Page 96 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Overtime

“What time did you leave?”
“A little after six o’clock.” Labelle could verify that after-hours
egress in the system records. She could also ascertain whether or not
Maisy made a practice of staying that late. Those clock-out time
stamps could be crucial to the inquiry: was Kates really alone in the
building? It occurred to me that the data could be manipulated, if not
forged. What if an employee entered Friday during normal hours and
remained inside the entire weekend, hidden until Monday and the
return of unrecorded movement? If it were a man, he would have to
bring a razor and a clean shirt, at least, to appear fresh after a
weekend inside the sealed building. That might be noticeable; a
woman could more easily conceal the materials for a changed
appearance in a large handbag. I glanced at the back of the door,
where most women hang their coats and bags: nothing but a designer
gym bag. Had the detective noticed it? A silly question, no doubt.
“Where were you after that?”
“At a meeting. Personal business.” Maisy gave me a furious look.
She could have asked me to leave her office during the interview, but
obviously had been too flustered to remember her rights. They were
coming back to her now. “If necessary, I will provide the name and
address of the organization to the police, and you can verify my
presence there. I went home, ate dinner and went to sleep about
eleven o’clock.”
Could Maisy know that Labelle had as easy access to her personnel
records as Maisy probably had gained to Kates’s? That her attendance
at the twelve-step program for addictive personalities was already
known to the detective? Breaching the confidentiality of information
in the digital era subjected you to the same laws applying to earlier
white-collar crime: it’s okay if you don’t get caught. Labelle would do
well not to raise the manager’s hackles any further; and indeed she
did leave it there, evidently content to put Maisy off balance.
“Thank you. Do you know if the air conditioning is kept operating
at night?”
Maisy narrowed her eyes, as if in concentration. “I have no idea.
Check with the building maintenance people.”
“Isn’t the ventilation controlled by the same computer system
being remediated for year 2000 by Pesado and Lejeune?”

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