Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (19 page)

“There are
recurring expenditures for a consulting company, here.” Leah leafed through her
papers. “Webber, Inc. I found a steady stream of invoices for them, but no
record of anyone actually working on the project. I think it needs more
investigation. I Googled them, but didn’t find a Website. What kind of computer
consulting firm doesn’t have a Website?”

“Jeff, I think you
should take that one.” Catrina nodded her head.

****

Chris knew his
dad’s routines. Harry was a creature of habit. As expected, Harry sat in front
of the crackling fire, staring into its depths. It was late, the big house
silent. The only sounds, the snapping of the fire and the rain pattering on the
roof.

“Dad, can we
talk.” This was what the trip was all about for Chris. He needed to get his
father alone.

“Chris?” Harry
turned towards him. “What are you doing awake so late?”

“I have something
I need to talk to you about. Something that’s really bothering me and you’re
the only one who can tell me what to do.”

“Whoa. This is a
twist.” Harry sat his glass of Scotch on the table next to his overstuffed
chair. “I can’t remember the last time you came to me for advice.”

“This is about
work, Dad. But it’s really more about ethics.”

“Okay, spill it.
What’s up?”

Chris paused and
thought. How could he put this so that his dad understood the problem?

“What if you have
a client, he’s given you all sorts of documentation for his case, and you
discover something? Something that doesn’t have anything to do with the case,
but might be evidence of another crime?”

Chris saw his
father transform from dad-mode to lawyer-mode in a heartbeat.

“You’re right
about ethics. We have a responsibility to our clients. We are covered by
attorney-client privilege. It’s a principle as old as the Magna Charta. Our
first duty is to our client.”

That wasn’t the
answer Chris wanted. “But, Dad, what if you think your client has done
something really bad? What if you’re afraid he might do it again?”

“What are we
really talking about here, Chris? What do you know about whom?”

Now Chris was
conflicted. He knew he had a responsibility to their client to keep his
secrets, but would it hurt to tell Dad? After all, Dad was really his attorney
too. Chris and Kathy were just Dad’s employees, his agents. The primary
responsibility for the client was Dad’s.

“Terry Metcalf. .
. I found a file in his stuff. It probably shouldn’t have been there.” Chris
hesitated, waited for a signal from his father that it was alright to go on.

“Metcalf?” Harry
picked up his glass again. “What kind of file?”

“It was
surveillance. Apparently, he had someone, maybe MS security, keeping tabs on a
cleaning woman. The weird part is, I recognized the cleaning woman. She was
Donna Harrison, the president of DigiGuard Security.”

A silence hung in
the air for a moment as Harry digested the information.

“The Donna
Harrison who was found floating in Elliot Bay?”

“Yeah. Metcalf had
a complete dossier on her, including security tapes of her dressed up as a
cleaning lady.”

“Why would the
president of a high-tech company be moonlighting as a cleaning lady?”

“That’s my question.
And why did she end up in Elliot Bay? Do you think Metcalf had anything to do
with it?”

“Jesus, Chris, you
never did bring me the easy problems.”

The stillness of
the night settled into the big living room. Chris’ front side, facing the fire
was warm, his backside cold. He couldn’t sit. He got up and paced back and
forth while his father thought.

“We can’t do
anything with this information.” Harry swallowed his last drop of Scotch. “We
can’t take it to the police, we can’t confront our client.”

“But, Dad, what if
Metcalf’s involved in her murder? What if he did it, or knows who did? We’re,
that is you are, an officer of the court. Don’t you have a responsibility to
give that information to the police?”

“Our first
responsibility is to our client. Then to the firm. If we give that information
to the police, Metcalf would sue us until we bled. Not to mention the State
Bar. At the minimum, Kathy would be censured. You’d never make it through law
school. I’d probably be disbarred. It would be the end of HB&J.”

“But what if
Metcalf was involved in Mrs. Harrison’s murder? What if he’s going to do it
again?”

“The law is quite
clear on that point. If the crime has already occurred, we’re bound to maintain
our client’s confidentiality. The fuzzy part comes when there is a degree of
certainty that the client is going to commit a crime that would involve
someone’s death or serious bodily injury. In that case, we
are
allowed
to divulge the information to the authorities. In real life, I’ve never heard
of that exception being used. You have to be one-hundred percent sure that a
crime’s going to take place. What evidence do you have that Metcalf may do this
again?”

“None really. I
don’t even know if he did it in the first place. It’s just very suspicious.”

“I think that
answers your question, Chris. We have to have absolute certainty that he is
going to strike again to do anything with this information.”

There it was.
Chris studied his father. His dad was just out for himself. He never had a
social conscience. He never cared about the little guy. For him it was all
about billable hours, about accumulating wealth.

“This is bullshit.
Metcalf did something. The law may say we can’t do anything about it, but the
law’s wrong.” Chris turned and headed for the door. “We, I, have to do
something.”

“Chris, wait.”
Harry jumped up. “Maybe there is a way . . .”

“Cat, I think you
might find this interesting.” Ted flipped a manila file onto Catrina’s desk.

Catrina opened the
file. “Airline ticket receipts. Credit card bills. What is this stuff?”

“Old Teddy has
been snooping around MS again. These are Alison Clarke’s expense reports. Now
look at this.” He handed her another folder. “Angie Hopper, senior VP of
product development.”

Catrina took the
second file. She placed the expense reports next to the first ones.

“Curious isn’t
it.” Ted could hardly contain his grin. “Alison and Angie always seem to go to
the same conferences and meetings. Always fly on the same flight. Do you see
what’s missing?”

Catrina studied the
expense reports for a minute. “Hotel rooms? Angie never has a hotel room.”

“Does that seem a
little strange to you? They fly to the same cities for the same meetings. Alison’s
expense reports always include meals for two. Angie doesn’t report buying any
meals or paying for a hotel room.”

“They’re sharing a
hotel room. They’ve got a thing going on. . .”

“Yeah.” Ted almost
burst. “Alison’s married, has two kids and a loving husband. But she’s sneaking
off to conferences and sharing her room with Angie. She’s got something to
hide. She’s a closet lesbian.”

“And just what is
wrong with being a lesbian?” Catrina got up and walked to the door. “Abeba, can
we get coffee in here please.”

“There’s nothing
wrong with being a lesbian,” Ted said. “But she is cheating on her husband.”

Catrina turned
back to Ted. “Okay, you’re right. Even if she isn’t doing anything, this looks
awfully suspicious. She has something to hide. So, why get us involved? She
hired us
after
Donna disappeared. If she was trying to cover up her
involvement in Donna’s death, she sure wouldn’t come to us.”

“Not necessarily.”
Ted sat on Catrina’s desk. “She’s really smart. Maybe she wanted us to go off
in another direction. Maybe she never expected us to uncover this. What if she
hired us to make the police think she was trying to find the killer, when all
the time, it was really her?”

“If this
information was made public, it would be a scandal.” Catrina clicked her
fingernails together. “It would affect stock prices, maybe force Alison out of
her job. This is something worth covering up. I wonder if Donna stumbled on it.”

Abeba entered the
room wearing a flowing African robe, with her silver tray and three glass
coffee cups. She handed one to Catrina. “Just like you like it. Black, like
me,” she said with a smile. She handed the second cup to Ted, then sat down in
one of Catrina’s unmatched chairs with the third cup. Ted’s coffee was
sweetened, just the way he liked it.

“OK, Mrs. Flaherty.
You don’t yell for coffee unless something’s really bothering you. What’s going
on?”

Ted glanced at
Catrina in disbelief. Abeba had a lot of nerve. Would Catrina really let her in
on an investigation?

“Abeba, Ted just
found some new information on the Clarke case.” Catrina leaned back in her
swivel chair, nestled her cup in her hands and put her feet up on her desk. “It
seems like our client is not as lily white as she seems . . .”

****

Ted stared at
Catrina, stunned. Why would she lay out their whole case for the receptionist?
What was he missing here?

“No. Mrs. Clarke
has something to hide, but she isn’t the one.” Abeba drained her cup. “I don’t
think her messing around has anything to do with Mrs. Harrison going missing.”

Ted looked from Catrina
to Abeba and back again. There was some kind of trust between the two women.
What were they thinking?

“You’re probably
right.” Catrina pulled her feet off of her desk and set her coffee cup back on
Abeba’s tray. “Thank you. You always seem to know.”

“Oh, I just
remembered. I have a package for Mr. Higurea.” Abeba jumped up and hurried out
of the office.

“Cat, I don’t get
it. Why did you just share our whole case with the receptionist?”

“You have a lot to
learn, Ted.” Catrina drilled her gray eyes into Ted. “The first thing is that
we all have something to offer. We may have different job titles, but we all
have equal worth.”

Ted felt a slight
flush hit his face.

“Abeba is
incredibly, almost mystically, intuitive. I’ve learned to trust her. I can lay
out a case for her and she can tell me if I’m on the right track or not. She’s
almost never wrong.”

“Here you are, Mr.
Higurea.” Abeba re-entered the office and handed Ted a large purple and orange
envelope. “This came a few minutes ago.”

“Fed-Ex.” Ted took
the envelope. “No return address.” He turned the package over in his hands. “The
address is filled out in neat block printing. Is there any way to tell where
this came from?”

“I can trace the
billing address.” Abeba stood over Ted. “We can find out who paid to ship it
and were it was picked up.”

Ted ripped the envelope
open and pulled out half a dozen eight and a half by eleven black and white
pictures. “These look like surveillance photos.” He handed them to Catrina, one
by one. “They’re of a cleaning lady.”

“This is Donna
Harrison.” Catrina handed the pictures to Abeba. “These must be from
surveillance cameras at Millennium Systems.”

“Why would someone
send pictures from MS?” Ted wiped his hand through his thick, black hair. “We
already know that Donna was working there under cover.”

“Someone’s trying
to help us.” Catrina leaned forward in her chair. “They don’t know what we
know. They’re trying to put us on the right trail.”

“Who would want to
help you, Mrs. Flaherty?” Abeba lowered herself into her chair. “How do they
even know you’re working on this case?”

“Okay.” Ted wished
he had Chris’ analytical mind. “We don’t know where these came from. We do know
that they aren’t from Alison Clarke. She already told us that Donna was working
under cover for her. If she wanted us to have these pictures, she would have
just given them to us. . .”

“Right.” Catrina
brushed her hair back behind her ear. “Alison probably doesn’t even know about
these. That means that someone with access to MS security tapes is holding back
from her.”

“But someone at Millennium
Systems has the tapes.” Ted’s mind was racing. “Donna obviously found something
there, something worth killing for. Somebody at MS knows about it and wants us
to know about it, but they’re afraid to come forward.”

“I don’t get it.”
Catrina picked up her empty coffee cup, looked in it and set it down again.
“We’ve seen Delphi. It’s a really cool electronic toy, but why kill someone
over it? It’ll be the flavor of the week for a few months, then someone else
will come out with something even more high-tech. Next year, everyone else will
have copied it and it’ll just be a commodity like a PC.”

“So, what’s
happening at Millennium Systems that’s even bigger than this new computer toy?”
Abeba said.

“That’s what we
have to find out.” Ted stood up. “We need to start by finding out who at MS is
trying to help us. We need to contact them, find out what they know.”

“Abeba, can you
work on the Fed-Ex package? Can you find out who our ‘Deep Throat’ is?” Catrina
asked.

“Right away, Mrs.
Flaherty.”

****

Ted filled his
classic Starbuck mug, the one with the topless mermaid in the logo (Ted always
thought of her as a mermaid, although Chris had explained that she was actually
a siren.), with heavy, dark coffee and headed to Catrina’s office. Thank
goodness Catrina shared Ted’s taste for rich, hearty coffee. The stuff they
served at YTS was like brown water.

The MS case had
evolved. Every morning Catrina, Jonathon Jefferson and Ted met in Catrina’s
office to share what they had learned in the previous twenty-four hours. This
was obviously Catrina’s highest priority.

“What do you have
today, Jeff?” Catrina wore a navy blue suit with a short skirt and cream-colored
silk blouse. She even was wearing heels. She must be meeting Alison Clarke
today. The only time Ted ever saw her in a skirt was when she had to go to the
MS headquarters.

“I’ve been
following up on Webber Inc.” Jeff looked as dapper as usual, dressed in a
charcoal suit that complemented his chocolate skin color “There’s definitely
something fishy going on here.”

Ted slid into the
empty chair in front of Catrina’s desk. “What’d ya find, dude?”

“It’s what I
didn’t find. The address for Webber Inc. is a PO Box. That’s not that unusual,
but I couldn’t find any street address for them. The registered president is a
Mr. Jacob Webber. I found his birth certificate, born August 12
^th
,
1961. I also found his death certificate, August 18
^th
, 1961. Funny
thing is, the dead Mr. Webber applied for a Social Security card in May of
2003.”

Silence hung in
the air.

“Okay,” Catrina
finally broke the silence. “We have a phony ID. Who does it belong to?”

“Hard to say.”

“Leah and I have
gone back through the MS accounts payable system.” Ted set his coffee cup on
Catrina’s desk. “There’s payments to Webber Inc. every month going back to the
beginning of the Delphi project in June of 2003. Almost six million dollars.”

“Do we know what
service Webber Inc. was providing?” Catrina stretched her long legs under the
desk.

“The payments just
say for consulting.” Ted caught an appreciative glance of Catrina’s thighs.

“So is it Schmidt,
or is it this Lombardi woman?” Catrina raised an eyebrow.

Dios mío. It’s
time to come clean.
“It’s not Gina Lombardi.” Ted’s voice was low. “She’s
the one who put me onto Schmidt in the first place. She told me where to look.”

“What?” Catrina
almost came out of her chair. “Higuera, you’ve been holding back on us?”

“I’ve kinda been
seeing Gina. I found the file at her house. Schmidt has been forcing her to
make these illegal entries into the company GL for him.”

“Jeff, I think you
better leave us alone.” Catrina was seething. “And close the door.”

Ted suddenly felt
a violent urge to urinate. He wiped his wet palms on his pants.

“I can forgive a
lot of things.” Catrina’s voice was soft and ice cold. “But holding out
information is not one of them. You’re part of a team. When you come to work
here, you dedicate your life to our cause. If you can’t do that, Ted, you need
to get out.”

Ted’s cheeks
burned. He had fucked up and he knew it.

“Cat, I’m sorry. I
didn’t think it mattered. I was so excited about finding out about this that I
didn’t think you’d care how I got the information.”

“I don’t give a
shit about the information or how you found it. You don’t get it, do you? This
is about loyalty, about family. We took you in here. Made you part of our
family. I don’t give my trust easily, and once you’ve lost it, you can never
get it back.”

Don’t forget
you invited me.
Ted’s ears felt like they were on fire. After all, he had a
good job, was making a ton of money. Catrina had recruited him, now he was
working twice the hours for half the money.
I didn’t need them, they needed
me. Why am I even working here?

“You let me down.”
Catrina’s voice cut through his soul. “You held out on me. Chasing a skirt was
more important than your responsibility to your family. How can I ever trust
you again?”

Ted looked at his
hands. His mind froze. He had a thousand things he wanted to say, but he
couldn’t come up with the words.

He cared about Cat
and her cause. He had never thought about it in those terms before.
Family.
Flaherty & Associates was kinda like a family. They were a sorority of
wounded souls, bound together by their pain. Everyone working here had been
hurt, assaulted, denigrated and minimalized in some way. Catrina had built a
safe haven for these outcasts. She had invited him to be part of it.

He hadn’t been
fair to her. He had tried to compartmentalize his life, to keep work separate
from his personal life. Catrina didn’t see it that way. She demanded one-hundred
percent of his life.

What could he say?

“Cat, there’s
something else.” He held his breath. The explosion didn’t come.

Catrina didn’t say
a word. She stared through him. Finally she nodded her head slightly.

“Chris. My best
friend, Chris Hardwick.”

“I know about
Chris. His father is Harry Hardwick”

“Chris is working
for his dad.”

Catrina pushed her
swivel chair back from her desk. “As a paralegal. Why? What does that have to
do with anything?”

“He’s working on a
case for his dad. I shouldn’t be telling you this. He probably violated
attorney-client privilege when he told me.”

Catrina just
stared at him.

“”They’re working
for Terry Metcalf. Metcalf is getting ready for the suit that he thinks Alison
is going to file against him.”

Catrina exhaled a
long breath. “Get the hell out of here. I need to think about this.”