Falafel Jones - Max Fried 01 - Life's a Beach Then You Die

by Falafel Jones

  I compared a few of the date entries to Ray’s deposit records and got matches not only on the dates, but also on the six digit numbers that followed. They equaled the deposit amounts. For the last few months, Ray was depositing thousands of dollars. He was also recording the deposits in a spreadsheet next to some kind of letter and number entry that I didn’t recognize. This was looking very interesting, but I still didn’t see anything to explain what was really going on.

  When I first started working for the State, they sent me to training. One of the trainers told my class, “When you don’t know what decision to make, get more facts.” In the past, I found it was good advice, so I thought it might help if I knew who the men in the photo were. There was a good chance one of the men might be Ray so I used Google to search for images of Ray Kenwood. I found two. One of him in an article about the fatal accident and one from an A. V. Designs sales presentation at a trade show. Both photos displayed a much heavier man than the one in the 1984 photo, but he was clearly the same man.

  I had no way of identifying the other two men yet so I made a mental note of their appearances. One was taller and had long, blondish, and wavy, hair. He wore a Fu Manchu moustache. The other man was clean-shaven, shorter and had a flat nose. He also had a crooked smile with the left side of his mouth looking higher than the right.

  I puzzled over these photos a bit more. Nothing came to me, so I looked more closely at them. The pictures didn’t appear to show anything significant. Each one was one or two of the same three guys on a boat. No big fish on a line or any other significant moments captured. Just some guys sitting or standing on a boat. Based on the number of photos, all looking alike, it seemed odd Ray would send one old picture at a time over several weeks. How many photos does one need of what appeared to be repetitions of the same boring thing?

  Back around 440 BC in Greece, a man named Histiaeus shaved a slave’s head. He tattooed a message on it and when the slave’s hair grew back, he sent him to the message recipient. Such was the birth of Steganography or concealed writing. A distinguishing advantage of this method is that the existence of a hidden message is not readily apparent.

  On one hand, a coded message is usually very clearly a coded message. It tends to be combinations of random numbers or letters. The coding advertises that a secret exists and all one needs to do is crack the code.

  On the other hand, if steganography is used, the existence of a hidden message isn’t apparent. You first have to find the message before you can try to crack the code. People use a similar technique today, to hide text and images inside of photos. To the naked eye, the photo looks normal, but someone with the correct software, found free on the Internet, could encode and decode hidden messages in photos.

  I saved the photos from the emails to a folder and ran them through a Steganography program. Sure enough, I found something. Each photo contained hidden text and images regarding some kind of A. V. Designs product. The amount of specificity and detail exceeded sales and promotional information normally provided to potential customers. Each of the decoded files contained a file number consisting of letters and numbers in the top left corner. I compared them to the entries in the last column of the spreadsheet. They matched.

  Ray’s spreadsheet contained file numbers of A. V. Designs technical documents next to dollar amounts and dates. In turn, the dollar amounts and dates matched wire transfers into Ray’s personal bank account. Ray Kenwood had been emailing trade secrets to the competition for profit. So, Ray was a crook, but is that what got him killed?

  CHAPTER SIX

  I thought, “Isn’t this case going well? I’ve lost evidence that may benefit my client’s killer and I’ve found Ray’s guilty of a crime. Ed’s going to love this.” I looked at the email address where Ray sent the photos, Ben.Horton@PCGadgets.com. At least, I had a handle on the man who appeared to be Ray’s buyer. I ran a Google search on Ben Horton and PC Gadgets and discovered he was a high profile executive there. One online newspaper displayed a picture of him coaching a company sponsored soccer team. The article described him as a Research and Design Executive and business owner.

  I also found a company newsletter containing his name and photo. His picture appeared over an article he wrote on the company’s history. I saved a copy for later perusal. He looked like he could be one of the men in the emailed photos. Probably, Ray stole the secrets and Horton bought them. There was no apparent reason why a third person would be involved. On the other hand, the third man’s lack of identity nagged at me. Ray emailed Horton several photos of just himself and Horton. Why did he also email photos that included one of them with the third man? I like complete understanding so I wanted to know, “Who was the third man?”

  If the police had Ray’s computer, Ray’s files would incriminate Horton in the thefts. This gave Horton a motive for breaking into my home and possibly for killing Ray. I’d need more information. Maybe murdering Ray would have been, if you pardon the expression, overkill.

  The industrial theft was another thing, even if Horton didn’t kill Ray, following the trail of Ray’s crime might lead me to his killer or at least the reason for his murder. It seemed the best way to learn more of Ray’s crime would be to investigate Horton but I couldn’t exactly approach him directly. What would I say, “Hi, I understand you’ve been buying trade secrets. Did you break into my home and steal the evidence? Oh, and who’s the third guy in the photos containing the stolen information you bought?”

  Since Horton and Ray communicated by email and trusted hiding their secrets in plain sight, I decided to watch Horton’s emails to see if they lead to anyone else. In addition, prior correspondence might be helpful. If I had access to the PC Gadgets email system, I could monitor Horton’s emails. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access, but I knew someone who could get it for me.

  Angie D. was a colleague from back in New York. We met in the hospitality bar at a white hat hacker’s conference when his smiling picture suddenly appeared on my computer screen. Since the white hat hackers are supposed to be the good guys, I took his prank in the spirit of the moment and we became friends. He makes his living as a consultant, but he’s a programmer, a surfer (the kind who uses a wooden board), a digital forensic examiner and oh yeah, a lock picker. Angie D. is the type of guy who doesn’t really care what’s behind the locked door. He just wants to see if he can get in.

  I called him on his cell. “Hey, Angie, it’s Max.”

  “Hey, Bub. How’re you doing, man?”

  “I’m good. What’s up?”

  “Up is a directional indicator. How’s Florida?”

  “Nice and warm. You should come down and visit. I’ve got wireless Internet access throughout the house. You can surf the net from my pool. Tell you what, to make your visit more entertaining, I won’t give you the password and you can hack in instead.”

  “Tempting as that may be, I’m kind of booked these days. You got something on your mind, don’ t you?”

  “Yeah, I need to monitor emails coming from and to a corporate email address.”

  “I take it this address is not your own, you don’t have a court order, you don’t have a subpoena and we never discussed this. Gimme the email address and watch your own account for something from Bill Gates.”

  “Thanks, Angie. It’s Ben.Horton@PCGadgets.com”

  “Later, man.”

  While I was waiting, I decided to see what, if anything, I could find out on my own about Horton and PC Gadgets. The first thing I did was visit Sunbiz.org. This is the web site of the Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations. Every corporation in the state needs to file with them and luckily Florida makes this information available on line.

  I searched for the corporate name PC Gadgets. In return, I was able to view their Articles of Incorporation, which showed me the name and address of the registered agent, the address of the principle place of business and the names of the corporate officers. The original filing showed Ben Horton was both the regis
tered agent and the president of the corporation. No other officers were listed. The address for the business was the same as the registered agent, the PC Gadgets office on Damascus Road.

  While at the Sunbiz.org website, I also searched for Judgment Liens, and found the IRS had filed a lien against PC Gadgets for $10,347. I could also see the lien had been satisfied about a week before Ray made his first deposit. It was beginning to look like Horton and PC Gadgets were in financial trouble, had found some kind of benefactor and somehow this tied in with Ray getting pay offs.

  Since the Horton’s business was located in Volusia County, I looked at the County website at Volusia.org where I was able to access the Property Assessor records. I typed in Horton’s address and found his property information. I could see the details of his house such as how many bedrooms, baths and so on, as well as when he bought it and for how much. He paid a lot, but considering the riverfront neighborhood and his own private dock, that was to be expected. None of this information was especially useful.

  Next, I did a search on the Revenue Division’s Tax files for Ben Horton’s name. I found the records for his home again, but a second property he owned also came up. I checked the address and saw Horton’s name listed as the sole owner of the property on which his business was located. He paid all of the taxes in full on both properties. Again, I found nothing useful except to find he had many expenses maintaining both properties and trying to keep his business going. It looked like he was stretched thin, got in trouble with the IRS and some how got some money to dig his way out. My question now was “Where did he get the money?”

  I went back to the Sunbiz.org website and looked again at the corporate records. I noticed he filed the most recent annual report about two weeks before the IRS Lien was satisfied so I took a closer look and found a change. Below Ben Horton’s entry as President, a new entry added Corky Eastwood as Vice President.

  Who was Corky Eastwood? I couldn’t even tell if Corky was a man or a woman. I wondered, “Did Corky bail out Ben?” And if he or she did, was he or she in on stealing secrets from A. V. Designs? Every time I got something that led somewhere, it just seemed to raise more questions. The closer I got, the further I got. Well, if Corky had the kind of money Ben needed, then there was a good chance there would be something on Corky in the newspaper or the web; maybe a business or society page thing.

  The Daytona Beach News Journal, the local print paper, has a web site, so I searched their papers archives for Corky Eastwood. I got lucky and found one article. It was an obituary, not for Corky, but for her father, Grant Courtland Eastwood III. He died from a heart attack on his boat. Apparently, the vessel was too big to dock so he anchored in the river and was unable to take his dinghy to shore in time to get help. He was a widower affectionately known to his friends as Zorky. God knows why they called him that. Geez, Zorky and Corky, I guess the rich really are different.

  I followed up that lead by Googling Zorky. He was a local attorney who had managed a large family fortune into an even larger family fortune. He was a back stage kind of guy in local politics and had once run unsuccessfully for senator. It appeared Corky, his only heir, inherited everything. I didn’t have any proof yet, but it looked like I found the source of the money Ben used to pay the IRS and Ray.

  I also had a name now for someone other than Ben who could have broken in, but the image of a society woman rolling in wealth breaking in to steal a computer just didn’t make any sense. What did make sense was that if she were daddy’s heiress, she would probably be on the Board of Directors of more than just Ben Horton’s company. So, I went back to Sunbiz.org, to check the corporate filings again, but this time, I did a name search on Corky Eastwood.

  Aside from getting a hit on PC Gadgets, Corky Eastwood’s name appeared as President of Eastwood Family Holdings, Inc. Ben Horton’s name didn’t appear in any of the Eastwood corporate papers. In an attempt to learn more, I Googled “Eastwood Family Holdings”. A few articles from trade papers and web sites came up. I read them and learned “EFH” as their logo showed, was a serious top shelf company invested in many high tech development projects here and overseas.

  A business magazine ran a story of how successful the company became since Corky took over after Dad’s demise. From all accounts, they were blue chip. They looked legit and I was beginning to suspect Corky was unsuspecting when it came to PC Gadgets.

  I played this all out in my head, and came up with the following explanation. Ben Horton overextended his finances to the point he couldn’t make his tax payments. In danger of losing his business and house, he steals designs from an outfit known for innovative products and bleeding edge development. Somehow, he hooks up with Ray who sells him design documents. Horton then uses these stolen designs to entice EFH into investing in his company. So she can keep an eye on him and more importantly her money, Corky Eastwood becomes vice president at Ben’s company. I thought this made sense, but it still didn’t prove Horton broke into my home.

  About two hours after I talked to Angie D., a new email arrived. It supposedly came from Bill.Gates@microsoft.com and contained the user ID and a password for an account on Yahoo. I signed on and sure enough, I saw copies of Ben Horton’s incoming and sent emails. I looked through them. The most recent one was a daily statement from a hotel in California listing his current room charges as of noon that day.

  The statement showed Horton was out of state and charging brunch when someone broke into my office. He also had an email from TransCon Airlines confirming his scheduled flight home tomorrow morning. I had to revise my theory. Horton may have a motive to steal Ray’s computer, but at the time of the break-in, he was three thousand miles away. Except for that and the emails, I had already seen from Ray, there was nothing else unusual.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I was pondering my discoveries about Ray when the doorbell rang. It was Ed, standing there with a cigarette in his hand. I thought about telling him what I found, but it didn’t seem like the right time. We were on the way to visit Ray’s widow and telling Ed his dead buddy was a crook now didn’t seem seemly. I’d tell him later.

  “Hey, Max. You ready?”

  “Sure, let me get my report.” I went back to the office, got my briefcase and joined Ed in the car. As he backed out of my driveway, he said, “We’re getting to her just in time. She’s leaving early tomorrow to visit her folks.”

  Ray had lived on the mainland in Venezia, an upper class riverfront neighborhood in Quay Assisi. The Kenwood home wasn’t far from mine, maybe a ten minute drive. It was a big house, L-shaped with a three-car garage forming the small side of the L. Even in a depressed real estate market, it was probably worth a couple of million.

  Ed pulled into the Kenwood driveway next to a silver Mercedes SUV bearing the Florida license plate “ONE BBW”. I could see luggage piled high in the back of the vehicle.

  We walked up to the house and Ed rang the bell. After a few moments of silence, the door swung open and a very large, very pretty woman in a sleeveless red dress filled the doorway. She was as tall as I was and as wide as Ed. She looked sad at first, but brightened when she saw Ed.

  “Ed!” She cried and hugged him. She wrapped both arms around him and squeezed. For a moment, I thought his feet might have left the floor.

  Ed grunted out, “Kathleen, this is Max Fried.”

  She released Ed, turned and hugged me tightly, too. If I were a foot shorter, her expansive breasts would have had me struggling for air.

  “Boy, you’re a puny one, aren’t you?”

  I just smiled. At six foot three, 180 pounds, I had never thought of myself as puny, but I guess when you’re as large as Kathleen is, size is relative. I wondered how to extricate myself when Ed said, “Max has some papers for you. Shall we go inside and sit?”

  She released me. “Of course, where are my manners? C’mon in.” I thought I heard a touch of the Carolinas in her voice.

  We followed her through the house into the living room. Soft
jazz playing on the sound system gave way to Nat “King” Cole singing “The Christmas Song”. Kathleen sat on a sofa facing an unlit fireplace where two empty red stockings hung from the mantle. She tossed her head, flicked her hand to throw her long black hair over her right shoulder and patted the seat next to her. Ed sat down and I took a white leather chair across the coffee table from them. There was an empty glass sitting next to a book on the table. I strained to read the book title but could only see the cover photo. It looked like a romance novel. She pushed the closed book away and said, “I just finished.”

  “Kathleen,” Ed began, “we found what you wanted on Ray’s computer, but first, Max has a few questions, OK?”

  She nodded her approval. I removed a photograph and my report from my briefcase. Ed took them from me and placed them on the coffee table in front of Kathleen. The photo was on top.

  “I found this image in one of your husband’s emails. Do you recognize anyone?”

  She picked it up and Ed leaned over to take a closer look at it. “Just Ray,” she said. “Boy, does he look young there, probably taken before we met.” She smiled, “Mmm, Ray was a good looking kid.” She handed the photo to Ed. He looked at it, grunted, and handed it back to me.

  I put it back in my case and asked, “Do you know Ben Horton?”

  “No, who’s Ben Norton?”

  “No, not Norton, Horton, apparently someone Ray did business with. They exchanged emails. I thought you might know him.”

  “What if I did?”

  Her question made me uncomfortable. I realized I should have thought this through more before I started asking her questions. “I uh, thought he might know more about some of Ray’s business dealings… that he might have additional information.”