The 6:20 Man

CHAPTER

30

AS DEVINE WAS LEAVING THAT evening a man in a dark suit and a blood-red tie and sporting a self-important demeanor approached him in the lobby of the building.

“Mr. Devine. I’m Willard Paulson, special assistant to Mr. Cowl.”

“Okay.” Devine recognized the man as being part of Cowl’s official harem. He was thin, narrow-shouldered, and in his late thirties, already balding, and as bland and innocuous as Cowl was showy and pretentious.

“Mr. Cowl would like to meet with you.”

“Okay, but I’m surprised you’re conveying the message. There’s a chain of command here that rivals what we had in the Army.”

“Normally this would go through your immediate supervisor, but Mr. Cowl preferred to go outside the normal channels.”

“And why is that?”

Paulson bristled at this response, obviously not expecting any reply other than Yes sir, thank you, sir, for this gift from Heaven to meet with Emperor Cowl. “He didn’t say.”

“Where and when?”

“At ten this evening. Here’s the address.” He handed him a slip of paper.

Devine took it but didn’t look at it. “Is this really necessary?”

“You must be joking. It’s Mr. Cowl. Do you like working here?”

“Best job I’ve ever had,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster, which, granted, wasn’t much.

He headed to the subway, unfolding the piece of paper and reading off the address.

Well, this could be instructive. Or maybe disastrous.

Devine took the train to Mount Kisco and walked quickly home, sucking in the heat and humidity. His mind was going a million miles an hour and still getting him nowhere fast.

Valentine, with his gamer headphones on, was lying on the couch working on his laptop, as always. A beer was on the floor next to him. He looked up as Devine came in, his expression anxious. He had apparently been awaiting Devine’s return.

“So?” said Valentine in a prompting manner as he took off his headphones.

“I talked to the security guard and the guy who found the body. That room was unguarded for maybe a max of ten minutes. But there was no one on the floor because there was a seminar for people like me at an off-site location. And the support staff weren’t in yet.”

“So how did whoever send message get all that info?”

“I don’t know. The killer would have known some of those details when he murdered her. But the person could not have known that Sara had been found hanging in that room by a custodian unless they were around at the time, and either saw it for themselves, which is doubtful, or someone told them shortly thereafter. And that just isn’t likely. And I don’t think anyone else got the message that I got, or if they did, they’re not saying anything.”

“So during those ten minutes maybe person sending email saw the body and stuff?”

“And saw the custodian finding the body. But that’s not certain and I’m still working on it. By the way, I used the info you gave me to access the security logging database, and I’ve got a question.”

Valentine closed his laptop and looked up. “Shoot, dude.”

Devine explained to Valentine about the security logging system at Cowl using the RFID cards. “Can that be manipulated to show that someone was there who really wasn’t there?”

Valentine nodded before Devine was finished. “Sure. Clone card. Then, it like electronic twin walking in place. Easy-peasy. Do it in seconds, depending on what protection they have on card. Let me see yours.”

Devine handed over his security card. Valentine pulled a device out of his backpack on the floor and held it up to the card. “This is one twenty-five. Is bullshit. I have app on phone. I can clone card right now by writing what’s on your card onto clean one I get from Amazon. Is big bullshit just like encryption on your ‘security’ database.”

“ ‘One twenty-five’?”