Chapter 12: How to Become a Private Investigator On Two Weeks’ Notice or Less

I WAS SO EXHAUSTED after my near-all-nighter and another late night on Friday that I spent most of Saturday in bed. I couldn’t leave it alone even then; my mind kept flitting back to how I got started in this business. Embezzlement, fraud, and computer files were the constant of my career.

It started on a Monday in September fifteen years ago. It happened to be the day after my forty-second birthday—unmarked and uncelebrated.

Don’t feel sorry. I just don’t do birthdays. I’d spent the weekend like any other weekend, hiking, socializing, and trying to get laid. A birthday could only be significant in that it helped me achieve one of the other three. This time it hadn’t been helpful.

Cynical.

Yes. I suppose so. I was grouchy as a spring bear when I got to my office at Anderson Elliott Consulting, and found the entire network in collapse.

Discovering why would change my life.

I’d managed the tech department since we had one, starting on a mini-computer which, by today’s standards, was a giant. An entire room was dedicated to the computer and three workstations. Over time, we became part of the desktop revolution, consolidating and then distributing the network so that everyone in the company had a computer on his or her desk.We were way ahead of our time in many ways.

On this particular Monday morning, my Sunday night tech was standing in a corner of the server room, sweating and shifting from foot to foot while a police officer stood barring the door and two dark-suited guys with gravy stains on their ties systematically dismantled our servers. Amy, our receptionist came rushing up behind me.

“I’m sorry, Dag,” she started. “There was nothing I could do. They just flashed badges and came in.”

Neal was nodding his head from his corner of the room. I addressed the uniform.

“You are standing in the door of my office,” I said. “Want to show me your warrant?”

One of the suits stopped what he was doing and the officer stepped aside. The suit flashed what looked like a valid search and seizure warrant and started to put it back in his pocket. I reached out and took it from him so I could read what was written there.

“We are seizing these computers as evidence in an embezzlement and fraud case,” the suit intoned. I looked quickly through the warrant and found nothing that authorized the dismantling of my network.

“There is nothing in here that says you are authorized to shut down this business,” I remarked. “If I can be of help to get you the actual data you need, I’d be happy to oblige. I’m the Director of Technical Services here.” Two or three others from the office had approached, though thankfully none of the officers seemed to be here yet.

“Dag, my computer won’t connect to the network,” one started in while walking up and then stopping short when he saw the activity.

“It will have to wait, Stanley,” I answered. I turned back to the suit. “You see, you unplug the cables and no one can do any work.”

“If we don’t unplug and take them, we can’t prevent data from being changed and erased,” he answered. He was definitely a little nervous. He obviously knew how to unplug cables, but I had a feeling that he didn’t really know much about computers.

“I see,” I said. “But taking the servers isn’t going to get you what you want.”

“How do you know what we want?” he asked.

“The search warrant says to search for paper or electronic files that evidence embezzlement or fraud on the part of senior executives,” I said. “I don’t know exactly what evidence you expect to find, but it’s more likely to be on someone’s desktop computer than on the servers.”

“All right smart guy, why don’t you just tell us where it is. You in on this? You concealing the evidence?”

“No,” I said. “I had no knowledge of any wrongdoing. But as a basic security provision, we run a full back-up of everything that is on the system and on each desktop computer every night. We maintain the backups for two months, then recycle all but the end of week ones. Now unless you were so careless as to alert the suspects of your intentions a long time ago, the evidence you are looking for will be on those tapes. Current through midnight Sunday. You ran the backups last night didn’t you Neal?” I asked my tech. He nodded vigorously. “So,” I said, “If you have the backup tapes, you have the evidence. It’s not on the servers and you can reconnect them so all the normal honest people here can go back to work.”

The suit went to confer with the officer and the other suit. He came back a short time later, but work had stopped on disconnecting the network. “I demand the backup tapes for this system and all desktop computers on the network,” he intoned. I smiled.

“According to this warrant,” I said, “as far as I can see you are entitled to it, without being so demanding. Neal, open the safe.” I’d had a fireproof cabinet that we referred to as ‘the safe’ installed a year earlier. I asked Amy to get us some packing boxes and she disappeared and was back in a flash. Neal started unloading the safe into the boxes and labeling them. In the meantime I sat at my desk and scratched out a receipt longhand since my computer was down.

“Why so cooperative?” the suit asked me.

“According to this warrant, you have reason to suspect one or more of our execs of embezzling funds. That means that he’s stealing from the company. All these people standing around you are shareholders in this company. The data on these tapes will either exonerate your suspect or nail his ass to a cross. If he’s been stealing my money, I vote for the latter. Now, before you take those boxes, I’ll need your signature here,” I said. I produced the receipt for him to sign. He started to sign and then read the short document and looked up at me.