The Broken Window (Lincoln Rhyme 8)

"Noise," Sachs said. She explained what Sterling had told her about data's being useless if it's corrupt, too sparse or too plentiful. The tech scrolled through the swamp of information--which clients had bought which lists of data-mined details. . . . Too much information. But then Rhyme had a thought. "Does it show the time and date of when the data was downloaded?"

Szarnek examined the screen. "Yes, it does."

"Let's find out who downloaded information just before the crimes."

"Good, Linc," Sellitto said. "Five Twenty-Two'd want the most up-to-date data possible."

Szarnek considered this. "I think I can hack together a bot to handle it. Might take some time but, yeah, it's doable. Just let me know exactly when the crimes occurred."

"We can get you those. Mel?"

"Sure." The tech began to compile the details of the coin theft, the painting theft and two rapes.

"Hey, you're using that program Excel?" Pulaski asked Szarnek.

"That's right."

"What is it, exactly?"

"Your basic spreadsheet. Mostly used for sales figures and financial statements. But now people use it for a lot of things."

"Could I learn it?"

"Sure. You can take a course. Say, the New School or Learning Annex."

"Should have boned up on it before now. I'll check them out, those schools."

Rhyme believed he now understood Pulaski's reticence to go back to SSD. He said, "Put that low on your list, rookie."

"What's that, sir?"

"Remember, people hassle you in all sorts of different ways. Don't assume they're right and you're wrong just because they know something you don't. The question is: Do you need to know it to do a better job? Then learn it. If not, it's a distraction and to hell with it."

The young officer laughed. "Okay. Thanks."

Rodney Szarnek took the CD and the portable hard drive and bundled up his computer to head down to the Computer Crimes Unit and its mainframe.

After he left, Rhyme glanced at Sachs, who was on the phone, tracking down information on the data scrounger killed in Colorado several years ago. He couldn't hear the words but she was clearly getting relevant information. Her head was forward, lips moist, and she tugged at a strand of hair. Her eyes were sleek and focused. The pose was extremely erotic.

Ridiculous, he thought. Concentrate on the goddamn case. He tried to push the sensation away.

He was only somewhat successful.

Sachs hung up the phone. "Got something from the Colorado State Police. That data scrounger's name was P. J. Gordon. Peter James. Goes mountain biking one day and never comes home. They found his bike at the bottom of a cliff, battered up. It was beside a deep river. The body shows up twenty miles downstream a month or so later. Positive DNA match."

"Investigation?"

"Not much of one. Kids're always killing themselves with bikes and skis and snowmobiles in that area. It was ruled accidental. But a few open questions remained. For one thing, it seemed that Gordon had tried to break into the SSD servers in California--not the database but the company's own files and some employees' personal ones. Nobody knows if he got inside or not. I tried to track down other people from the company, Rocky Mountain Data, to find out more. But nobody's around anymore. Looks like Sterling bought the company, took its database and let everybody go."

"Anybody we can call about him?"

"No family that the state police could find."

Rhyme was nodding slowly. "Okay, this is an interesting premise, if I can use your flavor-of-the-week participle, Mel. This Gordon's doing his own data mining in SSD's files and finds something about Five Twenty-Two, who realizes he's in trouble, about to be found out. Then he kills Gordon and makes it look like an accident. Sachs, the police in Colorado have any case files?"

She sighed. "Archived. They'll look for them."

"Well, I want to find out who at SSD was with the company back then, when Gordon died."