Murder in the Dorm by C.G. Prado Read Free Book Online Page B

been a great help. I definitely will keep you informed and we’ll have lunch again soon.”
    With that Baynes and Charlie left their table and started on their way out of the Club. By then Jones was gone from the Club table, as were most of the others who’d been lunching there, so Charlie couldn’t thank him. He’d see him later. Charlie accompanied Baynes to his car, thanked him again, and returned to his office.
    It seemed things were coming together, but it was still all speculation. DeVries had to find that external drive or one or more of the computers, preferably both. With that thought Charlie wondered if inviting Kim Berger to lunch might not loosen her tongue a bit. He didn’t know how much DeVries would tell him, and it would be very useful to learn what sort of level McDermott’s day trading reached on average.
    That evening Charlie told Kate what he’d learned that day. She then asked the key question.
    “What sort of money do you think was involved? If McDermott was moving a lot of bucks around, it shouldn’t be hard for DeVries to gauge the scale of his activity. It’s another matter, though, whether she’ll tell you.”
    “I know. I was thinking of inviting Berger for lunch and seeing if I could worm anything out of her about McDermott’s trading.”
    “Waste of time, Charlie. She’s not about to risk her job to whisper secrets in your shell-like ear, not for a Club lunch.”

Chapter 9
    The Second Friday

    Charlie was just pouring his breakfast coffee when the phone rang. It was DeVries.
    “Charlie. Hope it’s not too early for you, but I felt I had to tell you: we found McDermott’s external drive. It’s impressive what he did; he’d actually removed the lintel of his bedroom door. You know, the top part that goes across, and had the drive hidden in it. Our guy was getting desperate but then thought the lintel looked just a tad off. It wasn’t perfectly level because McDermott had put in a catch so he could remove it by pulling down on it and snap it back in place. It was cleverly done. I think our guy got lucky.”
    “That’s great. Do you know what’s on it?”
    “That’s where it gets hairy. It’s encrypted and, I’m told, very professionally. We have a couple of techies on it, but it’ll probably take some time. They think it might even have to be sent off somewhere. I’m hoping they’ll crack it. Anyway, I know I shouldn’t be blabbing so much, but really wanted to tell you.”
    After DeVries rang off Charlie started thinking hard about what he knew and surmised. What was likely was that the scam involved hacking into a brokerage or more than one and messing with trades and accounts. That would take the sort of expertise McDermott and Kelsey had. The more he thought about it, the more confident Charlie became that he was on the right track. It wouldn’t hurt to shore things up, though, so he called Mason Blake.
    “I’ll buy you lunch if I can pick what’s left of your brain. Club at noon?”
    “Only if this is aside from my other sundaes.”
    “It is.”
    “Noon.”
    With that out of the way, Charlie spent the rest of the morning making good progress on his paper. The only interruption came a bit after eleven, when a student from the epistemology class needed some help with Foucault’s somewhat slippery multi-faceted view of truth. Charlie and the student had a good talk and wrapped up just before noon. Charlie walked to the Club and found Blake waiting for him at a table for two.
    “Okay, what’s this about?”
    Charlie explained his thinking about the sort of scam Kelsey and McDermott probably had going.
    “Hmmm. I think you’re right. If it were something involving people producing money, like a Ponzi scheme, computer use would be fairly basic. Mainly to advertise and keep records. I think a hotshot like McDermott would find that boring, regardless of the money. No, you’ve got it right. It had to do with hacking. The big question, though, is what they