Bud Gorman would be able to answer questions about Roxin. Dart wrote the name down.

She said, “I thought you’d like that.”

Dart looked up from his notebook, still angry with her. “Why, Gin? Why take the chance?”

“What, you’re going to get mad at me for helping you?”

“I appreciate the help. It’s not that-”

She interrupted. “I want us back together.”

The building was heated by forced air, and it was the only sound in the room as Dart averted his eyes back to his notebook, and Ginny scratched at some epoxy stuck to the table.

“I miss you,” she said.

“I miss you too,” he answered honestly. “You’re involved with someone,” he reminded her.

“From what I hear, we both are.”

“Yes, I am too. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“I am.”

“Abby Lang,” she said.

He had nothing to say. Ginny had left him. What he did now was his business, and his alone.

He said, “Companies have their own computer security systems, isn’t that right? They monitor their own systems for breaches. This bank, for instance.”

“It’s subcontracted usually. Yeah.”

“So if anyone knows about you, it’s them-this private firm or the bank itself.”

“I did it from home,” she said, as always, two steps ahead of him. “All my stuff is on my home machine.”

“Can they trace it back to you?”

“Depends how good they are,” she replied. “How long they were on to me. I had the call switched through New Haven and routed through a Yale web site. Normally they wouldn’t be able to break that, but I was on there pretty long. They might have. Depends.”

“And if they did?”

“They could act, or they could sit on me and go for a second hit. Two or three hits are more convincing … easier to use against me.”

“But you will not go back there.”

“No.” She chuckled nervously. “Not likely.”

“So we wait and see,” he offered. She nodded. “Are you okay?”

“Worried.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“If they’re private, they might watch me, something like that. I think that’s what’s bugging me the most-the idea of that. You know, surveillance.”

“They might,” he admitted. “But if they misstep,” he reminded her, “then you can turn right around and sue them-and that just might get the charges dropped.”

She nodded, but her fear was palpable.

“It’s a thought,” he said. “If you suspect something like that-electronic surveillance, anything like that-you should let me know. Maybe we can turn the cards on them.” He asked, “Are you okay?” She looked like hell.

Again she nodded, but it was all show. “What about it?” she asked. “What about us?”

“Zeller used to say to me, ‘You come to a fork in the road, take it,’” Dart answered.

It elicited a smile from her. A soft laugh. Dart coughed.

“I guess that’s where I am,” he said, “at that fork in the road.”

She pursed her lips. “I understand.”

“I’m not saying no.”

“I understand.”

“Abby may try to reconcile with her ex. If she does, and it works … Who knows?”

“And you’re all right with that?” she asked incredulously.

“It’s a unique relationship,” he answered. “We’re very much in the here-and-now.”

“Well, I can’t say that I’m not jealous.”

“Tomorrow is a long way off, where Abby and I are concerned.”

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. He let go of her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Yeah,” answered Joe Dart. “Me too.”

Dart called Bud Gorman at home and caught him before he went to bed.

“I need yet another favor,” Dart said cautiously, testing if he had asked for too much lately. Referring to the speeding tickets, he added, “I’m going to owe you a hell of a lot of fixes.”

“Screw fixing the speeding tickets. I’m getting a Jeep. I hit a piece of metal yesterday-one little piece of shit on the center line. I was only doing about seventy …” Probably in a thirty-five zone, Dart thought. “Thing had such low clearance, it jumped up and punctured my gas tank. Lucky I didn’t flame out. Shopped Jeeps this afternoon. It’s not safe out there.”

“It’s a company called Roxin Incorporated.”

“It’s called Roxin Laboratories, Inc.,” Gorman corrected. “It’s a biotech, genetics firm. I take it you got the e-mail I sent you.”

Genetics? Dart thought. “But how do you know-?”

“Did you get the e-mail or not?” Gorman interrupted.

“I haven’t checked today. It’s swing shift. I’m brain dead.” Genetics, he thought again. Roxin Laboratories, Inc., had purchased medical insurance policies for known sex offenders-protecting themselves in case the test program went badly. And it’s gone badly, Dart thought.

“Brain dead, huh? Well, come alive for a minute, ’cause what I’m talking about is the Proctor Securities client list you asked for. I turned up every check written to the company for the last twenty-four months. Posted the list onto CompuServe for you.”

“But Roxin?” Dart again began but was immediately interrupted.

“Is on the list, Joe. Proctor Securities is on retainer to them. They’re a big client. I placed them in the top ten of my Proctor list.”

“Oh, my God,” Dart blurted out. Zeller would have discovered Roxin while working for Proctor. It fit.

“You want a credit run on Roxin?” Gorman offered. “No problem.”

Dart couldn’t get a word out. His mind cluttered with a dozen thoughts.

“Joe? You there?” Gorman added, “Know anybody who can get me a good deal on a Jeep?”