Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(85)

“Smaller companies may ask us to do that final step, with photo ID included. However, consider turnover. Someone resigns, is fired, or simply damages or loses the swipe. So most that want this level have the ability—as, say, a hotel on the lower levels has with room swipes—to erase the previous data and reprogram.”

“So that’s a no.”

“If I had the top portion of the swipe, I’d find our signature coded in. But I don’t have that, and have to work with what I do have.”

“I’m not giving you grief. I just don’t get this stuff.”

“Your master, for instance. If it was stolen, lost, damaged, what’s the procedure?”

“I report same, asap. Ah, they disable it, administer a new one after a big fat headache of paperwork.”

“Precisely. At the level we’re dealing with, the swipe would be automatically disabled when damaged. No doubt, when they discovered it had been stolen, they’d have disabled it, but breaking it? They obviously didn’t have the time or foresight to wipe it—which is a much simpler process when the swipe is in hand—before that level of damage. Now they can’t.”

“They can’t wipe the data?”

“I’m going to say the girl took a hard fall, as the swipes aren’t fragile, and when it snapped, it’s done, you see. It can’t be used, and the data on it simply carries the name of the holder and their clearance level, the company or individual who owns or runs the building where it’s used, the programmer, the manufacturer.”

“Couldn’t somebody access the data—like we’re counting on you to do—then forge a swipe, access those areas?”

He smiled, sipped more wine. “There was once an exquisite Van Gogh. But … we don’t need to go into all the details. I’ll say I had weeks for the planning, the setup, and so on, and a necessarily quick execution. Years ago, darling Eve. But we—and surely most others—build in fail-safes for such mischief now.”

“But you could get around that.”

He went back to his pasta. “Given time, and a less strict wife. But circling back, we have what we have, and we’ll do what we can do.”

“What you’ve done so far confirms things we either knew or believed. The Academy has deep pockets, is run like a prison, likely has various levels of security. Sophisticated—Mira called that from the start. Dorian lifted the swipe from a floor matron, according to her statement. Someone like that had access to the elevators—or at least the one on that floor—and that security clearance ran all the way down to the tunnels.”

“And it’s unlikely all would. Food providers, for instance, general cleaning or clerical, that sort of thing. The matron’s just another term for security in this case.”

“Agreed. They use a crematorium. Use the tunnels to get the body or bodies out, transport to a crematorium. Whoever runs that is part of this, or someone there is part of it, taking a fee or more. It gives us another angle.”

“And likely hundreds of mortuary businesses to run,” Roarke added. “What would you look for?”

“First, for a mortuary in New York that provides this dead service owned or run by or that employs someone with a criminal history. Leaning into crimes against minor females, but not exclusively that.”

“Why not exclusively?”

“Blackmail and/or payoffs work. Somebody wants to hide the fact he’s gotten busted, maybe done time. Then you look for those somebodies who might have more money than they should, or the business itself is more flush than it ought to be.

“I can’t take time to dig into all that, so I’ll pass it on.”

“I could have the time.”

“If you have any, I’d rather you use it to get everything off that swipe that’s getable, and help me narrow down locations for the Academy. And I seriously regret they co-opted the name of a place that helped make me a cop.”

She was back, he thought. She was definitely back. “That’s the thing, Lieutenant. Through all of this, I’d wager they have no idea how many areas of your wrath they’ve lit.”

“It can’t be about wrath.” She wound more pasta around a bite of meatball. “Maybe a little,” she conceded. “Under the rest. A little more than a little, but under the active, ongoing, official investigation.”

She ate, wound more. “I can hope, with that little more than a little personal wrath, I get to punch this Auntie and her partner in the throat. I’m okay with hoping for that—but only after we bust their asses, build the case that gives the PA enough to lock them up for the rest of their miserable lives.”

She shrugged, ate. “It’d be a nice bonus.”

She was, yes, all the way back, he thought, and grinned at her.





18





Eve dealt with the dishes while Roarke went back to his IT lab. She considered the fact his far-reaching company might have manufactured the swipe that got Dorian and Mina out of the Academy.

Coincidences bugged the crap out of her, but after some thought, she decided this didn’t qualify. Roarke Industries manufactured so much damn stuff, it would be more of a coincidence if they weren’t one of the possibles here.

Satisfied with that, she went back to her command center, programmed coffee.