Quantum

by Patricia Cornwell

  “When she used it to return to Langley, to Building 1110,” I presume, and she confirms as I think about what else she just said:

  “. . . The ID number originally assigned to her hasn’t come up anywhere since last night.”

  The word assigned jumps out. It’s all too easy to forget that passwords, identification codes and numbers, and even radio frequency bands are assigned by humans who decide, for example, that 154.4075 should be for local police, fire and rescue. If the frequency band is for a radio station, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decides the call sign, such as the Howard Stern show.

  It has two home frequencies on Sirius XM Radio, Howard 100 and Howard 101. Even the stars and planets have names and numbers that we decide. Kepler-186f, Gliese 581g, HD 40307g, Tau Ceti e, to name a few exoplanets light-years from here that might be earthlike, possibly habitable, and I’m reminded there are creative ways someone might try to outsmart NASA’s security system.

  “I’m going to take a look at the metadata when I get a chance,” I let everyone know, and I have a hunch that I don’t want to explore out loud at the moment.

  That if someone knew what he or she was doing and could hack into our security system, this person could have changed Vera Young’s ID number to something else that wouldn’t come back to Vera had her card been used unlawfully. Especially if it’s a number that’s almost identical. One digit off, and the search will come back empty handed.

  “From what I can gather from the system,” Scottie is explaining, “Vera Young’s card was swiped at 9:05 yesterday morning when she entered Building 1110 for work, and it would seem that was the last time it was used anywhere on campus. Which is consistent with what she said, I believe? That when she tried to reenter the guard gate much later in the day, she realized her badge was gone. Forcing her to get a temporary one.”

  “Haven’t seen a temporary one anywhere, by the way,” Butch says.

  “But other than early last night, it would seem she didn’t use it at all.” Peering at me through her helmet’s visor, Scottie’s face is bright red, sweat beaded on her forehead. “At least that should give you some peace of mind, right?”

  It doesn’t. I’m not about to trust anything and know there are other ways to outsmart the system. Just as there are ways to have signals and frequencies that are almost identical to those around them, making it harder to find an intruder. If I had peace of mind to begin with, I don’t now, and it feels that I never will again.

  “I hate to sound naive, but is it possible she simply misplaced her badge?” Butch is helping label latent fingerprint cards, the Sharpie awkward in his layers of gloves.

  “Not if she used her laptop to print a suicide note,” Scottie makes a good point. “It would seem she might have known by then that her badge hadn’t really been stolen or lost. That it wasn’t gone, after all.”

  “Unless her complaint was a bald lie off the bat.” Fran is off the phone and back on the intercom, making her way toward us as I tap-tap the laptop’s return key, the display blinking out of sleep mode.

  “And to quote Alice in Wonderland, things are only getting curiouser and curiouser,” I let everyone know. “Her computer isn’t password protected.”

  “Oh wow,” Butch and Scottie in unison, and the joke is if both of them were women, they’d have their periods at the same time.

  “Seriously? What NASA contractor wouldn’t password protect his or her every device, most of all a laptop?” I add.

  “None,” Fran pipes up as she reaches us. “They might lose their car in the parking lot or not know their own phone number. Or leave the SIPRNet room door wide open. But not to password protect their own computer? That I’d never expect.”

  “It looks like the exact same note that was printed and left in the bedroom.” Scottie bends close, studying the file open on the display, Vera Young’s alleged last words right there:

  To Whom It Should Concern

  It was quite the great ride until I was placed on a wall and no matter which way I went, I was going to fall.

  Nothing can put me back together again. Soon enough you’ll understand how it is that someone can reach the existential place of no way in or out. And do the unthinkable. And be sorry and not.

  Please tell my sister that I won’t miss her, and she’s been right about me all along. Sisters always know best, and mine would be the first to say that I’ve earned what I’m about to get.

  I wish I felt regret but it would seem that code isn’t in my software anymore.

  00:00:00:00:0

  IT ENDS with “Goodbye for now,” yet another peculiar thing to say in a so-called suicide note.

  As if we’ll hear more from its author—or someone—at a later date, which makes little or no sense if that person was about to hang herself. It will be helpful to check the time stamp to see when the file was created and last saved. But I’m not going to know that at a glance without changing the metadata by making keystrokes. Or worse, causing a problem with the evidence itself.

  The file name at the top of the screen is “Document 2,” which is generic and typically generated by the software if the user hasn’t saved the file and named it yet. It occurs to me with a spike of alarm that the note might not have been saved, and that would be unfortunate if it wasn’t, to say the least. Good luck explaining that in court.

  “Rather cryptic and sort of ominous,” Scottie says as we look at the laptop’s display, at the note open on it while Butch films as if making a documentary.

  “Not rather or sort of,” I reply. “It sounds threatening. ‘Soon enough you’ll understand how someone can reach this point,’” I paraphrase. “That sounds like something bad is on the way.”

  “Something bad was on the way, that’s for sure.” Fran hovers by the front door with her cigarettes out, thinking about another hit or two. “Something bad enough that she had to douse herself with bleach and take her own life, if a suicide is what we’re dealing with. I’m taking a quick 10-27.” Helmet off, she steps outside, and I don’t blame her, as hot and bleary eyed as I’m getting.

  “Truth be told, how do we know the dead lady wrote this as opposed to someone else doing it to cover up a homicide?” Scottie says to Butch and me, the three of us in the kitchen.

  “At the moment, we don’t know that at all,” I agree, tearing off strips of red evidence tape.

  “Especially since it would seem a password wasn’t needed to access the computer, which was in plain view on the mantel.” Scottie helps me seal the top of the trash bag before transporting it to our evidence room.

  The laptop needs to be packaged, but first I’ve got to make sure the note was saved, and I find out in short order that it was when it was created at 3:38 p.m. today. The exact time the motion detector was tripped in the Yellow Submarine airlock, and I go still inside, listening to myself breathe as sweat drips into my eyes.

  Contemplating the bizarre thought that at the very instant someone clicked on “Save,” an airlock detector in 1111-A interrupted my briefing at Langley headquarters by sending an alert to my phone.

  Just one more oddity in a pileup of them, and I swap out my gloves and shoe covers, dropping the used ones in a red biohazard bag I’ve placed on the counter. Making sure I don’t cross-contaminate by tracking anything from the living area into the bedroom.

  Making sure my respirator is defogged and seated properly, the filter working fine. Determined not to make a mistake right about now, and it would be all too easy, my underlying mood having gone from unsettled to wide-open paranoid.

  Focus. Focus. Focus.

  Rubbing my finger and my thumb. Small circles, rubbing and rubbing, as if I can feel the scar through my layers of gloves.

  00:00:00:00:0

  “WHY would you leave Carme?” Mom crying hy
sterically. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  Demanding an answer and I don’t know the question.

  “She told me to, Mama.” Terror stricken with no idea what’s wrong.

  “But why would you leave without her!”

  “She told me to get a ride with the people we know from church. The Powells.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know! But that’s what I did.” While the Hampton uniformed officer watches, waiting by his car, waiting to haul me away.

  “Then where have you been all this time?”

  I try to make her understand it wasn’t my fault. The Powells took their boat to the pool today. Tying up at the marina at the Officer’s Club. Giving me a ride back, the water as flat as glass, they said. Racing around. Dropping me at our dock after dark and late for supper. It wasn’t my fault, I keep saying, as frightened and dismayed as I’ve ever been.

  “You left your sister, so it is your fault!”

  “She told me to. She didn’t want me there!”

  “That’s no excuse!”

  00:00:00:00:0

  I STOP in the doorway. Waiting. Not moving a muscle at first. Not to jot a note or sketch what’s strung up on the closet door like a life-size Halloween doll, eyes bugging, tongue sticking out as if trying to scare us.

  I’m suffocating hot in my chemical suit, full-face respirator, ballistic vest and tactical holster that includes extra ammunition magazines, handcuffs and Mace. Also, my radio, the volume turned off, only Fran taking calls while we’re in here with everything slaved to the Bluetooth intercom sounding over tiny speakers inside our helmets. Probably about 20 extra pounds of gear, and for the second time today, even my scalp is sweating as I do my best to shut out Fran several feet behind me in the living room.

  She’s going back and forth with dispatch and the hazmat team, her big voice inside everybody’s heads each time she transmits.

  “. . . While we’re dealing with the 10-15, that’s going to be best,” she’s saying cryptically, using the code for chemical leak instead of suspicious death, never sure who’s listening.

  “10-4, Alpha 3. 10-23 until you clear.” Dispatch lets her know that the team is ready and on standby.

  “Copy that.”

  Not so much as an allusion to the 10-14, the 10-31 or 10-32, all unique to NASA. As their enforcement agents we have the same problems other departments do, but all sorts of unusual risks too. Including police calls relating to contractor personnel (the dead woman), an unlocked door (her SUV) and unsecured classified information (her unprotected laptop).

  Just to mention a few of our 10 codes, but anybody monitoring us isn’t going to pick up much beyond our 10-16 at this 10-20, our special building check at this location. Nothing comes across as urgent or sensational, Fran an old pro at keeping critical information off the air, her voice as cool and smooth as polished steel.

  “All right, without a 10-27 I’d estimate 2200 hours, maybe a little longer.” She’s letting dispatch, the hazmat team know when we expect to wrap up the scene and remove the body.

  Without saying there’s a body, of course. Without divulging anything important, and I detect her moving closer to me, feel her aggressive energy, can almost hear the swishing of her chemical suit, the slippery whisper of her Tyvek shoe covers over hardwood. Then she’s next to me in the doorway, and we’re shoulder to shoulder like Jedi wannabes in our gunpowder-gray tactical chem suits, helmets and weapons.

  “Guess who’s on the way?” her voice sounds breathily over the intercom, talking to me while Scottie, Butch and Joan listen.

  “Uh-oh,” I reply. “I’ve got a feeling it’s not Santa Claus making the rounds three weeks early.”

  “I have it on good authority that some TV news crew is headed here,” Fran says, both of us watching Joan as she sorts through her field case in the bedroom’s north corner. “Therefore, when we leave and have to decon, we’ll be sitting ducks because it’s not like we can jump in our cars and haul ass out of here.”

  “Wonder how anybody found out,” Scottie’s voice from the living room.

  “Let’s hope it’s not Mason Dixon,” I say as he pops into my mind.

  “Nope, it’s not Calendar Boy. Some local affiliate, and I don’t want to see any of us on the 11 o’clock news,” Fran’s about to have a fit. “But we’ve got to shower in the trailer first. Every last one of us has to, and nothing’s to stop some local news crew from running their cameras and trying to get into our business. Or making us look stupid, and most of all don’t let anyone piss you off.”

  “Best thing is to ignore them,” Joan’s response as she removes the wrapper from a pair of disposable plastic tweezers.

  21

  IN her late 50s, her face weathered by her love of the sun, she has shoulder-length honey-blonde hair I almost never see as it’s up under a cap or tied back when death calls.

  Joan will tell you she’s a battle-scarred warhorse who’s seen it all, including (I might add) her share of men she’s married, divorced, dated, lived with and everything in between. But despite her easygoing disposition, I can tell she’s unhappy with this case, what she’d call a lose-lose. One of those where nothing you do will turn out right. Because it’s feeling like that even to me.

  It’s feeling weird. It’s feeling wrong. Everywhere I look, I’m getting conflicting information.

  “As soon as Scottie and Butch are done in there wrapping up the laptop and everything, I think they should head out so we don’t have a queue at the trailer,” Fran’s voice in my helmet. “Imagine getting that on film, all of us standing outside in these Gumby suits while we wait to shower.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I agree. “We can help Joan with whatever’s needed in here and keep out of the television crosshairs.”

  “What I want to know is how the hell did what we’re doing get out?” Fran is none too subtle when she smells a rat.

  That’s how she puts it when deciding someone has loose lips or is an out-and-out snitch. Someone who leaked that we’re crawling over a death scene at Fort Monroe, possibly a homicide, at least this is what she’s implying, and if an aerospace contractor working at NASA was murdered, it will be huge news. That’s for sure, and I continue doing a high recon of the bedroom. Not moving from the doorway, looking at the closet in the far wall, at Vera Young hanging against the shut door.

  Her bare feet brush the pine floor, wide board and old, stripped of its yellowish color where a corrosive liquid has splashed, trickled and pooled. When the air stirs or Joan walks past, the body moves slightly, creepily, grotesquely, and it doesn’t take a cyber ninja or forensic pathologist to determine that a computer cable was the weapon of choice. Vera’s or someone else’s, the engineering eerily recognizable to me.

  Or maybe it would be better to say that the way the thin white cord has been wrapped around her neck and run over the top and bottom of the shut closet door is a configuration that fires curiosity shaded by an uneasy familiarity. Bringing to mind bent-pipe telemetry, where a signal sent from the ground and up to a satellite is then bounced back down to another location somewhere on the planet.

  Similar to what we’ll do here at Langley when we link to Ames before a bad storm hits. And as I look at the deadly rigging, I’m not seeing how she could have done this to herself. I’m not sure she or anyone physically could or would, and once again, where’s the container that held the chemical?

  “Not here it would seem,” I confirm with Joan as I move away from the doorway. “And at a glance it appears that the cord around her neck goes with the laptop from the fireplace mantel. I’m not seeing a charger anywhere else.”

  “Seems she could have found a simpler way to hang herself, assuming she did it.” Joan opens another field case, this one packed with forensic c
rime lights. “Why so elaborate?”

  I don’t offer an answer, and as is often true in tragic cases, we may never discover the why. But what I do know unequivocally is that the mechanism of Vera Young’s death is just plain sloppy. Way too sloppy for someone who knows how to garrote, to dispatch a target instantly, silently, the way we’re taught in special ops. There should be only one furrow around the neck, made by a ligature that’s approximately .375 centimeters, or less than .15 inches in diameter.

  Or something slightly thinner than heavy twine or a clothesline, leaving a non-angled furrow in front and on the sides, with sparing or no damage at the back of the neck. There should be no petechiae, none of the pinpoint hemorrhages caused by the cord being tightened and released as the victim struggles. What I’m seeing is typically associated with manual strangulation. And that’s certainly not what this is either.

  As if two totally different assailants are involved.

  One precise enough to rig up the cable on the door. And another who’s violent and vengeful, because that’s what I’m feeling as I stand here. I’m picking up the emotion of the scene, which is both clinical and enraged. Both precise and out of control. Both coldly calculated and hateful, nothing computing the way it should. And I strongly sense that what I’m seeing is what I’m meant to, but why and who? What am I being told?

  I watch Joan return to the closet, flicking on what looks like a small black flashlight with a purple lens. She begins painting ultraviolet light over the body and the area around it, looking for subtle evidence. Particles and fibers that fluoresce in different intensities when the phosphors in them are excited by UV radiation.

  “You thinking the bleach was poured on her after she was strung up?” Joan’s voice in my helmet as she glances at me. “Because that’s what I’m thinking.”