To: JackMcEvoy@LATimes.com
Hi, I cannot respond to your e-mail in a timely manner because I am in trial this week. You will hear from me or my assistant, Madison, as soon as possible. Thank you.
Tom Fox
Senior Partner, Daly & Mills, Counselors at Law
www.dalyandmills.com
It was an automatically generated response, which meant Fox had not yet seen my message. I got the feeling I would not be hearing from him until lunchtime-if I was lucky.
I noticed the law firm’s website listed at the bottom of the message and clicked on the link. It brought me to a site that boldly trumpeted the services the firm provided its prospective clients. The firm’s attorneys specialized in both criminal and civil law and there was a window marked Do You Have a Case? in which the site visitor could submit the particulars of their situation for a free review and opinion from one of the firm’s legal experts.
At the bottom of the page was a listing of the firm’s partners by name. I was about to click on Tom Fox’s name to see if I could pull up a bio when I saw the line and link that ran along the very bottom of the page.
Site Design and Optimization by Western Data Consultants
It felt to me like atoms crashing together and creating a new and priceless substance. All in a moment I knew I had the connection. The law firm’s website was hosted in the same location as the Unsub’s trip-wire sites. That was too coincidental to be coincidence. The internal portals opened up wide, and adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. I quickly clicked on the link and I was taken to the homepage of Western Data Consultants.
The website offered a guided tour of the facility in Mesa, Arizona, which provided state-of-the-art security and service in the areas of data storage, managed hosting and web-based grid solutions-whatever that meant.
I clicked on an icon that said SEE THE BUNKER and was taken to a page with photos and descriptions of an underground server farm. It was a colocation center where data from client corporations and businesses was stored and accessible to those clients twenty-four hours a day through high-speed fiber-optic connections and backbone Internet providers. Forty server towers stood in perfect rows. The room was concrete lined, infrared monitored and hermetically sealed. It was twenty feet belowground.
The website heavily sold the security of Western Data. What comes in doesn’t go out unless you ask for it. The company offered businesses big and small an economical means of storing and securing data through instant or interval backup. Every keystroke made on a computer at a law firm in Los Angeles could be instantly recorded and stored in Mesa.
I went back to my files and pulled out the documents William Schifino had given me in Las Vegas. Included in these was the Oglevy divorce file. I put the name of Brian Oglevy’s divorce lawyer into my search engine and got an address and contact number but no website. I put the name of Sharon Oglevy’s attorney into the search window next and this time got an address, phone number and website.
I went to the website for Allmand, Bradshaw and Ward and scrolled to the bottom of the homepage. There it was.
Site Design and Optimization by Western Data Consultants
I had confirmed the connection but not the specifics. The two law firms used Western Data to design and host their websites. I needed to know if the firms were also storing their case files on Western Data servers. I thought about a plan for a few moments and then opened my phone to call the firm.
“Allmand, Bradshaw and Ward, can I help you?”
“Yes, can I speak to the managing partner?”
“I will put you through to his office.”
I waited, rehearsing my lines, hoping this would work.
“Mr. Kenney’s office, can I help you?”
“Yes, my name is Jack McEvoy. I’m working with William Schifino and Associates and I’m in the process of setting up a website and data storage system for the firm. I’ve been talking to Western Data down in Arizona about their services and they mentioned Allmand, Bradshaw and Ward as one of their clients here in Vegas. I was wondering if I could talk to Mr. Kenney about how it has been working with Western Data.”
“Mr. Kenney is not in today.”
“Hmmm. Do you know if there’s anybody else I could talk to there? We were thinking about pulling the trigger on this today.”
“Mr. Kenney is in charge of our firm’s web presence and data colocation. You would need to speak to him.”
“Then you do use Western Data for colocation? I wasn’t sure if it was just for the website or not.”
“Yes, we do, but you will have to speak to Mr. Kenney about it.”
“Thank you. I will call back in the morning.”
I closed the phone. I had what I needed from Allmand, Bradshaw and Ward. I next called Daly ?amp; Mills back and went through the same ruse, getting the same backhand confirmation from an assistant to the managing partner.
I felt that I had nailed the connection. Both of the law firms that had represented the Unsub’s two victims stored their case files at Western Data Consultants in Mesa. That had to be the place where Denise Babbit and Sharon Oglevy crossed paths. That was where the Unsub had found and chosen them.
I shoved all the files back into my backpack and started the car.
On the way to the airport I called Southwest Airlines and bought a round-trip ticket that left LAX at one o’clock and would get me into Phoenix an hour later. I next booked a rental car and was contemplating the call I would need to make to my ace, when my phone started buzzing.
The screen said private caller and I knew it was Rachel finally calling me back.
“Hello?”
“Jack, it’s me.”
“Rachel, it’s about time. Where are you?”
“At the airport. I’m coming back.”
“Switch your flight. Meet me in Phoenix.”
“What?”
“I found the connection. It’s Western Data. I’m going there now.”
“Jack, what are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Will you come?”
There was a long delay.
“Rachel, will you come?”
“Yes, Jack, I’ll come.”
“Good. I have a car booked. Make the switch and then call me back with your arrival time. I’ll pick you up at Sky Harbor.”
“Okay.”
“How did the OPR hearing go? It seemed like it went really long.”
Again, a hesitation. I heard an airport announcement in the background.
“Rachel?”
“I quit, Jack. I’m not an agent anymore.”
When Rachel came through the terminal exit at Sky Harbor International, she was pulling a roller bag with one hand and carrying a laptop briefcase with the other. I was standing with all the limo drivers holding signs with their arriving passengers’ names on them and I saw Rachel before she saw me. She was looking back and forth for me but not paying attention to what or who was directly in front of her.
I stepped into her path and she almost walked into me. Then she stopped and relaxed her arms a little bit without letting go of her bags. It was an obvious invitation. I stepped up and pulled her into a tight hug. I didn’t kiss her, I just held her. She bowed her head into the crook of my neck and we said nothing for possibly as long as a minute.
“Hi,” I finally said.
“Hi,” she said back.
“Long day, huh?”
“The longest.”
“You okay?”
“I will be.”
I reached down and took the handle of the roller bag out of her grasp. Then I turned her toward the exit to the parking garage.
“This way. I already got the car and the hotel.”
“Great.”
We walked silently and I kept my arm around her. Rachel had not told me a lot on the phone, only that she had been forced to quit to avoid prosecution for misuse of government funds-the FBI jet she had taken to Nellis in order to save me. I wasn’t going to push her for more information but eventually I wanted to know the details. And the names. The bottom line was that she had lost her job coming to save me. The only way I was going to be able to live with that was if I somehow tried to set it straight. The only way I knew how to do that was to write about it.