Unauthorized Access

by Andrew McAllister

  “That doesn’t sound like Tim.”

  “You don’t know him like I do.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You’ve never been his girlfriend.”

  “Well … no.”

  “I’ve seen sides of him you never will,” she said.

  Rob stared at her for a moment, trying to wrap his head around this.

  “I still don’t get what you’re trying to say,” Rob said.

  “Look, he didn’t come right out and admit it,” Kirsten said, “but it feels like Tim really wants to take Lesley away from you.”

  Rob snorted. “That’d be impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s not mine anymore. Lesley and I had a big fight this morning, right after she had to sit in court and listen to some FBI agent tell everyone all the nasty things I’m supposed to have done. She ended up throwing the diamond ring at me and running away.”

  Kirsten’s eyes widened in surprise. “You were engaged?”

  “For all of three days.”

  Kirsten shook her head in frank wonderment.

  “Maybe Tim’s wish is coming true,” she said.

  The bottom seemed to drop out of Rob’s stomach. How could this day possibly keep getting worse?

  * * *

  Landry got out of the Buick when he saw the car pull up to the curb behind him and douse its lights. He walked to the passenger door of the Lexus and got in.

  “So where is he?” Dysart said.

  “He wasn’t in the store. He was hiding across the street and saw me first. I chased him a ways but then he hopped in a cab and got away.”

  Dysart slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Dammit!”

  “You should have told him to wait inside the store.”

  “And you should have held on to him to begin with. Now he’s spooked so badly he probably won’t turn up for days.”

  “Oh, we can flush him out. We know where his car is and I can get some help to watch his apartment. And,” Landry said, “I got the number of the cab.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  LANDRY PARKED BESIDE two idle taxis. Both cabs had the words Hanover Taxi painted on their sides, along with the phone number to call for Fast, Friendly Service. Landry checked the taxi numbers displayed on the rear of the vehicles. Neither was the one he was looking for.

  The offices of Hanover Taxi were in a long, low industrial strip mall that also contained a transmission repair shop, a discount tire outlet, an outfit that rented portable toilets, plus several other enterprises that Landry couldn’t make out in the darkness. A series of lamps atop metal poles cast dull pools of light in the parking lot. The only other light shone from the window that fronted the premises of Hanover Taxi. Landry walked to the solid metal door and tried the knob. It was locked. He pounded on the door.

  One of the most obese people Landry had ever seen opened the door. Landry flashed his fake ID.

  “Special Agent Labadie,” Landry said. His hair was died pure black and gelled to lay flatter than usual. He had affixed a matching mustache and goatee. A small amount of cotton stuffed under his cheeks altered slightly the shape of his face. Oval wire-rimmed glasses completed his latest transformation. “I called earlier.”

  The obese guy nodded and stood aside so Landry could enter. The man wore a plain black sweatshirt and a pair of blue polyester work pants roomy enough to house an average-sized family. His stringy brown hair looked like he had chopped it himself. A gold cross earring dangled from one ear. He wore a telephone headset with a microphone curving around in front of his mouth.

  “You understand,” the guy said, “we can’t just give out information over the phone. We need to see some ID or something.”

  “Of course,” Landry said.

  The reception area, if you could call it that, contained a cluttered desk, a couple of vinyl chairs separated by an end table heaped with tattered magazines, and a potted floor plant that was too dilapidated to be fake—someone’s attempt at a homey touch. A pair of doors in the back wall led into two tiny offices.

  A phone trilled. The guy touched a device hooked to the waistband of his pants. “Hanover taxi,” he said into the headset as he lumbered into one of the offices. “And where you going?” A pause, then, “Okay, be there in fifteen minutes.” He hung up and sat down in front of a large wooden desk that occupied most of the room. Landry thought the chair was a metal folding type but the guy’s bulk obscured it to such an extent that he wasn’t sure.

  After a bit of typing on a computer keyboard, the guy turned to face Landry.

  “We haven’t got radios in the cabs any more,” the guy said. “It’s all computerized now. I just type in where they want to go and it shows up on a little screen in the car.” He was obviously proud of Hanover’s leap into the computer age.

  “How nice for you,” Landry said. “Now what about cab number 62911?”

  “Yeah. That’s Bert’s car.”

  Landry waited a moment but the guy showed no sign of providing further details.

  “I need to—” Landry began, but the phone interrupted. He waited while the guy sent two more cabs off to pick up fares.

  “I want to ask Bert a few questions,” Landry said when he had the guy’s attention once more.

  “What about?”

  “None of your business. Just tell me how I can talk to him.”

  “Gonna be a while. He took a fare from Logan out to Cape Cod. It’ll be a few hours before he’s back in the city.”

  Landry glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me that on the phone?”

  “Not allowed to do that. The boss would’ve skinned me alive.”

  “You couldn’t even tell me he was unavailable for a few hours?”

  The guy looked up impassively at Landry, who was doing his best to remain calm.

  “All right,” Landry said, “then I need to talk to him as soon as he’s back.”

  The guy shook his head. “Bert’s shift will be over before he’s back. He’ll be going straight home, won’t be on again until dinnertime tomorrow.”

  “Then give me his home phone number and his address. I’ll talk to him there.”

  “I don’t know.” The dispatcher looked doubtful. “Bert don’t like to be bothered at home.”

  “Look, you idiot. He’s a material witness in an FBI investigation. I can talk to him any time and any place I choose, including arresting him and dragging him into our offices if that’s what I feel like. And that’s what I’m about to do to you if you don’t hurry up and tell me where he lives.”

  The dispatcher’s eyes widened. He fumbled open a drawer, pulled out a clipboard and leafed through the papers. Apparently not all aspects of Hanover Taxi’s operations were computerized.

  “It’s right here,” the guy said. He turned the clipboard toward Landry and pointed with a pudgy index finger to the spot that showed the home phone and address of one Bertram O’Brien.

  “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Landry said.

  * * *

  Rob stepped out of the shower and toweled himself off. The turquoise towel was embroidered with the same pattern as the fluffy turquoise toilet seat cover, which matched the bath mat, shower curtain, window curtain, soap dish and toothbrush holder. The toilet paper was white. Rob didn’t know how Kirsten could stand the contrast.

  He winced when he raised his arms high enough to dry his shoulders. Wiping some of the steam from the mirror, Rob looked at the emerging bruises on his face. Man, he was going to be some kind of sight come morning.

  Rob started to hang the damp towel on the shower curtain rod, then remembered whose apartment he was in and dropped it instead into the wicker laundry hamper next to the linen closet. Kirsten had given him some clothes to put on while his bloody ones were in the washing machine. There was an old pair of gray sweat pants, a Chicago Bears T-shirt and some blue and white striped boxers. They were folded neatly, smelled slightly of laundry softener and fit hi
m perfectly, which made sense given that they used to be his. He felt more than a little weird putting them on again after all this time.

  “I can’t believe you still have these clothes,” Rob said as he walked into the kitchen.

  Kirsten was making a sandwich. An open mayonnaise bottle sat next to a loaf of multi-grain bread.

  “They’re comfy to sleep in,” she said.

  “You sleep in these?”

  She smiled coyly without looking up. “Sometimes.”

  Now he felt even more weird.

  Kirsten carried the mayo bottle and a plate covered in plastic wrap to the refrigerator. “You said that guy grabbed you before you had any dinner,” she said, “so I made you a sandwich. Is ham and cheese okay?”

  Rob’s gut rumbled. “Unbelievably okay. Thanks.”

  “Want some milk with it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why don’t you take the sandwich into the living room and I’ll be right in.”

  Music poured quietly from the stereo speakers that bracketed the couch. A record spun on the turntable. The Police. Every Breath You Take. Rob looked down and smiled when he saw the battered old plastic milk carton full of record albums still sitting in its usual place.

  He sat on the couch, deposited the plate on the end table, picked up half the sandwich, took a huge bite and almost groaned out loud with pleasure. Kirsten put a glass next to the plate and sat down beside him.

  Rob swallowed and said, “I see you’re still playing your mother’s old albums.”

  She shrugged. “Same old Kirsten, I guess.”

  He attacked the sandwich again.

  “I don’t know if all the blood will come out of your clothes,” Kirsten said.

  Rob reached for the other half of the sandwich. “Don’t worry about it. I’m still tempted to throw them away. I don’t really want any reminders of this night.”

  The next song on the album started playing. King of Pain. How appropriate.

  Kirsten chewed on one side of her lip, her face growing pensive.

  “You didn’t do it, did you?” she said.

  Rob paused in mid-chew and stared at her, his mouth too full to respond.

  “The thing at the bank, I mean,” she said. “You’re not the one who messed up those bank accounts.”

  Once his mouth was empty, Rob said, “What makes you say that?”

  Kirsten rubbed her hands together in her lap. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  “You must have some sort of reason.”

  “You,” she said, “and Tim.”

  Rob just looked at her, his brow furrowed.

  “When I heard you were arrested,” she said, “my first thought was, that can’t be right. Rob wouldn’t do that. Then … the timing bothered me, you know? First I see Tim act all happy about the attacks, then the very next day you get arrested and Lesley dumps you.”

  “Coincidences happen all the time.”

  “Or he knew it was going to happen.”

  “There’s no way he could have known that unless he was the one who—” Rob stopped and blinked.

  “Exactly,” Kirsten said. “That’s what’s been bugging me.”

  “Look, someone made good and sure all the evidence pointed to me. They had to work at it—break into my apartment, use my computer, stuff like that. Even if Tim did sabotage the computer, why wouldn’t he pick someone else for the fall guy? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “So you didn’t do it.”

  Rob’s pulse was tripping along at high speed. He still held the second half of the sandwich in his hand.

  “No,” he said, “and I can’t believe Tim did either.”

  “I already told you he wanted you out of the way.”

  “Because of Lesley?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “That’s crazy. He and Lesley dated for, like, two weeks back in high school. No big deal. And he’s one of my best friends.”

  “You may think he is,” she said, “but he sure doesn’t act that way when he sees the two of you together, especially when he doesn’t realize anyone’s watching.”

  Rob put the sandwich back on the plate. He didn’t feel hungry anymore.

  “Besides,” Kirsten continued, “not many people know you and Tim like I do. I can see Tim doing something whacko. But you?” She shook her head. “Doesn’t fit.”

  “Not much to go on.”

  “Call it woman’s intuition.”

  “So I’m supposed to go to the police and tell them my friend is framing me, and my only reason is woman’s intuition.”

  Kirsten looked down into her lap where her hands continued their wrestling match.

  “I don’t know anything, all right?” She looked up again, directly into Rob’s eyes. “But I couldn’t stand thinking about this stuff without telling you. I thought you might know some other things and if we put them together … well, who knows.”

  Rob took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Whoever did this probably works at the bank.”

  “Which would fit—”

  “Tim. Yeah, I know, and a bunch of other people as well.”

  “Would you have thought any of them would do this to you?”

  “No,” Rob said.

  “So whoever it is, it’s going to be hard to believe.”

  “Yeah, but … Tim?”

  The turntable clicked off as the record came to the end. Kirsten got up to put on a different album. Rob could smell her perfume. The fragrance brought back memories of the many lazy weekends he and Kirsten had spent together when they were a couple. The funky precision of Supertramp started playing, still at low volume. They had made love to that album many a time.

  “That album brings back memories,” Rob said when Kirsten plumped back down on the couch.

  Kirsten smiled. “I guess it does.”

  An awkward moment passed while they both looked anywhere but at each other.

  “Know something?” Rob said.

  “What.”

  “You’re the only one who believes I’m innocent … well, except for Dad. But parents are supposed to have faith in you. I think they sign some sort of contract when you’re born.”

  “Unless you became a whole new person from the guy I used to know,” she said, “there’s no way you could do something like that.”

  A lump formed in Rob’s throat. His face felt warm.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She nodded and they spent a few more moments in silence. It seemed less awkward this time.

  “Where will you go tonight?” she said.

  “Good question.”

  “You can stay here if you want.”

  Rob thought about going back out into the storm and decided he wasn’t going anywhere.

  * * *

  The Buick turned into the parking lot of Rob’s apartment building and cruised slowly into an empty slot. The engine shut off but no one emerged from the car. Ray Landry sat in the darkness for a while, studying the lay of the land with the engine ticking occasionally as it cooled. Once he was satisfied the place was as deserted as he could hope for, he got out and walked over to Rob’s Pathfinder. He reached one hand briefly inside a rear wheel well, and then returned to his own car.

  Landry picked up a GPS device from the passenger seat and placed it on his dash. He clicked it on and a small screen glowed with a map showing Landry’s location. The map also indicated the position of Rob’s car, which Landry’s device received by radio signal from the unit hidden in the wheel well of the Pathfinder. The radio had a range of six or seven miles, which was plenty to allow Landry to tail Rob around the city if need be. At the moment both indicators showed the same location since the two vehicles were so close together.

  The Buick purred to life. Landry drove a couple of blocks away, pulled over to the side of the street and checked again. The map now showed the cars in two different locations, along with a readout in the corner showing the distance between them.

  He nodded in
the darkness, turned off the device and rolled into the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Saturday

  TIM HEADED FOR the kitchen with a scowl on his face and a bad case of morning breath. He ignored his father, who was already camped in his chair and having a wake-me-up cigarette in front of CNN. Tim couldn’t be bothered taking the time to make coffee, so he poured himself a glass of orange juice. He returned to the living room and slouched in an armchair for the express purpose of using the tube to numb his mind.

  It was not to be.

  “How’d your bike ride with Rob go yesterday?” Eldon said.

  “Fine.”

  Tim’s eyes never left the TV.

  The elder Whitlock squinted at Tim and took a pull on the cigarette. He blew out the smoke and then said, “Who pissed in your corn flakes this morning?”

  Tim ignored him. He was still smarting from how Lesley had shot down his idea of going away for the weekend. Maybe he had pushed too hard. She wasn’t ready yet. He’d have to take it easier, gentle her along. Still, that was one incredible kiss. He could still feel her body mashed into his. Something to build on, for sure. So why did he feel like he had blown it?

  “You and Rob must’ve had plenty to talk about,” Eldon said, “what with the stuff he’s got going on.”

  Tim wiped orange juice from his upper lip.

  “That’s all you talk about lately,” Tim said.

  “I figured you’d be the first one clapping Rob on the back. You’ve complained enough about them idiots at the bank.”

  Tim’s eye’s narrowed. “You really think he did a good thing?”

  “After how them bank bastards screwed up our entire economy? Someone should pin a goddamn medal on his chest.”

  Tim swiveled his head and gave his father an appraising gaze. Was it possible Tim had just received a second-hand compliment?

  “What would you think,” he said, “if I had done something like that?”