"Certainly, we can get that information. Why are you interested?"
"I have reason to believe Lucy's wreck was no accident and she may still be in serious danger." He paused.
"Would it be a good idea to keep her on the Academy's security floor for a while?"
"Ordinarily, that would be the perfect place," I said.
"But I don't think she needs to be anywhere near the Academy right now."
"I see. Well, that makes sense. There are other places if you need me to intervene."
"I think I have a place."
"I'm off to Florida tomorrow, but you've got my numbers there."
"More fund-raisers?" I knew he was exhausted, for the election was little more than a week away.
"That, too. And the usual brush fires. NOW's picketing, and my opponent remains very busy painting me as the woman hater with horns and a pointed tail."
"You've done more for women than anyone I know," I said.
"Especially this one right here."
I finished getting dressed and by seven-thirty was drinking my first cup of coffee on the road in my rental car. The weather was gloomy and cold, and I noticed very little of what I passed as I drove north.
A biometric lock system, like any lock system, would have to be picked were someone to bypass it. Some locks truly did require nothing more than a credit card, while others could be dismantled or released with various tools, such as Slim Jims. But a lock system that scanned fingerprints could not be violated by such simple mechanical means. As I contemplated the break-in at ERF and how someone might have accomplished this, several thoughts drifted through my mind.
Lucy's print had been scanned into the system at approximately three o'clock in the morning, and that was only possible if her finger had been present-or a facsimile of her finger had been present. I recalled from International Association of Identification meetings I had attended over the years that many notorious criminals had made many creative attempts at altering their fingerprints.
The ruthless gangster John Dillinger had dropped acid on his cores and deltas, while the lesser-known Roscoe Pitts had surgically removed his prints from the first knuckle up. These methods and others had failed, and the gentlemen would have been better served had they stayed painlessly with the prints God had given them. Their altered latents simply went into the FBI's Mutilated File, which, frankly, was far easier to search. Not to mention, burned and mangled fingers look a little fishy if you happen to be a suspect.
But what came to mind most vividly was a case years ago of an especially resourceful burglar whose brother worked in a funeral home. The burglar, who had been imprisoned many times, attempted to give himself a pair of gloves that would leave someone else's prints. This he accomplished by repeatedly dipping a dead man's hands into liquid rubber, forming layer after layer until the "gloves" could be pulled off.
The plan did not work well for at least two reasons. The burglar had neglected to knock air bubbles out with each layer of rubber, and this made for rather odd latent prints recovered at the next mansion he hit. He also had not bothered to research the individual whose prints he stole. Had he done so, he would have learned that the decedent was a convicted felon who had died peacefully while out on parole.
I thought of my visit to ERF on a sunny afternoon that now seemed years ago.
I had sensed that Carrie Grethen was not pleased to find Wesley and me in her office when she walked in stirring a viscous substance, which, in retrospect, could have been liquid silicone or rubber. It was during this visit that Lucy mentioned the biometric lock research she was "in the middle of." Maybe what she had said was literally true. Maybe Carrie had intended at that moment to make a rubber cast of Lucy's thumb. If my theory about what Carrie had done was accurate, I knew it could be proven. I wondered why none of us had thought before to ask a very simple question. Did the print scanned into the biometric lock system physically match Lucy's, or were we simply taking the computer's word for it? "
"Well, I would assume so," Benton Wesley said to me when I got him on the car phone.
"Of course you would assume it. Everyone would assume it. But if someone made a cast of Lucy's thumb arid scanned it into the system, the print should be a reversal of the corresponding one on her ten-print card on file with the Bureau. A mirror image, in other words." Wesley paused, then sounded surprised.
"Damn. But wouldn't the scanner have detected the print was backward and rejected it?"
"Very few scanners could distinguish between a print and an inversion of that same print. But a fingerprint examiner could," I said.
"The print scanned into the biometric lock system should still be digitally stored in the data base."
"If Carrie Grethen did this, don't you think she would have eradicated the print from the data base?"
"I doubt it," I replied.
"She's not a fingerprint examiner. It's unlikely she would realize that every time a latent print is left, it's reversed. And it matches a ten-print card only because those prints are reversed as well. Now if you made a cast of a digit and left a latent print with it, you would actually have a reversal of a reversal."
"So a latent made with this rubber thumb would be a reversal of the same latent made with the person's actual thumb."
"Precisely."
"Christ, I'm not good with things like this."
"Don't worry about it, Benton. I know it's confusing, but take my word for it."
"I always do, and it sounds like we need to get a hard copy of the print in question."
"Absolutely, and right away. There's something else I want to ask you. Were you aware of a research project pertaining to ERF's biometric lock system? "
"A research project conducted by the Bureau?"
"Yes."
"No. I'm not aware of any project like that."
"That's what I thought. Thank you, Benton." Both of us paused, waiting for a personal word from the other. But I did not know what else to say. So much was inside me.
"Be careful," he told me, and we said goodbye.
I found the spy shop not more than a half hour later in a huge shopping mall learning with cars and people. Eye Spy was inside near Ralph Lauren and Crabtree amp; Evelyn. It was a small shop with a window display of the finest that legal espionage had to offer. I hesitated a safe distance away until a customer at the register moved, allowing me to see who was working at the counter. An older, overweight man was ringing up an order, and I could not believe he could be Carrie Grethen's lover. No doubt this detail was yet one more of her lies.
When the customer left, there was only one other, a young man in a leather jacket perusing a showcase of voice-activated tape recorders and portable voice stress analyzers. The fat man behind the counter wore thick glasses and gold chains, and looked like he always had a deal for someone.
"Excuse me," I said as quietly as possible.
"I'm looking for Carrie Grethen."
"She went out for coffee, should be back in a minute." He studied my face.
"Can I help you with something?"
"I'll look around until she returns," I said.
"Sure."
I had just gotten interested in a special attache case that included a hidden tape recorder, wire tap alerts, telephone descrambler, and night vision devices, when Carrie Grethen walked in. She stopped when she saw me, and for an unnerving instant I thought she might fling her cup of coffee in my face. Her eyes drove through mine like two steel nails.
"I need a word with you," I said.
"I'm afraid this is not a good time." She tried to smile, to sound civil, because now there were four customers in this very small store.
"Of course it's a good time," I said, holding her gaze.
"Jerry?" She looked at the fat man.
"Can you handle things for a few minutes?" He stared hard at me like a dog ready to lunge.
"I promise I won't be long," she reassured him.