“Randolph doesn’t know?”
“Certainly not. He’d blow his stack if he knew anyone was poking around his personal papers.”
“Let’s go,” I said, and stood up. Teen got up with me.
“Where are we going?”
“To Randolph’s office.”
“To do what?”
“Poke around his personal papers.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Not really. But it might be.”
My volunteer thought about it. Then she led the way out of the break room and up the front stairs. She nodded and smiled at a half-dozen staff members we passed along the way. Finally she stopped at the closed door to Lawrence Randolph’s empty office. Inside was the price of admission. To life beyond the front desk and a daily set of marching orders. To getting past men who nourished their egos on the carcasses of those who were polite enough to serve. To a seat at the table-some sort of table-any sort of table. It was a price the volunteer was apparently willing to pay. Perhaps even eager. Teen gave me a final look, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. A half hour later, I had what I needed. I sat Teen down, told her who I was and what I suspected. At least, some of it. Then I called Hubert.
CHAPTER 40
S o show me how this works.”
Hubert Russell met me at the Starbucks on North and Wells, two blocks removed from the historical society. It was a little past noon. I had a black coffee and my laptop open. Hubert sipped at a vanilla skim latte and was at the wheel.
“Pretty simple,” Hubert said. “I’ve loaded my program onto your hard drive. Now I click on the icon and put it into active mode.”
Hubert moved the cursor over a skull and crossbones blinking on my screen.
“Nice icon, Hubert.”
The kid smiled. My Mac began to whir, then whine.
“Warming up,” Hubert said.
We got a soft beep. My screen went black for a moment and then re-formed with a single bar graph fluctuating on-screen.
“See that graph?”
“I do.”
“That represents signal strength. Means there is one person in range of us who is using a WiFi connection.”
I looked across the mostly empty coffee shop at Teen. She waved and continued to tap away at her laptop.
“Well, we know who that is.”
“That’s right,” Hubert said. “Now if I click on the graph, watch what happens.”
Hubert clicked. Bits of information began to fly across the screen.
“As we speak, your computer is sucking Teen’s dry. Copying all her files, programs, passwords, e-mails. Everything.”
“And she doesn’t even know it,” I said.
“Look at her.”
I did. Teen waved again and smiled. I motioned for her to come over. She shut down her laptop and the graph disappeared on my screen.
“How much of her hard drive did you get?” I said.
Hubert began to open up files taken off Teen’s computer.
“Actually, we got all of it. With this program the poach usually takes less than twenty seconds. See, what happens is there’s a flaw in the router that lets you go WiFi. I drop in a decoy and trick the computer into thinking it’s talking to itself. When really-”
I held up a hand.
“Enough, Hubert. I believe.”
I wanted to pat him on the head but thought better of it. Instead, I checked my watch as Teen drew up a chair.
“What time does he come in?” I said.
“He’s in here just about every day around one,” Teen said. “Says he likes to get some ‘alone time’ out of the office.”
“Always brings his laptop?”
Teen nodded.
“Okay. Teen, you and I are out of here. Hubert, you sit tight and wait for our boy. You got the picture I gave you?”
Hubert showed it to me.
“Good. When he fires up his laptop and jumps online, you take it all.”
“No problem.”
The kid from Land Records winked. Teen giggled. Then the volunteer and I walked out of the Starbucks and down Wells Street. I stopped at the Up Down Tobacco Shop and bought a couple of Montecristos. Then we moved over to Topo Gigio’s and had a beautiful lunch. Hubert joined us an hour later for tiramisu. As did the entire contents of Lawrence Randolph’s laptop.
CHAPTER 41
R achel Swenson and Vince Rodriguez agreed to meet me at my office. It was a little after eight p.m. Neither was entirely sure why they were there. But they both showed up and that was enough for now.
“What is it that couldn’t wait?” Rodriguez said.
“Take a look for yourself.”
I threw the Sheehan’s Masters had given me across the desk. Rodriguez took a look at the book while Rachel read Taylor’s note. It had been two days, and no one had heard a thing from Dan Masters or Janet Woods.
“The binding’s been sliced open.” The detective ran his hand along the book’s spine.
“You noticed that.”
Rodriguez slanted his face up and across the room. “What did you take out of there?”
I couldn’t tell them about that. Not yet, anyway. Still, I needed their help, which made matters difficult.
“Rachel, I need to ask you a favor. Actually, I’m going to need favors from both of you.”
Rachel passed Taylor’s note across to the detective, along with a look that told me it might be a long hard swim upstream.
“What do you need?” she said.
“You remember the prints I told you about? The ones I was going to compare to the break-in at my flat?”
Rachel nodded. I pulled out a sheet of paper and slipped it across my desk.
“The detective here ran them for me.”
Rachel ignored the report. “Just tell me what it says, Michael.”
“The partial has only six points of identification. All six matched a print on the set I sent over.”
Rodriguez grunted from his hard-backed chair in the corner.
“I told you it doesn’t matter,” Rachel said. “The match means nothing. You need at least nine points for it to
