Batteries Not Included

by Tony McFadden

  Mike leaned back in his chair.

  “Nothing?”

  “Speak to me, not my client,” said Marty.

  “That’s fine. I’ll talk, you listen.” She slid a sheet of paper across the table to Mike. “All that code stuff shows that you logged in –”

  “You showed me this already.”

  “You said he wouldn’t talk.” She pulled the sheet back and replaced it in the folder. “There was a fire outside the wall of the compound prior to Mr Goh’s murder.” She held up a type-written report. “You mentioned that to us on the morning of. That VW was bought by you a week prior, but not registered. You failed to mention that.” She extracted another sheet from the folder.

  “We found accelerant in your security office that could have been used to start that fire. A great distraction. While the rest of your security team works the fire, you slip back in and kill Goh.”

  Mike opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and shut his mouth.

  “Admirable restraint, Mike.” Marty leaned forward, his hands splayed on the table. “You have no motive and no murder weapon.”

  She slid the papers back into the folder and closed it. “We believe we have enough. Your client is under arrest for the murder of Andrew Goh and will be held until trial.” She stood. “I’ll allow you some time to confer with your client.”

  Martin pulled a tri-folded sheet of paper from his inside suit pocket. “He’s coming home with me.” He tossed the paper on the table. “Undo his cuffs.”

  Lin held up a finger while she read the paper. “Pre-trial release?”

  “Jesus, Marty. You’ve had that piece of paper all this time and you don’t pull it out until now?” Mike raised his wrists. “The cuffs, please?”

  “Cool your jets. Mr Murphy gets some jewellery before he leaves.” She sent a message on her phone and placed it face down on the table. “The cuffs come off when the monitoring bracelet goes on.”

  “Marty, you agreed to this?” asked Mike

  “That, or you spend the next couple of months in a cell while they try cobbling together a case against you.”

  A technician entered the room with a laptop, and a monitoring bracelet in a case. He placed the case on the table and took out what looked like an oversized digital watch. “Left or right?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Right, then.”

  Mike smiled and lifted his left foot onto the table. “Do your worst.”

  The tech strapped the monitoring bracelet to Mike’s ankle. He opened his laptop and entered a command. A green LED on the bracelet turned on with a muted beep. “It’s activated. You’ve got an hour to get back to your residence. The property coordinates are the limits of your world until this comes off. Your location is automatically checked every 45 seconds. If you are located outside of the proscribed area, police will be dispatched to arrest you, remove the monitoring device, and place you back in custody. There are no warnings.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it.” He rattled the chains. “The cuffs, please?”

  * * *

  Nick looked up from his laptop as Mike entered the pool area. “Hey, you’re out.”

  “Bail. Kirra is very generous. Thanks for hanging around. We need to talk.”

  Nick slowly closed his laptop. “I’m up to my neck in this money thing she’s got us working on.”

  Mike looked around. “Where’s your friend?”

  Nick cleared his throat. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “What do you think, mate? My taxes. Jesus. I’ve been accused — arrested — for the murder of my boss, a man I’ve known and loved for decades. Absolutely ridiculous. And I think you think that, too. I want you to find out who actually killed him.” He jabbed a finger at Nick. “And only an idiot would think his death isn’t related to the missing money.”

  Nick nodded. “And I’m not an idiot. It crossed my mind. I am busy, but I’ll do what I can. Can you help?”

  Mike raised his trousers’ leg and showed Nick the monitoring bracelet was strapped to his ankle. “Only within the confines of this property. I leave, the light turns red and I spend the rest of my time, at least until the trial, behind bars.”

  “At least until the trial?”

  “They don’t have a case. Extremely circumstantial evidence.”

  “Do you know how many people are living in Long Bay just on circumstantial evidence?”

  Mike sighed. “Don’t cheer me up so much, mate. You’ll help?”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “I’ll pay you what I can.”

  20

  Nick waited until Mike had left the pool area. He opened his laptop and entered his personal password. Kirra’s emails were on the screen. He opened his messenger app and pinged Davie. Whatever you’re doing, meet me at the pool. Things are changing. Sands are shifting. Some other appropriate metaphor.

  He returned to Kirra’s emails. He’d gone back over a month’s worth and there was nothing in there that would hint at even a whisper of impropriety. Dead end.

  Davie walked onto the pool deck, his laptop under his arm. “What the fuck, man. I was sleeping. ‘Sands are shifting’? What kind of shit movies have you been watching?”

  “Mike just hired us. Well, me. But I’m hiring you.”

  “He’s still in trouble, is he?”

  “Bailed. Ankle bracelet and up against the wall. He makes a good point that Andy’s death and the missing money are linked. Stupid not to think so.” He took a breath and thought for a second. “I’ve got to go talk to Slokow about that email. Can you start looking at the killing? See if there’s something in the log files for the security system that contradicts the established facts.”

  Davie smiled. “Cool. This is getting interesting.” He sat across from Nick and opened his laptop. “How’s it going with you? The money thing.”

  Nick sighed and tugged an earlobe. “It’s like I can smell the dead rodent, but I can’t find it. I’ve tried Benford and Zipf, but the transactional volume really isn’t large enough. And even with the marginally small dataset, nothing stands out.”

  Davie stared at his friend for a beat. “Yeah, I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Benford’s law dictates the frequency distribution of leading digits. Works, progressively less successfully, for second and third digits. Zipf is a similar concept. But I need a significant volume of data for the results to be meaningful.”

  Davie chuckled and shook his head. “Like that helped any.”

  Nick slapped his laptop closed and tucked it under his arm. “I’m going to talk to Slokow. Let me know if you find anything on the logs.”

  * * *

  “What the hell do you need now, Mick?”

  Nick eased into the chair across from Brent Slokow’s desk and placed his laptop case on the desk between them. “It’s Nick, actually.” Slokow was facing three quarters to Nick, reading through some compliance documents on his monitor. “But you know that.”

  “Whatever. I’m busy. I need to make sure all of our regulatory ducks are in a row before the auditors arrive..”

  “Understood. This will only a take a couple of minutes. It’s about Kirra, and the missing funds.”

  Brent pushed back from his monitor and leaned on the desk, fingers interlaced. He spotted the plaster on Nick’s head. “What in the hell happened to you?”

  Nicked gently touched the plaster. “Cut myself shaving. Tell me what you found out about the missing money.”

  Brent shook his head. “I could not definitively prove there was any missing money. Did you?”

  Nick grimaced. “Something stinks, but I can’t find the source.”

  “Absolutely no use to me.” He turned back to his monitor. “Really busy.”

  “I’m actually here to talk to you about the email you sent to Andy a couple of nights before he was killed.”

  That stopped Brent. He slowly turned back to Nick. “What?”

  Nick shrugged.
“It’s my job. I’m investigating this. Kirra has given me pretty broad latitude. I’d be slack if I didn’t discover that email. What did you mean by it? You said something like if something was going on it had to be someone higher in the company. Few are higher or smarter than you, or something along those lines. Weren’t you concerned that maybe Andy was behind this?”

  Brent pulled at his lower lip, thinking. “What else have you discovered?”

  “I tried the Benford and Zipf tests, to no avail. The numbers seem to look okay from a balance sheet point of view, but there’s almost a step change downward in profits from almost a year ago. Eleven months, to be exact. A small dip, but pervasive. Nothing else seems to change, and I can’t pinpoint where it happens.”

  “Benford and Zipf? Haven’t even thought about those for years. Nothing at all from them?”

  “Too few samples, I think.”

  Brent nodded. “Probably right. We’re still too small.”

  Nick chuckled. “Too small. Right.”

  “For that analysis, yeah. Limited product and inventory choices. If this company made internal combustion engines, yeah, but EVs have far fewer parts. Wheels, body, electric motor, drive train, brakes and batteries. A couple of other bobs and bits. Great for inventory control, makes it harder to do what you tried to do.”

  “You got anything for me? What made you think something was wrong?”

  Brent frowned. Shook his head. “I’m not convinced there is anything wrong. Goh had a gut feeling. Have you eliminated me?”

  “You?” Nick scratched the back of his neck. “This is a bit embarrassing. We’ve checked you and your wife’s financials. Not a hint of anything. Sorry for the prying, I’ve got a job to do.”

  “Then check the financials of everyone. Jesus. If you’re prying into my personal life, why stop there?”

  “Mate, don’t be pissed. I was hired by Kirra to investigate this.”

  “Yeah. And have you investigated her?”

  Nick nodded. He slid a notebook out of his laptop case. “We’re in the process..”

  “We?”

  “I’ve got an IT guy working with me.”

  Brent placed his hands palm down on the desk and slowly stood. “Serious mistake, Mick.”

  “Nick.”

  “You’ve got a stranger going through the financial background of all the senior employees? What keeps this IT person from publicising what they know? Big mistake, and I’ll hold you personally responsible for public exposure of any Dvorak employee’s private information.”

  Nick closed the notebook and slapped it on the table. “I trust Davie. Help me out here. You’ve done some work already. We know you’re not in on whatever it is and I don’t want to re-invent the wheel. You care about this company or what? This keeps up it’ll get worse and worse until the company is bankrupt.”

  “Not likely.”

  “You willing to bet that? Look, I’m doing this. The faster I get it sorted out, the better for all of us.”

  Brent sighed and sat back at his desk. “Seriously, I need to finish the audit prep. I’ll give you what I’ve already done. You can pull from it what you want. I found nothing.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a thick file and dropped it on his desk.

  Nick lifted it. It was six centimetres thick, and heavy. “You, um, have a digital copy?”

  “No.”

  Nick waited for some, any, elaboration. None was forthcoming. Brent returned to the compliance documents.

  “Okay, then.” He hoisted the thick file and placed it on top of his laptop case. “I’ll scan this and get it back to you.”

  “No. Jesus, for a supposedly smart guy, you’re pretty stupid. If someone is ripping off this company they’re a computer whiz. You put anything of your investigation on a computer, anywhere, assume the perp — that’s what you call them, right? — assume they have copies. And if you’re lucky, they haven’t manipulated the info.” He looked at Nick. “Don’t even copy it. Copy machines are all connected to the intranet.” He shook his head. “Idiot.”

  Nick grimaced and stuck the file and his laptop under his arm while he dug out his phone and called Davie.

  “Getting anywhere?”

  “Air gap your laptop. Completely. At least the one you’ve stored any case info on.”

  “Yeah, duh. Wait, didn’t you?”

  Nick swore. ”Get back to the house, if you’re not already there. I’ll be back in about twenty. We need to reset. I’ve got everything Slokow had.”

  “Right. See you shortly.”

  Nick pocketed his phone and trotted to the lifts, concerned that maybe they’d been doing worse than wasting their time — they’d been telegraphing their activities to whoever killed Andy.

  21

  Mike met Nick at the gate. “What have you found so far?”

  “Davie is looking into Andy’s murder. I was just catching up with Slokow about the missing money.”

  Mike’s eyes narrowed.

  “But that’s why I’m back. I’ll drop off this stuff and catch up with Davie and then I’ll find you, okay? You can walk me through everything you know from when you woke up to when the cops arrived.”

  Mike nodded. “I’ll be in the security office. I’ll be expecting you. Don’t be long.”

  “Right-o.”

  Nick walked with pace back to the pool looking for Davie. He wasn’t there. “Shit.” He dropped the laptop and Slokow’s file on the table and called his mobile.

  Davie walked onto the patio, his phone ringing. “Yeah, what?” He spied the file folder. “Slokow’s papers?”

  “All hardcopies. Nothing digital.” Nick paused. “We should be doing the same. Print everything out, add notes by hand. Maybe.” He picked up the file and his laptop. “Find out anything with the CCTV logs?” He walked toward his room.

  “A side door root login. Not traceable, but it happened just before Mike’s two entries. Extremely circumstantial, but it supports his story.”

  Nick dropped the file folder on his bed, kept the laptop. “It doesn’t help. The system is not very secure. A high school kid could hack in. Mike is getting antsy. I told him we’d drop the money problem for a minute and work on his side of things. He’s waiting for us.”

  “Great. Time with the angry Leprechaun. How’s your head?”

  Nick gingerly touched the plaster, then again with a little more pressure. “Not bad, actually.” He peeled the plaster off his scalp and folded in on itself. “That’s better.”

  * * *

  Mike looked up from a technical manual as Nick and Davie entered his security office. He picked up his coffee from his desk and moved to a small conference table. “Over here.”

  There were chairs on three sides of the table and a whiteboard on one of the short ends. Mike had taken a chair on one of the long sides. Davie sat across from him.

  Nick slid the notebook from his laptop case and stood by the whiteboard. He picked up a marker and drew a horizontal line across the middle of the board. “We need to sort out your timeline for the twelve hours from 11 pm the night before to 11 am the day Andy was killed.” He made a tick on the left most edge and wrote ’11 pm’ below it. He held up the marker, waiting. “Well?”

  “There’s nothing.”

  “What were you doing at 11 pm? It’s not nothing.” prompted Nick.

  “Sleeping.” He held up his hand. “Just a sec.” He opened his phone and scrolled through his calendar. “I had dinner with Andy that night. It went until a bit after 10:30. Which means I would have been in the gym by 11. Until about 11:30. Light workout.”

  “Okay.” Nick wrote ‘gym 11-1130’ at an angle. He looked at his notes and made a tick and labelled it ‘1145 pm’.

  “I was in the shower at 11:45.”

  Nick wrote ‘root access’ at that time stamp. “Somebody accessed the root of the security system at that time. Hid their tracks fairly well, but Davie found it.” He added a tick and ’1152’. “And this is where you apparently
logged in.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “We know that. Whoever logged in as root made an entry for you at that time.” He added another tick at 1201. “And this is when the cameras facing the front and the gate were disabled.”

  Mike waved at the whiteboard. “I was passed out by then. I crash fast. Especially after I’ve had a couple of glasses of good red after the workout.” He studied the whiteboard. “Not for nothing, it wouldn’t take me nine minutes to disable the cameras. Maybe two, at the most.”

  “The problem,” said Davie, “is proving that you were in bed. Were you…with company?”

  “Was I sleeping with anyone? No.” He pulled out his phone and found the app he was looking for. “Sleep app. Sleep is the most important part of a healthy life. More important than diet or exercise. I record how deep I sleep every night.” He opened the sleep chart for the night in question and slid the phone down the table to Nick. “According to this I was deeply asleep by 11:53 and woke up at 5:48. Received a text from one of the night guys. I recall it wasn’t a natural waking. There were flames and smoke and a crowd standing around looking at a fire.”

  Nick took the phone and looked at the chart. “Deep sleeper.” He swiped a couple of nights in each direction. “Fairly consistent with the days before and after, but there’s nothing here that guarantees this was in your bed, and not someone else’s.”

  Davie held out his hand. “Give that to me.”

  Nick slid the phone back up the table. “What?”

  “These things have GPS.” He looked at Mike. “You mind if I do some expert level prying in your phone? The GPS is tracked continuously, but I need to get into internal registers to find it.”

  “Will you damage it?”

  “Hopefully not.”

  “Hopefully?” Mike held out his hand. “Give it back.”