Page 102 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case
P. 102

Overtime

          “Is Perry Farragut in?”
          I sucked in air between my teeth. The policewoman was climbing
        up the chain of command by leaps and bounds. Who was next? The
        chairman of the board of TimeWarper? He, at least, was in another
        state  of  the  union.  I  doubted  if  the  CIO  even  knew  he  had  an
        employee named Vincent D. Kates, much less miss him once notified
        of his demise. Perry would blame me for letting this upstart cop get
        to him without warning or in the presence of corporate legal.
          “Not yet. But he will be at the same meeting with P&L.”
          “Then we’ll wait,” said Labelle.
          Maud Lynn pointed to a reception area outside the executive suite,
        a relatively posh sofa and low table with a fancy lamp in the middle
        and  a  panoply  of  TimeWarper’s  products  casually  spread  about.  I
        surreptitiously checked the time: a quarter to eleven. We sat down,
        Labelle facing Ms. Storry’s desk. I supposed we were not quite out of
        the secretary’s range of hearing, but I was nervous enough to break
        the silence first.
          “Lieutenant,  I’m  not  sure  my  authority  extends  to  giving  you
        access to management at this level. Perhaps we should talk with the
        people I report to first.”
          Labelle  gave  no  sign  of  hearing  me.  She  had  opened  her  tiny
        computer on the table and was clicking away at a pace I could not
        have matched, even in my old touch-typing class in high school. I let
        it pass. Better to spend these moments making up a good story for
        whichever  VP  came  through  here  first.  Had  anyone  even  notified
        them of Kates’s death? If so, wouldn’t they be here early today? What
        if  I  were  the  bearer  of  these  evil  tidings?  Not  good  for  my  career
        track; not good, at all. My reverie was interrupted by Labelle.
          “Okay.  I’ve  cracked  it.  Look  at  this,  Mr.  Taper.  This  word-
        processing file I copied from Kates’s computer folders occupies way
        too  much  storage  for  its  format  and  page  count.  It  has  no  prior
        versions stored behind it, which could have accounted for the size.
        So it has to be something else. The word count also seems too high,
        if you  estimate it based on an average  number of words per page.
        That is the clue. The document appears to be ordinary double-spaced
        text, a rather dry description of the Y2K applications he was working
        on.  Now  watch:  I  will  make  a  very  simple  change  to  the  display


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