Marshall shook his head. “Never. I try to encourage the families to come down and physically be with the patients, but she won’t do it. Says she can talk to him better through the networks than she can standing here, so why come?”
“The networks?” Kiah exclaimed. “He has access to the networks?”
“Of course. Ms. Fowler purchased a knowbot program for him. It uses a virtual reality interface too—”
“Yes, yes, I know the principle.” Now, Kiah looked directly at Rivera. The blank, black mask looked back. “So, I could call him up?”
“Of course.” Kiawis’s eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem, Mr. Burns?”
Kiah remembered Louisa Fowler’s hard eyes and her history. “Maybe.”
Back in his office, the message light blinked fitfully from the phone pad. The display said the call came from the D.C. office. Kiah touched the callback sequence and waited for the video screen to flicker into action.
The scene that greeted him was not pleasant. Gregory Seabrook was a red-faced man under normal circumstances, but when he saw Kiah his skin flushed to the color of a third-degree sunburn.
“I really hope you’re got something concrete going on there, Kiah.” His voice strained to the breaking point. “Because I’ve got a Louisa Fowler threatening lawsuit and publicity to get rid of you, me, and what’s left of the IRS unless you get her change of status processed.”
Kiah’s spine wanted to wither. It had been too long. He’d forgotten what it was like to actually pursue a case, especially when there was nothing to go on but hunches. “Greg, I’ve got a private investigator who’s permanently attached to a hospital bed but who still has access to the networks. Fowler’s an information retrieval specialist who’s trying to get him declared her dependent without going through formal proceedings, and,” he leaned forward, “her income has tripled in the last year.”
Come on, Greg, put it together. Please. Please, God, let him put it together.
Even through the video screen, Kiah could see the light that sparked in his boss’s eyes as the possibilities unfolded for him. Greg’s skin faded to its normal shade. “Can you get me evidence?”
Kiah’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if there’s really anything going on. It’s a funny situation, though. I mean, they’re both network experts… I suppose, technically, we ought to turn this over to the Feds.”
Greg laid both hands on his desk and looked Kiah square in the eye. “Kiah, as your supervisor I am officially telling you the FBI doesn’t need to be bothered with this. The system hasn’t kicked out anything, it’s just found a new situation. You are to investigate that situation and make a recommendation. I can probably get you seventy-two hours to do it. If you find anything…” He smiled. “If you find anything, Kiah, we’re back in business.”
Greg cut the connection, leaving Kiah facing a blank screen and his own thoughts. He’d known his supervisor for years before the Change Over. He was one of the kind that gave the IRS its reputation. He liked the power. Wrong: he loved the power. The demolition of it had nearly killed him. He still went to AA meetings. If Kiah could prove it was still possible to cheat the computer system, then he’d be bringing Greg back his glory days.
Kiah looked up at his sign. Is that what I want? My power back? Kiah shifted his weight and ran his hand across his scalp. No. I just want to be useful again.
He swung himself around and put the virtual reality gear back on. Marian’s library surrounded him. She was still at the desk, still taking notes from her dictionary.
She smiled at Kiah and straightened up.
“And what can I do for you today, Mr. Burns?”
He felt his thoughts force themselves into old motions, like rusty gears. “I need to know the type of cases Louisa Fowler’s been taking, and how many there have been.”
“I think we still have her records out, Mr. Burns.” Marian flipped open a ledger on the desk. “Yes. Right here.” She passed him the book.
Kiah ran his finger down the page, his eyes flickering between the columns. No appreciable increase in the number of clients. That would have been too obvious. There had been a substantial increase in the fees she was commanding, though. Kiah flipped a page to the summary of Fowler’s work history. Apparently, the fees had jumped because the complexity level of the jobs she was taking on had jumped too. Instead of just repairing crashed CPUs and tracing misdirected credit applications, Fowler was performing extensive data searches in the most chaotic regions of the Internet. Kiali’s eyes widened. She’d even helped the FBI break a whole ring of high-level crackers. The bounty on that job could have paid Rivera’s expenses for a year.
He set the book aside, leaving it open to the account summary page. Marian was still smiling at him.
“Let me see the phone company records for Dale Rivera. I need to know who he’s been talking to since his accident.”
Marian’s pencil flew across her pad. “If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’ll go look this up.” She flashed him another smile and disappeared between the shelves.
Kiah fidgeted. It can’t be this easy. If I find anything from this, it’ll be that I’m wrong. These two are specialists. They wouldn’t leave anything intact for me to find.
Marian returned with another ledger. “Here we are, Mr. Burns,” she passed it to him.
Kiah flipped through the records. Public library. Louisa Fowler. Pay-Per-Use Entertainment Services. Public Library. Louisa Fowler. Louisa Fowler. Public Library. Public Library. Louisa Fowler. Louisa Fowler. Louisa Fowler.
Kiah looked up at Marian. “Can you get me transcripts of any of these conversations?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Burns. I can’t do that. Privacy regulations, you know.” The smile turned apologetic.
“Of course.” The FBI could subpoena the records, but that would mean trying to turn this into an official criminal investigation and at this stage, there was no guarantee Kiah could make the Bureau listen to him. They might just see a frustrated little man chasing his old glory at the expense of the last genuinely charitable woman on the face of the Earth. She had probably really loved this Rivera character before cruel fate had made their reconciliation possible.
Kiah drummed his fingers on the check-out desk. “Can you get me a rundown on what he was doing in the library files?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Burns, I can’t do that either.” Her smile didn’t change.
“Well, what can you do?” Kiah muttered.
“I can compare the amount of time Mr. Rivera spent on-line with Ms. Fowler to the timing of each of her banking transactions with her clients.”
Kiah yanked his head around. He hadn’t expected an answer, much less a useful one. But then again, that’s what Marian did, wasn’t it? Compared and contrasted data and came up with new ways to arrange it.
“OK” he said, “OK Let’s see that.”
Marian produced another sheet of paper. “Here you are, Mr. Burns.”
The page showed a neatly plotted graph. Rivera’s strings of calls to Louisa Fowler occurred only when she had no active clients. When she was working, Rivera busied himself with the library and entertainment services.
Which made perfect sense. Fowler was self-supporting. She didn’t have time to tie up her communication lines with chit-chat while she was working. Either that or, the pair of them were carefully avoiding contact at those times when it might arouse suspicion if someone ever decided to run such a comparison.
Kiah laid the paper down. “Mr. Rivera uses a knowbot program to access the library database, doesn’t he?”