Cool in Tucson (31 page)

“Oh?  Well…why did you call?”  Phelps’s voice had frosted over; he didn’t like being interrupted.

“I was hoping to find somebody who remembered the prisoner.  Anyone who dealt with him and could give me some, you know,
insight
into his, um, personality.  How he got along while he was there, who his friends were.  Anything like that.”

There was a pause before Phelps said, “Well.”   Then a longer pause until his deep voice, now mournful, said, “You know, we have over three thousand inmates incarcerated here, coming and going constantly.” 

“I know.  But the guards work certain buildings, don’t they?  They must get to know—”

“They’re not allowed to fraternize in any way, ma’am.”

Sarah opened her mouth, closed it again, took a deep breath and asked the warden’s assistant, “So you don’t think you could find anyone there who might remember Adolph Alvin Perkins?” 

“I think that would be highly unlikely, Ma’am.”

“I see.  Well…thanks for your time, Deputy Phelps.”  Sarah hung up and spun around on her chair, muttering dark oaths.  Through the open door of her cubicle, on the second turn, she caught the level eye of Kyle Ost, a Gang detective who had just walked in and was standing by his desk looking cheerfully disreputable, wearing a black T-shirt with a portrait of a vilely-grinning pirate and the message, “Anything you want from shipping?” 

“How you doin’, Sarah?”  He re-settled his reversed baseball cap.  “You look like your blood pressure just spiked.”

“I just got treated like the village idiot by a total stranger.”

“Pass it along,” Ost said.  “Best way to get rid of shit is let it run downhill.”

Life lessons from a gang squad member, what next?  She went and got a Styrofoam cup half full of almost-acceptable coffee from the break room and sipped it while she dialed the support staff phone.  “Scott Tracy, please,” she said, feeling good about remembering his name for once, till the girl who had answered the phone reminded her, for the third time this week, that his name was Tracy Scott.  When his uppity drawl finally sounded in her ear she said, “Genius Geek, I’ll bet you’re the resident expert on how the State of Arizona software works, right?”

“Well, I exhibit varying degrees of brilliance, depending on the day.  And the night before, actually.”  He snickered.  “What do you need?”

“I need you to evaluate a prison record.”

“Evaaaaluate, omigod, a task worthy of my mettle at last.  Lay it on me, what do you need?” 

“I’m looking for something I can’t quite describe, you know what I mean?”

“Um, no.”

“I’m fishing for information, how’s that?”

“Usually called surfing, but okay, what information?”

“I’ve got this homicide victim who’s a known drug pusher, the records show him getting released from Florence last February.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But a couple of things about him seem, uh…offbeat.  So I was wondering, could you take a look at his prison record and tell me if anything about it seems out of line?” 

“You mean with his sentence?  I wouldn’t know—”

“No, GeeGee, with the records, the records.  I just want you to look at the records for Adolph Alvin Perkins and tell me if you see anything that looks…I don’t know…odd.  I told you, I’m fishing.  Surfing, whatever.” 

“Oh-
kay
,” Genius Geek didn’t bother to hide his suspicion that Detective Burke was a few grains short of a spoonful.  “I’ll, um, call you back, okay?” 

“Good.”  She hung up, re-checked her e-mail but found none of the messages she was waiting for.  Read through her crime scene notes again, glancing at the clock every few seconds. 
I should have
asked him how long it would take.  Now I don’t know
when to start complaining.
  She was considering one more cup of bad coffee when the phone rang.  Tracy Scott’s boyish voice, a notch higher than before, said, “Well,
this
is funny.  The DLMs are all the same.”

“Oh?  What’s a DLM?”

“Date last modified.  It’s a marker that’s hard-wired into the entry so people can’t tinker with the records.  But it looks like somebody tinkered with this one anyway.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Normally a prisoner’s record gets added to each time his status changes—when he enters the system, or gets sent to the hospital, or moves to a different wing, or gets paroled.  Every time anything changes, he gets a new entry in his record.  We keep it right up to date because wardens, doctors, attorneys, everybody in the system needs to know these things.  So the entries almost always have a DLM the same day of the status change or the day after.  But Perkins’ records all got put in at once, eight entries showing when he entered, went to the hospital, moved to a different cell, got a new cellmate, got a demerit, was assigned to the laundry, when he applied for parole, and when he got out.  All that information was entered last February twenty-second, within two minutes either side of two A.M.  Two days after he actually
got
out.”

“Uh-
huh
.  Well…why would that happen?”

“I have no idea.  It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it.”

“How come my report didn’t show that?”

“Oh, well, you just put in a standard report request I expect, an e-mail asking for his records? 

“Actually we searched on his fingerprints.”

“Well, there you go, you got the canned report the system kicks out—when Perkins was sent to prison, what his crime was, when he got out.  I went to the database and did an operator’s query, asking for all the entries pertaining to Adolph Alvin Perkins.  The output isn’t pretty, but if you know how to read it, it gives you the straight scoop.” 

“I see.  A nether world of information known only to the righteous.”

“The righteous, how perceptive you are.  What I don’t understand is how you knew there was something skanky if you don’t even know your way around the system?”

“I just got a feeling there was something funny about this guy and I decided to start with his prison records.”

“Shee.  That’s a killer instinct you got there.  You figure out how to burn
that
onto a CD and I want to manage your world-wide distribution, OK?  Sarah,” he said, clearly paying her a rare compliment, “you could be a db auditor!”

“Wow,” Sarah said, wishing she had any clue what he was talking about.  “Does your query show who entered the information?” 

“Has to.  Yes.  It’s not a full user name, though, just a login ID, usually three initials and one number.  This one is, uh… EAG2.”   

“So who goes with those initials?”

“Uh…I don’t know.  Which is kind of surprising but it could be a temp, I guess.  You could probably find out by calling the prison.”

“Well…I don’t seem to have the skill set that gets information out of prisons.   Do you know anybody on the Florence support staff you could ask?”

“Let’s see.  Oh, well, there’s Stevie…uh…Ost?  Yost?—I’ll think of it in a minute.  He used to work here.  I’ll e-mail him and get back to you.  While I’m at it would you like me to do a systems search and see what other records have been entered recently by EAG2?”

“Oh, that’s a brilliant idea.  You really are a Genius Geek, aren’t you?”

“Between us girls it’s really not rocket science.  You want to come down some time and let me show you how to do some of this stuff yourself?”

“Oh, sure I’ll do that.  When pigs fly.” 

“What, you don’t like to hack around?”

“I have to take anger management classes every time they upgrade the software.”

“Huh.  I thought all cops these days were card-carrying nerds.”

“Some of the new kids are.  I still like people stuff.  Eyes and ears on the street.”

“Aw.  Maybe you should start a club for geezers, get together and schmooze about the good old days with carbon paper.”

“Tell you what, GeeGee, I think I’ll hang up while we’re still friends.” 

S
he pulled out the bottom left drawer of her desk, propped her feet on the front edge, and sat back with her arms crossed behind her head.  The workstations around her were empty and quiet, and gradually the talk and clatter of the Gang detectives in the next pod and the Aggravated Assault squad beyond them faded into white noise.  Isolated in her own mental space, she sat staring at her desk pad until the lines on the calendar blurred. 

Somebody fiddled with Ace Perkins’ records
.   The information carried a satisfying buzz, like finding the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle under the sofa. 
Why would anybody do that?
  From the start, this victim’s appearance and personal habits had seemed out of sync with his life.  A street dealer should have been scruffier, messier, have a loud wife and smelly brats, or sordid habits and ugly pals.  Ace Perkins was too scrubbed up.

This new piece fit the pattern of nothing-quite-right.  “Within two minutes either
side of two A.M.,”
Scott had said
.  You work odd hours, EAG2, who are you?
Her mind sizzled with questions.

Her phone rang.  Tracy Scott’s voice had risen another notch.  “EAG2 doesn’t show up on any other records in my systems search.  You got that, Shylock? 
EAG2 didn’t
enter any other records
.”

“I hear you.”

“Good.  Also I just got this answer to my e-mail.”  He cleared his throat.  “Quote: ‘There’s only been three of us doing data entry since the first of the year, and none of us log in as EAG2.’  Unquote.”

“Well, now,” Sarah said, “isn’t that special?”

“Fact.  More fun than a weasel in a mousetrap.”

“Tracy,” Sarah said after a little pause, “what’s your hunch about this?”

“Offhand, I’d say the system’s been majorly borked.” 

“Which would translate into English as—?”

“Breached.  Screwed over.  VY-OH-LATE-ED.”

“Dear me.  Right here in the Old Pueblo.”

“How much do you like me now?”

“Genius Geek, write the commendation letter of your dreams and I’ll sign it.”  She hung up and pushed her desk drawer shut in one decisive move, jumped up and began digging through the box of small items she had checked out of evidence earlier.  The keys to Perkins’ apartment were in a little manila envelope tucked into the corner of the box, right where she’d left them.  She dropped them in her purse and fished out her own car keys, put on her weapon and checked herself out on the duty board.

I can pick up the warrant for the bank on my way
.  Heat was already rising in waves off Stone Avenue and the tires made a sticky hissing sound on the asphalt.  Fidgeting in the check-in line at the underground parking garage near the courthouse, she tapped her foot, drummed on the steering wheel. 
Rotten waste of time
.  But there were no available spots on the street.  She pushed her way through the usual crowds, grabbed the closing doors on an almost-full elevator, jumped out on third floor and trotted into a judge’s office to get the signed search warrant she had requested for Ace’s bank records.  Another jumpy wait in the echoing marble hall for a down elevator and finally she was back in her car, rolling up the parking ramp, damning the stupid fumbling for change of the driver ahead of her.  Finally at the gate, she looked at the ticket and saw that only nineteen minutes had elapsed since she checked in. 
Maybe I better lighten up a little
. 

Paseo Redondo had more trees and felt cooler, and the traffic was slower.  Sarah fed the meter, put gloves on outside the door and walked in slowly, luxuriating in the silence and the sharper focus she got by being alone in Ace’s apartment.