Batteries Not Included

by Tony McFadden

  “Yeah. I’ll let the right people know.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Call me if you run into any roadblocks.”

  They watched her leave. Davie cocked his head. “How old is she?”

  “No, no, no, mate,” said Nick. “She’s a client and recent widow.”

  Davie licked powdered sugar off his fingers and poured another cup of coffee. “So, what’s first?”

  Nick looked over his shoulder. They were clear. “Kirra.”

  Davie smiled. “She’s not a bad looking woman.”

  “Again, tell me why she isn’t my number one suspect? Spouse is always the number one suspect, right? Always.”

  “Dude. She’s putting us up in this beautiful place. And the spouse being number one suspect, that’s for murder. Aren’t you staying away from that and just looking at the money?”

  “Friends close, enemies closer.”

  * * *

  Mike stood at Kirra’s studio door watching her paint. He gave it a couple of seconds, then cleared his throat and rapped on the door jamb with his knuckles.

  She continued daubing paint on her canvas. “What do you want, Mike?” She didn’t turn.

  “I’m popping over to the station to talk to the cops.” He pulled a business card from his back pocket, glanced at it, oriented it so he could read it. “Detective Sergeant Richard Wallace.” He grunted. “A real Dick. I’ll be back this afternoon. Day crew is on point. Augmented with a couple of contractors. You’ll be good.”

  She slowly placed her paint brush in a jar of cleaner. Sighed and turned. “You don’t have to tell me. I trust your judgement. Don’t make this thing a thing, okay? I don’t blame you.” She paused. “Let me know how it goes? Do you need Marty?”

  He tapped the card with his thumb. “Not this time.”

  * * *

  Mike knocked on the reception counter at the Local Area Command. A door on the back wall opened and produced a matronly woman in uniform who came in and sat in the receptionist’s chair. “What can I do for you, love?”

  He pulled out the card. “Can you let Detective Sergeant Richard Wallace know that Mike Murphy is here?” He stowed the card. “It’s in relation to the Andy Goh murder.”

  “Yeah, I know hun. Dickie’ll be right out. Have a seat.” She sent a message to someone from her computer terminal, then looked back up at him. “How did that exactly happen? Inside his gates?” She shook her head. “Damned shame.”

  Mike shook his head and sat. And almost immediately stood as the door from the back opened.

  Wallace looked twelve. Clean shaven, thick dark hair and an extremely charismatic smile. His suit looked like it cost upwards of $8,000 and his wingtips gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Mike stuck out his hand. “Detective Sergeant. I’m Mike Murphy. Head of security at - ”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Biggest case we’ve got right now.” Wallace nodded toward the door to the internal offices. “Follow me.”

  He led him to an interrogation room and held the door open. The small room had a table in the middle and one chair on the side facing the obvious one-way mirror and two on the other side. Mike glanced up and saw video cameras in the two corners above the mirror. He shook his head again and sat in one of the two chairs with their backs to the mirror.

  Wallace chuckled. “Love a sense of humour. Other side.”

  “Am I being interrogated?”

  Wallace sat in the vacated chair. “We’re just having a chat. No space in the office right now. I’m very interested in knowing what happened yesterday. You didn’t tell me much on the scene.” He shot his cuffs. “So, tell me. Start at the very beginning. Why weren’t you inside the compound?”

  Mike frowned. “Compound? It’s not a bloody compound. It’s a house with a gate. And a wall around it.”

  “And you need a security code to access the property, or be on a list the guy at the gate has, right?”

  Mike nodded.

  “Then it’s a compound.” He extracted a small notepad from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and placed it on the table. Then a pen. “From the beginning.” He unscrewed the cap.

  Mike cocked his head and appreciated the pen. He estimated it cost around $1,500. He took a deep breath. “Any chance I could get a cup of coffee? Black.”

  Wallace screwed the cap back on his pen. “Right. Give me a minute.”

  Mike leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. He looked at one of the cameras and winked.

  Wallace re-entered the room and placed a takeaway cup in front of Mike. He adjusted his tie minutely and sat again across from Mike. “From the beginning.” He unscrewed the pen cap. Again.

  Mike sipped the coffee and leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers interlaced. “From the beginning. Right. Just before 6:00 in the morning one of the night crew woke me with a text,” He opened his phone, went to the specific text message and slid it across the table, “telling me there was a fire just outside of the wall, a bit west of the gate.”

  “You sleep on compound?”

  “I have a residence on the property, yes. It’s not a compound.”

  Wallace glanced at the text and pushed the phone back. “So then?”

  “So then I got up. Got dressed, quickly. I ran out to the front. The gate was open enough for a person to get through.”

  “But not a car.”

  Mike scowled. “Stop interrupting me, mate. I’m trying to tell you what happened.” He waved at the cameras. “You’re recording this. Get whatever you missed later.”

  Wallace held up his hands. “Go ahead. What next?”

  “I get outside the gate. There’s a Volkswagen Beetle, one of the old ones, burning. A couple of punks hanging onto their motorbike helmets are behind it, laughing. Me and one of the guys chased them while the others were trying to put out the car fire.”

  Wallace checked his notes. “Anyone call the fire department?”

  Mike held up an index finger.

  “Right, right. Continue.”

  “Yes, one of the team called the fire department, but the car was under the branches of a tree that grew on the property. We couldn’t let that tree light up. There would be a lot of damage, and a risk it would spread to the house.”

  “Did you catch the, um, two punks?”

  “You think maybe I would have mentioned that on the day? No, we didn’t catch them. We lost them in Potts Point. They ducked through a shop and out the back door, I think. By the time we got back the fire was under control and the Fire Department had just arrived. As far as I was concerned, problem solved. It was almost 6:45 by then. I needed a shower. Technically I was forty-five minutes behind schedule. I walked through the gate and there was Andy, my boss, face down on the cobblestone drive in a drying pool of blood.” He leaned back in his chair. “And then you came in.”

  “At any point did you think about telling the owners of the house about the fire?”

  Mike shook his head. “I would have, if I thought there was any danger of it breaching the wall.”

  “What can you tell me about the two punks?” His $1,500 pen was poised above his notepad.

  “Early 20s. One of them was tall, bald and had an iron cross tattoo on his neck.”

  Wallace stopped writing and looked up.

  Mike nodded. “Yeah, really. He wore cargo shorts and a dirty white T-shirt. Converse high-tops. The other guy had a ponytail. Short one. Jeans and a black T-shirt with the Led Zeppelin prism on the front. They were fit. Ran like the wind.” He sipped. “And they had helmets. Like I said.”

  “You hear them talk?”

  “Yelling a bit, but nothing discernibly coherent.”

  “Australian? Foreign?”

  “Australian.”

  “Did you see anyone enter the compound ahead of you?”

  “It. Is. Not. A Compound.”

  “Nobody?”

  Mike sighed. “Nobody.”

  Wallace scribbled a couple of notes in his book then flipp
ed it shut. “Okay. Thanks. That’s all for now. Let me know if anything else comes to you.”

  Mike pushed his chair back. “How do I get out of this place?”

  “Tell your boss to come by and talk with me.”

  * * *

  Detective Senior Constable Lizzy Lin stood behind the mirror, arms crossed, frown on her face. She watched Mike leave and Wallace pack up his pen and notepad.

  “That fucking pen.”

  The door opened and Wallace entered. “You don’t like my pen?”

  “The thing was what, two grand? Ostentatious.”

  Wallace looked at her suit. “And how much was that?”

  “Less than a hundred at Target.” She nodded toward the glass. “What did you think?”

  Wallace grimaced. “I don’t know. I can’t see a motive.”

  “Goh’s security is legendary. Discrete, but formidable. Mr Murphy’s reputation precedes him.” Lizzy adjusted her shoulder holster, then her suit jacket. “I don’t know.”

  “Me either. Uniforms are canvassing the neighbourhood for security video from the other houses. Should be hours of it in that neighbourhood.”

  “And the video from the compound?”

  Wallace shook his head. “Our techs are looking at the system, but no, there’s nothing. Need to find out who turned it off. Maybe they’ll find out. Maybe they won’t.”

  “We’re going to have to get a bit more invested in this than that. The media attention is already beyond insane.”

  “Autopsy?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “If we have to.”

  11

  Nick tapped on the door frame of the small IT room on the tenth floor. Sam had big canister headphones on and was engrossed in something on her screen. She didn’t hear him.

  He knocked again, louder. “Hey, Sam.”

  She started, pulled off the headphones as she swivelled her chair. “Hey, Nick. Your access card works, I see.”

  “Yeah, it’s a maze trying to find people in here. What’s this room?” He placed his laptop bag on an adjoining workstation

  She looked around. A couple of workstations, frosted glass on the window. “Secure area where we run our cybersecurity checks. Usually two or three people in here. I’m upgrading software.”

  “I thought you IT folks pushed it to the machines.”

  Sam shrugged. “Sometimes ya gotta do hands on and local. Anything you need? Everything set up okay?”

  Nick stepped into the room and closed the door. He sat on the corner of one of the workstations. “I need some help. I could probably get someone to set this up for me on the down low, but I need it clean because it’s going to have to be in the final report.”

  Sam grinned. “Ooo. All mysterious like. Don’t know if I can help if it’s illegal.”

  “This is 100% in aid of what I’m doing for Kirra.”

  “First name basis. Huh.”

  Nick pushed on. “You know the CFO? Brent Slokow?”

  “You know I know him.”

  Nick shook his head. “Not know who he is. Really know him. I’ve met him once. He’s a bit of a dick.”

  Sam spread her fingers and waggled her hand. “Meh. We talk. He’s starting to take Jiu-jitsu and wanted to talk to me about it. He talks a lot about martial arts movies. Big Steven Segal fan.” She rolled her eyes. “Immediate disqualification.”

  “Does he seem like a straight shooter to you?”

  Sam leaned back in her chair and put her boots up on the desk. Crossed her legs at the ankles and thought for a second. “He must be. He made it to CFO. You know there had to be background checks for that.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “Why?” She held up her hands. “Not why wouldn’t I bet on it. Why are you asking?”

  Nick slid off the desk and sat in one of the office chairs. He leaned forward. “You know why Kirra has me here, right?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Andy wanted me to review because I did a stint with the Federal Police in the financial crimes taskforce.” He shrugged. “Apparently the boss man did some research before he contacted me.” He leaned back. “Hell of a thing.”

  “Did you get a chance to meet with him?”

  “Yeah, nah. He was killed the morning we were supposed to meet for breakfast.” He stood. “Anyway. The thing I wanted help with.”

  “Slokow?”

  “Yeah. He’s my prime suspect right now.”

  “Being the Chief Financial Officer.”

  “Right.”

  Sam looked puzzled. “What do you want me to do?”

  Nick paused, thinking about how to frame the request. “I need to have a way to watch what he’s doing on the internal systems at all times.”

  “Like a key logger?”

  Nick grimaced and tilted his head. “More than thate. I need something that lets me see what he’s doing in real time, a clone of his machine, and be able to go back and review what he’s done when I’m not watching. I’ll get Kirra’s signature, if that’s what you need.”

  Sam slowly shook her head. “No, that’s cool. I’ll get it set up and send you the link. Anything else?”

  “Who runs the internal audit team?”

  She sniffed and spun her chair back to the workstation. “Gimme a sec. I need to walk through the org chart. I can’t remember her name.” She looked over her shoulder. “She’s in finance. Reports to Slokow. Not sure it will be an independent view.”

  “The report needs to be cleared by the Audit Committee and the Board.”

  Sam shook her head. “If Slokow cooks it right he could get it past them.” She found what she was looking for. “The Internal Audit committee is headed by Jenna Mason. You want a trace on her, too?”

  Nick thought for a second. “Yeah. Tell you what. Can you send me the minutes from the last four committee meetings and their working documents? If I need more I’ll let you know.”

  “Am I your secretary?”

  Nick fidgeted. “Well, no, but - ”

  “Messing with you, Nick. I’ll send you the link to the SharePoint folders. You’ve got full access. If you can’t find something, let me know. Okay?”

  “Thanks.” He stood and collected his bag. “Where does Jenna Mason sit?”

  * * *

  Jenna’s office was festooned with skiing pictures. Dozens of them. Nick recognised a few from Thredbo, a couple from Banff and Whistler in Canada. He pointed to one of who he assumed was Jenna in full ski outfit and goggles standing on the slopes with Mount Fuji behind her. “Japan, right? Is that Niseko?”

  Jenna was petite, with short dark hair and deeply tanned skin. She nodded. “Yes. That was a few years ago, though. I’d love to go back.”

  “Expensive place.”

  She nodded. “Who are you?”

  Nick smiled and extended his hand. “Nick Harding. Kirra Roach has engaged me to investigate some potential financial impropriety.”

  She nodded. “What can I do for you?”

  “You chair the audit committee. The quarterly audits show no sign of financial impropriety, yet Andy was convinced there was something going on.”

  “The quarterly audit test our governance systems. Makes sure everyone is playing by the rules, that compliance has picked up any new legislation, that sort of thing. It doesn’t delve deeply into the contracts and financials. That’s a much more thorough exercise. Some of the pre-work will start the week after next.”

  “What kind of pre-work?”

  “Collecting all of the data in a pile. Inventory records, accounts receivable and payable, supply and delivery contracts, that sort of thing.”

  “Collection should take as long as it takes to push a button.”

  “Hard copy collection.”

  Nick nodded. “Will you be involved in that?”

  “I’m not external, am I? There’ll be a team of five or six coming in to do that full time, over a few weeks. Very intense.”

  Nick nodded and looked at the ski
pictures. “Thanks.” He pointed at the picture from Japan again. “Really expensive?”

  “Still paying off my credit card for that trip and it was two years ago.”

  “Thanks for your help. If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be in that closed off quiet area.” He went to leave, then paused. “The coffee here any good?”

  “Cups and machine in the kitchenette. It’s got caffeine. It’ll do, I guess.”

  Nick nodded, smiled and left looking for the machine.

  * * *

  The coffee wasn’t bad and the quiet nook was quiet. And the link worked. He popped his ear buds on, listening to the early Beatles catalogue, and took a cursory look at the board’s audit committee minutes for the past three quarterly meetings. There wasn’t a single mention of Andy’s suspicions. Not a whisper of a hint of something amiss. They weren’t in-depth audits, though. The annual audit, to be presented at the Annual General Meeting would be much more thorough, as necessary.

  He filed the minutes to a local folder on his laptop and opened the most recent batch of internal audit files. Again, and as expected given the minutes, nothing of note. The attestation signed off by Jenna Mason indicated that there was nothing out of the ordinary, that the controls were still in place and compliance was doing its job. Nick leaned back and scratched the back of his head, then jumped when an arm reached over his shoulder and pointed at the screen.

  “You’re not going to find anything there,” said Kirra.

  “Jesus. You scared the crap out of me.” He looked at the screen. “Yeah, I kind of expected this. There would be no need for Andy to call me in if the problem showed up in these files. But I had to be thorough.”

  “What next?”

  Nick looked around. They were alone in the enclosed quiet area. “Already had Sam set up a trace on Slokow and Jenna Mason’s machines.”

  Kirra nodded. “They’d both have to be involved. If either of them are.”

  “You don’t think they are?”

  Kirra sighed. “Slokow has been with Andy from the start. And he brought in Jenna. It’s hard to believe they would be, and if they are, I’d be very disappointed.”