The Broken Window

“You have a name?” Rhyme snapped. “Somebody at SSD who downloaded the dossiers?”

“What?” Szarnek gave a laugh. “It doesn’t work that way. It’ll take a while. I have to load it on the mainframe at Computer Crimes. And then-”

“How long a while?” Rhyme grumbled.

Szarnek once again blinked, as if seeing for the first time that the criminalist was disabled. “Depends on the level of fragmentation, age of the files, allocation, partitioning, and then-”

“Fine, fine, fine. Just do the best you can.”

Sellitto asked, “What else did you find?”

Pulaski explained about his interviews of the remaining technicians who had access to all of the data pens. He added that he’d talked to Andy Sterling, whose cell phone confirmed that his father had called from Long Island at the time of the killing. His alibi held up. Thom updated their suspect chart.

Andrew Sterling, President, Chief Executive Officer

Alibi-on Long Island, verified. Confirmed by son

Sean Cassel, Director of Sales and Marketing

No alibi

Wayne Gillespie, Director of Technical Operations

No alibi

Samuel Brockton, Director, Compliance Department

Alibi-hotel records confirm presence in Washington

Peter Arlonzo-Kemper, Director of Human Resources

Alibi-with wife, verified by her (biased?)

Steven Shraeder, Technical Service and Support Manager, day shift

Alibi-in office, according to time sheets

Faruk Mameda, Technical Service and Support Manager, night shift

No alibi

Client of SSD (?)

List provided by Sterling

UNSUB recruited by Andrew Sterling (?)

So now everyone at SSD who had access to innerCircle knew of the investigation…and still the bot guarding the NYPD “Myra Weinburg Homicide” file had not reported a single attempted intrusion. Was 522 being cautious? Or did the concept of the trap miss the mark? Was the entire premise that the killer was connected to SSD completely wrong? It occurred to Rhyme that they’d been so awed by the power of Sterling and the company that they were neglecting other potential suspects.

Pulaski produced a CD. “Here are the clients. I looked it over fast. There’re about three hundred fifty of them.”

“Ouch.” Rhyme grimaced.

Szarnek loaded the disk and opened it up on a spreadsheet. Rhyme looked over the data on his flat-screen monitor-nearly a thousand pages of dense text.

“Noise,” Sachs said. She explained what Sterling had told her about data’s being useless if it’s corrupt, too sparse or too plentiful. The tech scrolled through the swamp of information-which clients had bought which lists of data-mined details… Too much information. But then Rhyme had a thought. “Does it show the time and date of when the data was downloaded?”

Szarnek examined the screen. “Yes, it does.”

“Let’s find out who downloaded information just before the crimes.”

“Good, Linc,” Sellitto said. “Five Twenty-Two’d want the most up-to-date data possible.”

Szarnek considered this. “I think I can hack together a bot to handle it. Might take some time but, yeah, it’s doable. Just let me know exactly when the crimes occurred.”

“We can get you those. Mel?”

“Sure.” The tech began to compile the details of the coin theft, the painting theft and two rapes.

“Hey, you’re using that program Excel?” Pulaski asked Szarnek.

“That’s right.”

“What is it, exactly?”

“Your basic spreadsheet. Mostly used for sales figures and financial statements. But now people use it for a lot of things.”

“Could I learn it?”

“Sure. You can take a course. Say, the New School or Learning Annex.”

“Should have boned up on it before now. I’ll check them out, those schools.”

Rhyme believed he now understood Pulaski’s reticence to go back to SSD. He said, “Put that low on your list, rookie.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Remember, people hassle you in all sorts of different ways. Don’t assume they’re right and you’re wrong just because they know something you don’t. The question is: Do you need to know it to do a better job? Then learn it. If not, it’s a distraction and to hell with it.”

The young officer laughed. “Okay. Thanks.”

Rodney Szarnek took the CD and the portable hard drive and bundled up his computer to head down to the Computer Crimes Unit and its mainframe.