Case of the Chatty Roadrunner Page 17

  Vance shook his head, “Not yet, we don’t. We still don’t have a name.”

  I pointed back inside the café, “How’s it goin’ in there? Any luck?”

  Vance sighed and slid his hands in his pockets, “Well, I will say that I believe Chuck is really trying to learn the identity of his employer. If you’ll pardon the pun, he’s definitely in some zone, because he’s talking to himself, jotting down notes on whatever he can get his hands on, and is moving lightning fast. I have honestly never seen anyone type so fast.”

  “Faster than Tori?” I asked.

  Tori, Vance’s wife, was the fastest typist I have ever seen in my life. She told me once that she could type well over 120 words per minute. Once I heard that, I Googled ‘Typing Tests’, just so that I could time myself. Being a writer, I figured my own speed had to be somewhat similar. Nope. I wasn’t even close. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m a decent typist, with a low error count. But, my paltry 83 wpm didn’t come close to touching her record.

  “This guy is probably twice as fast as she is,” Vance admitted. “And don’t you ever repeat that to anyone. Tori is damn proud of her typing, and if she found out someone was faster, then she’d either go insane with jealousy or else drive herself to become that much faster.”

  I guess there’s no need to mention that Tori had to be one of the most competitive people I have ever met. Family game night took on a whole new meaning whenever Vance and Tori attended. Most of the time, Jillian and I would willingly split up our team so that we could separate detective from teacher, or else said detective would end up strangling said teacher.

  Movement caught my eye. I looked up to see Brad enthusiastically waving at us. He noticed I was looking, pointed at Chuck, and then pointed at Vance. I nodded.

  “I think Chuck has found something,” I reported.

  Vance turned to look inside.

  “Go. We’ll be right here.”

  Vance and Officer Gutierrez walked inside. I saw Vance whip out his notebook and start taking notes. That could only be a good thing, right? After a few minutes, Vance wandered outside.

  “Good news, I take it?” I hopefully asked.

  Vance nodded, “Yes. Well, yes and no.”

  “Hit me with the good news first,” I decided.

  Vance nodded, “Alrighty. First off, Chuck was able to track the sender of his email to a Semzar account, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

  “It doesn’t,” I confirmed.

  “Right. Now, that particular account is registered to an IP address belonging to one of Semzar’s upper echelons.”

  “Do we know whose it is?” I asked.

  Vance consulted his notebook, “The only bit of information Chuck could gleam was a username: almightygridiron.”

  “Sounds like a unique name,” I decided. “I wouldn’t think that’d be too difficult to track down.”

  “You would think and I would think,” Vance agreed. “However, Chuck can’t find a name to go with that account. He mentioned something to me about what he had discovered so far. Whatever it was, it didn’t make sense to me, but I jotted it down anyway. Let’s see. Ah. Here it is. He said he discovered over ten different proxy servers at play. Do you know what that means?”

  Actually, I did.

  “A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to answer that. But, thanks to the Olympics playing on television this year, I know exactly what it is.”

  A look of surprise etched itself onto my friend’s face.

  “Okay, pal. Spill. How do you know what it is? No, wait. First, just tell me what it is.”

  “It’s a way to channel Internet traffic through another computer,” I carefully answered.

  “What does that mean?” Vance asked. “Can you explain that in a way I can understand?”

  I nodded, “I can, yeah, only you have to promise not to get mad at me.”

  “Is this something that’s against the law?” Vance suspiciously asked.

  “Kinda. Okay, listen. I mentioned the Olympics, remember?”

  Vance nodded.

  “Good. Now, I know what a proxy server can do because I used one to watch some of the Olympic Games, namely those events the networks deemed unpopular for prime time viewing.”

  “You’re not doing a good job explaining yourself, pal,” Vance flatly stated.

  “Let me finish. In this day and age, if you want to watch the Olympics live on the Internet, you can, only you have to log in with your cable television provider. Do you follow me?”

  Vance nodded, “I think so. The cable networks need to verify you have permission to view the programming, is that it?”

  I nodded, pleased, “That’s right. Now, what if you want to watch an event, but the networks you subscribe to aren’t planning on covering it? What then?”

  Vance’s mouth opened, then closed.

  “You don’t,” I answered for him. “You have to suck it up and just watch the highlights for that night. But, if you happen to know what you’re doing, you can fool the websites.”

  “Explain that,” Vance demanded, growing angry.

  “In this case, I wanted to watch something that was streaming live, only my cable subscription prevented me from watching it. So, I logged into a proxy server, which routed my Internet traffic through a foreign computer, thus making it look like I was physically in another place. Therefore…”

  I trailed off as I looked at my friend. Much of Vance’s scowl had disappeared, but he was still frowning. Mostly.

  “Therefore, the website thinks you’re in a location that’s allowed to watch the program,” Vance finished.

  “Right.”

  “I get it. Zack?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t do that again.”

  “Sure. Sorry.”

  Elizabeth tapped us on the shoulder. She pointed inside. We could see Officer Harding had pulled Chuck to his feet and was leading him outside. We met him at the door.

  “We have a little more information,” Officer Harding began. “I’m not sure how helpful it’ll be, but Chuck here tells me it’s worth sharing.”

  “What is it?” Vance wanted to know.

  “Buried inside Semzar’s corporate network, I found a table which linked usernames to employee numbers,” Chuck excitedly told us. It would appear our hacker did not want to see the insides of a jail cell any time soon and thought he had found his get-out-of-jail-free card. “The username ‘almightygridiron’ was linked to employee number 330.”

  “330?” Vance repeated, as he turned to me. “As in, 3:30am? Does that sound familiar to anyone, pal?”

  “No, it’s a number, not a time,” Chuck corrected, overhearing Vance’s comment.

  My detective friend ignored the hacker and stared at me as a look of disbelief spread across his features.

  “I’ll be damned. This is our smoking gun, Zack! We should be able to get an arrest warrant now.”

  “I think we need to talk to Jillian first.”

  Vance stared at me.

  “Why?”

  “She says she went through some of Samantha’s files on that laptop and is pretty sure she found out what Semzar has been trying to hide.”

  “Perfect. I’d say it’s time we put this behind you, buddy.”

  ELEVEN

  “What if they don’t allow dogs in there?” I asked again, as I craned my neck to look up at the towering structure full of glass and steel. “Look at this place. The floors are marble. The brass looks as though it had just been polished. I don’t want to break any protocols or anything by taking Sherlock and Watson in there.”

  It was the following day, just after 11am. Vance and I, after having returned to the hotel yesterday, had compared notes with Jillian, and sure enough, what she had found was enough to confront some very important people at Semzar. Red had called again that night, or morning, depending how you look at it, and had urged us to hurry, as the board was meeting today to reveal some ‘exciting’ news. If it had anything
to do with glucosoquin becoming available to the general public, then we had better make certain that never happens.

  Vance strode to the front door and held it open.

  “We’re about to confront a huge corporation to inform them that they have a serious problem with their wonder drug. The last thing anyone will be worrying about is the presence of two dogs in their precious conference room.”

  I stepped to the side and let Jillian and Watson enter first. Sherlock and I entered next, and Vance brought up the rear. We approached the security station and the lone guard, who looked up from his magazine to watch us approach.

  “Can I help you folks?” the guard pleasantly inquired.

  Vance stepped forward, “Yes, sir, you may. We’re here to meet Mr. Emil Gregory, CEO of Semzar Pharmaceuticals. Rumor has it he’s in some type of meeting up on the 10th floor of this building.”

  The guard’s pleasant smile remained plastered on his face, only the rest of his body language told a different story. The guard was concerned. My question was, why? What did he have to fear from us?

  The guard nodded, “You’d be correct, sir. Last minute board member meeting. I wouldn’t be allowed to disturb them even if the building caught on fire. CEO’s orders, sir.”

  “What are they meeting about?” Vance asked.

  The guard shrugged, “I don’t know for certain, only it was for some long overdue approval for one of their products.”

  “Glucosoquin,” Jillian quietly breathed.

  The guard shrugged again, “It’s none of my business, ma’am, so I don’t rightly know. For that matter, it’s none of yours, either.”

  Damned if the punk rent-a-cop didn’t throw in a sneer at the end of that statement. I frowned and glanced over at Vance, anxious to see how he was going to handle the guard. One thing was for certain: with the news we were about to impart, we were about to ruin someone’s day. Vance slowly reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a tri-folded piece of paper. He smoothed it out and waggled it in front of the guard.

  “Care to guess what this could be?”

  The guard squinted at the paper, “No clue. What is it?”

  “It’s a search warrant,” a new voice stated.

  We all turned to look back at the front door. Officers Harding and Gutierrez had just entered the lobby, and were followed by nearly a dozen other policemen. That was when I looked outside the building to see a news van pull in and park.

  “Nice idea with the news crew,” I whispered to Vance. “That ought to strike some fear with them.”

  “I didn’t call for a news crew,” Vance said, shaking his head. “I don’t know how they caught wind of this.”

  “The chief might’ve let something slip,” Officer Harding admitted. “We spent the better part of this morning confirming everything you discovered, Miss Cooper. Our techs went through that laptop with a fine tooth comb. Everything checks out, I’m sorry to say.”

  I looked over at Jillian, who sadly nodded. Brad Harding’s face became grim as he turned to the guard.

  “Step aside. Now.”

  The guard clasped his hands behind his back and deliberately stepped away from his station. However, I couldn’t help but notice the smirk he had on his face. I watched his eyes momentarily flick down to something on his desk. Curious, I stepped forward and leaned over to see the guard’s work space. There, sitting next to the phone, was a collection of several ID cards, each with an embedded magnetic strip. Realization dawned. Everything around here was probably operated by those cards. The guard would have to be able to check each floor, so those cards must be what he used whenever he went on his rounds. He therefore knew we wouldn’t be able to make it up the elevator without those cards.

  “We’re going to be needing those,” I decided, as I snatched the cards off the guard’s desk.

  “Leave those alone!” the guard snapped.

  I held the cards out to Officer Harding, “You’re gonna want these.”

  “What are they, access cards?” Brad asked.

  “That’d be my guess.”

  The guard’s snarky disposition finally crumbled, “Dude, if you use those cards to get up there, then they’re gonna know who let them up there. Seriously, man, you don’t want to mess with those people on the 10th. Please, give those back! Find some other way up there, all right?”

  “Officer Gutierrez, would you escort our friend the guard outside?” Brad asked, as he turned to Elizabeth. Officer Harding looked back at the guard and his features softened. “If asked, then we’ll say we found the cards rather than saying you gave them to us willingly, okay?”

  The guard meekly nodded before he was led away.

  Brad clapped his hands together, “Oh, I’m so looking forward to this. Okay, guys. Let’s do this.”

  We walked past the guard station and approached a bank of elevators. According to the signs above each elevator, certain floors were serviced by certain elevators. Since we wanted the tenth floor, we needed one of the three elevators on the left.

  “Now what?” Brad asked, once we were all standing inside what had to be the cleanest elevator I have ever stepped foot in. “The buttons aren’t working and there’s no place to swipe one of these cards.”

  I tapped a black sensor pad above the numbered floor buttons, “Try holding a card up against that thing. I’m pretty sure it’s what tells the elevator which floor we have access to. Since we can’t swipe the card, like an ATM machine, then we’ll have to use it like a lot of the hotels do, which is holding the card up against it.”

  We hit pay dirt with the third card. With the 10th floor button illuminated, we began to rise.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked, as I looked over at Jillian.

  Brad held up the search warrant, “We’re going to evacuate the entire floor and then look around. Somewhere, somehow, Semzar has hidden their incriminating evidence up there. It’s our job to find it.”

  “I think we should confront the board first,” Jillian softly murmured.

  “What was that?” Brad asked.

  “What was that?” Vance echoed.

  “The board,” Jillian repeated. “They’re meeting today. Our informant indicated they were, and the guard confirmed it. I think we should talk to them first and let them know why we’re here. They’re here, right? We should take advantage of that.”

  “Why?” Officer Harding asked.

  “It’s just a feeling. What if Semzar’s board members have no idea that glucosoquin has some rather unpleasant side effects?”

  “Unpleasant??” I sputtered, as I turned to Jillian. “That’s putting it mildly, my dear.”

  Jillian took my hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “You know what I mean, Zachary. I just think we should let them know first.”

  The elevator chimed once and announced our arrival on the 10th floor. The doors slid open, presenting us with… hmm. I really don’t know what to call it. To me, it looked like a large colorized checkerboard attached to the wall. Overlaying that was the corporate logo for Semzar Pharmaceuticals. As odd as it may sound, I had only seen Samantha’s place of work one time, and that was for a Christmas party. The offices had been so heavily decorated that nothing I saw now looked familiar. The only thing I remembered was where we’d find the receptionist station.

  “Which way?” Vance wanted to know.

  For the record, I should point out that the first thing you’d see after stepping off the elevator was a sitting area, with upwards of six or seven arm chairs present. At the moment, none of them were occupied. As for the two receptionists Semzar employed, they were located through the doorway, in the next room over. I looked at Vance and pointed to the right.

  “That way.”

  “Is there something I can help you…” the curly-haired blonde woman sitting at the left-hand receptionist desk trailed off as she noticed our procession.

  I glanced back to see the police officers lining up behind us, like they would do
if they were taking a school photo. I saw Vance nod his head at Officer Harding while holding out the search warrant. Brad took the paper and stepped forward. The search warrant was held up so there could be no mistaking what it was.

  “We’re here to serve a search warrant for these premises. These officers behind me will be assisting me with my search. Do you have any questions?”

  The receptionist stared blankly at the document in Officer Harding’s hand. Her confused eyes met his and she blinked a few times. Officer Gutierrez appeared at her side.

  “Perhaps it’d be easiest if you wait over by the elevators? There you go.”

  “Where would the board members have their meeting?” Brad asked, as he turned to me. “I’d really like to catch them with their pants down, so to speak.”

  I shrugged, “It’s been a few years since I’ve been up here. I know Semzar has the entire floor, and I believe the 9th and the 11th, also. Hey, look. There’s some type of meeting happening in there. We should try over there first.”

  Directly behind the large dual receptionist’s desk was a huge bank of windows, all of which overlooked the western part of the Salt River Valley. The vast majority of those windows, we could see, were part of a large room that was presently occupied with a number of men and women seated around a mammoth 15-foot table. There had to be room for at least twenty people at that table, and all seats were occupied. Surprisingly, not one of the occupants had glanced up to look through the windows at us, because at the moment, they were all congratulating one another, giving hearty rounds of cheers, and so on.

  This had to be in the right place. Besides, both dogs were staring straight at the conference room. Right on cue, Sherlock and Watson tugged on their leashes. I couldn’t help be thrilled and nervous at the same time. It was finally time to confront Semzar with what we knew. It was time to find out which one of these corporate stooges was responsible for Samantha’s death. Was it just one or was everyone in that room involved in the cover-up? Officers Harding and Gutierrez, their faces grim, strode to the closed conference room door and, without bothering to knock, opened it.