by Richard King
Barabara Young finished typing, got up and walked over to where we were standing, snapping me out of my reverie. “I see you like my artwork,” she said to me as I was still transfixed by her computers.
“It’s very pretty,” I responded. “What is it? Some kind of fractal art?”
“Sort of. It’s an experiment I’m doing in networks. One computer is sending information to the other and back again according to a set of programing rules I wrote. I’m trying to find the most efficient way of transferring data. The computers could just as easily be in different cities or countries as next to each other.”
“Why use fractals?” I asked.
“Why not? I wanted to see how complicated sets of information can be transferred. Fractals are nicer to look at than screens full of code, don’t you think?”
I didn’t get a chance to answer as Dean More cleared his throat in order to insert himself into the conversation. Gaston had patiently gazed around the room during the explanation of data transfer.
“Barbara, Dr. Young, I’d like you to meet Detective Gaston Lemieux, you know Steve, and Sol Wiseman.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said to Gaston, shaking his hand. “Hi, Steve.” Turning to me, she said, “It’s nice to meet you, Sol. Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“It’s Sam, Sam Wiseman,” I told her, shaking her offered hand. “Maybe you know me from the bookstore, Dickens & Company. I work there,” I added modestly.
“That’s right,” she said. “I know the owner, Jennifer Rico-something.”
“Riccofia,” I finished for her.
“What can I do for you gentlemen?”
Barbara Young was a tall, large-boned woman. She had long, curly reddish blond hair which she kept out of her face by wearing her glasses on the top of her head. I don’t know how well she saw us but wearing her glasses that way helped us to see her pretty face and lovely warm smile. She had an ample body, but because of her height, almost six feet, she didn’t look overweight, just big. She wore a grey blazer over a blue corduroy shirtwaist waist dress. She was a very attractive person and I took an instant liking to her.
“Let’s sit down,” she invited. We followed her over to a worktable with four chairs and sat down.
“I would like you to look at this computer and tell me if you can tell me what’s on it,” Gaston explained. “We have reason to believe that it belonged to Professor Hilliard and that it might contain some clues that will help us identify his murderer.”
“Be glad to. Poor Harold. He could be a charmer if he wanted to. Didn’t want to mostly. Still, he didn’t deserve to die. He was bright and he could be funny and I’ll miss him.” A cloud passed over her face as she thought about our victim but her sunny disposition returned and she asked, “Do you have a warrant to show me or something? Sorry to be sticky but we care a lot about privacy laws here.”
“A warrant’s not necessary in this case,” answered Gaston. “The computer is lost property and was turned over to the police as such. At the very least, we need to identify the owner and ascertain whether it was lost or stolen. If it turns out not to be the property of Professor Hilliard I’ll turn it over to the university lost and found. But if it is, it’s evidence in a murder case and it’s legal for us to impound it.”
Steve told Barbara how and where he had found it.
“On the top of an elevator! I see,” Dr. Young said in an amused voice. “Well, let’s take a look and see if it survived its fall.” She fished about on her worktable and found a free cable which she plugged into the back of the laptop. She flipped open the cover and pressed the on button.
The machine just whirred and made scratching noises for a while, but finally something came up on the screen. “Well, there’s no question that this belonged to Harold,” Dr. Young told us. “Look at this.” She turned the machine around so we could see it. The screen had a custom designed Screensaver: it was flashing the word Clio in large letters in the centre of the screen, and the name Harold Hilliard scrolled along the top and bottom of the screen. Kind of egotistical, I thought, but I was also excited that we had an important clue in the case.
Gaston was also pleased. “Excellent!” he said and added, “This is an important piece of evidence. Let’s be very careful with it.”
“Don’t worry,” Barbara assured him. “It’s plastic and metal and if it could survive a fall down an elevator shaft I doubt that I can harm it. Let’s see if we can find out what’s on it.”
She hit the enter button. The screen cleared and a message popped up in the middle of the screen: Enter password.
“Anyone know the password?” Dr. Young asked us.
Gaston asked, “Why would we need a password?”
Where had he spent the last twenty years or so? He seemed to think that it was odd behaviour for the professor to have protected access to his computer with a password.
Barbara looked at him to see if he was kidding. Obviously, he wasn’t. “Well, Hal Hilliard locked everybody, except himself, out of his computer. It is a bit paranoid to require a password right at the beginning. Most people protect various files and everybody password-protects their e-mail boxes, but Hal was one of the few to program his computer to need a password just to get into the thing. You couldn’t even play the games unless you knew the password.”
“Is there no way to probe the machine’s memory to find the password?” Gaston looked baffled by all this. He was used to probing human nature.
“Yes and no,” Barbara answered. “I don’t think I can. I might be able to worm my way in by creating a network with one of my computers. It’s possible I could get access to his hard drive that way. But there is no guarantee that I’ll be able to find his password. A network will only get me past his first line of defence, onto his front porch but not into his house. The door will still be locked. But I might be able to look under the mat to see if there’s a key, if you get my analogy. Or we can guess. A lot of people use a familiar word or phrase — their last names or street names and such. Want to try a guess?”
“Sure,” I interjected. “What about Hilliard?”
Dr. Young typed Hilliard into the computer but nothing happened. We got a beep and the password prompt reappeared.
“What about HilliardH or Hhilliard?” I asked.
“Too many letters,” Dr. Young responded. “The maximum is eight letters or symbols in some combination, like Hilliarl or something like that.”
“Try that,” offered Gaston.
Barbara tried Hilliarl but got nowhere.
“Did you know Professor Hilliard well enough to know if he was a sophisticated computer user?” Gaston inquired of Dr. Young.
“I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t. I taught him how to program this protection, I’m afraid. It was only a few months ago,” Dr. Young replied, a little embarrassed.
“Well, what password did you use when you were teaching him to set up his program?”
“I usually use TEST1 when I do that but I advise people to change the password as soon as they can.” She frowned, thinking about the problem. “And the thing of it is, I advise them to come up with something nobody will ever think of, something outlandish, even crazy. I remember telling him that. I even remember what he said. ‘There’s method in that madness,’ he said. So we may have a serious problem here. But let’s try, you never know.” She typed TEST1. We were still locked out. That wasn’t the key under the mat. “I’d better set up a network and see if that works.”
Dr. Young quickly assembled the hardware she would need to set up her network: a second laptop and some cabling. She wired the two computers together, turned on her computer and inserted a diskette into her disk drive. She hit the enter key a few times and explained, “I’m loading a networking program I wrote into my computer in the hopes that it will give me access to his hard drive.”
Dr. Young’s computer began to hum and whirr and she typed in spurts and then seemed to become lost in thought for a while and
then she would type furiously for a minute or two and repeat the process. No one said anything while she did that. I thought about Harold saying there was method in that madness. Somebody had said that to me recently, but who was it? For some reason a mental image of my open window at night came into my mind, with a cool breeze wafting in.
And that’s when the light went on in my brain. What I remembered was reading Hamlet in a half-crazed state of fatigue just before dawn several nights ago. Polonius says, “Though this be madness, yet there’s method in it.”
“I’ve got it,” I almost shouted. Everybody looked startled. “The password.”
I turned to face Gaston and babbled in excitement: “Remember the Post-it note we found under his desk blotter? It had ‘Ham III Γ on it. We thought it referred to something in the play but maybe it was the password to his computer. That’s why he hid it.”
“Very good,” Gaston congratulated me. “Try it please, Dr. Young. It’s H-A-M I-I-I and the number one.”
Dr. Young typed it in as Gaston recited it to her but nothing happened.
“Try Hamlet 3 1,” Gaston suggested. But that didn’t work any better.
“I’m going to try poking around through the network I created,” Dr. Young told us.
Had my long night of reading Shakespeare been no use? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t giving up so easily. Phrases from Hamlet, misremembered and garbled, were flashing through my head. The “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” “Get thee to a nunnery.” “To be or not to be.” And then the light went on in my brain a second time. “Try this,” I said barely able to suppress my excitement. “2-B-OR-NOT-2-B. Get it? That’s from Hamlet Act three Scene one!”
“Wow, that’s really clever,” Dr. Young exclaimed and typed it in. “But it’s one symbol too long. It’s nine symbols not eight.”
“Shit!” I said. I was really disappointed. It had seemed so perfect.
We were quiet for a couple of minutes as I tried to think up some other Shakespearean password.
“Wait a minute,” said Dr. Young. “Let’s try this. Not, spelled naught, is another word for nothing or zero. Let’s replace not with zero and see what we get. So that’s 2-B-OR-0-2-B,” she said as she typed and — lo and behold! Hilliard’s computer came to life. I was thrilled. So was everybody else. They began to applaud.
“That’s brilliant,” Gaston told me. “Well done.”
“That’s a typical Hilliard type of password,” Dr. Young said. “Obvious once you see it but almost impossible to see. Way to go, Sam.”
Even the irritable Dean More seemed impressed. “Now what is it I’m looking for?” Barbara Young asked Gaston.
“Please try his e-mail, first.”
“OK. I’ll hook his computer up to one of my phone lines and we’ll see if we can crack his mailbox.” Dr. Young busied herself with unhooking the cabling that attached Hilliard’s computer to hers and looked around in her spaghetti of wire for a free phone wire she could use to access Hilliard’s e-mail.
While she was doing this Dean More looked at his watch and said, “Well done. I’m delighted that we’ve made so much progress so quickly. I hope you’ll soon have enough information to have the case solved. I think you’ve all done a wonderful job and I’m proud to have been able to help you. But the administration’s work must not stop because of these extraordinary events.” On the words “work must not stop” he looked at Steve, in effect telling him to get back to his usual chores. “I am late for another appointment so I’ll have to leave now. You know where to find me if you need me. Thank you again for all that you have done.” He signalled his goodbye with a nod of his head in our general direction and turned and quick-marched out of the room.
What a triumph of pomposity the man was. From the way he talked you would think that he had actually done something to help in the investigation. I could just see him composing a memo taking all the credit for solving the crime — when it actually got solved!
While More was making his speech, Steve Mandopolous had gotten to his feet too. Now he said, “I guess I’d better get back to crew.” He started moving toward the door.
“Please, Mr. Mandopolous, would you mind staying?” Gaston asked. “We may need your assistance.” Steve, looking pleased and relieved, returned to the work-table and resumed his seat.
“I’m ready to go,” Dr. Young informed us. She typed a few commands and a menu popped onto the screen. “This is his e-mail program. I installed it for him and gave him his e-mail address but he configured the program himself. That means he set his password and set the time limits for keeping e-mail.”
“You mean we have to guess at another password?” I asked. “Unless he used the same one twice we could be at this forever.”
“We could be,” answered Dr. Young. “But I’m betting that he used a tough password to get into his computer and easy, obvious ones to get into his various programs. If the front door to your house is triple locked and patrolled by armed guards and vicious dogs and so on you don’t have to worry so much about locking the doors to the various rooms in your house. I knew how Harold thought and he is likely to have done just that. We’ll soon see.”
She selected the menu choice, “Check incoming messages” and when it asked for the user name she typed “hilliardh” and when it asked for a password she typed “clio”.
What made you choose those names?” Gaston asked.
“His e-mail address is: [email protected] and I advise every body to use their e-mail name as the login. So that was easy. I’m guessing that he used Clio because he used it for the computer and so it was easy to remember.”
The computer made dialling noises, followed by that airy whistle that modems make when they look for each other, and connected. A message popped up on the screen which said: “Sorry. Your password is incorrect. Try again. Remember passwords can contain as many as 8 symbols and should contain at least one numeric or other non-alpha symbol!”
“Goddamn software,” Barbara Young exclaimed. “I know, I know. My mistake.” She looked up from the computer and said to the rest of us. “Sorry, sometimes I forget my own rules. Pandora recognized the login but the password didn’t match. It works kind of like your bank card. Your code has to match the one on the magnetic strip on the back. In this case the password has to match the one embedded in the software with your login.” She turned back to the computer and hit the enter key and when the login prompt returned she again typed “hilliardh” and in response to the password prompt she typed “cliol”.
This time she got a positive response. “Checking for new messages” appeared on the screen followed by, “You have no new mail.”
“Well, we now know that Hal picked up any waiting messages before he was murdered. Let’s hope that there is something in his in basket.” She hit the enter key again and clicked on the in basket icon. A grid popped up with one entry on it. “I hope this is significant because it looks like he cleaned out his mail. There is only one message left. It’s dated a couple of days before he was murdered and it’s from millerj — that would be Jane Miller-More, Fred’s wife. Shall we take a look?”
I could barely restrain myself from shouting, “Yes!” and spiking an imaginary football in an imaginary end zone. Gaston was more controlled and said merely, “Yes, please.”
She double-clicked on the message line and an almost blank screen appeared. There was a series of lines at the top of the screen telling who the message was from and to and the date and time but there was nothing in the message part.
Barbara Young was as surprised as I was. “What the …” she muttered. “Oh, damn!”
“What’s the problem?” Gaston asked.
“Look,” she said scrolling down the screen. “Big chunks of the message are missing. Either they never arrived or part of the hard drive was damaged in the fall.”
“What do you mean — that part of the message never arrived? Isn’t it like a telegram? Everything comes together.”
“Not really,” Professor Young told him. “It’s more like flashes of information, we call them packets, arriving separately and reforming when they get to the destination computer. It looks like some of the packets didn’t arrive or are in a corrupt sector of the hard drive.”
“How could that happen?” Gaston asked, genuinely confused. Like most of us he didn’t really understand how e-mail worked. He seemed to assume that is was like regular mail — you sent a message and it was received complete and unaffected by missing packets, whatever they were.
“The same way a telephone conversation is sometimes interrupted by a bad connection,” Barbara explained. “If the line is bad or if there is interference some of the information will be lost.”
“I thought there were special phone lines for this stuff,” Gaston said.
“There are, but the university doesn’t provide them for every office; too expensive. And we don’t know if he picked up his e-mail here or at home. He could have plugged into any phone jack to pick up or send his mail.”
Gaston sighed. “Let’s take a closer look at what is there.”
“Sure,” Dr. Young said and she returned to the top of the message and scrolled down slowly, line by line so we could read what was on the screen.
There was lots of blank space and then splashes of text separated by more blank space. It almost looked like the parts that did arrive were placed in the proper order waiting for the rest of the message to take its correct place. This is what the e-mail said:
“… are fully about our conversati …” and then a few lines farther down, “… face the consequences …” And then some more blank space followed by, “… live a lie …” and then a few lines farther down, “horribly unfair and I’m not happy.” And finally the last word that made it through, “… understanding …”
If the whole of the message had made it through it looked like it would have filled up the screen. The first bit was easy to understand; obviously the words were, “carefully about our conversation.” But it was not clear what the conversation was about or whom she had had the conversation with. Was she referring to a discussion with Hilliard or was she telling him about a conversation she had had with someone else?