Earthway (13 page)

She stood in the kitchen
for a moment, but nothing happened. “That was too easy. I don’t like this,” she said, reassembling the lock to hide her method of access.

“I dislike black-bag work myself. Let’s find the computer and get this done,” he answered in a whisper.

The kitchen was simply furnished, with a large wooden table and matching chairs, and older-model, white appliances. The living room was bigger and had an
overstuffed cloth sofa and coordinating chairs. A large book cabinet lined with textbooks and nonfiction works stood against the wall.

Down the hall, opposite the master bedroom, they found a small office. Atop the desk was an ancient Epson computer with diskette drives and a massive CRT monitor. Ford sat behind the desk, powered up the machine, then waited as the operating system slowly loaded.

“This machine is a relic and doesn’t even have a phone connection for dial-up. Look at the directory.” Checking the list of recently accessed files, he added, “She hasn’t used this computer in months.”

“She might have a laptop computer around here somewhere. Let’s look around. This one may be what she thinks of as a loss leader. If someone breaks in, this is what they’d see and take—if they can
carry it, and if they’re totally naive about computers.”

They searched through the house, working quickly and efficiently, even looking in places like the heater closet, but found nothing. Pausing, Ella studied the rooms, trying to determine where Dr. Lee spent most of her time when she was at home. As she looked around for the professor’s favorite room, she saw the small, expensive, single-unit
sound system in the master bedroom. There was a desk in there, too, but no computer.

Crouching down at a low angle, she spotted four evenly spaced spots on the waxed surface. “This is where she places a laptop. I can see where the rubber ‘legs’ sit.”

Ford stepped into the room, looked around, then pointed to the flash drive inside an empty coffee mug beside the phone. “If those aren’t marks
left by her office laptop, maybe there’s a second portable machine hidden somewhere in this room. Keeping it out of sight when she’s gone is a good precaution.”

Ella felt the phone at her belt vibrate and picked up the call. It was Officer Talk.

“Dr. Lee got a call on her cell, then left Mona Tso in charge of the class. The minute she called over her TA and handed her the lecture notes, I knew
she was getting ready to leave. So while she was talking to Mona, I hurried out to her car. She now has two flat tires, so that’s going to slow her down. A student’s helping her, but the guy will need to find a valve for the second flat, because I’ve got the two missing
ones in my pocket. I figure you’ve got fifteen minutes plus however long it takes to get another valve and access to a compressor.
Of course, that’s assuming she’s planning to go straight home.”

“There’s a gas station right across from the college, so we can’t count on much more than ten-minutes leeway. Call me back the second she’s on the road.” Ella hung up and told Ford what she’d learned. “She may be here in a half hour, so we’ve got to find that second computer quickly.”

“Any hunches?”

Ella studied the room, searching
for concealed hiding places. They’d checked all the usual spots, such as between the mattress and box spring, in drawers, and even under the bottom drawer. Seeing a large heating vent peering out at her from behind a trash can beneath the window, Ella went to take a closer look. “People don’t generally put stuff in front of heating or air vents, and this wall’s too thin to accommodate any ducting.
Hand me your screwdriver,” she asked Ford.

Taking the small battery-powered screwdriver they’d borrowed from Teeny, she attached a small Phillips head, then quickly removed the screen with two quick whirs of the machine. Inside, beneath a black cloth, was a small laptop. It appeared to be the same brand and model as the one Dr. Lee carried with her.

“You practiced on this brand at Teeny’s, so
it should be pretty straightforward,” Ella said, turning it over to him and checking her watch.

Ford placed the computer on the desk, opened it, then turned it on. After it booted up, he brought out a high-capacity flash drive and quickly made a copy of everything on the hard drive. Once that was done, he shut down the computer, closed the top, and turned it upside down. In a minute, using the
electric screwdriver, he got the back cover off and placed the monitoring device into it.

“She might have a shadow drive on this computer, hidden within a third partition of the C drive,” he said. “Once we’re out of here I’ll back up her entire drive, then see what we’ve got. But if I’m right about her, access will require a password, and the data will be encrypted as well. Experience tells me
this’ll take some serious time to decode, even using a password-cracking program.”

After the false battery was in place, Ford reassembled the unit and powered it up again. Quickly, he examined her most recently accessed files, and found nothing obvious. Then he took a quick look at the directory where her temporary Internet files were located.

“Here’s something. Jane repeated several ordinary
words in the course of several paragraphs. That, in and of itself, doesn’t mean much. But it may eventually help me figure out the code.”

“If it’s not just sloppy grammar, or a first draft,” Ella said, then felt her phone vibrating.

She answered and heard Marianna on the other end. “The student wasn’t giving her a ride to the gas station as I initially thought,” Marianna said quickly. “They’re
now going west on Highway 64—in your direction. That’s after going fifty miles per hour through town. I had to back off to avoid attracting her attention.”

“That’ll put them here inside fifteen minutes or less,” Ella said.

“I’ve already called in, hoping that there was a patrol officer in the area who could pull them over for speeding. Unfortunately, there’s no one except me, and if I stop them
they’ll know something’s wrong. I’m only supposed to be one of her students,” Marianna said.

“Okay. Break off and return to the station.” Hanging up, Ella looked at Ford and added, “We have to leave. Judging from Dr. Lee’s actions, she suspects we’re here. My guess is that phone call she got was from her neighbor.”

“I’m done,” he said, handing her the closed laptop computer.

Ella placed it
in its hiding place, screwed the vent back on, then made sure the trash can was precisely where she’d found it.

She and Ford were stepping out the back door when they heard the sound of a car pulling up the driveway. A heartbeat later a car door slammed. Ella looked for the geese, but fortunately they’d moved on, maybe around the side of the house.

“Thanks for the ride,” they heard Dr. Lee said.
“I’ve really got a crushing headache.”

“Not a problem, Dr. Lee,” a young man’s voice answered. “I’ll get your tire aired up and put it back on for you.”

The geese started honking, perhaps after seeing the stranger out front. “Thanks,” Dr. Lee answered, her voice barely discernible over the din.

Seeing Ford frozen in place, his anxious gaze on the corner of the house, Ella gave him a hard push
toward the orchard. Ten seconds later they were over the fence and among the trees.

A
fter a quick run through the dry ditch and across the field, they reached Ella’s vehicle. “Of all the rotten luck,” Ford muttered as they climbed in.

“The geese tipped her neighbor off that somebody was near the house. I should have taken a closer look at those birds before we approached,” Ella said, taking out her binoculars and looking back.

“Guard geese?”
he asked. “Out here? I know they use them on overseas military bases, but there were only, what, five of them?”

“All it takes is one, and when they get upset, the honking is bound to get somebody’s attention. These are higher-end houses on the Rez so people probably keep an eye on each other’s places.”

“We may not have had the opportunity to look around much, but at least we got away clean,”
Ford said.

“No, I wouldn’t quite call it a clean getaway. If I’m right and she was warned, you can bet she’ll double-check everything. Hopefully, she’ll assume no one got in,” Ella said.

He shook his head. “I don’t think she’ll assume anything. Keep in mind that she didn’t call the police. She came
herself. That tends to reinforce the fact that she’s got something to hide.”

“I agree,” Ella
said after a beat. “Let’s drive down to the river road, park among the trees there, and keep a watch on the house. I’m curious to see what she does next.”

“How long do you want to stick around?”

“Why? Are you in a rush?”

He smiled. “No, I’m just eager to get started on the decryption. Would you mind if I turned on my computer and took a look at what I copied on the flash drive?”

“No, go right
ahead.”

Ella parked east of the intersection where the lane joined the river road. If Dr. Lee drove in their direction, they’d still be able to keep their distance all the way back to the main highway. While Ford focused on his work, Ella kept her binoculars trained on the house they’d just left in such a hurry.

For the next hour nothing happened, then Dr. Lee came out and got into the old truck
they’d seen parked at the rear of the house.

“She’s on the move,” Ella said, watching as Dr. Lee came down the lane in their general direction.

Ella started the engine, knowing they’d have to move away if Dr. Lee turned east. “She’s going west, farther down the valley. We’re going to follow.”

Ford didn’t react until she’d placed the SUV in gear. Feeling the rocking motion, he looked up at her
with a trace of annoyance. “I thought we were going to be here for a while. What are you doing?”

“Following Dr. Lee,” Ella said. “I told you.”

“Sorry, guess my mind was elsewhere,” he said, shutting down his laptop. “Do you think she knows someone was in her house?”

“If she suspects, it’s possible she’s on her way to report
the news to a coconspirator,” Ella said, hoping that they’d get a break
on the case. “She’s headed even farther away from town, so maybe they plan to meet in a remote location. Then again, she may only be going for a ride to clear her thoughts.”

Ella kept her distance, moving slowly to avoid leaving a trail of dust as they proceeded along the old dirt road that ran above and sometimes along the margins of the bosque. The shade from tall cottonwoods helped hide their
passage, but Ella was careful not to get into a location where the pickup could double back on them. After a while the road converged with the paved road they’d originally come in on, and Dr. Lee headed east back to the main highway, then toward Shiprock. Back in traffic, Ella was able to blend in more easily.

“What was that drive down the bosque all about? She didn’t meet anyone. Come to think
of it, maybe the person didn’t show up,” Ford said.

“I think she was going out of her way to make sure she wasn’t being followed,” Ella said slowly. “If she’s really on her way to meet someone, I’m guessing that’ll happen at the college, where we’ll never be sure if it’s one of her students or not. If I were her, that’s the strategy I’d take.”

“Looks like you and she are well matched,” he said
softly. “You’re able to put yourself in her shoes and think like she does. For example, it didn’t take you long to figure out where she’d hidden her computer.”

“Pray the reverse isn’t also true,” she answered. Her focus remained on the old truck ahead of them, now turning north at the junction of Highway 64 and 491—the road formerly known as Highway 666.

Ten minutes later Dr. Lee entered the
college campus grounds. Yet instead of parking in her usual spot, she went behind the student union building and parked in a visitor’s parking slot.

“That’s in case the person who disabled her car is still around,” Ella said, thinking out loud as she drove down another row in the lot to avoid being seen.

Ella parked as soon as she could, then glanced at Ford. “Have you ever done any surveillance
work?”

“Electronic, yes, but out in the field, no.”

“Stay in the car, but be ready to drive and meet me wherever I tell you. We’ll use cell phones to stay in touch. If anyone suspicious sees you and tries to approach, keep your distance, even if it means that you have to drive away. In a case like that, head straight for the police station.”

“Got it.”

Ella reached into the glove compartment
and grabbed a small hand telescope the size and shape of a pen. Leaving Ford, Ella followed Dr. Lee on foot, using the presence of students to screen herself and making no attempt to narrow the gap between them. Before long, the professor was greeted by a small group of students. As she moved through the group, speaking first to one, then another, a man in a tan suede jacket and black cap appeared
from around the building and bumped into her. He paused for a brief second, no longer than it might have taken to issue an apology, and then moved away quickly.

Ella went on instinct.
That
was the contact. An exchange had been made. Shifting her target, she stayed on the man in the cap, trying to get a look at his face so she could ID him later.