A date? Fine. Starsky would come with her. Seven o’clock, quiet Italian restaurant not far from Mama’s, reservations under Amara’s name. And she’d text if she was going to be late. Wylie promised to call if anything changed and said he’d try to get her mother to take a nap that afternoon. Amara laughed, wished him good luck, and hung up.
She pictured tonight’s dinner as she walked past the dozen or so empty handicapped visitors’ spots to the door. Why had she been so certain Starsky would come with her tonight? He would, of course, unless he had other plans, which she’d never known him to have. But a tinge of guilt washed over her. Was she stringing him along, knowing he probably wanted a deeper relationship? Taking advantage of him? Was her indecisiveness keeping him from moving on to someone else? And what was up with all the inner monologues whenever she thought about him?
The building’s doors swung inward as she approached. She walked inside and pressed the square metal handicapped plate on the wall to open the second set of doors. The lobby consisted of a seating area off to the right with magazines and brochures spread around. A large electronic sign cycled through a litany of upcoming events at the complex, complete with photos of smiling senior citizens enjoying themselves.
To the left, numerous offices lined the wall. Voices, ringing phones, and the unmistakable sounds of copiers and printers told her that work was already in full swing. Straight ahead, a middle-aged woman sat behind an ornate wooden reception desk, speaking several “yes, ma’am’s” into her headset.
Amara smiled at her and walked closer, waiting for a free moment. The lady raised one finger to indicate she was almost done, left it there for a good minute, rolled her eyes, and offered her final “yes, ma’am” before disconnecting the call.
“I’m sorry about your wait,” she said. “Part of Mrs. Vacanti’s a.m. ritual. I made the mistake a couple of years ago of mentioning something about baseball. Now, every morning of the season, she calls to update me on how the Astros are doing. I don’t have the heart to tell her I hate baseball.”
“Not a fan either,” Amara said. “But it’s sweet of you to do that. I’m sure it means a lot to her.” She suppressed a giggle. Plethora means a lot too.
“I don’t mind it so much. Gives her something to look forward to. That’s important, especially for folks her age.”
“I imagine it is.” She showed her ID and paused as a man came out of one of the offices, waved to the receptionist, and strode out the front doors. “I need to speak to whoever is in charge of your security here.”
Deep lines creased the woman’s forehead and she leaned forward. “Is something wrong? What’s happened?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing’s wrong. Can you point me in the right direction?”
The receptionist’s shoulders slumped and she looked away. “You’ll want to speak to Mr. Goodlett. He’s over our Properties Department and they handle security.” She pressed a series of buttons on her phone. “Mr. Goodlett? Good morning. You have a visitor at the front desk. Uh-huh. She’s, um, with the police.” She made eye contact with Amara again. “I don’t know. Thank you.” She hung up and stared at the monitor in front of her. “He’ll be with you in a moment. There’s coffee and water over there if you’d like some.”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“Well, if you’d like to sit over there while you wait, you’re welcome to do so.”
Wow. Somebody got her feelings hurt. Amara nodded once and roamed toward the seating area, stopping halfway when she heard the steady click of shoes on tile floor. She pivoted in time to see a man enter the lobby. His dark suit, complemented with a white shirt and striped red tie, seemed more fitting in a funeral home, particularly when combined with the dour expression on his face. His too-black hair pointed to vanity, while the heavy jowls that morphed into his neck suggested maybe he waited too late to start worrying about his appearance.
The receptionist pointed to Amara, and the man accelerated toward her.
“Good morning,” he said. His voice echoed in the empty space of the lobby.
She met him halfway and extended her hand. “Detective Amara Alvarez, SAPD.”
His meaty palm engulfed hers. “Davidson Goodlett. How can I help you, Detective?”
She glanced at the receptionist. “Perhaps there’s someplace else we can talk?”
“No problem.” He gestured back the way he’d come. “My office is down here.” He took off without waiting for a response.
She trailed behind him, grateful for not having to make small talk. He swiped his ID card on a reader to unlock the doors into the administration area, then repeated the process at his office.
“Please,” he said, “have a seat.” His desk was at least a foot too long for the space, and he turned sideways to scoot beside it before plopping into his chair.
“Thanks. I hope I won’t take up too much of your time.” She pulled her ID from her pocket and passed it over to him, then sat.
“Homicide?” He frowned as he returned the badge. “What’s this about?”
“I understand you experienced a computer outage five weeks ago. Is that correct?”
His left eye twitched and he smoothed his hands over the desktop. “There are matters I’m not free to discuss.”
“Mr. Goodlett, I’m not investigating Dorothy Engers’s death. I’m here about the problems your complex experienced the evening she died.”
He sank back in his chair and spots of color returned to his face. “Yes, well, we did have an outage that night. I’m afraid I can’t go into detail, but the situation was resolved as quickly as possible. That’s really all I can tell you.”
“I’m guessing you don’t have a background in law enforcement. Am I right?”
He raised his chin, though his neck flap still covered most of the knot in his tie. “If you’re insinuating that I don’t know how to do my job, then I think we’re done here.”
“Hold on.” Her breathing accelerated and she flexed her fingers. “Ever see a TV show or movie with cops in it? They’re mostly garbage. Fun to watch, but not that accurate. But”—she scooted her chair closer—“they do get one thing right. There is an easy way and a hard way to do things. I suspect that a man such as yourself, one with an important position in the company, would understand the implications of that statement. So I must insist that you go into detail about the computer issues that night.”
He planted his elbows on the desk and steepled his hands as if praying. “Detective, I will not be bullied in my own office.”
No? How about being bullied down at my office? She flipped her palms up and shrugged. “You win. All I wanted was information that might aid me in my investigation. You don’t want to help. Hey, that’s your prerogative. And if I choose to believe your reluctance to provide information means you’re hiding something, well, I suppose that’s my prerogative.”
“I assure you I have nothing to hide.”
“Everyone has something to hide. Look, my concern at this point is only with the events of that night as they relate to my case. It’s quite possible your computer problems have nothing whatsoever to do with my investigation, meaning you’ll most likely never hear from me again.” She crossed her legs and tilted her head. “I think that’s something we’d both like, isn’t it? The alternative is much more complicated. For you, anyway.”
He cleared his throat and worked his mouth as if this morning’s breakfast was still in there somewhere. Or yesterday morning’s. For a moment, she feared he was going to lean over and spit into the trash can. He nodded, rocking his whole body as he did so. “I’ll tell you what I can,” he said. “Which isn’t much. Not because I don’t know, but because our executive board prefers to keep this as low key as possible. And not because of Ms. Engers’s death.”
“Fine. I’ll take what I can get.” And if it’s not enough, I’ll do what I have to.
“On the evening in question, our computer network did experience issues. Temperature control, communications
, security, elevators, and other systems stopped working. None of this was life-threatening to any of our tenants. Certainly a major inconvenience and one that created a great deal of chaos. As you can imagine, we were eager to resolve the situation quickly. Within a matter of hours, everything returned to normal.”
Nothing she didn’t already know or couldn’t have guessed. “Why did your system crash?”
“I never said it did.”
She rolled her eyes. “What caused the computer problems?”
“I’m afraid I can’t get into that.”
She stared until he glanced away. “Mr. Goodlett, was your network attacked?”
“There was an incident, yes. We informed the authorities and took the appropriate steps to return our operations to normal. The safety of our tenants is paramount.”
Sounded like something straight off a brochure. “What authorities? The SAPD? Who?”
He rolled back from his desk, opened the middle drawer, and pulled out a business card. “Hector Canales with the FBI.”
“Why not the SAPD?”
He returned the card to the drawer. “I would think you’d know that better than me. We called the police first, and they directed us to the FBI. Said they would be able to handle it quicker.”
Probably true. Cybercrimes fell into a jurisdiction gray area. The SAPD wouldn’t have the experience or the access to investigative tools the Bureau had. “Is there anything else you can tell me about what happened?”
“No. We believe a crime was committed and reported it properly. Perhaps your questions would be better directed to the FBI.”
“Right.” She’d worked with several agents during the Cotulla investigation, but Hector Canales wasn’t one of them. She stood and nodded. “I’ll see myself out.”
“Actually, I’ll escort you.” He maneuvered around his desk and walked into the hallway. “Security regulation. I’m sure you understand.”
She trailed behind until reaching the lobby, then hurried past him, flashed a smile at the receptionist, and stepped outside. The morning sun reflected off the windshields of vehicles scattered in the parking lot. Beyond that, groups of cottages, most nearly identical to Eugenia Coleman’s, clustered near a large pond. Fifteen or twenty people strolled at varying speeds along a paved trail circling the water. Not a bad way to start your morning. Quiet and relaxing.
The guttural din of a motorcycle’s exhaust pipes broke the reverie, and she snapped her head toward the main street outside the complex. There. Except it wasn’t a motorcycle. A black pickup truck, its frame sitting high above oversize tires, cruised past. The vehicle was too far away for her to make out the white splotch on the rear window, but she knew what it said.
Haley.
32
Two hours later, Amara left the station with an appointment at the FBI, a new phone, if you could call it that, and a borrowed vehicle to use for the remainder of the day. Once she’d explained as much of the situation as she thought necessary to the IT guy, he said that yes, it was quite possible hidden software had been installed on her phone. If her home network had been hacked, chances were whoever did that gained all the information needed to pose as the phone’s owner and remotely install whatever they wanted. His solution was to give her one of the department’s old flip phones and transfer her number to it. It was like going back to the pioneer days, but no way anyone could track it. At least they’d managed to import her contacts. She’d just have to get used to the looks from anyone who saw her use it.
Hector Canales met her in the lobby and escorted her to his office. The agent was about her age but better groomed and very GQ. If the FBI wanted to project an appearance, this guy had it nailed. His office matched his style and gave an aura of professionalism and order. Not quite the same as her card table back at the station.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she said.
“Not a problem. You’ve got a bit of a reputation around here. Nice to finally meet.”
“A good rep, I hope?”
He grinned and exposed his bleached-white teeth. “The best. Your work on Cotulla is the stuff of legend.”
Overselling it, aren’t we? Canales wanted something from her, personally or professionally. She forced a smile. His faux charm hinted at a man who practiced in front of a mirror. “Thanks. As I said on the phone, I wanted to get some info on the incident at Green Horizons Retirement. What can you tell me?”
“Not much, really. By the time they called us, it was over. We filled out the forms and filed it away. We don’t have the manpower to work on something this small.”
She pulled out her notepad and wrote the date and time at the top. “Would you mind backing up a little? I don’t know anything other than they had computer problems.”
He tilted his head. “Yeah? What’s your interest then? I thought this had something to do with another case you were working on?”
“It might. There’s a, um, tenuous connection between the retirement village and my case. Their network issues may or may not tie into my investigation. That’s why I need to know what happened.”
“You’re Homicide now, right? You working on the old lady, what’s her name, Dorothy . . . hold on, it’ll come to me . . .”
She clenched her jaw. “Dorothy Engers. And no, I’m not investigating her death.”
“Just wondered.” He shrugged. “The security guy told us about it. Not our jurisdiction and didn’t seem worth forwarding to you guys. Figured if the woman’s family wanted her death checked out, they’d be in touch. Anyway, you want to know about the network attack. Simple enough. Ransomware. Seeing more and more of it every day.”
Ransomware. Online kidnapping, except it was your data that was held hostage and destroyed unless you paid. Was that what they were planning at the water park too? “Got any details you can share?”
“Sure. Like I said, this is a local issue anyway. Until there’s evidence of the crime crossing state lines, we’re not gonna do anything.” He shrugged. “And even if there was proof that happened, our cyber guys have their hands full with the big-dollar attacks. The ones coming from overseas. Word is a lot of that money goes to terrorist organizations. You can understand why that would be more of a priority than this deal.”
“I can. So what exactly happened?”
“Everything shut down and all the company’s computers displayed a message from the hackers. Wanted ten-k in Zcash to release the key that unlocked everything. It didn’t take the company long to decide that was cheap compared to the time it would take to rebuild their systems, and that’s assuming they didn’t lose any data. A few hours later, they paid, and within thirty minutes things were back to normal.”
She scribbled a few notes. “Zcash? Not Bitcoin?”
“Nah. Bitcoin’s not as secure. Word is that it can be traced, but that’s out of my realm. The Bureau’s got teams that work on this stuff, but to be honest, they’re overwhelmed.”
“Got it.” Online currency was no different from Monopoly money as far as she knew. She’d have to do research on it. Figure out how you turned fake money into real. Was that where the stack of cash under Zachary Coleman’s floor came from? She tapped her pen on the notepad. “How’s that work? I mean, what’s the process for the company to agree to pay and then get the ransom to the hackers?”
“It’s actually pretty simple. Green Horizons is like most organizations. They don’t want to deal with this type of headache, so they contact a service to do it for them. Look up “ransomware incident response” or something along those lines. There are dozens of companies that do that now. All of them say the same thing. Paying the ransom should be the last resort, but if it’s a low-dollar amount like this one, it’s usually cheaper to just pay and be done with it.”
“So this outside company takes care of everything? Contacts the hackers and sends them the payment? Then takes their fee and moves on to the next one?” She narrowed her eyes and crossed her legs.
“I know where you’re going,
” he said. “It’s like the home security company that breaks into homes and goes by later to sell them an alarm system, right? But in this case, no way anyone could have known which service Green Horizons would contact, or even if they would. Plus, not only do these companies pay the hackers, they’ll actually try to negotiate for a lower ransom.”
“Does that work?”
“Lots of times it does. And when the company gets the encryption key, the service helps get everything back up and running.”
“What if they pay and don’t get the key? What happens then?”
“First of all, the money’s gone either way. With digital currencies, once you’ve sent it, there’s no way to get it back. If you don’t get the data you need in return, you’re pretty much toast. Not much you can do about it except get to work trying to rebuild everything. Most of the time any backups are also infected, so the process can be excruciating. But we see that in the vast majority of cases, the encryption key is returned.”
“Awful decent of them.”
He shook his head. “You’re looking at this the wrong way. This is a business to these hackers. Businesses are built on reputation. That’s why they don’t hit the same place twice. Bad for future business. And if they don’t send the key back, it reduces the likelihood the next victim will pay. And they’re getting smarter by going after critical services like hospitals and government facilities. Doing that ramps up the pressure on the target to respond quickly. Usually they’ll give forty-eight hours or more to respond, but if you need access to your systems now, who’s waiting that long?”
“Any leads on this?”
“I’ll let you know when and if we decide to investigate.”
She pinched her lips together. The reality of modern law enforcement. No one had the resources to work everything, so you picked and chose cases based on impact and threat. The Green Horizons data breach would only be solved if another larger ransomware case was investigated and the culprits were tied back to this one. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Network of Deceit Page 17
