Every Move She Makes (40 page)

Months."

"And why is that so hard to believe? Especially when you consider how
much money is at stake? Paolini's net worth probably exceeds the city's
annual budget. Foust had a taste of it, taking control in Paolini's
absence," Torrance responded, guiding me on toward the elevator. He
played the devil's advocate so well. "Foust is as much of a crook as
Paolini, perhaps more so. He's a known murderer. A hit man. He's-"

Torrance stopped short when I placed my hand on his shoulder. Perhaps it
was this talk about Foust, but I'd suddenly recalled the moment
yesterday when we were waiting by the elevator, when one of the crime
scene investigators, Rebecca, had called out to Torrance. Her presence
had spurred something in my mind, but I'd been distracted by Reid and
his affair with Skyler. "I need to see photographs of all the CSIS," I
said. "Now."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you when we get there." Scores of photos lined the hallways
throughout the floors of the police department, the uniforms and
hairstyles changing over the years, as well as the film. Black and-white
at first, now color. I knew there was a recent photo of the crime scene
investigators on the wall outside their office, along with several other
similar framed photos of their predecessors. It was something we all did
every few years or so. One of the few times we put on our class A
uniforms when there wasn't a cop funeral to go to.

I found the picture, stopped before it.

"What are you looking for?" Torrance asked. "Maybe I can help." "I don't
think so." I knew I wouldn't find who I was looking for, but searched
the photo anyway. I didn't see the face, no one similar. No one who
could have been there. "The afternoon that Martin and Smith were
killed," I said, going over the photos once more, "I ran into someone on
the staircase by the Property room. Kicked something. He was kneeling
down near his briefcase, and I was so busy chasing after someone I
thought was Zimmerman, I didn't see him there at first." "Who?" "The
man on the stairs." We returned to my office, and Torrance patiently
waited for me to explain. "He was wearing a uniform, the coverall type.

I assumed he was an evidence tech, and I didn't stop to check." I looked
Torrance in the eye. "I think it was Foust. When we were in the Buena
Vista, I thought he looked familiar and couldn't place why. It was the
first time I'd actually seen the man face-to-face. Now I'm just about
certain that he's the man I saw on the steps that day. I didn't see him
full on, but now that I know there's no evidence techs that even look
like him, I know I have to be right." I closed my eyes, trying to bring
him into focus. I could see him there, hear the clatter of whatever it
was I kicked sliding across the landing. A gun? Had I locked a gun? The
horror of that afternoon came back, and then the realization that had I
been a minute later, I too might have been killed. Opening my eyes, I
looked at Torrance with renewed determination. The silence in the room
overwhelmed me. "Foust was trying to kill me because I saw him on the
steps. That's why he came to my apartment." I took a breath. My hands
shook, and I felt like I couldn't move.

"You okay?" Torrance asked.

"Yeah, fine," I said. I wasn't really, but just then Rocky walked in,
and I didn't feel like explaining how I really felt.

Torrance didn't look as if he believed me.

I ignored him and turned my attention to Rocky, who appeared to be
waiting for me. Rocky cleared his throat. "Um, I was wondering about the
computer." After meeting with Paolini, I'd completely forgotten about
it. "I plan on taking it to Agent Moore at DOJ. I'll let you know the
moment we learn anything." I picked up the phone and called my friend.

"Bill? Hi, it's Kate."

"What's up? You decided after all these months you want to leave your
job, move to the valley and be near me?"

"You and your wife?"

"She's an understanding woman." "Listen," I said, cutting the chitchat
short. "I've got a hard drive that's been erased. I was wondering if you
could take a look. See if anything can be recovered on it."

"Give it a try. IA THAT's it for?"

"Homicide case. We're looking for anything that might help. Last resort
sort of thing." "Bring it by. I'll get right on it." Sacramento was a
little over two hours away, and Torrance and I left immediately. He
drove. About ten minutes into the drive, he said, "You want to talk
about it?"

"About what?"

"Foust." "No." I couldn't, for the simple reason that the man I'd blamed
for the past year, Paolini, appeared innocent. My life should be getting
back to normal once Foust was arrested. Why didn't I feel the least bit
elated? I knew why. Essentially, I'd cleared Scolari in two murder
cases. He wasn't the Soma Slasher, and he wasn't the cop killer. But he
was still a suspect in his wife's case. I wanted him to come forward,
clear himself. I deserved that much, didn't I? Pretty country,"

Torrance said. We were just east of Fairfield, and the green rolling
hills this time of year always reminded me of photos of Ireland. I
nodded, grateful that he was allowing me my peace, and for the rest of
the trip we discussed what it would be like to live in the country. We
made good time, arriving at the Department of justice a little after
two. Typical of government buildings, it was multistoried, square, and
not particularly an architectural-al masterpiece. The few trees
scattered across the small patches of lawn out front helped to soften
it, however. Torrance held open the heavy glass door, allowing me to
step in. I carried the computer, letting go only long enough to show my
ID for clearance. Until it was in my friend's hands, I would not feel
comfortable. Moore's office was cluttered with books, keyboards, and
power strips on the countertops, blank monitors mounted on the walls,
everything waiting to be plugged into whatever computer Moore happened
to be working on. He took the computer, flipped it over, eyed the jack,
plugged it into a power strip below one suspended monitor, then turned
everything on. The monitor lit up like a TV screen.

"You want to wait?"

"How long will it take?"

"Well, if it's on a-"

"So I can understand, Bill," I interjected. He had a tendency to go off
the deep end when it came to computer techno-talk, a small reason our
romance never took off. I never knew what he was talking about. "Depends
on how the files were deleted. If there's anything left, I'll find it."

"Where's the closest place to eat?" Torrance asked.

"Cafeteria, upstairs," he said, plugging in a keyboard. "But if I were
you, I'd hit the deli around the corner. You can walk." We opted for the
deli, and started that way. My pager went off before we ever made it.

"It's Shipley," I said, recognizing my office number and his call sign
directly after.

Torrance gave me his phone.

I called the office. "Shipley?"

"Might have an ID on your John Doe," Shipley said.

"Thought you'd want to know."

"Who is it?"

"We're waiting for dental records to confirm. But it might be a guy
named Chester Lynch, a PI out of Arkansas hired by Montgard
Pharmaceutical. I was wondering how you knew." "Because Arkansas
happens to be the home of Montgard Pharmaceutical, the company that's
trying to merge with Hilliard Pharmaceutical. Now that I think about it,
I'm pretty certain that I saw the name Lynch on Hilliard's employment
records. Do me a favor. Check it now, just to verify." Hold on." I heard
the rustle of papers in the background.

"Yep. Chester Lynch," he confirmed.

"Thanks." Torrance and I decided to skip lunch after that piece of news.

I didn't want the computer out of my sight. We returned to Agent Moore's
office, and he glanced up. "Not very challenging," he said. "Lucky for
you, whoever erased this didn't use any type of highlevel program. I've
recovered most of what was there."

"Meaning what?" I asked.

"Thought you didn't want to know the technical stuff," he teased. I
didn't, but figured it might give me a clue as to who erased the data.

"Humor me. In terms I can understand." "The info was stored on a F.A.T.

partition. Simply put, when it was erased, it wasn't truly deleted,
merely hidden from view. It's recoverable up until the time that data
gets written on top of it. Which is why I couldn't get all of it.

There's a lot of "-he lifted a sheet from the printer-"cold remedies,
drugs. The other stuff . looks like accounting info." "Is this pretty
basic? This F.A.T partition thing?" I asked, wondering why Rocky hadn't
thought of it, for all he was supposed to know about computers.

"For this type of system it is. Now, if you need to

recover anything below what I've done, you'll have to take it to the
NSA, uh, National Security Agency," he clarified when he saw my look of
confusion. "They can recover up to seven layers, last I heard. That's a
little beyond my expertise." I looked over what was being printed. "You
know who to get a hold of, should I need it?"

"Just call."

"There is one more thing. Do you have any idea when it was erased?"

"That's easy enough to determine." He typed some commands on the
keyboard, looked at the monitor, and said, "Looks like the majority of
it was yesterday, between 1800 and 1830 hours." Right around the time we
were there. Evan Hilliard had printed up the employee records. Was it
possible he had erased the files while I looked on, oblivious?

Patricia's computer was networked. His wife was desperate to keep us
from taking it. Then again, Rocky was also on the computer at that time.

Wouldn't he have discovered something? And what about Reid? He was also
at the keyboard, though I didn't pay attention to the time. Both Rocky
and Reid had been employed by Hilliard Pharmaceutical, but that didn't
mean they were loyal to the company. Besides, what would their motive
be? Money, I thought, recalling Reid's reaction when Shipley had pointed
out his name on the Hilliard Pharmaceutical employment list. We were out
of there in half an hour, Torrance carrying the computer. I carried an
inch-thick stack of newly printed documents, as well as copies of the
disks that Bill had made of what was recovered. I hoped it would turn
out to be a worthwhile trip.

Torrance drove while I looked over the papers.

Everything was happening so fast, I couldn't concentrate. Worse, I was
getting carsick. I never could read in the car; I don't know why I
bothered trying.

"Find anything?" Torrance asked.

"No. Not yet." I put the papers aside. "I need to eat."

"You want to stop?"

"No. Let's get back to the Hall. We've got a ton of work to sort
through." The four of us, Torrance, Shipley, Markowski, and I, sat in
the conference room going over the doctor's papers one by one. A pizza
sat untouched in the center of the table. Some joker had ordered it and
sent It up. I didn't know if I'd ever be able to eat one again. Torrance
had sent his secretary to pick up sandwiches from the deli across the
street, but they had yet to arrive.

"Any of this make sense to you?" Rocky asked.

"Nothing," I said, going over the last sheet in my stack. We'd divided
the papers between us. I handed mine to Torrance before I took those
that Shipley had already looked at. An hour later I was going over a
paper that read like a recipe from a chemistry book. A chemical name
stood out. Methylenedioxv methamphetiiiilne. MDNIA. Ecstasy, or X'I'C as
it was known on the streets. I supposed Patricia might have had it on
her computer at Hilliard Pharmaceutical for the simple reason she'd been
involved in the autopsies of several individuals who had this particular
compound in their bloodstreams at the time of death. Unfortunately, I
couldn't ask her, and I couldn't see what relevance MDMA had to the
seeds. The sandwiches arrived, but my appetite had fled. I wanted this
over and done with. The private investigator had apparently found these
seeds, and had been killed because of them. I was certain Patricia had
been killed for the same reason. Now all I had to do was figure out what
that reason was. "Wy do you suppose this is here?" Rocky asked sometime
later. "This whole paper's about it. Reads like some documentary. You
figure it's a like a chemotherapy drug? It talks about rain forests and
cancer." "Cancer?" I took the paper from him. "Project Green," I read
aloud from the heading. The sheet fluttered in my fingers, and I laid it
on the table. The first paragraph appeared to discuss the disappearing
rain forests, and the untapped but threatened potential to find new
cures. Hilliard Pharmaceutical had funded a team of scientists to scour
one particular part of the rain forest, bringing home samples of plants,
seeds, leaves, and bark before that area of the rain forest had been
obliterated. Project Green. Certain seed samples had shown great promise
in halting the spread of cancer, even AIDS. The samples were all that
was left, unless the seeds from the pods could be grown, or identical
species could be located in other forests around the world. So far
nothing had been found. That was nothing new, and I skimmed over the
words, moving on to the portion that mentioned investors. "Hello," I
said.