Cafe Underground Presents
PHACKER
Book 3 -- Chapter 9
The Detective Andi Wicksham Series, by RL Bell
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL
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....author RL Bell
Andi Wicksham's INVESTIGATORY SERVICES
Chapter 9
Lena talked through lunch about getting a new futon--the one at the apartment was really JC’s. She admitted liking the time that he was on tour despite its’ combining the worst of relationship and being single.
Andi nodded, receptive and supportive, but the underlying theme was JC and that grated. Even in breaking up he took an unfair portion of Lena's life. "Want to do a movie?"
"When?" Lena looked up, wide-eyed.
"Tonight?"
Lena looked down to her plate. "Can't." she said in a small voice. An awkward silence separated them for a breath and a half.
"When?" Andi asked, impatient and hurt. She fussed with silverware and took a sip of water.
"Tomorrow?"
"Band practice." Andi made a face, then turned away to avoid meeting Lena's eyes. "Got to get ready after work."
"The weekend for sure?" Lena's voice was barely audible.
"Fine." replied Andi curtly she chewed her lip and focused on a couple across the room just rising from their table. An agonizing silence gnawed the space around them--two measures, six. A long phrase of ticking silence, then another and another.
Lena looked down at her plate. "OK, I'll cancel JC--it's not like we have anything to discuss. He wants his stuff, it can wait." Her halting words punctuated their quiet. Straightening in her chair she said firmly. "We'll do a movie."
Andi looked over in surprise. "Great." she whispered.
"You want desert?"
“Maybe a decaf."
"Half a Death By Chocolate?" Lena was an impish Lucifer offering half a Faustian apple.
"Maybe a bite." smiled Andi. "What movie do you wanna see?"
Back at the office was a message, Ramirez wanted Andi to call him back.
Andi punched the number from memory. "It's Andi."
"Wicksham, there've been two more murders." his voice was grim. "Max wants everything you got."
"Where?" Andi deflected.
"Seattle, but they say there's a tie-in to Portland--one victim lived here."
"Somebody we know?" she asked impatiently.
"Don't be pushy, Wicksham. I got faxed photos. Prints are being sent. Since you're into this project you might have seen one of them. Had lunch yet?"
"Just came from lunch."
"OK, Machismo Mouse in twenty minutes." He didn't wait for an answer.
Andi slammed the phone down, startling Lena. "Sorry." she apologized grumpily. "I have to meet Ramirez again." Twenty minutes later she walked across the street and picked her way down the sidewalk. Ramirez was already a third of the way through a chicken burrito doctored with Boss Sauce and jalapeños.
"Hola, Ramirez." Andi greeted him grumpily as she pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.
"Como esta, amiga?" he responded chummily.
"What do you want. I've got a business to run."
He pointed with the wrong end of his fork to a manila envelope.
Andi pulled out the contents. A copy of a three page police report on the clinical-looking forms Seattle used and the grainy results of xeroxed photos further hazed by faxing. They were close-up shots from the crime scene with the blood and bodies in contorted positions, not the cleaned-up morgue photos usually given for identification.
The first was a young woman with a strikingly beautiful nose of the Middle East or India, but with bruised eyes and swollen lips and a broken front tooth. It looked like her throat may have been cut and across her mouth was a piece of duct tape, like the body on 50th street.
The other photo was of a young man--thin, his dark hair matted with blood, but still parted in the middle. Between his lower lip and chin sprouted an inch-long strip of beard. The tape that once covered his mouth still clung limply to one cheek, his mouth and eyes were half open. A close-up showed wrists tightly tied with lamp cord, two wraps around each wrist and knotted.
"Know em?" asked Ramirez as he wiped his mouth with a napkin.
"The guy might be Ramsey Karenia, a friend of my target."
Ramirez grabbed the report and glanced through it. "He had ID by that name. What's the connection?"
"Friend from school, police record with Eugene." answered Andi tiredly. "You should be able to look them up. Might ask Eugene's aunt for corroboration."
"The investigating officers used the pictures you and that employee did, they found witnesses."
Andi stared at Ramirez impassively.
Ramirez waited for a response that never came. "OK, who can ID Karenia?" Ramirez pushed his plate away and pulled out a pad of paper and ballpoint.
Andi sighed and leaned back in her chair. "If you’re finished we’ll go get you numbers." She stuffed the report and pictures back in the envelope. Ramirez stared at her without pulling the point of the pen from the pad--as if judging whether or not she was pulling a fast one. He deliberated longer than he should have.
Andi rose to her feet. "Coming?" She turned toward the door.
"Hold it." Ramirez called out. "Don't run off without me." he tucked the envelope under his arm and made a point of bussing his table.
He followed into her office as if wary of wild animals that might leap out from the closet. Sonny had come to work. She greeted him was a warm "Hey, it’s Roy Ramirez, long time no ver."
Ramirez nodded tersely and scanned the room as if trying to memorize the exact position of each item.
"So you're the mysterious Ramirez." gushed Lena. "We've talked on the phone. Andi talks about you all the time."
"You must be Lena." warmed Ramirez politely. "Andi's supposed to bring you over to our house for dinner, did she tell you?" Both Lena and Ramirez looked expectantly at Andi.
"I hadn't heard." Lena replied slowly, still looking at Andi. Andi wished she were out of the country.
"So! Ramirez, what was it you wanted?" Andi interjected. She grabbed her notebook and pointedly avoided their eyes.
"This weekend would be fine for us." continued Ramirez, ignoring Andi.
"Andi?" asked Lena quietly.
Andi blushed. "I'd love to, we'd love to." she didn't know which of them to address. She paged through the notebook.
"You want a cup of coffee?" Sonny offered, enjoying the encounter and willing to twist the knife in the back of a friend.
"Half a cup, thanks." Ramirez answered primly, then he settled nonchalantly on the edge of Andi's desk. Andi sank back into her chair feeling things had gotten out of hand. Ramirez smiled benignly down at her and turned to Sonny. "So, what do you know about this computer stuff?" he asked pointedly.
"Computer stuff?" countered Sonny. "You mean the Trafino case? It's boring." She made a face.
"How about hacking?"
Sonny threw her hands in the air. "God Ramirez, I just started part-time yesterday. You'll have to ask Lena and Andi."
In the slow, smooth, irresistible movement of a dancer, Ramirez swiveled his soulful gaze on Lena. It was as if he'd asked a question.
Lena glanced up to the ceiling to collect herself. "Our client's nephew tracked the computer intruders, hacked the hackers, and disappeared."
"He had the phone number of an office on SE 50th?" Ramirez's voice led, soft and conversational.
"Your crime scene?" Lena blurted. She looked insecurely across to Andi.
Ramirez turned his head to follow Lena's gaze. He seemed to have taken out a lease on that corner of her desk.
"The 50th street number and address?" he repeated.
Andi rested her elbow on the desk and propped her head in her hand. She waved the other hand wearily in the air. "Go on ahead. Tell him everything. We're all one big family."
Ramirez settled himself and took a sip of coffee as if moving in slow motion. His notebook and pen had magically appeared in his hands. He turned back to Lena and gazed expectantly into her face.
After another glance toward Andi, Lena took a breath and began. "50th street did industrial-spy stuff. Eugene tracked them down and pulled stuff from their computers, but most of it was encoded." She fixed her eyes somewhere behind Ramirez--withholding the connection. Her pace was hypnotically slow and easy. "Our source for decoding is a bit irregular; he's a stranger and Andi's concerned he’ll spook. That wouldn't serve Max or anybody."
Andi watched in awe--Lena, simple and open-eyed, sighed a heavy sigh--all peaches and cream for Ramirez. With spin control skills like that she should be in politics.
Ramirez gave a dyspeptic shake of his head. His voice was just as mellow. "You could write romance books and make more than Wicksham's paying. Tell me what you know about computer encryption." With the smooth polish he could put on sarcasm he could have been Eliot Ness.
Lena shrugged. "I know the material is all scrambled and takes forever to decode. We're getting a dribble at a time."
"So you've been working for a couple of weeks, but don't have any idea what you're looking into?" Irony was one of Ramirez's better cards and he played it with style. Andi wondered why he revisited such fallow fields.
Lena shrugged. "We've got Eugene's binder, but you've got that. We chase things one at a time."
"Tell me about your computer friend." interrupted Ramirez.
Andi suddenly realized what he was after. Francois, she looked up to catch Lena's eyes, but Ramirez had shifted to block her line of sight. She leaned way over to see around him.
"You mean that little creep Frank?" Lena came through like a seasoned professional. "Andi talked to him, I didn't. I can truthfully say I’ve never spoken to him."
Ramirez nodded sagely and twirled his pen around in a little circle, gesturing to continue.
Lena gave a little pout. "He shows up every now and again and passes things on. I think he doesn't trust Andi because she's middle-aged, it’s a generational thing, you know." Her conspiratorial smile didn't move Ramirez a hair.
Andi shot a nasty glare, at being labeled middle-aged.
"How about your other computer friend?" He asked in a deadpan monotone.
"Who?" asked Lena, her expression a mask of puzzlement.
Ramirez paged back in his pad of paper. "Francois?" he prompted like a district attorney reminding a friendly witness. “James Johnson?”
Lena looked pained, "I haven't seen him since we went to that motel. I told you that before."
"With Frank?" asked Ramirez in an incredulous tone.
"The motel?" Lena asked as if she hadn't a clue.
"You don't know where he is or how to get a hold of him?" Ramirez didn't miss a beat.
“Frank?”
“Francois.”
"I understand he dropped out of sight when you guys started playing Gestapo." Lena delivered the line without the slightest hint of disapproval.
"Haven't seen or heard from Frank?" Ramirez asked again.
"I told you I haven't, it's Andi he talks to." Lena's voice allowed a touch of irritation.
"Do you know there've been a series of murders connected to this affair?" Ramirez beamed the full power of his baleful gaze upon her.
"You mentioned the guy in Oakland."
"There were two more in Seattle, one a young woman." he let the information sink in. The noise of traffic outside on the street was the only sound for the count of seven. "What can you tell me that will help bring in these butchers?" He was good--quiet and sincere, a pro.
"The gangsters in Utah were pissed about somebody ripping them off. The jerks working under the trucking firm cover."
Ramirez turned his head to lift an eyebrow at Andi. "Pissed off?" he asked.
Lena answered. "That was my understanding. Andi’s already told you about the trucking firm."
Ramirez closed his pad of paper and shook his head. "You guy's aren't making this easy."
"You must think we know more than we do." responded Lena calmly. "If we had more Andi'd pass it on. She likes you."
Ramirez blushed and relaxed. "Yeah, we go way back.” He shrugged of his cop persona. “Tanya wants you over. She needs to check out Andi's friends."
Lena stretched and smiled. "I can't wait. This Saturday?"
"Sure." he stood and turned to Andi. "Got the names and numbers for Karenia?"
Andi held up the sheet of paper. "My client and her employee. But there are two more there that might be related." She rose and walked him to the top of the stairs, explaining and the nebulous connection with Grassroots Family Values and Avedic-Frank. He listened stoically, without asking how she'd learned that sort of information. "It's all we have, Ramirez." Andi looked up, hoping he would just let things lie.
He nodded and smiled the barest of smiles. "Saturday, Wicksham." he offered gruffly before descending the wide flight of stairs.
Andi stood watching. Under it all, he understood.
There were few interruptions through the rest of the afternoon. Sonny and Lena picked through raw material while Andi reviewed their harvest and assembled new files. Her standard had been to at least run her eyes across anything that might be related. Now the problem was winnowing through freight-car volumes of chaff. Inevitably, most would be left unread; they had half-a-bookshelf of blue plastic disks already--each holding maybe four or five hundred pages of information. There was no right way to handle the volume.
The bulk Francois delivered from Eugene's archives was incredible, maybe fifteen or twenty-five thousand pages--and he said there was much more. Lena and Sonny scratched the surface of that. Andi didn’t want to think about the margin of error.
Francois' search into Avedic-Frank and Grassroots appeared at their door--a few dozen pages in a well-used manila envelope with a torn off labels. Andi paged through--lists of employees and contributors, financial statements, and bank accounts. More information over-kill she didn’t have time to sort out. She tucked it into a separate folder and went back to slogging.
Lena spun around. "One of us should be going through this stuff before it gets here. Eugene’s done a first cut, but Francois doesn't really know what we're after."
"I'll go." piped in Sonny. "He works my hours anyway."
"How do you know that?" asked Lena suspiciously.
"Do you know what we’re looking for?" Andi asked.
"I know more than Francois by now." Sonny smirked. "See any other volunteers?"
"How do you know what hours Francois works?" repeated Lena.
"I've known Francois for years." Sonny waved an airy hand over her shoulder. "I'll set it up for tomorrow." She flashed Lena a quick wink and turned back to her screen.
Andi looked out the window. Five o'clock came--they straightened the office. Lena promised to come by at seven and they went their separate ways.
Andi raced home, showered and straightened things up. She debated finger food, sliced a carrot and set the plate in the refrigerator. Wine? No, unless it was with slow jazz in a warm, dimly-lit living room. She relished that thought and bumped the thermostat up to seventy three. She got out a large bar of dark chocolate with hazelnuts and set out the fixings for hot cocoa. The thought warmed her with a tingle.
She hated the clothes she’d chosen, too denim-Northwest and changed into a long-sleeved, tailored blouse, brown slacks and black flats--tried different unsatisfactory scarves and defaulted to her Pendelton jacket as an accessory.
It was only twenty to six and she'd exhausted her list of chores. She paced and straightened her bookcase, re-wiped the kitchen counters and ate a carrot stick while grinning in the mirror.
At six fifty-seven, a decent time margin to be early, Lena appeared in black, overalls cut off mid-thigh with a silver-grey tee shirt, purple hightops and silver striped leggings. She was striking.
Andi stared.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" Lena smirked.
Andi stepped back and gave a beckoning sweep of her hands. "We never picked a movie."
"No problem." Lena plopped down on the couch. "Where you want to eat?"
"Bread And Ink?" Andi asked, hoping it would be OK.
"Cool." Lena rolled her eyes. "Hungry?"
Andi stood, gawky and unsure of whether to offer something or sit down and talk. "Want carrot sticks?"
"Let's go." decided Lena. "You OK?"
Andi grinned foolishly. "Just fine. I've been giddy waiting." She blushed and fumbled awkwardly. "I’m all thumbs." she said, suddenly uncertain.
Lena shook her head. "You're a sad case, you know that? I kind of like it...besotted." She chuckled to herself, sprang to her feet and bounced toward the door.
Andi bit at her lip and grabbed her coat. They ambled through the warm evening air toward Hawthorne. Andi was acutely aware of the closeness of Lena's hand swinging beside her own--the warm presence of her shoulder, her moist, clean smell; faintly of sandalwood soap. She reached hesitantly and Lena's fingers magically intertwined, warm and strong and softly enveloping. A car passed and she was aware of keeping their hands from the driver's view. They gently squeezed fingers and exchanged a quick satisfied smile.
"I'm really glad I know you." confided Lena.
Andi squeezed her fingers again for an answer. "This feels good." She took a long deep breath. The clouds streaking the western half of the sky were growing orange and pink.
A yard of roses stretched beside the sidewalk. Lena paused and inhaled. She tried three others and pointed with her free hand. "This one."
Andi leaned and smelled as instructed, her nose grazing the yellow petals, her head filling with the spicy essence. Every sense felt heightened, every nerve aware. Lena tugged, moving on to other bushes. Andi flowed in her wake, smelling when bidden--pleased with whatever fate washed her way. Lena smiled coyly, Andi stood, shoulders back, a bit reserved, returning a relaxed smile.
They got a table within minutes and ordered--Lena, a lamb dish with carrot-ginger glaze and Andi, grilled chicken breast with squash ravioli's, a smooth merlot and basil graced baguettes.
Lingering after, they shared a dark chocolate special; pecan crust and heavy mousse filling topped with a fudge layer and curls of shaved bitter chocolate painted with tart blackberry syrup.
"Do you really want to do a movie?"
Lena wiped a smudge of chocolate from her lips and shook her head no.
Andi cut a sliver and held her fork before her. "Food of the Gods." she mused, savoring the curled shaved chocolate, dreamily inspecting the rest through lidded eyes.
"Phenylethylamines." Lena observed obscurely, licking a morsel from her lower lip.
"What?" replied Andi absently. She toyed with the blackberry syrup, drawing lines across the saucer with her fork.
"The love drug." Lena replied with a smirk. “It's why you lie awake when you're infatuated."
"I don't lie awake." lied Andi defensively.
"It's also in dark chocolate, soft cheese, and dry red wine, related to mescaline." lectured Lena through a mouthful of creamy-smooth chocolate."
They walked hand in hand, slowly along the quiet streets. Just outside the yellow light on Andi’s porch Andi tried asking her up and ended up coughing. Lena looked silently up to her face, stepped close and lay her head against her shoulder.
Andi could feel her warmth, the lifting of each breath and the pulsing heartbeat from beneath her ribs. She wrapped her arms around her, shut her eyes and wished away words and awkwardness. Lena pushed away a moment later, then looked up into Andi's eyes and opened her mouth to kiss.
Andi kissed rapturously, sucking gently at her lips, exploring in the dark, nibbling at her neck--a quaking tremble rumbled within her as one hand massaged the base of Lena's spine and her other tingled as it cradled the back of her head.
Lena broke away again, "Let's go inside." she whispered softly, taking Andi's hand and leading her up the steps to the door.
Andi woke with their limbs entwined, Lena's head nestled against her shoulder and her arm across her chest. Birds clattered in the tree outside. The sun was already above the house tops.
Andi turned her head to look at the clock. Eight-nineteen. She hadn't set the alarm. It was late--damn.
Lena opened her eyes. "We never made it to the movie." she observed lazily.
"It's almost eight-thirty." moaned Andi. "We're late.." Her mind was already clicking into work gear despite the fact that her body still lay entwined and blissfully indolent.
"For what? Sonny's working at Francois'. You got appointments or employees I don't know about?"
Andi tilted her head to look down at her. "You're a bad influence. I've been warned about people like you. Just yesterday I had will power and a work ethic."
"What do you want for breakfast?" Lena grumped.
Andi smirked and raised a suggestive eyebrow.
"Oh, you're bad." teased Lena, lifting her head to offer an encouraging kiss.
Forty-five minutes later, Lena borrowed underwear, socks and a shirt, they ate cheerios and sliced peaches.
"We need HIV tests." Lena said soberly.
"But I haven't had risk factors." insisted Andi.
"You do now." said Lena with a smirk of a smile. And you did before Tracy dumped you."
Andi grumbled quietly.
"I will if you will." she smiled across the table all sweetness and light.
"OK." Andi yielded with an uneasy smile. She rose from the table and they trooped downstairs without speaking.
They trooped into the office a few minutes before ten to find six messages on the machine. Lena set to transcribing while Andi started coffee and straightened her desk. The phone rang--Andi glanced toward Lena, then reached across her desk.
"Wicksham, here."
"It's Ramirez. The male victim in Seattle’s Eugene's friend."
"Not surprising."
"And Max wants everything you have. He's mentioned getting a warrant and just grabbing everything. I suggest you come across." His voice was conversational, but an edge telegraphed seriousness.
"It'll take a day or two."
"I don't think you have it. The fat's in the fire. If you don't come across, Max'll kiss off pretense."
Andi chuckled. "I got more information than he has budget and I can truthfully say there's nothing significant in my office. Being a jerk will ensure he gets less slower."
"Do you think he understands--or cares? He thinks you're jerking him around. If it wasn't for wanting to make progress on this, he'd slam you just on principle. It’s crunch time Wicksham."
Andi shuffled through the folders on her desk, pulled out the one with the intruder's e-mail. "I assume you haven't made any headway deciphering the codes?"
"Wicksham..."
"How about the feds? You gave the coded files? What they give in return?"
"They're as much help as Martians and you're avoiding the issue."
Andi tossed her pencil onto her desk. "OK. I'll run copies of their e-mail and give you copies of everything we have that’s decoded. Thanks to bungling the trucking firm, they changed their codes and it's slowed progress."
"Don't fool with him Wicksham." Ramirez threatened. "Or he'll be at your door by noon."
"Tell him it's stupid to threaten golden-egg laying geese. Frank is doing Max's work for him."
"That's a phony line, Wicksham."
"None the less, you’ve got everything we started with. Do it yourself or get out of the way."
"Wicksham. This isn't the time for heroics. I'm helping you by passing this on this warning."
"Ramirez. I told you you'd get everything significant--you already have the originals." She shook her head and frustrated, spun around her chair. "I'm the only one helping you, remember. What part of my help is being interpreted as hostile?"
"It's your attitude, Wicksham." Ramirez sounded exhausted. "But OK. When do we get the latest e-mail?"
"How about an hour? I'll deliver it personally."
"Great." he replied with less enthusiasm than he might have. "Personally, right? An hour." That said, he hung up and Andi looked at the wall beyond Lena's table. An hour--it would take fifteen minutes to do the copying, ten to drive over.
"Two of the messages were Ramirez." interrupted Lena.
Andi looked over and nodded.
"Janice has another witness to trace, Trafino called and Francois wants to talk."
"That's five messages." Andi observed questioningly.
"JC called, pissed off at being canceled." Lena said in a small voice. "He got mad when he couldn't reach me."
"Sorry." Andi wanted to sound concerned and compassionate, but secretly felt a tinge of triumph. "I need to talk to Francois anyway, but Janice first. Did Trafino say what she wants?"
"She was upset about the contents of the briefcase. Something about it being wrong." Lena made a face. "She sounded upset."
"What?" exclaimed Andi with exasperation. "Tell her I'll get back later. I need to talk to Francois first."
Lena gave a sarcastic salute and Andi called Janice Thompson and discussed an ex-student from PSU, the dorm-mate of a girl who'd been assaulted. She got times, dates, and friends and labeled a new folder, then put down the phone, tossed the file on Lena's table and returned to reading the hacker’s e-mail.
Half an hour later she rubbed her temples. Lena smiled and turned back to her work giving Andi a flush of satisfaction. They'd shifted comfortably back to work roles--no uncomfortable sticky stuff disturbing professional routine.
She drove to Ramirez's office--a temporary one while the eastside police station was being remodeled. It was the type of empty retail floor space used during election season for campaign headquarters. Cheap, with inadequate lighting pushed up to its maximum, no new rugs or remodeling and standard issue, carpeted partitions strung with telephone lines.
She pulled into the parking lot wishing she hadn't volunteered the delivery, then sat on the uncomfortable bench in the sterile lobby, under the eye of a bored desk cop until Ramirez ushered her back.
His cubicled desk was tucked among dozens of others. He threaded through the maze at a stroll. The partition tops were stylized ocean swells, theater props with people’s heads and the tops of cabinets floating, disembodied, between them.
Ramirez sank into a chair and nodded to the one across from him. Andi had him figured for a good-guy first round--then switch. He feigned sincerity. "I looked into your Mr. Trafino, Wicksham--thought it would show good faith. Credit card bills and stuff. He did significant traveling for a computer nerd on parole with a technician-peon paycheck."
Andi glanced up, surprised. "Where did he go?"
"Dallas and Philadelphia."
"I heard rumors, but took ‘em as rumor." She leaned back, slouching carefully on the slick, institutional seat cover. "Dallas, the east coast..."
Ramirez sorted through some papers on his desk with the tip of a finger, "Economy class, July the sixth, Dallas on the seventh...returned the ninth. At each place about...uh, about twenty hours." He looked up at her as she were responsible for his jet-setting ways. “Not enough for a party and hangover.”
"And..." Andi demanded."
"And what?" responded Ramirez.
"I can tell there's more by the way you said it."
"Guess." His eye were closed to slits and his lips to a terse smile.
"About traveling east?" Andi ventured, he nodded. She took a stab in the dark, "He did the circuit again three week ago."
Ramirez gave a visible start, then glared. "The return ticket was used. That brings him back just after his aunt started getting worried.” Ramirez's good side was fading fast.
"He flew back here?" Andi rolled her eyes and shrugged, then looked across disconsolately. “Why ruin a good get-away?”
"Anything else you know about this, Ms. Wicksham?" he demanded meaningfully.
Andi sighed, "Nothing on Eugene" and tossed the hacker’s e-mail on his desk. "This’s stuff he stole from 50th street and decoded." She folded her hands and fell silent.
Ramirez seemed to have to take that in before responding. The silence within the cubical was made deeper by the constant murmur of barely audible conversations and telephones rising to the ceiling and bouncing back as white noise. Andi watched Ramirez's face and chewed her lip. He was lost in private thoughts.
"Why didn't we get them earlier?" he asked. He paged through the copies, but barely glanced down at the pages.
Andi wondered if there was a police department video teaching that particular balance of neutral tone, demanding and disapproving--polite, but at the edge of being hostile. "You’ve had them since breaking into 50th. These came in yesterday...isn’t that quick enough?"
"When did your client’s nephew take these?" The voice was bland and unremarkable.
"I don't know."
"How was he involved in 50th street?"
"They were breaking into his aunt’s computers...what’s your point?" Andi decided to let the fuse burn short. "Watch my lips as I speak, Ramirez. I..don't..know more than I’ve told you. Is this some kind of a test?"
Their eyes met mid-way across his desk--his eyes dark, his face implacable. "Max thinks you're on a ego trip, drifting in way over your head. He thinks you have a lot more information in hand and are obstructing this investigation out of ignorance and an adolescent, anti-authoritarian personality defect."
Andi looked Ramirez right in the eye. "Max's a delusional paranoid projecting his behavior on me." She got that out without cracking a smile, then broke down with a grin. "I wouldn't put it past him to be hiding out listening while you grilled me."
Ramirez rolled his eyes and cracked a smile, then flashed back to the hard-cop persona. "Stick to the subject Wicksham. Why should I trust you?" His voice was deadpan, but his eyes sparkled like a Hispanic Santa Clause and he pointed significantly to the grey partition beside him.
"Why shouldn't you trust me?" Andi countered. Her eyes flicked to the partition. "Let's see, on one side I've given you leads and sources, originals and deciphered material, sketches of the probable killers and identified a homicide victim...on the other are the suspicions of somebody who doesn't trust or respect either the public or the spirit of the law and abuses his authority because his subordinates are cowed into putting up with his self-righteous control trip. Do I have that straight?"
Ramirez gave an imploring look, silently begging her to lighten up. "Ms Wicksham, there are an ongoing series of professionally performed murders and you seem to be the single source to information about them. And..." he paused, "You dribble it to us if and when it seems to please you."
"That's a errant perception Ramirez. Things dribble in and I pass them on."
"Think of yourself as a gatekeeper? Access is power?"
"Ah...so that’s the crux of Max's angst." pounced Andi. "It’s Max's control issues, not whether I've given you more than your federal colleagues, not whether I've given you a little or a lot."
Ramirez held out his hand to restrain her, but Andi was on a roll. "Police commander or not, the guy's a loose cannon-sleazball on the public trough. Why don't those of you with ethics boot him from your ranks?" Ramirez winced and rolled his eyes. "His way would dry this source like Pendelton in September.”
Ramirez coughed and regrouped. "Let me get this straight Wicksham. You say you've given us everything even vaguely important and promise to pass-on future material immediately?" He nodded his head and gestured with his hand.
"That's right." Andi kept her voice even and her answers terse.
"And you say you'll actively encourage your informant to come up with more information that you’ll immediately pass on?" He nodded his head again.
"Yeah...if and when I see him."
"OK." Ramirez took a deep breath and looked down at the copies before him. "This material is e-mail, purportedly from the computers at the murder scene on SE 50th street?"
"All of that file." said Andi flatly.
"Is there more information that isn't in your file?" Ramirez asked pointedly.
Andi laughed. "Welcome to the computer age. 50th Street made a business of collecting information. Eugene snatched volumes to glance through, most of it having nothing to do with my problem, much less yours. We’re going through as best we can. You’ve got everything we’ve thought relevant. That's all I claim it to be."
"Why won't you pass over the lot of it?" Ramirez recited the question without heart, as if he were reading a script.
"You already got all the 50th street material--and you can't do a thing with it. The question’s a spurious issue."
Ramirez sighed and shook his head sadly. "I think that will be enough for now Ms Wicksham. But I want you to know that we'll be watching you." His voice oozed classic, hard-core cop.
Andi rolled her eyes hoping for some human response. She struggled to keep her mouth shut. Ramirez rose without a word and she followed him to the front.
"See you Saturday." he said quietly with a smile and wink.
Andi smiled back--it was as close as he could come to congratulating her for the little drama.
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