by Ray Green
‘D’you think that, during her investigation, she could have trodden on enough toes to bring about her murder? I mean it’s not exactly headline news that there are a lot of workers in the building trade who shouldn’t really be here in the USA.’
‘I don’t know,’ whispered Emily, leaning in as she lowered her voice, ‘but I think she might have stumbled across something else: something bigger.’
Now she had Juanita’s full attention. ‘Do you know what it was?’
‘No, I don’t, but Julia always used to chat with me and tell me everything about how her investigation was going, but then, all of a sudden, she seemed to go all secretive. I think she’d discovered something important and wanted to keep it to herself for some reason.’
‘But you don’t know—?’ She abruptly abandoned the question when she saw Scott’s bulky frame lumbering towards them. ‘Anyway,’ she said, wrapping up the conversation, ‘I’m sure you don’t need to worry that her killer will be targeting any of the rest of you.’
Emily still looked doubtful.
‘That’s better,’ declared Scott – information which neither of the women really needed to hear. ‘Do you need any more help, before I sit down er …?’
‘Gema,’ she reminded him. ‘No, I’ve only got these papers on the desk to sort out now.’ Again, she smiled broadly: in spite of her initial distaste for the man, she had to admit his attitude did seem to have softened considerably.
She took her time over boxing up the remaining papers, scanning the headings to try to identify any documents which looked as though they were worth copying. One, in particular, caught her eye: the heading read, ‘Employment of Illegals by Johnson Brothers’. Evidently Emily had been right about what Julia had been working on. She found a couple more documents which seemed to be related and put them to one side as she packed what seemed to be the less interesting stuff into the box. Finally, she put the documents she intended to copy on the top, before placing the box – much lighter than the others – on the sack truck and heading towards the photocopier room.
Her interest had now been well and truly piqued by Emily’s suggestion that her dead co-worker’s investigation may have led her to discover something bigger; this chimed with James’s assertion that the suspected assassin would only have been contracted to eliminate a junior journalist if she was about to reveal something very important.
She set about copying the relevant documents and was only interrupted twice by others coming in to use the machine. On both occasions they only had a single sheet to copy, so she readily stood aside long enough for them to do so. Neither showed any interest in what she was doing; they both looked too busy and too harassed. On both occasions they thanked her for letting them interrupt her and hurried back to work. When she had finished, she took one of the old box files that were heaped alongside the wall, tipped out its contents, and replaced them with her own papers. She would have to hope that, at the end of the day, she could smuggle it out without being noticed.
By the time she had finished her copying task, she had managed to banish all her earlier self-doubts; now she was fired with renewed determination. She decided that, somehow, she had to get access to that computer. She chose a high-risk strategy.
Chapter 20
Juanita made her way over to Joe Goldsmith’s desk, her heart rate steadily rising and her palms sweating as she prepared for the biggest gamble of the whole mission.
‘Excuse me Mr Goldsmith.’
He looked up, smiling as he laid down his pen and gave her his full attention – actually, a bit too much attention, as his eyes flitted between her face and her breasts, in spite of the sober jacket she was wearing.
‘How’s it going?’ he enquired.
‘Oh, I’m almost finished, but there’s one thing I wanted to ask your advice about.’
‘Sure,’ he said gesturing for her to sit down on the chair opposite him, ‘fire away.’
‘Well,’ she said, smiling as she sat down, desperately hoping that her fear would not show in her face or her voice, ‘I think you said the police would want to take her computer as well as all her papers.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So, I thought I’d power the machine up … just to check everything was OK.’
Goldsmith narrowed his eyes slightly as his forehead creased in a puzzled frown. ‘How d’you mean, “OK”?’
Fighting to control her rising panic, Juanita looked directly into his eyes with what she hoped was an innocent, wide-eyed gaze. ‘I just wanted to make sure the police wouldn’t have any problems accessing the information they need.’
He shrugged, ‘Why should they?’
‘Well, it looks like the machine is password protected.’
‘Ah, I see,’ he said. ‘Of course.’
‘I wondered if we should give them the password … you know, just to make their job easier.’
Goldsmith cradled his chin between thumb and forefinger as he considered this request. ‘Hmm … thing is, our employees choose their own passwords. I’ve no idea what password Julia would have used.’
Juanita had guessed this was probably the case but was hoping against hope that Goldsmith would come up with some solution. She decided to employ a little gentle prompting. ‘Oh, well I guess the police must have I.T. people who might be able to get past the password somehow; it’s just a shame that we can’t make their job less difficult.’
He took the bait.
After pausing for a few moments, with furrowed brow and pursed lips, his expression relaxed as he raised a forefinger in the air. ‘Wait, let’s see what our own I.T. people can do.’ He picked up his phone and punched a few keys. ‘Hi George. Look, I’ve got a bit of an issue down here. The cops are coming tomorrow morning to pick up Julia’s computer, but it’s password protected. Any chance one of your guys could get around the password so they can access the machine?’ He paused for a few moments, evidently listening to the reply from the other end of the line. ‘Yeah,’ he said, after around fifteen seconds, ‘I know they’ll have their own I.T. people, but I’ll bet they’re not as hot as your guys.’ He winked at Juanita, who smiled back at him, her heart rate now starting to slow a little. ‘And even if they were,’ he continued, ‘we should do our best to help New York’s finest, shouldn’t we?’ He paused for some seconds. ‘Well it really needs to be this afternoon.’ Another pause. ‘That’s great, George. Just ask him to come over to my desk and I’ll introduce him to the charming young lady who’s sorting out Julia’s things for me.’ He put down the phone with a triumphant smile. ‘Nothing like a bit of flattery to get things done,’ he said. ‘They’re sending someone down right away.’
‘That’s great. Uh … shall I just go back over to finish off a few other bits and pieces while we’re waiting?’
‘Nah, they’ll probably only be a few minutes. Why don’t you just stay and chat ’til they get here.’
Juanita had no desire whatsoever to ‘stay and chat’, but she wanted to keep Goldsmith sweet, so she leaned forward placing both elbows on the desk, interlacing her fingers and placing her chin on the back of her hands. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Goldsmith,’ she simpered.
‘Oh, call me Joe.’
‘OK, I will … Joe.’ She flashed him another dazzling smile, but within moments she began to regret her foolishness in encouraging this man to engage her in further conversation.
‘Where’d you work before Cynthia snapped you up?’
Her heart skipped a beat; she’d have to improvise now. ‘Oh here and there; short term temping suits me just fine. Last place was a law firm in Brooklyn.’
‘Oh really – what’re they called? I might know of them.’
Oh Christ! After the risks she had taken to get this far, the last thing she wanted was to get tripped up on this casual chit-chat. But she’d just had to bluff it out now. ‘Smith and Williams,’ she replied, falling back on the two commonest surnames she could think of on the spur of the moment, ‘d’you know th
em?’
As soon as she had uttered the words, she realised that her answer would not match the work history she had put in her fictitious résumé. Would he have read it and, if so, would he remember what was in it? Her heart began to race once more.
‘Don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Never mind. Where d’you come from … originally I mean?’
This was getting really tricky now; she hadn’t expected to have to memorise every detail of her résumé once she had actually landed the job. ‘Well,’ she said, stalling for time as she desperately tried to decide on an answer, ‘I’ve been here, in the Big Apple, most of my life but—’
She was saved by Goldsmith abruptly looking up and cutting off her faltering reply. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘here’s Rick, from I.T.’
Juanita let out a massive sigh of relief at this timely respite. She turned to see a young guy, who looked as though he was barely out of high school. His ripped jeans and Guns ‘n’ Roses tee-shirt contrasted sharply with the ‘business casual’ dress code adopted by most in the office. Christ, this kid wouldn’t even have been born when Guns ‘n’ Roses were at their peak, she mused. His long, scruffy hair also seemed incongruous in the office environment. No matter; the only thing that mattered right now was his technical expertise.
‘Thanks for coming down at short notice, Rick. This is Gema. Gema … Rick.’
Juanita offered her hand which the youth shook, limply.
He didn’t bother with pleasantries. ‘You got a computer you want unlocked?’
‘That’s right,’ interjected Goldsmith … ‘Gema will show you.’
‘OK,’ he grunted. And that was the extent of the conversation before Juanita led him over to Julia’s desk. Scott looked up, enquiringly.
‘Rick has come down to unlock Julia’s computer so that the police can access her files,’ she explained.
Scott didn’t reply; he just nodded, before turning back to the folder he had open on his desk. She turned her attention back to the scruffy youth whose expertise – or otherwise – was the only thing standing between her and the information she sought.
‘Do you think you’ll be able to do it?’ she asked.
‘Might do,’ was the cryptic reply.
He took from the bag he was carrying a small, rectangular, plastic box which he connected, with a cable, to the computer. He punched a few keys on the device, and its display lit up, accompanied by an electronic bleeping sound.
‘OK, here we go,’ he announced.
He pressed one more key and immediately the display sprang to life, letters and numbers scrolling through at breakneck speed, forming an indistinguishable blur.
‘What does that box actually do?’ asked Juanita.
‘It’s kinda complicated.’
‘I guess,’ she conceded. ‘Well, how long do you think it will take?’
‘Dunno … depends.’
She concluded that any further attempt at conversation with this geeky-looking young man would be futile.
‘Guess I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ve still got a bit of work to do over in the room over there’ – she pointed her finger – ‘so if you manage to—’
‘Result!’ interrupted the youth, jumping to his feet and punching the air.
Scott and Emily both spun round at this sudden and unexpected display of enthusiasm from the young man.
Juanita was also taken aback to see him looking so animated. ‘You’ve done it?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Real weak password,’ he declared. ‘That’s why it didn’t take long to crack.’ He tapped a few keys on the computer, which, after a few seconds lit up, finally settling on a familiar-looking Windows home screen. ‘I’ll just reset the password for you … something nice and simple.’ After a few more taps and clicks, he grabbed a notepad and pen from the desk and scribbled something down. ‘OK, that’s your new password – “Admin1” – upper case “A”.’
‘Wow!’ exclaimed Juanita, genuinely impressed. ‘How did you do that?’
He tapped the side of his nose with his finger. ‘It’s not that hard when you know what you’re doing.’ With that, he unplugged his little box of tricks and departed.
Juanita could hardly believe her luck: the trickiest bit of the whole mission had been overcome without a hitch. Now all she needed to do was find a way to copy the contents of the computer to her own hard drive without being detected. Clearly, though, she couldn’t do it right there, under the watchful gaze of the inquisitive Scott.
She powered the machine down and closed the lid. ‘Right,’ she said, addressing herself to both Scott and Emily simultaneously, ‘that’s me just about done. I’ll take the laptop and put it with all the other stuff that the police have to collect in the morning. Then,’ she said, looking at her watch, ‘it’ll be about time to go home. Thanks to both of you for all your help.’
‘Oh, you’re welcome,’ said Emily, ‘it was nice chatting to you, Gema.’
‘Sure,’ grunted Scott.
When she returned to the storage room, she looked around for a power socket; she didn’t want to risk the laptop’s battery dying on her in the middle of the copying process. When she found one, she set the computer down on the floor, connected her hard drive and switched the machine on. After typing in the new password, she quickly started the copy process. The estimated time to complete the process was sixteen minutes. She pulled a few boxes in front of the computer to conceal it from anyone who might come in and settled down to wait.
After about ten minutes a young woman of Afro-Caribbean appearance, with an abundant mass of frizzy black hair, entered the room. Juanita pretended to be reorganising the papers in one of the boxes she’d packed.
‘Oh hi,’ said the woman, ‘I just need to grab a couple of those empty boxes.’
To Juanita’s dismay she headed straight for those which she had placed in front of the computer. Damn!
Chapter 21
Before Juanita could even begin to think of a way to stop her, the woman had covered the two or three paces to where the boxes had been placed. She stopped for a moment, surveying the boxes as though trying to decide which ones to take. To Juanita’s horror, the woman’s gaze seemed to settle on one of those which was concealing the laptop and hard drive. She would have to act fast if she was to avoid being discovered.
‘Why don’t you try these?’ blurted Juanita, rushing forward, almost tripping over her own feet in her haste to divert the woman’s attention.
‘Huh?’ she muttered, turning her head, her expression puzzled.
Juanita pointed to some other boxes a few feet away. ‘I’ve been boxing up papers all afternoon and those boxes weigh an absolute ton when they’re loaded up.’
The woman shrugged, tilting her head. ‘I guess.’
‘These are smaller,’ said Juanita, picking one up and holding it forward ‘– much easier to lift.’
The woman took a step towards her and took the box, tilting it back and forth as she appeared to be assessing its suitability. ‘Yeah, I see what you mean. I might need three or four of these though … I’ve got quite a lot of stuff to box up.’
‘Better that than wreck your back,’ suggested Juanita trying hard to sound casual, despite her racing heartbeat.
‘I guess you’re right,’ laughed the woman. ‘My boyfriend put his back out last year ago by lifting a lawnmower into the back of his pickup … took months to recover.’
‘Definitely not worth risking it,’ agreed Juanita, laughing.
‘I’ll just take two for now and see how I get on. I’ll come back later for any more I need. Thanks for the tip, er …’
‘Gema.’
‘Thanks, Gema; I’m Sue by the way. Say, you’re new, aren’t you … you just started?’
Juanita just wanted to wrap this conversation up, retrieve her hard drive, and get out of there as soon as possible, but having seemingly averted any suspicion from this woman, she had to go along with the casual chat.
She nodded. ‘I’m jus
t temping for one week … working for Cynthia, downstairs.’
‘A week’s enough … working here for much longer’s enough to drive you mad … the pace is just crazy.’
For Christ’s sake … can’t you just take the damned boxes and go?
It was as if she had somehow picked up Juanita’s unspoken thoughts. ‘Talking of which, I’ve got to rush.’ She grabbed two boxes and turned to go. ‘Anyway, nice talking to you, Gema. Enjoy your life outside of the madhouse.’ She laughed at her own joke as she swept out of the door.
The release of tension was palpable; Juanita took several long, deep breaths, leaning against the photocopier, as her racing heart began to slow. But there was no time to waste now; she had to complete her task before any further risk of discovery arose. She glanced at her watch 5.47 p.m. It was past the end of her official working day, so once she had finished copying the files and shown Goldsmith where she’d left everything for the cops, she’d be able to leave straightaway.
She took a few paces towards the door, looking out to check that no-one was approaching. The office was still busy, but there was no-one heading in her direction. She rushed over to where the laptop was hidden, relieved to see that the copy process was complete. Unplugging the hard drive and slipping it into her purse, she shut down the laptop and placed it on top of the stack of boxes containing Julia’s files. Now she just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but she still needed to check in with Goldsmith. She headed over towards his desk.
‘Excuse me Mr Goldsmith.’
‘Joe,’ he reminded her, looking up as she approached. Once again, she noticed his appraising scan up and down her body.
‘Yes, of course … Joe. I’ve finished now – can I show you what I’ve done?’
‘Sure … lead on.’
She could sense his eyes boring into her butt as he followed her towards the storage room. She quickened her pace a little, anxious to get this over with as soon as possible.