Unauthorized Access

by Andrew McAllister

  He also had other ways to leave his work behind. The combined Pilates and yoga workout he had done in his hotel room had cleared his mind so he could enjoy the meal.

  The wine waiter hovered stiffly beside his table wearing a tuxedo with a short black jacket.

  “A Bordeaux, I think,” Landry said. “The Lafite Rothschild, 1988.”

  The waiter raised one eyebrow slightly as he accepted the wine list back from Landry.

  “An excellent choice, sir,” the waiter said, and then walked away.

  Landry lifted the corners of the cloth napkin that was folded over the basket of bread. He selected a white roll, buttered it, took a bite and chewed slowly, savoring the simple pleasure of freshness.

  This was why he had entered his unique profession. His CIA salary hadn’t allowed him to enjoy the finer things in life as much as he wanted. He knew most people would be surprised that he could have passion for the nuances of an original Monet or a London Symphony performance, and still earn his living as he did. This troubled him not at all, since he allowed no one to know about both sides of his life.

  Landry’s gut lurched again when he took a second bite of the roll. The discomfort passed quickly and he assumed it was just hunger.

  The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. He pulled it out and smiled when he saw the text message.

  A person in his line of work had to keep abreast of what was going on. He made it a habit to watch the national news and to scour the newspapers from several major cities every day. The story about one of his former clients being in trouble had been all over the news for the past couple of days. He was not surprised to hear from Stan Dysart.

  * * *

  Tim couldn’t remember the last time he had been this nervous. This was even worse than the visit from the FBI agents. He took a calming breath and then another lick of his double chocolate chunk ice cream cone. Lesley’s was butterscotch ripple—two scoops in a sugar cone.

  The two of them strolled along a pathway through the Common, the setting sun creating long shadows of the trees and black lampposts. The air was unseasonably warm for an autumn evening.

  “This was a good idea,” Lesley said. “I would have gone crazy if I had stayed in that apartment any longer.”

  “I was worried about you,” Tim said. “When we talked earlier you said you were fine but you didn’t sound that way.”

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “Well, come on. Who would be with all this going on?”

  Lesley took a bite off the top scoop. Tim swallowed hard and tried not to stare at those perfect lips coming together. Then she licked a runaway dribble on the side of the cone. He tore his eyes away with an effort and returned to the distraction of his own cone.

  “How’s Kirsten?” Lesley asked.

  “We broke up.”

  “You’re kidding. When?”

  “Couple of days ago. It was coming for a while, though.”

  “Your idea?”

  Tim nodded and rescued a runaway dribble of his own.

  “What is it with you?” Lesley said. “That’s like the third time this year.”

  He put on a wry smile. “I guess going out with you spoiled me for anyone else.”

  “Right.”

  They walked in companionable silence for a while, each of them keeping the melting at bay.

  “Do you think you’ll get back together?” Lesley asked.

  “No. It wasn’t working.”

  “Good,” she said with an impudent grin.

  “You don’t like her?”

  “It’s not that. I’m sure she’s nice and everything, it’s just … I don’t know.”

  “Cause she used to go out with Rob.”

  “Whenever I see her I get feeling all insecure. It’s stupid, I know.”

  “Sounds like the time in high school when you thought Rob had a crush on that student teacher we had in French. What was her name?”

  “Miss Hanson.”

  Tim snapped his fingers. “That’s it. You sat and glared at her every day for three weeks.”

  Lesley rolled her eyes and smiled. “Don’t remind me. Rob teased me about it for months when he found out.”

  “Hey,” Tim said, “remember the time we made Bobby McIntyre laugh so hard that Pepsi bubbles came out his nose?”

  “Oh my God I forgot all about that. We were in the cafeteria.”

  “He had to go around the rest of the day with that stain down the front of his shirt. When we got to math class Miss Tingley looked at him like he had a communicable disease or something.”

  Lesley laughed. “She was an old battle-ax anyway.”

  The last crunchy part of their cones disappeared as they left the Common and started walking along Beacon Street toward Tim’s car. Tim felt like he could barely breathe. He wanted more than anything to touch her, to hold her hand, but he knew it was too early. Way too early.

  He glanced at her and saw that her face had turned grim and she was staring down at the sidewalk as she walked. When she let out a deep sigh, Tim asked, “You okay?”

  She shook her head, the laugh lines long gone from her face.

  “When we were joking around,” she said, “it was the first time today I stopped thinking about Rob. It doesn’t seem right somehow. We’re out here enjoying ourselves while he’s sitting in jail.”

  Tim felt the heaviness descend over him once more, the same guilty feeling that had enveloped him for much of the last twenty-four hours, ever since he realized Rob was facing much more than simply being fired. Rob didn’t deserve jail—and that was never Tim’s intention—but what was Tim to do now? He couldn’t undo the sabotage or take back the evidence he had planted. And no way was Tim going to step forward and take the fall. That was out of the question.

  The best he could do was to send the keyword in the snail mail he had prepared. He had been careful to wear gloves when he touched the paper and the envelope, and to wet the stamp with water instead of his saliva. He could think of no way for the authorities to trace the mail back to him, but he was still working up the courage to send it. In the meantime, he might as well continue on with Lesley. However things worked out for Rob, Tim had every intention of regaining what Rob had stolen from him.

  “You can’t mope around all the time,” Tim said. “That wouldn’t help Rob. It’d just make you miserable.”

  “I know. You’re right. But I still feel rotten.”

  She stared at the sidewalk as they walked. “The FBI showed up at my place today,” she said.

  Tim raised his eyebrows. “You too?”

  “It was awful. They made Rob sound like such a criminal.”

  “Been there, heard that.”

  “I just wanted to shout at them, tell them they were wrong.” Lesley shook her head. “But by the time they were done, it was getting harder and harder not to believe them. I think that’s why I feel so lousy.”

  Tim nodded as if he understood, but really this was more to give himself a moment to think. He had to be careful.

  “They make a convincing case, don’t they?” Tim said.

  “And my mother was sitting right there, too. After the FBI guys left, she told me I should ditch Rob and never see him again.”

  I hope her mother sticks around a while, Tim thought.

  “Must have been hard to take,” he said.

  “You have no idea. She just kept harping about how thoughtless he is, all the people he’s affected, stuff like that.”

  Tim saw she was crying.

  “Everything is just so messed up,” she said with a hitch in her voice.

  He put one arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

  “Hey,” he said, “it’ll be okay.”

  She shook her head without saying anything, but she didn’t shy away from him. The brief contact was enough to lift his spirits. Tim had been waiting so long to hold her. He gave her another squeeze before taking his arm back, then turned his face away so she wouldn’t see him smile.r />
  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Friday

  ROB FELT COMPLETELY powerless as a marshal led him into the courtroom. Reporters filled nearly every available seat and he noticed an artist working on a sketch. He picked out his parents seated in the front row behind the prosecutor’s table and was surprised to see Dysart sitting beside them. Rose and Tim were there too, on either side of Lesley. It was a regular reunion.

  All of these people were here to play their part in the spectacle. They were witnesses to the ritual unveiling of Rob as a criminal threat to his fellow citizens. Lesley held up both hands with fingers crossed. Rob nodded at her but couldn’t manage even the grimmest of smiles.

  The marshal accompanied Rob to where Pettigrew waited. Rob sat down behind a worn wooden table and looked up at the empty bench, which would soon be occupied by a judge who held Rob’s immediate future in his hands. Suddenly the magnitude of his predicament struck home in a way it had not yet done. Since his arrest he had been floating in a fog of semi-denial. Everything was certain to work out okay, some inner part of him had insisted. How could it not? He was innocent.

  But the imposing somberness of the courtroom made the gravity of his situation sink in. He was truly in danger of losing everything.

  “I spoke with the Assistant U.S. Attorney,” Pettigrew said.

  Rob looked over to where a striking woman with her black hair pulled back in a ponytail sat behind the prosecutor’s table.

  “Her name is Monica Giordano,” Pettigrew said. “She’s good, really does her homework.”

  “You always reassure your clients this way?” Rob said.

  “She’s still open to cutting a deal if you’ve changed your mind.”

  Rob gave his lawyer a steely look. “Just fix it so I can go home today,” he said.

  The judge swept into the courtroom, accompanied by an officious announcement that court was now in session. Rob felt like a puppet as he was instructed alternately to stand, then sit. The proceedings seemed to swirl around him without really involving him. The clerk read the charges in an impressive burst of legalese, the essence of which was that Rob had caused extensive financial damages by diddling electronically where he had no right to do so.

  Rob actually got to participate at one point when he stood to plead “Not guilty.” His voice resonated with indignation as he said the words loudly and clearly.

  No one seemed to take any notice.

  * * *

  Lesley could feel Tim’s warmth against her arm as they sat packed together on the wooden pew-style bench. Despite this, she couldn’t stop trembling as she listened to the charges. Then Rob said “Not guilty,” which jolted her mind back to the scene that had haunted her nightmares for years.

  Trails of dried liquid ran down the wall and met a puddle soaked into the carpeting. The pistol was lying beside the body, having fallen from the hand that had jammed it into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Lesley didn’t know much about guns but to her eyes this one looked huge.

  The blood had had most of the day to dry and permeated the McGrath’s basement family room with a coppery smell. Her strongest memory of her father’s suicide would always be of the smell that assaulted her when she arrived home from school and found him dead.

  That and the cuckoo clock on the wood-paneled wall of the family room. The wooden bird emerged with a single “Cuckoo!” to announce the arrival of three-thirty just as Lesley walked into the room. It was as if the thing was saying a cheery “Surprise!” to Lesley. The clock’s metronomic ticking reverberated in her head as she took in the scene, like a bizarre sound track to a horror film.

  She stopped the clock that afternoon. It was still hanging on the wall with its hands pointing to three-thirty-four when the movers came six months later to remove the McGrath’s belongings from the house.

  Lesley’s mother had realized for some time before her father’s death that his problems were growing. Lesley, however, had her adolescent radar firmly locked on boys, tennis and school, in that order. She knew her parents fought more and more frequently, but gave little thought to the reasons.

  The reasons turned out to be her father’s newfound loves. He had fallen hard for the duo of gambling and cocaine, excitement personified. When his salary as manager of a building supply store failed to adequately feed his twin mistresses, the grocery money paid for wagers on everything from horse races to video lottery games.

  Sports were his favorite vices—basketball in the winter, baseball in the summer. The heady days of early fall and late winter were especially joyous when the seasons overlapped and the occasional mortgage payment would follow the groceries out the door and off to the bookies. And what could make the anticipation of the final score any more delicious than another type of score—the white powder that bolstered his optimism and kept his pulse racing.

  One night the police showed up at their home and arrested her father. A few of the neighbors watched as a policeman led him to the patrol car in the driveway and put him in the back seat.

  The charges included embezzlement of operating funds and skimming profits from large sales to contractors. At the arraignment Lesley watched a stocky policeman with an atrocious comb-over recite the evidence against her father. Apparently several people could verify what her father had done and they were scheduled to testify at the trial.

  But they never got their chance. Two days before the trial was to begin, Bruce McGrath helped his children out the door to school, kissed his wife as she left for work, left a suicide note just inside the front door of their split-entry bungalow, went downstairs and blew his brains out.

  Lesley saw the note when she opened the front door.

  Dear Rose, Lesley and Michael:

  I am so ashamed of what my life has become, and even more ashamed that I couldn’t admit to you the truth.

  I love you all. Please forgive me.

  Lesley immediately understood the reason for the horrible smell in the house. Moreover, those words forever altered her perception of her father.

  Children need to have faith in their parents. It’s part of life’s safety net. I trust you Dad. I know you’ll keep a roof over my head. I know you’ll feed me, that there must be an Easter Bunny because you said so, that you’ll be there to pick me up after my tennis lessons.

  That’s good enough for me, Dad. I believe it. I know it. Because you said so.

  She lost that when she read the note.

  Lesley had told Rob about her father’s suicide. She had even explained why her mother had moved them to Worcester after therapy failed to quell the nightmares. But she didn’t tell him about the note and her loss of faith.

  On the day of her father’s arraignment, fourteen-year-old Lesley cried all afternoon and most of the evening, not wanting to believe what was going on. Her father tucked her into bed that night. He sat on the side of her bed and swore he had not done the awful things the policeman talked about. Lesley heard him say the same words the next day to her brother Michael, and to her mother. In fact, he told everyone who would listen.

  “I don’t know why this is happening. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  As she sat in the courtroom and listened to the discussion of Rob’s future, those words echoed in Lesley’s mind.

  Over and over again.

  Only this time the voice belonged to Rob.

  * * *

  Steeves took the stand and outlined the evidence gathered by the FBI. The reporters lowered their heads en masse and scribbled while he talked. He was calm and self-assured, a veteran of the witness stand. Rob had to admit he told a convincing story.

  Rob noticed the sketch artist was now focused on him. He felt as if he was on display for the entertainment of the masses.

  When Steeves was done, Pettigrew declined his opportunity to question him.

  Rob leaned over and whispered, “What are you doing? He made me sound guilty as anything.”

  Pettigrew shushed him. “Not now.”

  “This is
my life we’re talking about,” Rob said. “Talk to me.”

  “I have no way to refute the evidence, so I’d just be wasting the court’s time and angering the judge.”

  “For goodness sake, at least try.”

  “I’ll poke and prod and introduce as much doubt as I can when we go to trial,” Pettigrew said, “but there’s no point in doing that today.”

  Perfect, Rob thought. Sticking up for me is apparently a waste of time.

  With much consulting of calendars and schedules, all parties agreed on a mid-December trial date. All parties except Rob, of course. Once again he was irrelevant to the proceedings.

  This opened the way for a discussion of bail. Giordano rose to make her recommendation.

  “The defendant is unmarried, your Honor,” she said. “He has no children and in all probability no job to lose at this point, given that the bank in question is his employer. In addition, the losses from this incident are certain to climb into the millions of dollars. Thousands of businesses and citizens have been affected and the damage to the reputation of the First Malden Bank could be irreparable, with potentially disastrous consequences. An offense of this nature could result in a sentence of ten to fifteen years. These factors combine to form a significant risk of flight. Moreover, the financial exposure of the victim in this case will grow significantly if the accused disappears and is subsequently unavailable to help the bank repair its electronic data records. To protect against this, we recommend bail be set at three hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Mr. Pettigrew?” the judge said.

  Rob’s lawyer rose to his feet.

  “Your Honor, my client has no prior criminal record and poses no risk to the public if released on bail. Mr. Donovan is engaged to be married, has lived his entire life in Massachusetts and has significant ties to the community. He also hopes to retain his job with the bank by showing he is innocent in this matter. Mr. Donovan has much to lose by flight. The defendant requests the court consider setting bail at a significantly lower amount than that recommended by the State.”