“What do you think?” Joanna asked.
“I’ve been a nun for more than thirty-five years,” Sister Celeste responded ruefully. “I’m lucky to have worked my way up to be principal at the school where I’ve taught for twenty of those thirty-five years. It’s progress, I suppose, but very slow progress. I’m afraid, when it comes to something as deeply entrenched as the priesthood, I don’t see that kind of fundamental change happening in my lifetime. You’re much younger than I, and it probably won’t happen in your lifetime, either.”
Joanna’s phone rang. When she heard Frank Montoya’s voice, she turned on the speaker so Sister Celeste could listen in as well. “We’re in luck,” he said. “Rich said Fred Woodworth should be out of class by now and back home in Upper Bisbee. Rich is going to go see him. If he can find him, he’ll try to bring him here to the office.”
“You told Rich what we needed?” Joanna asked.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Just what I thought. As long as it’s done under supervision, he doesn’t think having Fred use one of our computers will be a problem.”
“And what about Woodworth himself? Does Rich think he’ll go along with the idea?”
Frank laughed. “He says Freddy Boy misses his computers so much that he’ll be thrilled to do anything in order to lay hands on a keyboard again. That’s how the FBI talked him into working for them earlier, when he was locked up at Club Fed.”
Sister Celeste stood up as soon as Frank got off the phone. “Look,” she said, “I can see you have work to do, and this could take time. Why don’t I go outside and wait until your deputy’s pet hacker gets here.”
“Thanks,” Joanna said gratefully. “That would be a big help.”
It was another forty-five minutes before Kristin called in over the intercom once more to announce the arrival of Rich Davis and Fred Woodworth.
“Put them in the conference room, Kristin,” Joanna told her. “And then let both Frank Montoya and Sister Celeste know they’re here.”
Joanna had met Rich Davis on several occasions. He was a beefy fifty-year-old with thick glasses and a vestigial sense of fashion. On that particular day he was wearing a bright red plaid flannel shirt along with a food-stained and not-quite-matching blue silk tie. The probation officer’s young charge was a baby-faced twenty-five-year-old with a peach-fuzz goatee. He looked more like a high school student than an ex-con. Fred Woodworth wore his hair in musty dreadlocks. His T-shirt was shot full of holes, and his stained, raggedy jams looked as though the addition of a single ounce of weight to the pockets would send the pants plummeting around his bare bony ankles, which stuck out of worn emerald-green high-topped sneakers.
Woodworth barely glanced at the people ranged around the conference room table as they were introduced to him. Instead, he stared greedily-almost hungrily-at the laptop computer Frank had set down on the table nearby.
“Has Mr. Davis explained the situation to you?” Joanna asked once he was settled on a chair.
Fred nodded, but said nothing.
“You do know that even though you’re cooperating with us in this instance, we have no power to change the terms of your parole?” Joanna continued.
Fred nodded again. “Rich told me that. But, hey. What the hell? I’m glad to help.” He glanced in Sister Celeste’s direction. “Sorry about that, Sister,” he said. “Please excuse my French.”
She smiled. “That’s all right,” she told him.
“So can we get started?”
Frank switched on the computer and passed it to Fred. Frank did it so carefully, so gingerly, that he might have been a nervous first-time mother passing the care and keeping of her precious newborn into the hands of a baby-sitter she didn’t quite trust. As for Fred Woodworth, when he put his fingers on the keys and began making a series of rapid-fire typed commands, the rapt look on his face was almost sexual in nature.
After several minutes, Fred asked if he could download a program from the Internet. Frank plugged in a PCI modem and plugged the other end into a wall receptacle. Then, with Frank logging on and doing the keyboarding, they took ten minutes to download a file. Only then, when the computer was disconnected from the Internet, did Frank once again give Fred Woodworth access to the keyboard.
For Joanna, the entire process seemed mesmerizingly boring. At last Fred Woodworth stopped typing. Folding his arms behind his head and leaning back in his chair, he stared at the screen. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re all cops,” he said at last.
“Why do you say that?” Joanna asked. “What’s on it?”
Fred gave her a lopsided grin. “It’s code, all right,” he said. “I don’t know where you guys got this, but if the Feds knew you had it, they’d probably shit a brick. Excuse me, Sister,” he said again, eyeing Sister Celeste. “I keep forgetting.”
“What is it?” Joanna asked.
“It’s military code,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing they use for command and control procedures. And even though it’s out of date, I’m sure it’s still classified. They don’t like to let any of this stuff out because inevitably, one set of encryption codes is built on top of another. If you have one of the base codes, you can usually extrapolate from there and figure out what’s going on.”
“So,” Frank asked. “Can you tell us anything about this?”
Fred Woodworth smirked and shrugged. “Some. Compared to where we are now, this is pretty primitive stuff. I’d say these files date all the way back to the late eighties or early nineties. I can’t say which branch of the service the files are from, but since Fort Huachuca is right next door here, my first guess would be army. If you want to know anything more about this, I’d suggest you call them.”
Across the table from Fred Woodworth, Sister Celeste let out a long, audible sigh. “It’s true, then,” she murmured.
“What’s true?” Joanna asked.
“What Lucy Ridder told me.”
Joanna held up her hand. “Wait,” she cautioned. “Don’t say anything more right now. Mr. Woodworth? Mr. Davis? Thank you so much for all your help, but I believe that’s all we need for right now. If there’s anything more, we’ll let you know.”
Now it was Fred Woodworth’s turn to sigh. Closing the lid on the laptop, he ran one finger regretfully and lovingly across it. “It was a pleasure,” he said. “I’ll be glad to help out anytime. Just give me a call.”
He and Rich Davis stood up. Frank Montoya escorted the two men as far as the conference-room door. As soon as they stepped over the threshold and out into the reception room, Frank closed the door behind them and turned expectantly back to Joanna and Sister Celeste.
“What did Lucy tell you?” Joanna was asking.
“That her mother was a spy.”
“A spy?”
“She said her father told her that Sandra Ridder was providing top-secret information to our enemies. I’d guess that would have been the Iraqis during the Gulf War.”
For a second or two, both Joanna Brady and Frank Montoya were struck speechless. Before either one of them could comment, Sister Celeste stood up. “I’m sure you’ve heard enough,” she said. “Now, if you’ll be so good as to come with me, I’ll take you to Lucy right away.”
“Where is she?” Joanna choked, finding her voice at last.
“At Holy Trinity Monastery over in Saint David,” Sister Celeste said. “The prior, Father Mulligan, is a good friend of mine, and I understand he’s a friend of yours as well. He promised me he’d take care of Lucy and keep her safe and out of sight. Lucy Ridder is convinced that the man who murdered her mother came out to Cochise Stronghold that night looking for the computer disk. She’s afraid that eventually he’ll figure out who must have it. Once he does, he’ll come looking for her as well.”