Perfect Justice

32.

BELINDA WAS INTRODUCING JONES to the computer setup in the Hatewatch office. “Now, I think this gizmo is the disk drive. …”

Jones waved her away. “Thanks, I can take it from here.” He booted up the computer and accessed the communications program stored on the hard drive. “I don’t suppose you know what your communications protocol is?”

“Well … actually, John handles most of the computer work.”

“No sweat. I’ll work it out.” He tapped a few more keys, then pulled up a blue screen with PROCOMM in big red letters. “Here we go.”

“I should warn you,” Belinda said. “We’ve tried to get documents from ASP before in litigation discovery. They claim they lost almost everything in a fire. They claim an electromagnetic discharge erased all their computer disks. To make a long story short, they never have anything you want.”

Jones noted. “So we won’t waste time asking them.”

“Maybe I’m not making myself clear. If they won’t produce the documents during a lawsuit, when a judge is breathing down their necks, I don’t think you’re going to find them in a computer database.”

“How much do you think it cost Dunagan to move all these men out here and set up that camp?” Jones said abruptly.

“I don’t know. Twenty, maybe thirty thousand dollars.”

“You think Dunagan has that much loot at his personal disposal?”

“I’d be very much surprised.”

“Then he had to take out a loan. And bank records can be accessed.”

“What good will that do you?”

“The loan records will tell me how much money they got, and who the sureties were. I can use that to trace credit records, for ASP and Dunagan and any other principals. Keep following those leads, and I’ll soon have a financial trail that will tell me who ASP is, how much money they have at their disposal, where they spend it, and what they spend it on.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. It’s time-consuming, but it works. And I can tie the financial records to parallel cities in newspaper and magazine databases. When I’m done, I’ll be able to give Ben a reasonably accurate account of every major ASP activity for the last three years.”

“You’re amazing.”

“Well, yes.” Jones punched a few more keys. “I need to know all the names ASP does business under, and all the officers who represent ASP. I’m going to enter a legal database.”

Belinda laid her hand on the terminal. “Oh, sorry. We don’t subscribe. Those pricey legal services aren’t in the Hatewatch budget.”

“They’re not in the Ben Kincaid budget, either. But I know a few tricks.”

“A few—” Belinda watched admiringly as Jones continued to work. “Wait a minute. This doesn’t involve anything illegal, does it?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Well … as an officer of the court, I suppose I should ask if this activity violates the lawyer’s Rules of Professional Conduct.”

Jones hit Enter and brought up the Secretary of State’s records on the Anglo-Saxon Patrol. “Beats me,” he answered. “I’m just a secretary. Excuse me. Executive assistant.”