way, but it didn’t seem as if he’d given anything away.
“Ms. Hagen, sir,” Pratt’s assistant spoke from the door.
“Come in, please,” Pratt said as the three men stood. Pratt directed her to a seat at his right, between himself and the detective.
Paul could see she hadn’t slept. The circles under her eyes were carefully concealed, but since she wasn’t big on makeup, the fact that she now wore more than usual clued him in. She avoided looking at him as she spoke to the others at the table.
“So, there is some good news,” Tibbet began, setting the pace by starting right in. “We have a lead on what might have happened to your computer systems.”
“Ah, do tell.” Pratt looked satisfied.
“One of your former employees, a Taylor Caldwell, is being questioned in connection with the damage. He may have had an accomplice from the records department. According to your human resources folks, they were both, uh, terminated, on the same day.”
“Do you think they’re connected to Todd’s death?” Torie asked.
“We’re investigating both, but they’re denying any knowledge of Mister Peterson. Our cybercrimes folks served warrants late this morning.”
“I don’t know either of them,” Paul commented. “I heard that a couple of people had been terminated in December. I’d never worked with either of them.”
“I know. I don’t have much call to be in the computer center myself, so I was unaware that these individuals had such animosity toward the firm over their dismissals.” Pratt seemed disturbed that he hadn’t been aware. “When the firm reached a certain size,” he said, “you lose touch.”
As he watched, Torie laid a hand on Pratt’s arm. “It’s difficult.”
He smiled at her. “Yes, it is sometimes.”
How could she be so empathetic to the old man, care so much for someone she didn’t know? How had he managed to screw up so badly?”
“Paul?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I was thinking about the situation. What was your question?”
“I asked Ms. Hagen here if she’d be my date for the partner’s dinner. She said you hadn’t asked her yet, so I’m preempting you.”
“Ah, I see.” Paul was flabbergasted. He couldn’t believe the old man had slipped that in.
Tibbet was struggling not to laugh. Paul wanted Torie there. Needed her there. He hadn’t expected it to be this way.
“She still might dance with you, though,” Pratt teased. He and Tibbet, along with Torie, laughed at that.
“Now,” Pratt said more soberly, “we should get down to business. Detective, can you give us a written statement saying that Ms. Hagen has been cleared of any charges in connection with Mister Peterson’s terrible death?”
“I believe I can do that. Yes.”
“Excellent. If you’ll get that to Mister Jameson here, it will help us move things along on our end.” He motioned toward Paul. “He’s got several things to wrap up.”
“Detective,” Torie broke into the conversation. “They’ve cleared my house as a crime scene, and I am going to begin work on getting things put back together. I’m hoping that my firm will get past the negative publicity the police caused by leaking the information about the men…”
Paul could see she was struggling to figure out how to phrase it that didn’t sound terrible.
“Do you have any idea where the leak came from, Detective?” Paul asked. “I’m not saying that I think Ms. Hagen should act on that knowledge, but has the department locked that down?”
“Actually we believe it’s connected to the cyber issues. The information wasn’t leaked,” Tibbet growled. “It was stolen.”
“Stolen? How do you steal information from a police department?”
“The same way you do from anyone, Ms. Hagen,” Tibbet answered. “You hack into their computers. Public resources don’t really extend to hacker-proof software and fancy gadgets, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, then our culprits may be guilty of more than destroying data here as well then.”
Tibbet nodded. “Could be. We’ll see. I wanted to talk with you further about the connections between you and Mister Peterson,” he said, indicating Torie and Paul.
“Would you like me to bring my son in on these discussions?”
“Were you close in any way with Mister Pratt’s son?” Tibbet asked Paul.
“No. We were in several classes together, pledged the same fraternity, but otherwise we didn’t socialize.”
“At the time, my son was going through a bit of a rebellious stage,” Pratt Sr. broke in. “I believe you got to know one another somewhat in graduate school, didn’t you?”
Paul tread very carefully. Technically, they hadn’t known Melvin much at all. The invitation to interview with Pratt at Melvin’s behest had come as a shock to both he and Todd.
“We did have several more classes together there,” he temporized, stretching the truth only slightly.
Pratt took up the story, much to Paul’s relief. “When Melvin graduated and passed the bar, he suggested we
