Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 01 - A Brilliant Plan (11 page)

We agreed to some soft drinks and settled around the coffee table.
 

“Just got in?” Ron started.

“Late last night. Had to finish some business first down in Mexico.”

“Even though there was an emergency at the gallery?”

Faulkner shrugged. “Andrew and Serge were there. And what could I help with? But anyway, terrible thing.”

“You were down in Mexico to prepare that deal with Max?” Ron asked into the blue.

Faulkner looked at Ron and then at me, obviously confused. “Max, who? I attended an auction and visited some artists. Who told you?”

Ron ignored him. “Did you know Mr. Eastman, the dead night watchman?”

“What a silly question, Detective. We are a small outfit, Andy, Serge and me. We know the cleaning ladies, the windows cleaners, the florists and, yes, we also know the night watchmen, Wally and his colleagues Simon and John.”
 

“But you didn’t know him better?”

“You mean on a personal basis? No. We said ‘Hi’ and ‘How are you’ but that was about it. A tip around Christmas.” Did we detect a hint of hesitation before he answered?

“How do you think the murderer and thief managed to open the safe room?”

“I haven’t got the slightest idea. We, and the insurance company, were always convinced that we had a secure setup.”

“Why do you think that only the Montenhaute was taken?”

“I presume the thief panicked after the murder of the night watchman,” Faulkner shrugged, “and just left with what he had so far.”

Ron continued with more of the same questions he had asked Altward, but with meager results. Then he explored a little more left and right.

“How do you get along with your business partner Mr. Altward?”

A slight smile around his mouth. “We are a good setup. Managed to combine our forces a few years back, Southern California doesn’t need two of us, so we formed a regional monopoly of modern contemporary art, with some niches on the side.”

“Business is good?”

“Sure is,” Faulkner nodded, “we are currently preparing an exhibition with my old employer, the Getty in Malibu. They bring their paintings and we throw in the jewels. Makes a good combination if you see the pictures of old royals and rich people and then, in real life, you see the jewelry that they wore in the paintings.”

He probably expected a ‘Good combination, sounds interesting’ comment from Ron but instead he got a, “When would you have told us that Mr. Altward has a relationship with Phoebe Eastman, the daughter of the dead night watchman?”

Caught in an uncomfortable situation, Faulkner’s face showed some white spots. “I… I would. I didn’t see the connection.”

“Do you know Phoebe Eastman?” Ron interrupted.
 

“Sure, she’s my partner’s girlfriend. She didn’t hang out at the gallery but occasionally we would go for a double date, dinner, movie, events.”

“Happy relationship?”

“Yeah, sure, why don’t you ask them?”

“Any financial problems we should know about before we dig into your gallery’s financials?” Another change of subject.

“I beg your pardon?”

Ron raised his hands apologetically. “I mean, you are dealing with expensive art, your inventory is quite large, lot of ‘dead capital’ lying around.”

“Sir, you think we tried to set up an insurance swindle that went wrong, or what?”

“Sir, your watchman was killed in a suspicious situation during an ongoing burglary. If I find the burglar, I will probably also find the murderer. So I investigate the burglary. My first question is the ‘Who.’ And my question second is the ‘Why.’ I have to look at all possibilities.”

“Police!” Faulkner exclaimed but he didn’t seem to take it personally. He shook his head and then looked at Ron. “No, I don’t think you will find anything ‘suspicious’ in our books, Detective. All clear, we are a respectable business.”

I wondered how many times Ron had heard that reassurance before?

Ron drove us back to the police headquarters.

“What does it mean to the case that Altward and Phoebe Eastman had a relationship?”
 

“Don’t know,” Ron answered. After he saw my rolling eyes, he added, “Really. The thing is, there are two basic motives: money and love, love and money. I favor money motives, like Altward stealing from himself to fence the goods for money and then getting repaid by the insurance as well. But add the relationship with the daughter; maybe this changed the dynamics between Altward and his night watchman? Or was there a break-up between Altward and Phoebe that caused someone to become angry?”

“I bet it has nothing to do with Altward or Phoebe or them together.”

Ron nodded. “The truth is—I don’t care. I just follow leads. That is all I can do. And the leads point to Altward and Phoebe.”

JUANITA WAS WAITING for us. She was looking at her watch as we walked through the door of the detective-room.
 

“What’s the hurry?” Ron asked.

“We got something on the alarm system. Interesting. Let’s go talk to Pete from Labs.”
 

Juanita led the way as we went down to the forensic labs, located in the basement. On the way, Ron gave her a quick update on Marion Altward and her juicy inputs.
 

Finally, Juanita knocked at an open office door. A little bespectacled man turned from his desk and we simultaneously said “Hi.”

Juanita explained, “Pete here worked together with the guy from the insurance company and the manufacturer on the electronic control of Altward’s safe.”

“They were both extremely forthcoming and helpful,” Pete replied.

“Can you tell these guys what you just told me on the phone?” Juanita asked as she sat down on the edge of Pete’s desk.

“Sure. Come gather round people,” he said and picked up a model that resembled the control panel I had seen in Altward’s gallery. He pulled off the front panel to revesal a jumble of wires and chip-cards. “This is one of the latest models on the market. Altward’s alarm system is only about two years old and they upgraded it every year, it is as safe as it gets these days.” He readjusted his glasses and pointed out the details. “It works like this, you place your thumb or any other finger onto this mold and your fingerprint gets checked in a main control unit, which is located in the main safe room. If the main unit says ‘Yes,’ it starts opening the electronic locks.”

“So there is no way to access the main unit directly?” Ron asked.

“That’s right. The fact is that it has no manual input at all, no keyboard, just some little blinking lights. If you do something, you have to do it via the control box. I won’t bore you with the encryption system or the security of the network between the control box and the main unit but it comes down to this, everything you do, you do from the wall units.”

“Sounds more like a computer than an alarm,” I remarked.

“You are correct, it is a computer system,” Pete nodded his head and had to readjust his glasses again. “This control box is a standalone computer; the main control unit is, too. So is the other wall unit located in the back-office of the gallery. They are all connected by a network.”

“You read a lot about computers and networks being hacked these days,” Ron said.

“All the regular computer technologies and network standards are tested constantly by hackers and other criminals for their security gaps and exploits. That’s why the manufacturer of these boxes wrote their own version of networking protocols and programming languages.”

“That is possible? Sounds like a lot of software development.”

“Not really, all the concepts are around, IT students often develop their own languages and protocols at university so they can learn the theoretical concepts behind it.”

“So when an outsider, like a hacker-thief, looks into the chips and circuits, all he sees is garbage. “

“Yeah, as if you, for example, are a journalist and fluent in American English and are suddenly confronted with a German article. You recognize it for what it is, an article, and maybe you understand the purpose. But you understand neither the background nor the content.”

“Or even worse, Russian, different characters and all,” I threw in.

“Exactly,” Pete put the box back together and put it on his desk.

“What is the conclusion now? That it couldn’t have been done?” Ron was as impatient as ever.

“Hang on, I am not through yet. The tech guys and I went through it step-by-step to see what the hacker-thief had done. We found various points where he removed wires and connectors to attach scanners or readers. He worked his way systematically through the box to find a point of weakness that he could exploit.”

“Did he find one?”

“He did!” Pete exclaimed. “Because of various checking mechanisms, every attempt to network with the main control box is logged. However, there is no recording of a failed attempt, like a wrong password.”

Ron threw his hands up. “Don’t say that. That would mean, someone who knew the password opened the safe. Altward, Faulkner, Assistant… ”

“It would but it wasn’t. The log of the wall unit has no entry for any of the employees’ biometrics being entered.”

“But the main box had?”

“Yes. The only way you could achieve that is if you bug the wall box and wait until Altward or someone else scans his thumb ‘record’ imprint and later ‘replays’ it.”

“In English, you fake the thumbprint toward the main control unit.”

“That’s it. On a purely electronic basis. Forget all this James Bond nonsense of having fake thumbs and all that. The scan is translated into numbers and code, you catch that somehow, and you have access.”

Pete stood up and paced the room. “The problem is that there are so many encryptions, authorizations and logging going on that it is damn near impossible to fool the main control unit. Please understand, the manufacturer took all the necessary steps to prevent such a thing from ever happening.”

“Obviously not enough.”

“Obviously not,” Pete agreed.
 

Ron was unhappy. “Where does that leave our investigation? Please spare me any more tech details.”

Pete counted off on his fingers, “One: Altward didn’t open the safe. It would have shown up in the logbook of the alarm system. Two: It was done by a specialist who erased all records in the system logs of the steps taken during the break-in. Three: You are looking for a specialist with a very specific profile and skills. Four: There is a distinct possibility of other criminal activities in the computer crime area.”

Ron looked at me for a while, gnawing at his lower lip. Did he expect consultant input or was he putting me on the suspect list again?

“That specialist profile is in your report?” He asked, slapping the file on his other hand.

“Sure.”

“Hard to find?”

Pete nodded. “Yes. The original equipment manufacturer is a Norwegian company.”

Ron just raised an eyebrow. “Do I start looking for pullovers in SoCal now?”

Pete shrugged easily. “Someone with good computer skills could interpret the inputs and outputs of the boxes without inside knowledge.”

“Where do I find such a guy? Or girl?” With a look toward me.

Pete looked at Ron. “Pardon me; I am only the techie here.”

“Where then?” Ron said, rolling his eyes.

Pete was surprised that Ron asked him but answered anyway. “Well, the FBI of course. Hacking is a state-level crime.”

On the way back to the office, Ron was steaming. “FBI, Jesus, how far will this go, the President?”

Juanita cheered him up. “Come on. The skill thing is great and it’s a good lead. Pete did a good job.”

“As soon as you get the FBI involved, the whole case goes down the drain.”

Juanita took it easy. “I bet the FBI has its head under water anyway with the double murder of the diplomats behind the airport. They will assist us and they will be happy to not have to do the dirty work.”

THE LOOKS RON gave me made me queasy, but not in an erotic sense. He repeatedly looked me over as if he asking himself, ‘Who is that girl? What is she hiding?’ Alibi was alibi, but policeman was policeman. I still felt pretty secure in my skin but it was also increasingly clear that I had to get rid of my loot—very soon.
 

San Diego is home to a small Chinese community. Not as prominent as the ones in San Francisco or Los Angeles, but enough to fill a few blocks full of Asian smells, signs and people. Chong Lee had a small jewelry shop in a back alley, first floor office. To find him, you either had to know which staircase to take or be able to read the Mandarin signs that indicated the businesses in this block. Since my connections went east with Uncle Mortimer’s network, over the years, I had rarely done business with Chong. Another reason I rarely did business with him was that I didn’t plan to become a well-known West Coast thief, word travels fast along the coast but relatively slow on the East-West axis. I passed several rapper-style dressed Asians as I made my way up the creaking iron staircase. Where the originals always were on restlessly on the move with their swagger, these fellows were still like ghosts. Although they gave me unreadable looks, I knew they were there to check out visitors for Chong. I went along the maze of corridors of this Chandler-eske office building, wooden partitioned offices with frosted glass and unreadable signage. I politely knocked at Chong’s door and a buzzer let me in. It was like something you expected from a black and white detective movie of the fifties, some dark wooden shelves, desks and old chairs. Chong had a watchmaker-style magnifying glass over his right eye and some diamonds in front of him on a black velvet cushion. They sparkled in the glow of the small halogen light that was the main source of light in the room; the office shades were drawn. I didn’t have an appointment; you didn’t need one with Mr. Lee. Either you were received or you were not. I wasn’t asked to but I sat down opposite of his desk and marveled at the collection he was in the process of checking.
 

After a minute or so, “Miss Calendal, a pleasul…” He hadn’t yet looked up from his appraising task.