Chapter 5: Dark Angel

IT MUST HAVE BEEN AT LEAST 7:00 when I got out of bed this morning. By the time I’d put myself together, I could see Riley on the front walk talking to Mrs. Prior. Maizie was dancing around them, ready to go to the spa to have her nails done and get a shampoo. Mrs. Prior says that Maizie loves to get pretty at the spa.

She’s supposed to be my guard dog, damn it! Pink ribbons ruin the whole effect.

I went downstairs before Riley could push the doorbell and got in her car for the ride to the office. Riley often swaps days when she has class or an advisor meeting with Lars. I really wouldn’t mind if she just took the time off, but she’s got a work ethic that is uncompromising (unless there is a video game that just has to be tried at the office). I told her from the beginning that I’d pay her while she was in school or working on her thesis. But today I was thankful that she was making up the time.

“It’s approved,” she yelled, dancing in her seat. “Lars says it is a good thesis and the evidence is well and carefully planned out. It’s a good thing, too, since I’ve got over half of it written. Another month and I’ll be able to finish this. In January it should be all edited and ready to submit to committee.”

“I’m really proud of you, Riley,” I said. “You’ve worked hard for this and you deserve to get your degree.” I paused for a moment before I plunged ahead. “How would you like to be my girlfriend?” I thought she was going to drive off the road.

“Dag!” she exclaimed in shock. “Are you serious? What about all that quid pro quo stuff you keep spouting at me?”

“I think we can suspend that in the interest of our investigation. I got a lead last night that might take us to a shortcut in finding Simon. I just don’t want to go in without backup, and the only way I can get you in is as my girlfriend.”

“You had me for a minute. I should just have said ‘Yes.’ I’ve had enough of academia and research the past two days. What’s next?” she asked.

“Well…” I hesitated. I’d never sent Riley out on this particular type of assignment before. I’d asked her to keep an eye on someone and given her a couple of interviews to do, but this was going to require a lot more of her than she’d done before.

“You’re not sending me to the library again, are you, Dag?” she moaned to me. I laughed. Okay, she wants field work.

“No, Sweetcheeks. No library for you today,” I laughed. “I want you to go to a party with me tonight—a very exclusive party. We are going in the company of another attractive young woman who gets tips for flirting with corporate executives. We need information about how the place works and who she works for.”

“I’m always up for a party. What’s the scoop?”

I told her in detail what I’d learned last night, without including any reference to the kiss. I filled her in on the whole scenario and the identity that I’d used, the cover story, and what I wanted her to interview Cinnamon about.

“Let me get this straight,” she said at last. “You want me to meet this escort, pretend to be your West Coast girlfriend… Wait, do I know you are married to a woman on the East Coast? Okay, so it’s an amicable arrangement. I’m used to sharing you around. So I pretend to be interested in the party scene for my own purposes so I’ll have something to do while you are out East. Do I have a job or am I simply a kept woman? I find out how she got into this, who invites her, who owns the place, and what she knows about the Missing Man.” Riley paused.

“Yes, but there is one other thing that I want you to be sure of,” I said. “Don’t make any arrangements for a threesome.”

Riley turned in her seat as she pulled up in front of the office and stared at me. Then she shocked me.

“Believe me, Sweetcheeks,” she threw back at me, “if I thought there was any chance, I wouldn’t be sharing.”

“So, while you are occupying Cinnamon, I’m going to try to interview Angel and maybe ask questions of some of the other partiers.”

“Well, this will be fun,” she said. “But just one other thing…” I paused half out of the car and turned back to her. “Was she good?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No personal sniffing, Riley,” I said with a wink.

She parked and came into the office a few minutes later. By the time she got in, I had the laptop out of the vault and sitting on my desk. We were going to launch a two-pronged attack on the computer this morning, but first I had to call Cinnamon. I reached for the phone only to have Riley push my hand down on the receiver.

“Not yet,” she said.

“I told her I’d call this morning, Riley,” I replied trying to get the phone out from under her grip.

“You are so obviously not a party girl,” Riley went on. I sat back. “When a party girl says tomorrow morning, she means sometime after noon—preferably not too soon after.”

“This from a party girl?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not me, but I’ve got friends. Weekends you don’t call them before noon. You don’t know if she’s even gotten to bed yet. Or at least to sleep.”

I couldn’t argue with that and let her sway my enthusiasm for setting things up right away. Instead we turned to the computer.

“How come you’ve got the laptop out?” Riley asked.

“I need you to do some work on it,” I answered. She was definitely surprised. “I want you to do a data recovery routine on it. It struck me, as I was looking at the files, that there were things missing. I think Simon, or someone who knew I was going to look at his computer, took a day to delete information she thought might be too personal.”

“The bee-atch!” Riley exclaimed. “Do you really think she would do that?”

“In a word, yes,” I answered. Riley took the laptop gingerly and went to her desk in the outer office. I knew she would be careful, and that the rewards would be high.

I spent until 2:00, digging into more of Simon’s financial statements. It had occurred to me to check the disk for fuzzed files. File fuzzing is one of the easiest ways to conceal information on your hard drive. Frankly, I use it myself. I figure that if my computer was in the hands of someone with my talents, my secrets wouldn’t be safe for long regardless of what I did. But my worry isn’t about people with my talents. It’s people I work for who would be likely to think that they could walk off with my computer and have all the information on my clients that they want. For them, file fuzzing is as effective as any means of protecting unencrypted data other than not keeping it on your computer in the first place.

It’s a pretty simple technique—just a matter of changing the file extension. The most common would be to rename a word processing file—say it’s a .doc file—to an image file like .jpg. If you try to open the file, you get a message back that says it is not a valid .jpg file. It looks like it’s been damaged.

Most applications leave a code in the file’s header that identifies the file type. So I have a program that examines every file on the computer to see if the file type in the hash matches the extension. If they don’t match, I’ve got a fuzzed file. I also know what to open it with. The process of examining every file, however, is a lengthy one. I set it up to run while I was gone and figured I’d pick it up on Sunday. While I was at it, I set up a file content search for “Angel.” If she was Simon’s mistress, chances are there were e-mail messages, account records, checks, or some odd bit that listed her name.

We called Cinnamon just before we closed up shop at 2:00 and a very sleepy voice answered the phone. She was instantly awake, however, and was happy we would pick her up for the party at 8:00. She gave us an address on Capitol Hill. I asked what Riley should wear and Cinnamon said sexy party clothes. Riley motioned that she knew what to wear and I rang off.

Riley dropped me off at the Swedish American Center in Ballard and then went home to get ready for our date. She was getting into character like an actor ready to go on stage. She leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek when she pulled to the curb in front of the Center and said sweetly, “Bye, Honey. See you later.” Off she drove leaving me on the curb wondering what I’d gotten myself into.

Even though they never allowed me to speak Swedish or to hear them speak it, my mother and father were very firm about keeping in touch with other Swedes. I started coming to the Swedish American Center in the fifties. Barring a few years when I was in my twenties and “knew better,” I’ve been coming back for special occasions ever since. In the past couple of years I’ve found that I’m coming back more and more frequently. These are the people who make me feel like family.

Saturday afternoons I play cribbage with all comers and drink water since I can’t take any more of the black Swedish coffee. There is always a Saturday evening dinner social where everybody brings what they can to share. My stop at the deli for knäckerbröd and herring each week is winked at and deemed an acceptable contribution. Surprisingly, it seems to always be eaten.

Today I was filling time before I could get on with the evening’s investigation. Even though I was going to the party on official business, I couldn’t help but feel squeamish about people possibly finding out that I was “going out” with my assistant. All these kind mother substitutes that I surround myself with on Saturday afternoons would be shocked. Finally, at 7:30, I walked out of the Center and Riley’s car pulled up in front. She waited for me in the car and I worried she was having second thoughts.

When I got in the car I was shocked with what I saw.

It was only her car that convinced me that it was Riley sitting in the seat next to me. She wore a straight black wig with bangs cut straight across her eyebrows. The plunging neckline on her silk blouse drew the eye downward to the skin-tight shiny black pants she was wearing. Over this was a waist-length jacket with three-quarter length sleeves. Her makeup accented her eyes and lips. She could easily have been one of the women I saw in the private room at the casino last night. I was staring, I confess.

“Don’t you think you took the get-up a little far? You don’t actually have to go to work there. I just wanted you to interview the hostess.”

“I need to look like I could go to work there. How else are we going to find out what is going on?” I handed her $200, much to her surprise.

“These girls expect to get tipped for their time,” I explained. “Don’t be afraid to be nice to them… within limits.” I tried not to watch as the money disappeared into her outfit. I swear I don’t know how women do that. There was no room there for a pocket.

Cinnamon greeted us warmly and after taking one good assessing look at Riley, hugged her and gushed, “Debbie! I’m so glad you came! This is going to be so much fun!”

Before I slipped into the back seat behind Riley she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You told her my name was Debbie?”

“Well, you look like a Debbie tonight,” I laughed. There was definitely vengeance in her eyes when she responded.

“I hope you like the threesome then.” I nearly swallowed my tongue as she closed the door behind me.

We parked a block away from a Seattle high-rise and walked parallel to the hill. In Seattle a Waterfront high-rise is all of twelve stories. The elevator took us to the entryway of the penthouse where it opened up to a burly security guard who blocked our paths.

“This party is by invitation only,” the guard said folding his arms across his chest.

“Back off, Davy,” Cinnamon said pushing him gently aside. “They are my date tonight—approved by Mr. Jonathan.”

“All right,” Davy said. “But I’ll need your electronics, please,” he said, holding out an envelope for us to drop our cell phones into. After signing a receipt and getting a claim ticket, we were allowed to pass through a metal detector and into the main part of the condo.

Inside, the mood was relaxed and we were greeted by a hostess to whom Cinnamon introduced us. I started to give her my name and she put a finger to my lips and said “First names only in here, Jeremy. Cinnamon will show you around.” Cinnamon ushered us first to the bar. Riley and I both ordered a tonic and lime, and Cinnamon had a glass of white wine. I was digging in my pocket for some cash, but Cinnamon pushed my hand down and said, “Just leave a nice tip before you go, Jeremy. Okay?”