Kearns looks lost. “I’d be surprised if the leak was on this end,” he says, his voice muffled slightly by the wind. “Look at all this.”
Maybe that’s why he brought me here. To shift the blame, pass the buck to our end. “You saying it’s on the Collections side?”
“No, no.” He holds a hand up defensively. “Just that I can’t see any holes here.”
“And you’re the expert, right?”
He scowls, annoyed. “What does that mean?”
This was a mistake. The guy is a yes-man, and I have no idea what his real motives are. I’d probably swear him out right now and walk away if I didn’t need him for that security footage he’s supposed to give me. Even though it’s unlikely to lead anywhere, I still need to see it to eliminate certain possibilities, so I bite back my anger, doing my best to play nice. “I’m not satisfied of anything yet,” I say, walking toward my parked ride. As he follows me, I ask, “When can I expect that data Greenman mentioned?”
He pulls a drive out of a pocket on his jacket and holds it up for me to take. “Great,” I say, trying to sound appreciative as I snatch it and pocket it. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
He stops, one of those abrupt stops that’s obviously meant to signal me to stop along with him, but I don’t. “Wait a minute,” he calls, flustered.
I humor him and turn around. “Yeah?”
“I think we should work together on this.”
“I think we can get more done separately.” That might be true, but really I just don’t want him following me around and slowing me down. I plan to do more than due diligence, and I doubt he’s interested in that.
“You’re blowing me off,” he states evenly.
“No.”
“You are,” he says. “You think I’m burning your jets.”
Maybe he’s more perceptive than I thought. “I’ll keep you in the loop,” I promise.
“We could be looking at a major source of attrition here,” he says, serious. “This could make or break my career.”
“You want to wade through hundreds of hours of security camera video?” I ask. “Because that’s where I’m headed.”
I didn’t expect him to say yes, but fourteen hours later, I’m glad he did. The sun is coming up outside, but the lights in the computer room at the Collections Office have not changed since we sat down at adjacent monitors yesterday evening. My eyes are dry and sore, and my mind is numb, dulled by the monotonous loop of the packaging and shipping cycle of chalk weevil eggs. Multiple angles of nearly indistinguishable images, over and over again, the time stamps the only thing changing. If someone managed to swap one day’s footage for another, I would not be able to tell, but the computer already cross-checked the clips and found no frames with motion in them to be identical, meaning that if a swap was done, the footage cut in predates the rest of the files. Either way, it’s unlikely; the metadata showed no signs of tampering.
Neither of us has spoken since I put a stop to his chitchat many hours ago, shutting him up so we could both concentrate. It’s awkward sitting in silence with a stranger for half a day, but not as awkward as trying to fill those hours up with small talk. I’ve tried to look at his footage periodically, worried that he’ll miss something, or worse, that he volunteered for this work with the design of covering something up. If he’s noticed my suspicion, he hasn’t said anything. His eyes are red and saggy, his hair is a limp mess, and his coat and tie sit in a crumpled heap next to his monitor, the cast-off leftovers of his performance-focused corporate image, deconstructed by a night of monotonous work. Funny how striving for success can erode the appearance of it.
The sound of the door snapping open startles me, and I jump a bit in my chair, my back sore and stiff. I pause the video I’m checking and turn to see Myra entering the room, holding a data drive. Her eyes dart for a brief instant to Kearns, and she doesn’t bother concealing a suspicious scowl. “Hey Tar,” she says, unsure whether to say hello to Kearns or not.
“He’s that Commerce Board auditor,” I offer. “I can’t get rid of him.”
“Mm.” She doesn’t seem particularly satisfied by that explanation, but she hands me the drive she’s carrying anyhow. “The data you asked for.”
I nod appreciatively. “This everything?”
“Financial records and patient files. IA report’s still cooking.”
“Good work. Thanks for the quick turnaround.”
“That’s what I do.” She snaps her fingers, adding, “I noticed a large payment from the doc’s account to some lawyer. Might be worth looking into.”
“Hmm. I will.” I glance at Kearns, who is still watching footage with a blank expression on his face, nearly motionless.
Myra turns to exit but stops herself. “Oh,” she says, “one more thing… Jessi Rodgers has been released from Bray. She’s in the custody of her aunt and uncle. I sent you the address in case you want to check on her.”
I grunt dismissively, annoyed. “Thanks.” Myra leaves, but I’m still irritated at being reminded of the little girl from the mine. She’s a sore spot, and no good will come of me involving myself in her life. Either she’ll make it or she won’t; either way, I can’t help her. Hoping that getting back to work will push the sick orphan out of my mind, I put the drive on the desk in front of the monitor, and it opens on screen. Looking through the account files, I scroll until I find a payment from the doctor—Marvin Chan was his name—to a law office.
“Three thousand bones,” I state, thinking aloud, “to an Attorney Troy Sales. A little over five months ago.” A good amount of money.
“Any details?” Kearns asks, his voice raspy in the first couple of syllables as he finally stirs from his trance-like state of catatonia.
“Nothing. All it says is that the payment was made for ‘services.’ But why do you go to a lawyer?”
He rubs his eyes, leaving them closed for a few seconds. “Legal problems.”
“Like the problems you might have if you started an illegal business.”
Using the date of the payment as a reference, I scroll through the patient records looking for anything interesting. Going back a little less than a month, something catches my attention.
“You going to tell me what you’re looking at?” Kearns asks.
“The doctor treated a SCAPE pilot just a month before he made that payment to the lawyer. Guy named Frank Soto.”
Kearns shrugs, lazily, slowly. “He was right by the spaceport. Any interstellar crewperson with a problem the doctors on the Orbital couldn’t take care of probably would’ve gone to him.”
He raises a good point, but I’m not ready to give up on this angle. “Maybe,” I reply, “but maybe this is how he got his hands on SCAPE property.”
“How, exactly?”
I stare at the auditor for a second, not ready to articulate anything, wondering if he can help me get personnel records from SCAPE. “I can’t say yet. But I want to know more about the pilot.”
“I could request his file,” Kearns offers, taking the hint, “but I don’t know if they’d be able to give it to me.”
Useless. I type off a message to Myra asking her to get everything available on Chan’s patients. I know it will take a while and may get bounced for probable cause issues, but we’ll see. In the meantime, I can still use the Commerce Board suit, as much as I’d love to tell him to get bricked and swallow a fistful of sand.
“Go home, Kearns,” I tell him, standing up myself. My knees ache with stiffness. “Get some sleep and clean yourself up.”
“What?” he asks, “Why?”
“You’re picking me up at twenty hundred tonight. I’ll send you my address.”