by Cleo Coyle
Three heads nodded in agreement. DeFasio cleared his throat.
“We recovered fragments of an electric clock, so we know the bomb worked off a timer.”
Question answered, I thought. Now we need to know the real target.
Quinn spoke up. “You’d think a software billionaire would travel with some kind of security.”
DeFasio frowned. “Thorner had security.”
This was news to me. “I didn’t see a bodyguard with him.”
“That’s because his security was in the car. The individual who died in the front seat was a former New York City police officer.”
Fifteen
AFTER DeFasio dropped that info bomb, he clammed up. The more I tried to pry details out of him, the more robotic the responses became. In desperation, I tossed a grenade of my own.
“Eric Thorner already told me the victim’s name was Charley.”
DeFasio said nothing, and the glances he exchanged with Spinelli were infuriatingly unreadable.
“Was he a detective? Was he retired? Fired?” Quinn asked.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the identity of the victim until the next of kin has been officially notified,” DeFasio replied, arms folded.
I was beginning to understand this man. When DeFasio lost the ethnic gestures or lapsed into bureaucrat speak, he was holding back. I pushed harder.
“So you’re working furiously on this investigation, you’ve got guys hammering away in the kitchen re-creating the bomb. Yet you’ve failed to make a phone call to a wife, or visited a family missing a loved one? I find that very odd.”
“Informing the next of kin is someone else’s headache,” DeFasio replied, robot voice in place. “Our job is to find out how the bomb was built, when it was built, why it was built—”
“And who built it?”
DeFasio nodded.
“Was that why you ejected the reporter from the Daily News? You already have a person of interest, and the journalist was getting too close for comfort.”
DeFasio glanced at Quinn. But if he was looking for help, none came.
“Clare’s got you,” Mike said with a half-smile. “In my experience, she’s better at ferreting out information than most of the people at Justice. You might as well come clean. She’ll find out sooner or later.”
DeFasio threw up his hands. “Okay, it’s true. We have a person of interest. But we can’t prove anything. It would help if we had Thorner’s schedule—”
“Then you’d know where the blast was supposed to have taken place,” I interrupted.
“We could also determine when and where the bomb was planted. And if it placed our suspect in the general vicinity.” DeFasio shrugged. “You get it.”
“Have you talked to Thorner’s people?”
“Person. The investigators are at the hospital, waiting for Thorner to wake up after surgery. They tried speaking with Anton Alonzo. He’s Thorner’s personal and executive assistant.” DeFasio rolled his eyes. “If you think I’m a blue wall of silence, you should see how this guy stonewalls.”
“Too bad you didn’t appropriate Thorner’s smartphone at the hospital,” Quinn said.
“Actually, we believe we have Mr. Thorner’s phone. Crime scene techs scooped it off the floor of the Village Blend while we were sweeping for bomb fragments—”
“That’s right!” I confirmed. “Thorner had the phone in his hand before he passed out. Then the ambulance crew arrived and he was off to the hospital.”
Spinelli flicked some fudge crumbs off his shirt, and reached for another square. “You didn’t notice the phone was left behind?”
“I was injured and worried about our staff and customers. Then firefighters told us to evacuate. I took my people out for drinks and left my business partner behind to deal with your forensic units.”
“Why was Thorner holding the phone?” DeFasio asked.
“He had it in his hand when the glass hit him. Then he was holding it out to me, asking me to call 911.”
“Wish we could access the data.” Spinelli shook his head. “But that phone’s locked up tighter than a virgin’s legs—uh . . . sorry, Ms. Cosi. What I meant was, Thorner would have had to give you the password.”
“So you’ve been trying to retrieve the data on that phone?” Quinn’s tone made the question sound more like an accusation.
“What do you think?” DeFasio said evenly.
“You do have a warrant?”
“We have yet to establish ownership,” DeFasio replied. “Why involve a judge at this point?”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “You’re pushing it, Dennis. You don’t want to poison evidence by gathering it illegally.”
Spinelli snorted. “Spoken like a Fed.”
“I thought we’d gotten past that crap,” Quinn replied.
“You’re the one who’s got to get past it.” DeFasio leaned across his desk. “You used to think like a cop, Mike. Now you sound like those FBI pukes my predecessor dealt with back in ’93, after the first WTC attack.”
Quinn’s blue eyes turned frosty. “That’s a low blow, even for you.”
“Yeah? I don’t think so.”
Now both men were on their feet. “You’ve got me all wrong, Dennis, and I don’t appreciate—”
“Wait!” I cried.
The two men looked at me.
Fearing fists would fly, I moved between them. “Gentlemen, I don’t understand your reference. Would somebody mind explaining what happened in 1993?”
Frankly, I didn’t care—but if it would get these guys to “chill,” as my barista Dante was fond of saying, I would listen.
“You see!” Now DeFasio was addressing his underling. “In a post–9/11 world, civilians like her have completely forgotten the World Trade Center was bombed once before!”
“And?” I prompted.
“And . . .” DeFasio threw up his hands and sat. Quinn settled down, too. Their stare-off continued, but at least both men were back in their own corners.
“. . . one of this squad’s technicians found the chassis of the van that carried in the explosives. The Feds told him not to touch the evidence, leave it where it was, but he was worried a cave-in might destroy it, so he violated every protocol and moved it. At the lab on 20th Street, our guys broke protocols again by dousing the chassis with acid so they could read the VIN number. When the FBI found out, all hell broke loose.”
“Why did they risk breaking protocols?” I asked.
“Because it solved the case!” DeFasio replied, spearing Quinn.
“It’s true,” Spinelli added. “Within twenty-four hours, that VIN number led to the rental agency that owned the truck, then to the bombers themselves. Arrests were made and the perps were in custody. Doing it the Fed’s way would have given the bombers time to escape and bomb again.”
“That’s why I’m pushing,” DeFasio said. “This bomber killed one of our own. Time is critical, and I don’t want the bastard who planted that bomb to get away with murder. Anyway, it’s a moot point. A warrant isn’t going to do us any good if we can’t hack the passcode.”
“Ms. Cosi . . .” Spinelli faced me. “Do you think you would recognize Thorner’s phone if you saw it again?”
“I’m sure I would.”
“I think we caught a little luck here,” Spinelli told his boss. “Ms. Cosi could clear up the question of ownership, at least.”
“We’ll see . . .” DeFasio rose and stepped around his desk. “You’re on the spot now, honey. Follow me.”
Sixteen
“THAT’S it!” I confirmed (with enthusiasm). “That’s Eric Thorner’s smartphone!”
Spinelli grinned and folded his tattoo-laced arms. “See, boss, I knew she could do it.”
DeFasio still looked skeptical. “Are you sure, Ms. Cosi? Maybe we should have done a lineup.”
“It’s a phone, not a felon,” Quinn snapped.
We were downstairs, at garage level, in the chilly heart of the Bomb Squad�
��s workshop and storage area. Evidence cages lined one wall. A bomb disposal robot sat in the corner on rubber treads, hooked up to a battery charger.
In the center of the room, plastic bags filled with debris collected at yesterday’s bomb scene were tagged and waiting to be moved to the crime lab on 20th Street. Thorner’s smartphone sat, all by its lonesome, on a workbench.
“You’re absolutely certain this belongs to Thorner?” DeFasio pressed.
“I recognize the way it’s contoured to the hand. I’m far from a smartphone expert, but I’ve never seen that design before.”
“Neither have we,” Spinelli confessed. “It’s some kind of prototype. We’ve been trying to hack the password, but we’re afraid to mess with it too much or we’ll drain the battery.”
“You can’t recharge it?” Quinn asked, moving closer. I saw it then, that familiar look of cop interest in his eyes.
“I can’t even find a way to hook it up to a power unit,” Spinelli replied. “There’s a slot with a weird pin configuration. I’ve never seen it before. That’s it.”
“You can’t retrofit it?” Quinn suggested.
“I could try, but it’s a risk. I might destroy data.”
I hid my reaction to this exchange, but it did my heart good to see Mike Quinn shifting into cop mode again, warming to the details of an investigation—like the old days.
Now Spinelli was addressing me again. He lifted the black-chrome device so I could see the screen. “Do you remember seeing numbers on this display?”
I shook my head. “Too much was going on before, during, and after that car bomb went off.”
“But you said Thorner held it out for you to use, right?”
“He did. He was in bad shape then. I’m sure he was going into shock . . .”
I closed my eyes, tried to bring back those moments . . .
“Charley, Charley,” Eric kept moaning. “What about Charley?”
“Stay still,” I warned. “Help is coming, but you have to keep still . . .”
“Clare . . .”
Eric’s intense, little-boy stare was back, but much different now. I could see it in his eyes: I’m scared. I took his right hand and squeezed.
“I’m going to get you through this. I promise. It’s going to be all right . . .”
His eyes filled and he squeezed my hand back. Then his muted voice mumbled something. His left hand rose weakly, as if he wanted me to take the smartphone still in his grip.
“Nine ones squared,” he said.
That’s when Tuck appeared next to me, describing the scene—and Eric’s injuries—to an emergency operator.
“Nine ones squared,” Eric repeated.
I leaned close. “We’ve already called 911. Hang on now, help is on the way.”
“No . . .” Eric shook his head, like I’d missed something. “Nine ones . . .” Then the smartphone tumbled from his hand . . .
*
I OPENED my eyes. “Do you have a calculator?”
“Sure, right here,” Spinelli tapped his head.
“Ninety-one times ninety-one is . . . ?”
“Eight thousand, two hundred and eighty-one,” Spinelli replied.
“Try that as the password—8281.”
“Won’t work,” Spinelli said.
“But you didn’t even try it.”
“Four digits isn’t long enough. The screen prompt wants me to enter a seventeen-digit passcode.”
DeFasio whistled. “Who can remember seventeen digits in the proper sequence?”
“Maybe they’re letters, not numbers. Like an Italian name,” Quinn jabbed. “You could fit a lot of extra vowels and double letters to stretch it.”
DeFasio smirked. “You’re a riot, mickey Mike.”
“It’s a seventeen-digit passcode,” Spinelli clarified, “as in numbers.”
“Yeah, but there’s a positive sign here,” DeFasio pointed out. “Our Mike is talking like a cop again. Pretty soon he might even be thinking like a cop again, too.”
“Let’s start over, Ms. Cosi,” Spinelli said. “Try to remember Thorner’s exact words.”
“I do remember. He said nine ones squared.”
“Sorry, like I said, ninety-one squared doesn’t work.”
“Wait,” I said. “What if nine ones literally means, nine ones. You know: 111, 111, 111. In that case if you squared it—”
Spinelli slapped his own forehead and shouted. “I’m an idiot!”
“This is new information?” DeFasio muttered.
“It’s a kid’s math riddle, boss: 111,111,111 squared equals 12 quadrillion, 345 trillion, 678 billion, 987 million, 654 thousand and 321.”
Quinn snorted. “What’s that mean, Carl Sagan?”
A kid’s riddle, I realized. “Now I get it!”
Quinn and DeFasio stared at me. “You do?”
“Yes, the seventeen-digit code is actually easy to remember: 12345678987654321.”
Spinelli grinned and nodded as he punched the numbers. “Eureka! We’re in!”
Quinn turned to DeFasio, voice serious. “Dennis, you have to make that call now.”
DeFasio, still looking a little stunned, nodded. “You’re right, Mike. I’m on it.”
As his boss dialed a nearby desk phone, Spinelli’s face lit up. “Wow, this is Thorner’s smartphone, all right. I’m looking at the main menu right now . . .”
DeFasio raised a hand to silence him. “Sorry to wake you, Judge Ansen, but we have a situation involving yesterday’s blast on Hudson Street . . .”
While DeFasio spoke, Spinelli produced a pair of delicate reading glasses, which he perched on the edge of his Roman nose. With those wire-rim specs, and the man’s brace of tattoos, Spinelli looked like a member of an Italian nonna’s biker gang.
DeFasio hung up. “We’ve got our warrant so it’s by the book now.” He turned to Quinn. “Happy?”
“Yes, and you should be, too. I brought you Clare Cosi.”
“I told you I liked her, didn’t I?” DeFasio winked at Quinn. Then he rubbed his hands together. “Let’s go fishing.”
The three cops huddled around the smartphone screen. I peeked in where I could.
“There are a lot of files here, boss,” Spinelli said. “What should I check first?”
“Unless you see a file titled ‘People Who Want to Blow Me Up’—”
Spinelli shook his head. “Don’t see one of those.”
“Then go to the man’s itinerary.”
“Don’t see one of those either—”
“Try looking for a Day-Timer, or maybe he uses an app,” Quinn said.
“It’s an app, and I’ve got it,” Spinelli cried.
DeFasio raced to a nearby cabinet. “Since we can’t download from this phone, I’ll have to snap screen shots. We can analyze the data later.”
The digital camera looked miniscule in DeFasio’s beefy hands. “Start with yesterday’s schedule and work backward.”
While Spinelli manipulated the smartphone, his boss snapped away
“You were right, Clare. Thorner was early yesterday. He should have been at a server farm in Clinton, New Jersey.”
Spinelli groaned. “Thorner’s car crossed the state line with a bomb on board. Here comes the FBI.”
“Not yet,” DeFasio countered.
“What’s a server farm?” I asked.
“It’s a group of computers linked together to perform functions a single computer can’t,” Quinn replied. “Most large companies maintain a server cluster. They are very expensive to build, but vital in the computer business. ”
“So blowing one up would do real harm,” I said.
“You bet,” Quinn replied. “That kind of damage could put Thorner out of business, at least temporarily.”
DeFasio continued to snap photos while Spinelli shifted screens. Quinn and I had to step back, so I couldn’t see the display. It was a maddening few minutes.
Finally DeFasio spoke. “This is interesting.”
“What?” Quinn and I cried in unison.
“You’re familiar with a coffeehouse called Joe’s?”
“I’m aware of all my competition. Joe’s is a fine establishment. I highly recommend them.”
“And Driftwood Coffee? How about Gotham Beanery?”
“I’m familiar with those establishments.”
DeFasio raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“My nonna used to say if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
DeFasio chuckled. “I’m asking because Thorner visited all of those places on a daily basis, for many weeks.”
I told them about Thorner’s “Quiz Master” routine, and speculated he was pulling the same act at all of those other coffeehouses.
“The others must have failed the test, because for the last two weeks Thorner focused exclusively on your Village Blend.”
“I still don’t know why. He was about to tell me, but the bomb went off and the conversation pretty much ended.”
“You’ll have another chance to ask him,” DeFasio replied. “If Thorner is that interested in your coffeehouse, he’ll be back.”
“The low-battery warning is blinking,” Spinelli warned.
DeFasio lowered the camera “We’re done shooting the itinerary. Anything else we should look at before—”
“Damn!” Spinelli cried. “There’s a large file here titled ‘Clare Cosi.’”
“What?! You’re kidding—” I muscled my way between the men. “Open it, quick!”
“Ready?” Spinelli said, moving his thumb. “Here it comes—”
But it didn’t. The smartphone screen faded to black.
“What happened?!” I cried.
“Sorry,” Spinelli said. “The battery died.”
“Can’t you recharge it?!”
“It’s a prototype,” Quinn calmly reminded me. “They don’t have the equipment to fit the unique pin connection.”
I threw up my hands. “Then how am I supposed to find out why a billionaire has a big, fat file on me?”
“Easy,” DeFasio said with a shrug. “The next time you see the guy, ask him.”