"Detective Guareschi, what can I do for you?" asked Ken.
"It's more about what I can do for you, Officer Melchek. Your tip on the Klein fire panned out, we can prove that the explosion and fire was set up deliberately, and all four people were murdered. What caused you to doubt the investigator's verdict of 'Accidental death'?
"Well, we got a lead which tied in with one member of the Klein family, namely Allison, Howards wife. Seemed to be too much of a co-incidence to a citizen down in our precinct, who nearly got blown up in her car by a rigged gas tank; except that a junkie took the fall for her! She had had some business dealings with the lady in question, and when she heard the news, took it on the lam and disappeared, and got her Mom to contact me. When we get any further with this can of worms, would you like me to copy you with what we find?"
"I surely will, Officer. I will also be sending a letter, for entry into your personnel docket, saying you helped expose a multiple murder, and you should be commended for that action?"
"That is more than kind, Detective. Would you also mention Officer Davis, he is my partner on the case?"
"It will surely be my pleasure," said the detective, as he replaced the phone.
Ken Melchek sat back in the swing chair in his little apartment, and indulged himself in his one secret vice, listening to classical music. No-one knew of his passion, mainly because he may well have been regarded as something close to a deviate. New York cops were supposed to be hard men, and hard men listened to 'rock', or maybe 'country and western', but Sibelius was somehow out of bounds. So he kept his listening pleasure to himself, and wondered how much the others were missing, if they did not know of the wonders which existed in a good symphony. He was therefore lost in the sounds of an orchestra, when his phone rang. Answering, "Melchek here, who's calling?"
"Eudora Crickell here, Officer Melchek. You left a message on my machine?"
"Mrs. Crickell, I gotta get in touch with Claudia, one of our leads came up, and she was right in calling the Klein deaths suspicious. We just got word back from the force up in KingsBurgh they went over the whole scene, and they found plenty. Enough to make it a murder enquiry, is all! But I really need to speak to Claudia, or better still have her come to the Precinct house. Can you get word to her, please Mrs. Crickell?"
"I ain't saying yes, nor no, Policeman. Where you live, whats your address, maybe she will risk a visit to your home? I don't think she wants to go anywhere near a police station!"
Ken dictated his address, saying that he needed to check something on the computer discs, and asked if Claudia had a portable computer, then urged Claudia's mother once more, to pass on the need to talk, before she rang off.
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Bob Webster sat at his desk in the agency, checking over the latest scripts for the new Boeing jet commercials. He looked at the creative team seated opposite, gently shook his head, and simply asked if this was the best that they had come up with. "Allison came up with the idea of always pushing the testing and safety of the 777, I fully agree with her path, and what do you give me? A load of incomprehensible technical crap! This is going to go over the airwaves to the flying equivalent of Joe six-pack, not a convention of aerospace engineers. Now take all that bullshit away, and next time you come down here, bring something relevant to the party, okay?" He dismissed the team with a wave of his hand, swung his seat around and stared out of the window. He had been a willing recruit to the conspiracy which surrounded the Continental Auto Corporation, with the promise of wealth only part of the lure; he was hooked on the idea of negative advertising, and how to achieve that seemingly impossible task. He grinned contentedly, they had done it, and more so. He may never receive the acclaim of his profession for doing what he had done, but in his heart he knew he was the best; the only one who could truly say that he had made a significant section of a nation do exactly what he had asked! He had received the word from Lazarus that the second message was due to go out from that evening, and wondered if he should call another poll to find out how the change was shaping, then realised that he could not really expect to hide the cost of another poll, so soon after the one which resulted in the death of his predecessor.
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The desk at which John Xavier Murphy passed his working days was almost a legend in the Detroit Police, for it was rumoured that there was no real desk there, but paper from floor upwards. He ran his section with humour and an efficiency which enabled him to keep his desk pretty much as he liked, and was allowed a great deal of leeway by his superior officers. He fielded the call from Costello at Narcotics, knowing he was going to get pressured once more, but much to his surprise, he was wrong. "John, I just called up to thank you for that favour you did for the folks from Grosse Point!"
"Ahh, if it isn't the man himself. Well now Patrick, I have to admit we had a wee spot or stain or two after the man the team arrested got himself killed right here in our own Central house, but no-one is perfect, is that not right?" He heard a chuckle down the line. "Now you wouldn't be even thinking of being sarcastic, or anything nasty like that, would you now, Costello?"
"No, John, I was just wondering if you had kept the surveillance tail on our friend Kozcinski; a scene that results in a 'soldier' getting blotted seems to me to be a little heavier than hot air, if you catch my drift?"
"I will admit I put the two who were on Kozcinski back on their normal duties, but seeing as you put it that way, you might just have a point. If some clown is worth killing just to keep him from maybe talking, what is there to hide?"
"Thanks, John, and thanks on behalf of the two Kozcinski 's as well. 'Bye Sergeant Murphy!"
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The man named Lazarus, who had adopted the first name of the Israeli agent whom he had murdered, long before he slipped illegally into the United States, sat in his wheelchair, which stood on the ground floor of a house in a suburb of New York, which held his own communications network. Three operators sat before video consoles and multi-level keyboards, each dedicated to different tasks, but all were monitoring one thing in total, the share position, dealings and proposed sales of Continental stock. He leant forward to receive a printout from one of the printers, passed to him by the operator, and scanned it like an American Football fan studies the lineouts for the Superbowl. He nodded in acceptance of the news it contained, simply twirled one finger in the air, which was taken by all three that they were to continue exactly as before, then swivelled his chair around, and moved forward to pick up a phone which lay ready to hand. Punching in a number, he waited to be connected, and heard the voice announcing, "Seeton Harland Communications, how can we help?"
"I wish to speak with Mr. Harland, my name is Lazarus."
"Certainly, Mr. Lazarus, connecting you now."
"Harland here, Mr. Lazarus, what can I do for you, sir?"
"Just confirmation that the revised commercials, the three sequential clips for Continental, are being broadcast as from this evening."
"No worries there, Mr. Lazarus. We received our booking lists from the airtime buying section of Morson, Zeno; and as the slots were already booked for the previous clips, we were able to change over to the new ones nationwide, except for the stations around Atlanta. The parcel delivery service aircraft had to abort a take-off, and there will be a delay of one day, compared to the rest of America, but they will get the message."
Harland listened intently as a strange noise came over the phone, a wheezing and snuffling, and at first thought his caller was having at least a heart attack, then relaxed as he realised that, for the first time, he had heard Mr. Lazarus laughing.
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As Mrs. Grady had reminded him that the next meeting of the Marketing meeting was at three in the afternoon, Joe checked his diary to make sure that everything else he had promised to do on Monday was listed, then remembered his call to Buddy Charles in the Computer Section. He gulped down the co
ffee which his secretary had placed before him, mumbled , "password," when Mrs. G. asked where he was heading, and disappeared down the corridors towards the basement where the big VAX set lay, along with all the sub-systems and back up equipment. He approached the glassed door, and pressed the buzzer, waiting while a security man, inside the suite, looked him over, and scanned his company identity pass. The guards' voice came through the speaker, "Can you key in your third level password, Mr. Kozcinski, please?"
Joe reached forward, tapped out his password on the keyboard, and the door promptly unlocked, and swung open to allow him to pass through into the suite. Buddy Charles, a small, balding man who was the computer security analyst, shook him by the hand, thanking him for remembering, and sat down with him before a remote keyboard and VDU. "Right, Joe, can you access the system, using your present passwords?"
Joseph played his fingers across the keyboard, and the system jumped into the screen asking , 'section file, please?'. The analyst reached across, then keyed another password into the system and the words 'Password file activated. Unauthorised access will result in instant dismissal. Name please?' Joe keyed in his name, and the screen asked 'Do you wish all level passwords to be altered?'. As Buddy nodded, Joe answered 'yes', the screen flashed up three broad lines, each titled 'Level One, Two, Three. Buddy moved the cursor to the first line, and asked Joe if he had the new words ready. Joe keyed in the new words, which he had written down on a card.
As the screen signified acceptance of the new passwords, which Buddy assured him would not need to be renewed for at least four months, Joe suddenly remembered the strange spreadsheet he had accessed from his home. "Buddy, you are supposed to know everything that goes on inside the main brain," waving at the big VAX as it hummed and clicked, "Is it possible to hide another level, accessed only by a fourth level password, and specific terminals, within our system?"
The analyst glanced across at the Marketing VP, turned to the keyboard and accessed the main frame hard drive listings. As the directories and sub-files scrolled up across the screen, he watched as the entire computerised memory was listed out for scrutiny, with pass levels and listings recorded. "There is only one fourth level password allowed, Joe, and that is the one we have just been in to. Let me show you." Joe watched as the analyst keyed in the request for the disc tree to be shown, and the result with access levels showed the same as the first display. "Got an itch?"
Joe related the story of his misskey at home, and the resultant spreadsheet which had jumped on to the screen, together with the statement about the terminal, and the disciplinary action. Buddy looked at him, shrugged and asked "Have you ever seen the spreadsheet since?"
"Nope, I had forgotten all about it until right now, when we were shoving in the new passwords!"
"You say the sheet was big?"
"I've seen bigger, but never encrypted the way this one was," answered the Marketing man.
"Okay, Joe. Leave this with me, and I'll ask around, and see if I can't find it. I am supposed to know all about the damn thing, so it should be a nice little maze puzzle. Thanks for dropping by, Joe!"
Chapter 15
Ken Melchek paused before the wall mirror for the seventh time, anxiously checking his appearance, even though he had not moved outside his apartment in nearly two hours. He checked his watch, and anxiously wondered if the black statistician was going to show, then continued pacing back and forward. He had considered laying on something for Claudia to eat, but had decided that she would maybe prefer strictly business, so he had contented himself with giving his apartment a thorough polishing, and then laying out the makings for coffee, with a few cookies on the side table. He had received a call from Claudia's mother, confirming that her daughter would try and make the trip into New York to his apartment, if Ken thought it necessary; and that she was bringing a notebook computer and some discs. Ken, who hadn't deposited the copy discs from Morson, Zeno into the evidence locker at the precinct, agreed, and just slipped them from his desk into his pocket, before logging off at the end of his shift. He had told Brad Davis that he was hoping to interview the girl that they both had seen after the auto fire, and Brad had simply warned that, after the knowledge that Allison Klein had been murdered, Ken should be wary of even bringing the girl into the city. "No one knows but her mother, and now you, so I think we can take that chance," Ken had replied, as he clattered down the stairs towards his car, and home.
However, the time was approaching nine in the evening, before he heard a light knock on his door, which he rapidly opened to find Claudia huddled against the rain, as it lashed down. "Come inside. Miss Crickell, damn, you are soaked! Look, you must get out of those clothes, and get dry, otherwise you will get pneumonia!" He hustled the protesting girl through into his bathroom, found a bulky dressing gown from his wardrobe, and thrust it into her hands, saying, "Get changed, and I'll see if my neighbour can let me have something for you to wear." He slung a jacket over his head, and ran the few yards to his neighbours front door, upon which he knocked very loudly. Lee Johns, a mechanic with a mid-town garage, looked out at Ken, then pulled him inside the shelter of his door.
"Ken, what's the problem?"
"Is Mary around, I need to borrow some, er, clothes. My visitor got caught in the rain, and her clothes are like dishwipes." Lee's wife came through from the lounge, heard Ken's call, and disappeared into her bedroom, coming back with a pair of slacks, two blouses, a scarf and a small packet which she thrust into Ken's hand. "Some undies for the poor girl. She must be half-drowned. Now remember, Ken, you behave yourself!"
Grinning at the reputation he was building for himself, the young policeman returned to his apartment to find a composed Claudia, who was almost able to wrap the big gown around herself twice, sitting by the heater, gazing up at him with dark eyes. "I got some stuff, slacks and a blouse, if you want to change later. Mary is somewhere around your, er build, and, well, if you want, they're there." Claudia nodded, "You want coffee, Miss Crickell?"
"Yes please, and make it Claudia; I am sitting here with no clothes on, so we may as well get a little less formal."
Ken started to blush, then relaxed as he saw her smile, and felt his whole inside turn turtle as he realised that this girl had him bewitched. "Claudia, I'll get the coffee." So saying, he walked through into his tiny kitchen, pulled the percolator off the heater, and brought it, and the cups and cream, through to the girl in his lounge. He poured, and the pair sipped the brew while looking at each other through the steam from the coffee. Laying his cup down, Ken asked, "Did you bring the computer, Claudia?" Nodding, the statistician stretched over and pulled a neat black case towards her side. Opening up, she hauled out a smart notebook computer, and quickly switched it on after placing it on her knees. Claudia pulled in the database programme which she had used during the initial layout and record of the answers to the poll for Continental, and pulled in the data which had been input as a result. "Now you say, Officer Melchek, do those graph lines look anything like the ones you saw at the agency on Madison?"
Ken glanced through the curves, and simply replied, "Nope, but we can check for certain, because I have disc copies here," as he handed the floppies over to Claudia, who slotted them in to the drive, one by one, and then switched over to a comparison between the two sets of results.
"The first set, the ones I showed Allison, were these, showing a very poor response, and an even lower acceptance of the autos from Continental. Now if I overlay the first set with the second, we get this," said Claudia, striking keys rapidly, as the screen showed the changes from the first set of discs to the new set. "See; according to the information now resident in the agency computer, and I suppose also in the hands of a top guy at Continental, they think that the t.v. advert clips are doing a fair, but not brilliant job. They had a wash-up meeting on the Morson, Zeno ads, at Detroit, and the survey was commissioned to make sure the message had got across. This when we have just seen the real results, which shows that the ads are disastrous,
and they may as well throw five or six million dollars down the sewer, for all the use they are in influencing people to buy their cars. In fact," the lovely face paused, as Ken gazed at her lips, "it's almost as though they were doing that on purpose!"
"Claudia, come on! What agency would deliberately turn people off their sponsored products. It would be plain crazy! Hell, I know nothing about advertising, or surveys, but thats impossible! Apart from anything else, the commercials are viewed by everyone, including the sponsors, so anything negative would be screened out. No, we have found something, but we haven't discovered what it is!"
"Yeah, Ken, but why would the agency send incorrect information to their clients? We know that, from the original survey, the auto commercials stink, but the client will have seen the commercials before approving them; and some Continental team player is not going to let crap get past him, because he is gonna holler 'foul' at the top of his voice. But the agency has sent the wrong signals to the auto company. They are saying that everyone in the appropriate groups, around the U.S.A., while not drooling over a new Stiletto, is maybe thinking about buying one; but the word that I remember most of all, from the written responses, was 'Turkey'.
"Another coffee, Claudia, or are you happy?"
"Another coffee, and a cookie if you have one. I'm starving; living in motels just ain't much good for my digestive tract."
The police officer came back five minutes later, with a fresh brew, and a plate full of cookies, and watched as his guest demolished five, while inelegantly slurping down a full cup of coffee. He poured himself a cup, after re-filling her's, and then relaxed back, seated on the floor next to the feet of the beautiful black statistician, and leaning on the side of the armchair on which she sat. The pair fell quiet, and Ken suddenly felt Claudia's fingers running slowly through his hair, as he sat still. She continued to stroke his head, and slowly he turned around to face her, as she gazed, smiling slightly, into his eyes.
Continental Attack: Murder and Mayhem in Detroit's Auto Industry Page 14