The Death File

by J. A. Kerley

  There was private security in the lobby and Novarro flashed the brass pass. “Where you headed?” the rent-a-cop asked, an older guy in a uniform the color of a toad.

  “I thought I was there,” Novarro said. “DataSĀF. That’s how you say it, right?”

  “There’s three divisions: MediFile, BusiniFile and JurisFile.”

  “The head office.”

  The security guy grinned and lowered his voice. “Actually, it’s all DataSĀF upstairs. It started as three divisions but they’re under the same umbrella these days. I think they think it looks impressive.”

  Novarro scanned the open atrium, glass everywhere, five-foot-diameter concrete planters holding small trees. At the far end an immense globe made of hundreds of squiggling rays of multicolored glass hung from the ceiling. Novarro recognized the artist’s work – she had seen it at the Desert Botanical Gardens a few years back – and remembered his name as Dale Chihuly. She figured it was an expensive piece of glassware.

  “Helluva big building,” she said. “How many people work here?”

  “About thirty.”

  Novarro raised an eyebrow. “Must have a lot of empty offices.”

  The security guy grinned. “What they got are computer servers, three full floors of the things lined up like black refrigerators with blinking lights. They call it the cloud but it’s made out of machines. It’s spooky.”

  Novarro thanked the guy, picked up a visitor pass, and walked to the elevator. Phoenix PD had switched its files to the cloud – calling it “offsite storage” in official parlance – a year back. Whenever Novarro wanted a report or information she sat at her computer and bang! there it was. Sure beat riffling through clunky filing cabinets. Good for you, Cloud, she thought, momentarily wondering if it was cumulus or cirrus.

  The elevator arrived and Novarro stood in the lobby of DataSĀF; hues of pinks and grays with a receptionist arena at the far end. A young woman with a severe look and hair sat within the granite-topped semicircle holding a clipboard. She wore a phone headset and was feverishly inputting data into a computer. “There’s a sign-in sheet,” the woman said, not looking up.

  “I’m the heat,” Novarro said, holding up the badge. “I need to talk to someone about accessing a client account.”

  The woman didn’t blink. “Take a seat and I’ll tell someone you’re out here.”

  The chairs were designed to afford hipness before comfort and Novarro found sitting in one of the wobbly rail-and-canvas monstrosities was like trying to stand in a hammock. She leaned against the wall and read DataSĀF’s annual report, the only reading material in the room. It seemed DataSĀF was the largest cloud-based business data storage firm in the Southwest. They were growing at an average of 16 percent a year. They stored about a zillion wiga-diga-gigabytes or something like that. Their motto was “Putting Security Above All.”

  Novarro fought the yawn and tossed the report back on a low table.

  After ten minutes she returned to the receptionist, who seemed to have moved nothing but her fingers during that time.

  “Excuse me,” Novarro said. “I need to—”

  “Someone will be out momentarily,” the young woman said, not looking up from her keyboarding. “We’re quite busy here.”

  Five more minutes passed. Novarro re-approached the recepti-robot. “Excuse me … could you direct me to the ladies’ room?”

  “Down the hall to the left,” the woman said. “But it’s not a ladies’ room. It’s unisex.”

  “Wonderful,” Novarro smiled as she turned for the door, “that means I can use my penis if I want.”

  A perplexed receptionist staring at her back, Novarro went left, passing the bathroom and finding the hall opened into a dozen cubicles with tech types perched over keyboards. The décor was stark and soulless: gray walls, white floor, macro photos of color-enhanced computer chips on the wall, artsy in a way that could only appeal to computer geeks.

  She saw several young men and women pow-wowing at a long table in a glass-walled meeting room. Standing at the end of the table was a tall and slender man wearing khakis and a pink shirt with wide red suspenders, his sockless feet tucked into what appeared to be suede loafers with running-shoe soles. He appeared in his late thirties, which made him the elder of the tribe. His head was shaved above with a short neat beard below, a contemporary look Novarro thought made men look like their hair had slipped. She pushed open the glass door and leaned into the room.

  Mr Shiny-head frowned at her. “Excuse me,” he said, his voice a mix of question and irritation, “but who the hell are you?”

  Novarro fully entered the room, beamed, and held up the shield. “I need to talk to someone somewhere about an account with whoever.”

  The man blew out a breath, like Novarro had made him forget something important he was about to say.

  “Talk to our-our office manager. Turn right and head down to—”

  “You’re important, right,” Novarro interrupted.

  A raised eyebrow. He still had those. “I’m Kenneth Larkin. The CEO.” He said each letter like it was an individual word.

  Novarro kept the smile but did a come-hither with her index finger. “Then you’re just the guy to walk me back and introduce me around.”

  Larkin turned to the assembled intelligentsia with rolled eyes and exasperation in his voice. “Excuse me, folks. Back in a minute.”

  He led Novarro to an office around the corner, the nameplate reading Candace Klebbin – Director, Administrative Services. A woman at a desk looked up, in her early forties or thereabouts, solid but not overweight, her face handsome in a raw and Western way, with piercing violet eyes, square jaw, high and angular cheekbones. She wore a businesslike dark blue pantsuit, almost masculine in cut.

  “Candace can get you started,” Larkin said, spinning back toward the meeting room where Novarro figured there was currently a self-importance deficit.

  “I need to look at files belonging to a late client of yours,” Novarro said.

  “You have an instrument?” Klebbin asked.

  It was one of the few times Novarro had heard a non-legal type refer to a court order as “instrument,” meaning an instrument of the law. She pulled the writ from the inside pocket of her gray jacket. “It’s right here.”

  Klebbin gave it a cursory glance. “The legal folks need to take a look. It’s mandat—”

  “Pardon my abruptness,” Novarro interrupted. “I know this is an important office, and everyone’s busy boxing up data or whatever, but I’m kind of in a rush and already got chilled in the lobby for a half hour.”

  Klebbin absorbed the information and shook her head. “Sometimes they’re so busy being busy nothing gets done. Let me see if I can’t speed things up.” She picked up her desk phone and dialed, cupping her hand over the phone as it rang. “Arthur Lazelle.” She winked. “A law degree from Loyola and I don’t think he’s ever set foot in a courtroo— Hello, Art? It’s Candace. There’s a Phoenix detective in my office with a CO allowing her to access— I know it’s your workout time, Art, but …” She listened and rolled her eyes. “Be that as it may, Arthur, the detective seems a personal friend of Kenneth’s and he said to – OK, see you in a few.”

  “Thanks,” Novarro said. “I hope that doesn’t get you in trouble.”

  “No problem,” Klebbin smiled. “I don’t expect to be here much longer.”

  Three minutes later a wet-haired man in his early thirties bounded into the room. He wore a blue workout suit and a toothy smile. “Sorry, detective,” he said, “we have a corporate gym and I like to get in some CrossFit and take a steam.” The eyes scanned Novarro. “You look like you work out. Got a routine?”

  “I like to run the trails at South Mountain Park. I bike some. A little tennis.” Not a trendy or branded workout.

  “Sounds, uh, fun,” Lazelle said, suddenly disinterested. “What can I do for you?”

  She handed him the writ. “We need to access the records of Dr Lesl
ie Meridien, recently deceased via murder.”

  The lawyer read for several seconds. “The writ only covers—”

  Novarro nodded. “Names of patients, dates of appointments. No interviews or session files can be viewed. I just need a copy of the aforementioned.”

  “No prob,” he said. “Let’s go see Chaz. He’ll pull up everything you need.”

  Novarro’s hallway pilgrimage continued around another corner, the nameplate this time saying Charles V. Hinton, Director, Tech Services.

  “Knock, knock, buddy,” the lawyer called through the door.

  “Busy here,” said the body hunched over the computer, a major-league monitor before him. “Come back later.”

  “Got a Phoenix detective with me, bud,” Lazelle said.

  “I don’t care if you—”

  “She’s a friend of Art’s.”

  Chaz Hinton spun to Novarro, the lawyer, and Klebbin, who had followed. The head atop his body seemed too large for the narrow shoulders, the round pink face looking about thirteen, though Novarro thought he might have gone twenty-five. His skin was the color of lard, like he’d been in the sun once in his life and found it distressing. He was wearing an Armani suit with purple sandals.

  The lawyer handed Hinton the writ.

  “Mostly I need Dr Meridien’s appointment lists,” Novarro said. “Calendars, dates, times, addresses, that kind of thing.”

  “I can read,” Hinton said.

  He spun in his chair and began ticking on the keyboard. Novarro, Klebbin, and the attorney stepped back. The lawyer turned to Novarro for a bite of schmooze pie. “So you’re a friend of Kenneth’s?” The attorney flashed teeth so pearly white they had to be caps.

  “Come on, dammit,” Hinton said, keyboarding away in the background.

  Novarro smiled slyly at the attorney. “Ken and I go back a ways.” About ten minutes.

  “Come on,” Hinton repeated, more stridently. As if pressure helped, he pounded harder on the keyboard. Novarro wondered if the guy was always this stressy.

  “Come on,” Hinton almost screamed. “WORK!”

  “Chaz?” the lawyer said, walking to Hinton’s side. “Is something wrong?”

  Hinton balled his fists and stared at the screen. ‘IT CAN’T BE,” he said, a fist slamming the desk. “IT CAN’T FUCKING BE!”

  The door opened and the CEO strode inside. “What the hell’s going on, Chaz … I’m trying to have a meeting down the—”

  “Someone got inside,” Hinton whispered.

  Novarro had never seen a human being turn that white that fast.

  “No way,” Larkin said, looking like he might tip over.

  “Dr Leslie Meridien, client A-4329-09. We’ve stored her data for forty-seven months.” He pulled close a printed page. “The client printout from last week documents 2.5 megs of data in storage. But there’s nothing there.”

  “The backups, Chaz,” Candace Klebbin suggested. “It’ll be safe there, right?”

  “I JUST CHECKED THE FUCKING BACKUPS, YOU IDIOT!” Hinton railed at Klebbin. “DO YOU THINK I’M STUPID?”

  “Chaz …” Larkin rasped. “Talk to me.”

  Hinton swallowed like it hurt and turned to his boss. “A-4329-09 is gone, Kenneth … every last byte.”

  Larkin put his hands on the edge of the desk and leaned close to the screen, incredulous. “You’ve done the restore protocols?” His voice was trembling.

  “There’s nothing to restore. It’s like the data never existed. Even the shell that held them is gone.”

  The CEO, lawyer, and tech director stared at the dark screen with open mouths and mute terror.

  Novarro shot a glance at Klebbin.

  “A good day to update my résumé,” the office administrator said.

  5

  “Angela didn’t practice any more, Detectives,” Professor John Warbley said to Harry and me, his eyes sad. “She taught.”

  We were at the U of Miami. Warbley’s office was three doors down from Angela Bowers’s university digs. Harry had come to root through both Bowers’s office and life, at least as her colleagues knew it. There was, unfortunately, nothing in her office bearing my name or suggesting how it had come to be in her possession. We had already talked to seven colleagues over the course of the day, ending with John Warbley. A fit and trim man in his mid-fifties with graying hair, Warbley had been out of the department all day, but entered as we were leaving.

  “Medical ethics?” Harry asked.

  “It’s a growing field, given the choices both patients and healthcare professionals face on an increasing basis; end-of-life decisions, the pros and cons of assisted suicide, informed consent and so forth. As a psychologist, Angela was particularly interested in doctor–patient confidentiality and its ramifications.” He swallowed hard and turned away. “Jesus, I can’t believe she’s …”

  “We’ll be gone soon enough, Professor Warbley,” Harry said, his big hand on the distraught man’s shoulder. “We need to know a bit more about Dr Bowers.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” Warbley said plaintively. “Why?”

  “That’s what we’re here to figure out. When did you last speak with Dr Bowers?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. She took me to lunch to discuss a topic that, I take it, was a concern to a friend of Angela’s.”

  “The topic?” Harry asked.

  “My field. A question about medical ethics.”

  “It didn’t pertain to Dr Bowers? Not personal?”

  “It only affected an old friend and former college roommate, a psychologist in Arizona.”

  Two thousand miles away, I thought, not pertinent.

  “Did Dr Bowers seem worried about anything, Doctor?” Harry asked. “No boyfriend or significant-other problems?”

  A sad head-shake. “Nada. And I’d have been among the first to know. Angela and I were close friends.”

  We started to leave, but I had one more question, more for my own edification, since I’d been in tangles where ethics and justice were in conflict and had even lectured on the subject at a couple of symposia.

  “What was the ethical question Dr Bowers was asked about?” I said. “In a broad sense.”

  “It regarded concerns about doctor–patient confidentiality, among other legalistic permutations. The whole confidentiality topic is fraught with implications; a thorny road.”

  “Because psychologists and psychiatrists hear the most intimate aspects of patients’ lives, right?” I said. “Dreams, wishes, fantasies, desires. Even the desire to harm or kill someone.”

  He nodded. “For instance, what if, in the course of privileged and confidential conversations, a psychologist comes to suspect someone may – only may – have committed a serious crime? And that this crime may be being perpetrated on one of the psychologist’s patients. There is no proof, only suspicion. To reveal suspicions of this crime to the authorities likely violates doctor–patient privilege. To make matters even more difficult, it’s quite possible there may have been no criminal act whatsoever. Events are proceeding exactly as they are supposed to proceed. What is the psychologist’s legal obligation? Moral obligation? What if they diverge? And who decides what is right?”

  “Thorny questions, indeed,” I said, wondering if Warbley was using his conversation with Bowers as the example.

  “Consider that there’s also money involved,” Warbley said.

  “And suddenly thornier,” I added.

  We packaged a few pieces of Bowers’s life for further investigation: a calendar, appointment book and such, then interviewed several of the doctor’s colleagues. We drove to Bowers’s home while mulling the bottom line thus far: Dr Bowers was uniformly respected as a psychologist, an instructor, and a person, selfless in the giving of her time and intellectual prowess to various causes. “Who would harm such a person?” was the one question on every lip.

  Bowers had lived in an apartment complex in Wingate, expensive and catering to professionals. The super had a byp
ass to the electronic locking system. We passed through the living room to her office, stepping delicately around the dried blood on the floor. Her workspace was in muted gray and green tones, indirect lighting, two plush chairs and a long wide couch which made me wonder if she didn’t see the occasional patient.

  While I leafed through the deceased’s desk – the one my name had been in – Harry tried the files.

  “Locked,” he said. “See anything like keys in the desk, Cars?”

  I was going through the top center drawer, the usual pens and pencils and batteries and spare change and paper clips. A small key ring was in back, several small silver keys attached. “Try these,” I said, tossing them over.

  “Bingo,” he said, opening the first of three cabinets, pulling the drawer and looking inside. “Six years ago,” he said. “Typewritten transcriptions of therapy sessions, judging by the language. Fits with the time she started working at the U and gave up private practice. I guess she …”

  Harry froze, his eyes staring into the cabinet.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Wordlessly, Harry fished a simple Manila file folder from the drawer and held it up. The subject tab said “Carson Ryder.” He handed it to me, and I found a dozen or so photocopied photos and clippings inside.

  “She didn’t just have my name on an index card,” I said, flipping through clipped newspaper reports, “Bowers kept a file on me, cases that made the papers. Check this out.” I held up a photo that had been in the Mobile Press-Register a few years before: Harry and me receiving Officers of the Year awards from the Mayor of Mobile, Alabama.

  “Any idea why Bowers kept a file on a detective with the FCLE?” Harry asked.

  “Absolutely none,” I said.

  He leaned in to scrutinize the photo. “You need a haircut,” he decided. “But I look pretty damn fine.”

  We returned to HQ to continue adding to the file on Dr Angela Bowers, riding up in the elevator with my boss, Roy McDermott, the head of the FCLE’s investigative services division and de facto agency head honcho. Roy’s square body was packed into a crisp blue suit, telling me he’d just returned from Tallahassee, where he was a force majeure in securing funds for the agency. Roy knew the names and predilections of every politico in the state down to their favorite foods and sports teams, traveling to the state capitol during budget sessions to give impassioned speeches too convoluted to follow, all with the same bottom line: The FCLE gets results, so keep the funding flowing, folks.