Life's a Beach Then You Die

by Falafel Jones

  Chapter Five

  Ray Kenwood, the dead owner of the now stolen notebook, seemed to do quite well financially. He also traveled a lot and his notebook computer contained documents and presentations regarding specifications for some of his employer’s products. I guessed he must have made the rounds of trade shows, sales meetings and such, but I still didn’t see anything that would explain the theft – or his murder.

  While I was searching Ray’s disk copy, my phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  I could hear female voices laughing in the background and then, “Max? Ed.”

  “Ed, I’m glad it’s you. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “We were out on the boat. When I’m on the water, all business stops. I just got back, turned on my cell and got your voicemails. It’s not that easy to sail a boat while you’re talking on the phone. Hard to believe pal, I’m just not all that coordinated. Now what’s this about a theft?”

  “Someone broke into my house and stole Ray Kenwood’s notebook computer. They also took the desktop computer I was using to examine it.” When I finished speaking, I heard more feminine giggling over the phone.

  “Shush, you two. Max, your first message said you finished with it. So you finished the examination before it was stolen?”

  “Yes, and I think that’s why my desktop was also taken. It contained my report.” I told him about the financial information I found on the disk and about the break-in. “Ed, all of the personal information I found on Ray’s notebook will also be available to whoever stole it. Ray’s wife is going to need to contact some banks and credit card companies, take steps to protect their accounts.”

  “But she doesn’t know about any of that stuff. That’s why we hired you.”

  “I know, but it’s OK. I still have a copy of my report here. It details all of the account information I found. I’ll email it to you and you can forward it to her.”

  “No, print it out and we’ll bring it over to her this evening. I’ll pick you up around five. This way, you can explain everything. Thank goodness, you still have that report.”

  “Yeah, and it’s probably a good idea to meet Kathleen. Maybe she’ll know something that might explain the break-in.”

  “Maybe. You can ask her when you see her. How’s Mariel? Is she OK? Are you OK?”

  “Mariel’s worried for my safety because I’ve seen the disk contents.”

  “Why would that put you in danger?”

  “Well, according to her, someone stole the disk to keep anyone from seeing what’s on it and whoever took it knows I’ve already seen it. She thinks if it was important enough for someone to steal, it may be important enough for someone to kill. She thinks it may have something to do with Ray’s death.”

  “Well, geez, I don’t have any clue why anyone would want to steal Ray’s notebook or even why somebody would want to kill him.”

  “Me neither, but I’m taking a closer look.”

  “A closer look at what? If they stole the notebook, the disk and your computer, how’re you going to do that? You’ve got nothing to look at.”

  “Actually, I’ve got everything to look at. You know when you make a forensic image of a computer; you’ve got the entire disk contents in a file, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but...”

  “I’ve got a copy of that file on my iPod along with my report. I’m going to use it and try to find out why the notebook was stolen.”

  “Wow.”

  “Ed… the cops weren’t pleased with me. They seemed to think there might have been something on the disk relating to Ray’s murder. I got the impression they thought I screwed up by not finding it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Well, no. I don’t think so. I didn’t see anything unusual, but then I was only looking for assets.”

  “Are you going to look again?”

  “Yeah, and this time, I’m going to look for anything that might explain the theft or the murder. Any reason I can’t share my findings with them?”

  “No, no reason In fact, I think you should, but let me know what you find before you give them anything. I’ve still got to protect my client’s estate.”

  “OK, but in the meantime, what can you tell me about Ray’s death? Do you have any details as to what happened?”

  “Well, Ray died from a heart attack while driving, went off the road into a fence. Poor guy was only about 45. Even though he didn’t do much to take much care of himself, he was healthy. He just passed an insurance physical. This is despite the fact he was overweight, smoked like a chimney and ate like sugar, salt and grease were three of the food groups. The only things unusual about his death were he had no history of heart disease and no one seems to know why his car was found where it was.”

  “Where did he have the accident?”

  “State Route 44, they call that stretch, East New York Road. It happened on 44 right by Damascus Road. They found his car up against the fence by the electrical towers.”

  “Who knew I had Ray’s notebook computer?”

  “No one else knew. I didn’t tell his widow. I figured I’d wait and see if anything turned up. Didn’t want her disappointed if we didn’t find anything. The only ones I discussed this thing with were Jack at the bar, you and Mariel.”

  “Then, the only ones who could even know there was a computer are Jack, someone who could have overheard about it at the bar, you, Mariel and me.”

  “You don’t think that Jack…”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Let’s keep looking at the facts. What about the woman you were with at the bar?”

  “Nope. I didn’t mention anything about it to her and she wasn’t around when I talked to Jack.”

  I thought it was odd Ed glossed over the woman's presence at the bar. I thought at least he would have mentioned her name, but he didn't. I tried to dismiss this, thinking maybe she was a client and Ed was just being discreet. Then, I remembered the kiss she gave him when he left her at the bar. Maybe, I'm too suspicious, but I mentally filed this information for later. “I’m going to exclude you, Mariel and myself because we already had access to the notebook. We didn’t need to steal it.”

  “Right, and except for Jack, there wasn’t anyone else at the bar close enough to hear.”

  “Was the bar the only place you discussed this?”

  “Yeah, except for when we talked in my office.”

  “Ed, whoever took the notebook needed more information than just the fact there was a notebook. They would have also needed to know where it was and when it was there.”

  “Let’s see. The police took the notebook from the accident scene. I only had it long enough to bring it to you. The first opportunity to steal it didn’t come until I left it with you. Someone would have to know you had it, when you had it and where you’re located.”

  “Even we didn’t know when I’d have it until you phoned the police from your office. It was only after you hung up that we knew you’d be picking it up in the morning.”

  “Yeah, and we were also in my office when you gave me your address.”

  “Add to that me leaving a message on your office machine saying I finished with the notebook. Someone hearing me would know I still had the notebook but not for much longer. Your office must be bugged.”

  “Jesus! I have confidential client consultations there!” Ed exploded.

  “Yeah, OK. Look, until I get a chance to get over there and sweep for bugs, let’s assume there is one. Until we clear this, don’t say anything in your office you don’t want overheard. If we need to, we can try to use this to our advantage. In the meantime, talk to me only on your cell and only talk when you’re out of the office. OK?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Sure. OK.”

  “Good. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll drive to Orlando, pick up something to find hidden transmitters. It’ll probably take about three hours there and back. I’ll call you when I’m done and we can meet at Bobbi and Jack’s, go to your place
and see what we can find. OK?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Fine.”

  We hung up and I turned to my notebook computer. I launched Google Earth and looked at the corner of SR 44 and Damascus Road, where the Police found Ray’s car. One of the nice things about Google Earth is it not only shows you pictures of a location complete with roads and buildings, but you also get to see the names of businesses located in those buildings.

  One of the local business names on the Google map, PC Gadgets, looked familiar. Ray had sent emails to someone at PC Gadgets. I remembered the name because they’re a small, local outfit. They make and sell computer peripherals like mice, keyboards and so on. Their products were standard. They didn’t make anything someone else didn’t already make, but their products were decent quality and inexpensive to buy. I actually owned a few. Ray worked for a much larger company in the same field, A. V. Designs. They not only made and sold similar products, but they also designed and developed new technology.

  I looked again at the emails Ray had sent to PC Gadgets. Each one contained a photo of men on a sailboat, more like a yacht. I don’t know how many feet it was but I never saw one this big before. Maybe Ray and the email recipient were sailing buddies who worked for different companies in the same field.

  A couple of things seemed odd, though. The photos looked like someone took them all on the same day yet Ray mailed them one by one over several weeks. In addition, the hairstyles and clothing looked dated. I hadn’t seen hair like that since the mid 80s.

  I wanted to know more about these old pictures, but I didn’t have much hope of learning more from the photos themselves. These styles predated consumer market digital cameras. If there were shot with a modern digital camera, I would have been able to determine not only the date and time, but also the camera model, shutter speed and aperture settings.

  I searched Ray’s data for graphics and I found the scans of the original film photos. Possibly, because there was handwriting on the backs of the original prints, whoever scanned them scanned both sides. Someone marked each photo backside with a date in 1984. Each date was the same and unfortunately, the only thing written on the back.

  These emailed photos probably meant nothing, but they were all I had. I created a time line of emails from Ray to the competing company and then searched Ray’s drive for activities that took place between the day before and the day after each of the emails.

  The search was worth the effort. Ray’s banking records showed large deposits each day after his emails to PC Gadgets. Also, one of those encrypted spreadsheets came up again. This one contained three columns. The first column listed dates, the second column, six-digit numbers and the third a combination of letters and numbers. This time I noticed the dates in the date column were in the date ranges I had searched. I imagined the six digit numbers could be dollar amounts but didn’t know for sure. I still had no idea what the letters and numbers in the last column were.

  I compared a few of the date entries to Ray’s deposit records and got matches not only on the dates, but also on the six digit numbers that followed. They equaled the deposit amounts. For the last few months, Ray was depositing thousands of dollars. He was also recording the deposits in a spreadsheet next to some kind of letter and number entry that I didn’t recognize. This was looking very interesting, but I still didn’t see anything to explain what was really going on.

  When I first started working for the State, they sent me to training. One of the trainers told my class, “When you don’t know what decision to make, get more facts.” In the past, I found it was good advice, so I thought it might help if I knew who the men in the photo were. There was a good chance one of the men might be Ray so I used Google to search for images of Ray Kenwood. I found two. One of him in an article about the fatal accident and one from an A. V. Designs sales presentation at a Trade show. Both photos displayed a much heavier man than the one in the 1984 photo, but he was clearly the same man.

  I had no way of identifying the other two men yet so I made a mental note of their appearances. One was taller and had long blondish wavy hair. He wore a Fu Manchu moustache. The other man was clean-shaven, shorter and had a flat nose. He also had a crooked smile with the left side of his mouth looking higher than the right.

  I puzzled over these photos a bit more. Nothing came to me, so I looked more closely at them. The pictures didn’t appear to show anything significant. Each one was one or two of the same three guys on a boat. No big fish on a line or any other significant moments captured. Just some guys sitting or standing on a boat. Based on the number of photos, all looking alike, it seemed odd Ray would send one old picture at a time over several weeks. How many photos does one need of what appeared to be repetitions of the same boring thing?

  Back around 440 BC in Greece, a man named Histiaeus shaved a slave’s head. He tattooed a message on it and when the slave’s hair grew back, he sent him to the message recipient. Such was the birth of Steganography or concealed writing. A distinguishing advantage of this method is that the existence of a hidden message is not readily apparent.

  On one hand, a coded message is usually very clearly a coded message. It tends to be combinations of random numbers or letters. The coding advertises that a secret exists and all one needs to do is crack the code.

  On the other hand, if steganography is used, the existence of a hidden message isn’t apparent. You first have to find the message before you can try to crack the code. People use a similar technique today, to hide text and images inside of photos. To the naked eye, the photo looks normal, but someone with the correct software, found free on the Internet, could encode and decode hidden messages in photos.

  I saved the photos from the emails to a folder and ran them through a Steganography program. Sure enough, I found something. Each photo contained hidden text and images regarding some kind of A. V. Designs product. The amount of specificity and detail exceeded sales and promotional information normally provided to potential customers. Each of the decoded files contained a file number consisting of letters and numbers in the top left corner. I compared them to the entries in the last column of the spreadsheet. They matched.

  Ray’s spreadsheet contained file numbers of A. V. Designs technical documents next to dollar amounts and dates. In turn, the dollar amounts and dates matched wire transfers into Ray’s personal bank account. Ray Kenwood had been emailing trade secrets to the competition for profit. So Ray was a crook, but is that what got him killed?