Falling Down (16 page)

“I have my own pool.”

“Your own pool? How
fan
tastic. You can get out of bed and run down there, dive right in even before you're awake?”

“Sure.”

“At four this afternoon, come to Ana Luisa's swim meet.”

“I didn't realize she was in school here,” I said, fumbling.

“She's not. It's a private swim club. Just for girls who have learning disabilities. A special needs high school. Today, our team has a swim meet with a Catholic high school. Please come.”

“I think I can,” I said.

“Here's a map. Here's the pool. We'll see you at four.”

“C
aptain?” Kligerman asked. “You want to start off?”

Bob Gates chuckled.

“She could tell me my computer was directly connected to the moon and I wouldn't have any idea if it was true or not. It's your show, Jordan.”

Now there's a verbal tell.

Gates was playing the executive manager role, although not like some chiefs might play it, as a bumpkin who knew nothing about computers. Gates might know a whole lot about computers, but that wasn't his issue here. Gates wanted to see how Kligerman dealt with me, which told me, here's the real tell, Gates hadn't really made up his mind that Kligerman was actually going to be promoted to captain.

“So, Laura,” Kligerman said. “May I call you Laura?”

I nodded.

“Your résumé, mmm, I guess this twenty-two-page document you sent us is a few streets ahead of being a résumé. You've been working with computer crimes for about ten years? Give or take?”

“You could see it that way,” I said. “But since computer crimes have morphed so quickly, especially in the past four years, you'd be better informed if you didn't try to fit things into a time frame, but into categories.”

“Such as?” Kligerman said. Rifling through his pa
pers. “Credit card theft, for example? Or what? That's the key to this preliminary interview. How would you organize these new criminal activities?”

And in that instant I just
knew
how little Kligerman actually understood about computer crimes. I cut my eyes to Gates just in time to see him cutting
his
eyes back and forth between me and Kligerman.

“Starting with credit cards,” I said. “Most people don't bother with that anymore unless they're hacking into a major database and stealing thousands, probably tens of thousands of credit card numbers. But the truth about credit cards is that some people, some really clever people, don't even need to steal card numbers. They steal information. Computer crimes is all about stealing and dealing information.”

Kligerman started to uncap his Mont Blanc pen to make a note, but caught himself and fiddled with the pen, a distraction as he thought through a question.

“Yes, of course, Laura. We know that. Like all law enforcement agencies, we have all kinds of databases. Our own, for Pima County. The sheriff's department has theirs. And a lot of other people.”

“The G,” I said.

“The G?” Kligerman said. “Oh, you mean, The Man. Like what we call the feebs, chief,” he said to Gates. “Except some people don't say The Man, it's just the G these days.”

“We're our own G,” Gates said to me.

“Of course,” I said. “But on the largest scale possible, the Homeland Security mess, there are so many federal databases that partially duplicate information, or don't even talk to other databases. I have a friend who works for U.S. Customs, down in Nogales. She tells me stories….”

But I didn't want to share her down-to-earth curses about Homeland Security.

“So,” Kligerman said. “When the city of Tucson authorized us to create a special Computer Crimes Division—”

“Department,” Gates said. “Not a whole division.”

“Of course. Department, it doesn't really matter what we call it, though. Right? Anyway”—rifling his papers—“we've looked at a few hundred resumes, contacted Private Investigators in Phoenix, Los Angeles, a few other cities, trying to get a handle on what we'd need to set up. Laura, did you know that a lot of MBAs are hiring out to PI firms?”

“Because these young MBA kids know a lot about computers,” I said. “And about computer searches and coding.”

“Yes. Well. When we looked here, in Tucson, almost everybody we talked to gave us the name of the best person for the job. For our job. You. Some people tell us, you're one of the very first Tucsonans with a PI license who uses the term Computer Forensics? Not crime scene forensics, or post mortems, although I understand that you've also been hired from time to time to shoot crime scene videos. But Computer Forensics. We hadn't even thought of calling our department anything but Computer Crimes. Computer Forensics, now, that puts us on some kind of cutting edge technology.”

“It's just a language thing,” I said. “You could just as easily call it digital monkey business.”

Gates laughed, a mouth-wide-open laugh. Kligerman smiled and nodded.

“I have a question,” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“Do you have names of suspected drug smugglers?”

“Yes. That will be supplied to you, along with a list of suspect bank accounts, both here and offshore.”

“No,” I said. “Do you have names of anybody who employs drug mules?”

“That's just a detail,” Kligerman said.

“Anybody who uses teenagers as drug mules.”

His body stiffened, even Gates sat up straighter in his chair.

“Where are we going with this?”

“Something personal,” I said.

“Well. Not many teenagers have bank accounts. And our plan is to have you tracing financial records.”

“You
don't
have these names?” I said.

“Jordan doesn't work the streets,” Gates said. “But I'll have somebody look into teenage drug mules. If that's what it will take to get you working for us.”

“Yes. It
will
take that.”

“Deal.”

“Sure,” Kligerman said. “I'll get a list of TPD personnel for that.”

“I want somebody specific.”

“Who?”

“Christopher Kyle.”

“I don't see why not,” Kligerman said finally. “Bob?”

“No problem. I'll get Chris on board today.”

Another tell. Without any body language or verbal inflection, Gates just told me that even Kligerman didn't know I'd been hired to find a bad cop.

“Thank you,” I said.

“So. If I've got this right, Laura,” Kligerman said, “you don't limit evidence-searching to crime scenes or autopsy rooms. You look on the Internet.”

“Actually,” I said, “I start by looking inside computers. All kinds of things are saved on hard drives. Even when people think they've deleted something, it rarely occurs to them that all the information still exists on the hard drive.”

“Whoa,” Gates said. “I delete all my email. I clean out my browser cache regularly. Once a week I bounce all the cookies I've accumulated that I don't want. But do I understand you right? I've deleted them, but actually I haven't?”

“No, you haven't,” Kligerman said.

“Explain that to me.”

“Well,” Kligerman said, “there are these traces. On your hard drive.”

“So?”

“People can look at these traces, they can read them. Not the whole deleted email message, say, but most of it. Laura? That's pretty much it, right?”

I stood up. Surprised them both, they stood up also, maybe they thought I was going to do some visual aids.
But,
I thought,
this asshole in his fifteen-hundred-dollar suit would be my boss and he doesn't even know what he's talking about
. I thought about saying goodbye, caught a crinkle in Gates's eyes. Cocked his head, an inch to the left, nodding to himself, and then
he actually winked at me
.

I sat down.

“Think of it this way,” I said to Gates. Kligerman moving his chair, so it appeared I was actually talking more to him. I didn't care. “Any digital file is like a long, long bracelet, say you've got a thousand beads strung one after another on a piece of wire.”

“That's the best damn analogy I've ever heard, Laura. Good. Really good.”

“Except,” I said, “when you think you've deleted that whole string of beads, you've probably just deleted or moved the very first bead on the string. And the first bead is like an index page at the back of the book. Except here, it's the first thing in the file. And it tells me exactly what's in the rest of the bracelet, which is usually almost one hundred percent recoverable. Just a matter of having the right software to look at the hard drive.”

“And we'll buy that software,” Kligerman said. “When I set up the department, my budget will have money to buy all the software we need.”

What crap,
I thought.

I don't need this job. I don't need this guy who thinks that computer hard drive decoding software is something you go down to find at Office Max or CompUSA. These are the moments where I'm not good with people, I'm just not good with social smiling when I'm seething inside. But I'd worked hard at just doing my old mantra, taking deep breaths, counting to myself until I tamped
the anger back into its box. Usually, the anger came out of something unconnected, now I'd learned how to focus on my goals.

“Okay,” I said. “I'm in.”

“You'd probably like to see the facility space,” Kligerman said. “There's not much in the space yet, we're just setting up the cubicles. I've barely moved into the corner office. But you could choose where you'd like to sit.”

“No,” I said. Calm as I could be. “My first condition is that I work in my own space. With my own people.”

“Not a problem,” Kligerman said. “Give us a list of names, we'll check.”

“When you hire me, you hire my reputation. Who I hire is none of your business. I'm a licensed private investigator. I specialize in computer forensics. I have four full-time staff, any number of part-timers. It all depends on the contract.”

“Oh, yes, salary.”

“I don't work for wages. We'll draw up a contract. You tell me what you want done, I give you the price.”

“What's your normal fee?” Gates kept his hand on Kligerman's dollars.

“Depends. All I know so far, you want me to investigate bank records. Usually, a job like that ranges up into high five or low six figures.”

“You get over one hundred thousand dollars for one job?” Kligerman was somewhere between incredulous and seriously impressed. “You rock, girl.”

“If the job takes a week, you pay the fee. If it takes two years, same fee, unless we renegotiate. I don't guarantee that I, personally, will do all the work. But I'll be your contact for anything. But. I will
not
be on salary. Deal?”

“Deal,” Kligerman said. Without hesitation, his deep brown eyes sparkling, his lower jaw shifting forward and backward, small muscles rippling at his temples, like tectonic plates, as though he'd seen the future and it was an earthquake of personal publicity. We shook hands.

“Come meet three of my people,” he said. Pressed a button on an intercom, didn't say anything, just beeped, I could hear the target phone system beep somewhere in another room. A door opened and three young people entered.

“Folks,” he said, “this is Laura Winslow.”

A young couple immediately stepped forward, right to the edge of my chair, thrust their hands out to me.

“I'm Heather Celli,” the woman said. “I'm Casey Celli,” the guy said, “geez, we've heard so much about you, this is a privilege, Miss Winslow.”

“Thanks,” I said. Wondering how such nice kids knew my reputation. “Just call me Laura. Please. Just Laura.”

“Yes, Miss Winslow.” Like Bobbsey twins, a matched pair. They actually curtsied. “Yes, Laura.”

“Just back from their honeymoon,” Kligerman said. “They're my two data miners. Whatever you can teach them, you can see their enthusiasm. And this is Lauren Militi.” The third person came forward, nodded with a smile, a quick, hard handshake. Older than the Cellis, very beautiful, very tiny, I'd seen a lot of Veronica Lake movies, Lauren even had the same long hair, falling over her left eye, except her hair was a deep, lustrous black. Her hands flew in sign language, reminding me for the second time in two days about Tigger.

“Lauren's a mute,” Kligerman said. “She's got an astonishing memory, like a photographic memory, except she stores whatever she's seen on a computer screen.”

I signed
Hi, nice to meet you,
back to her and her smile broadened.

“Two more things,” I said to Kligerman. “First. I've got a personal interest in these assassins. These
maras
. Understand me on this, I have other clients. All but one of them, I'll hire part-time staff to complete those contracts. But one client is still very important to me. I can't and I won't tell you anything about this client.”

“What's his name?” Kligerman said.

“Not even a name. I promise you, right now, your interests are mine. Second. That murder, this morning, the man tortured and burned. Carlos Cañas. Use whatever law enforcement database you access, see if there's any background info.”

“This related to what we're contracting for? Or your mystery client?”

“Both. You draw up exactly what you want me to start with, I'll give you a fee, we'll sign a contract. This is probably a first for both of us. PIs don't usually work under contract for the police department.”

“Done!” Kligerman said. He beeped somebody else on the intercom, I thought he'd be bringing in champagne next for us to toast our togetherness. I left soon afterward, no champagne, somebody photocopied my driver's license and took down some personal details.

Outside TPD headquarters, I wandered briefly through all the half-truths and lies I'd promised. To get to the end, you do whatever it takes. Even the police lied.

 

“Yo,” Ken said. On our cell phones. “You still want to go to a cockfight?”

“Yes.”

“We're on. I'll pick you up around eleven tonight.”