Chapter 20: Elegant Lines of Code

The hall was empty when I poked my head out the door. I’m sure I could have talked my way out of confinement if I needed to, but there was something about walking around with my butt hanging out of a hospital gown that affected my confidence. I wasn’t connected to any beeping machinery or medicine bags so at least I could walk quietly to the stairway and make my way to the lobby. No one uses the stairs in a hospital at night when the elevators are no longer in high demand.

I looked out the lobby door and saw the reception desk almost out of sight of the elevators. Unfortunately, the mailbox was directly across from me. I clutched the dozen credit card envelopes in my latex gloved hand. One thing about hospital rooms—there’s never a shortage of latex gloves. I straightened my back and walked straight across the lobby to the mail slot and I dropped the envelopes in. I turned on my heel and went back to the stairwell and inside. A young couple slept in the lobby leaning against each other. The guy opened an eye, but he shook his head and went back to sleep. I didn’t think the night watchman had noticed.

Before I slipped back into my room, I dropped the gloves in a hazardous waste bin. When I was safely tucked back in bed, I buzzed the night nurse. She arrived a few minutes later.

“I was just wondering if I could have something for my headache,” I asked politely. She looked at my chart, took my pulse and nodded.

“I’ll be right back.” True to her word, she was back with two pills and a glass of water in just a few minutes. It was ten-forty-five when I rolled over and coaxed myself back to sleep.

I was down to four suspects. The only EFC employees who had come to my room were Jen, Darlene, Phil, and Arnie. That bastard.

There was a bit of a scuffle and a quick “Hush. This is a hospital. You have no right to interfere with a patient’s rest.”

“Ma’am, unless you can tell me the patient is at risk, we have a warrant and service is timely.”

“Just don’t wake anyone else,” I heard her concede as the light in my room came on. I rolled over and squinted through my eyes. There were two uniformed officers in the room and just behind them I could see Arnie.

“What’s up officer?” I asked groggily. “I gave a couple of statements this afternoon when they thought I pushed the girl. Is there something new you want?”

“This doesn’t have to do with that matter,” the first officer said. “I’m Officer Rick Newton and I have a warrant to search your personal effects for stolen property.”

“Stolen property? I don’t have much here. They cut my clothes off of me this afternoon and I’m not sure where they went. They brought me a bag with my personal items in it. It’s in the drawer. My backpack is here. I don’t have much else.”

“I warned you, Dag,” Arnie said, stepping around the officers. “I warned you that you would be watched. But you had to prove how clever you could be.”

“Excuse us, sir,” the second officer said looking at the plastic bag that contained my wallet, handkerchief, pen knife, change, cell phone, and car keys. Both policemen wore gloves as they pawed through my possessions. “You’ll need to stand back.” Thing One had pulled the few items that I carry in my backpack out. Laptop, power cord, tablet, writable disks, and a few assorted cables. Thing Two had moved to the closet and was rifling through my shredded suit. Man, the pain pill that nurse gave me was having some interesting side effects.

“We’ll have to search your person as well,” officer Newton said after shoving my laptop back in the backpack. I pulled off the covers and slid out of bed to stand on the floor. He patted me down while the other officer ran his hands through the bedclothes, under the mattress, and into the pillow.

“This gown doesn’t even conceal me, officer,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t hide much of anything else in it. Do you mind telling me what you are looking for?”

“Can you tell us your whereabouts last night at one o’clock a.m.?” Newton asked.

“Ellensburg, Washington,” I answered. Arnie’s eyes popped open in surprise.

“Do you have proof of that?”

“In my wallet, you’ll find several credit card receipts.” I answered. “I’m pretty sure I saw a security camera at the truck stop I was at. My attorneys will subpoena it.”

“What were you doing in Ellensburg?”

“A lot of things were happening in my life on Wednesday. Detective Jordan Grant in cybercrimes can fill in any details you’d like. I decided I needed to go for a drive to clear my head. I got carried away. When I finally got to Ellensburg, I just sat in a truckstop and did Internet searches until five. Then I made a couple of phone calls and drove back to town. I’d just come down to go to the office at eleven this morning when I was caught in an accident. By the way, you know that your failure to read me my rights means you can’t use anything I’ve said in a court of law?”

“That’s not possible,” Arnie said. “We clearly have him on video surveillance entering the manufacturing facility at one o’ clock and leaving fifteen minutes later.”

“My ID card doesn’t open that door, Arnie. You made sure of that.”

“Building security showed me the footage,” Arnie hemmed. “They can’t just make that stuff up.”

“Sure you can. You asked me to find out who was dipping in the till. Now I know.” I said it with bravado, knowing that Arnie was on the line. With me unconscious, it was an ideal time to plant the evidence. He just shook his head.

“There are no envelopes in this room,” said Thing One. “The search is a failure.”

“I’d like your names and badge numbers, officers,” I said. I motioned to a pad of paper on my night stand. The officer nodded. Legally, he was obligated to leave me the information. Jordan was going to be pissed.

“Sorry, Dag,” Arnie said. “Things have been so tense in the office the past two weeks that I’m jumping at everything. Just get well and nail her.” He looked apologetic and defeated as he walked out the door with the two police officers. I didn’t believe him for a minute.

The day had been long and exhausting and I still hadn’t managed much sleep. After the cops left with Arnie, I called Lars. As much as my ass was on the line, EFC had hired Lars’s agency to work undercover. It wasn’t long after that when I got a call from Jordan. I predicted rightly. He’d gone after the patrol that was called on the credit card theft. There was no way uniforms should have made the investigation. Even if the theft had technically not been a cybercrime, in this day financial crimes were so closely related that they all sat in the same department. He was on the warpath.

I hadn’t really slept long when the doctor came in and summarily released me. That created a problem because I had no clothes that I could put on, but a nurse came in and told me Jared had dropped off a sack of clothes on his way to work at five. I was more than thankful just to be back in my jeans and t-shirt. I packed up my meager belongings and caught a cab outside the hospital.

I was still in the cab when my phone rang and Andi asked if she could come and pick me up. I laughed.

“That’s a great idea,” I said. “Why don’t you come out to the curb and open the taxi door for me?”

The cab pulled up two minutes later and Andi was in my arms.

“I’m going to call in sick and cancel my classes today so I can take care of you,” she said helping me up the steps to her house. Cali came rushing out the door and grabbed me from the other side.

“Oh my god, that was you! Mom told me all about the accident.” Somehow the two sentences didn’t connect in my mind. I shook it off as being a result of my fuzzy-headedness.

“Wait, wait,” I said as we entered the house.

“I can’t stay here and cause you to miss work. And you have to go to school. I’m not going to do anything all day long today but sleep, so there isn’t a thing either of you can do.”

“But Dag...”

“No. Just seeing you both here this morning is more than any guy could hope for, but the doctor gave me some great pills. I’m going up to my room and take one, then sleep until faculty lounge this evening.”