Chapter 11

La Gorce took Velma to Ted Beaman's office which was on the third floor. It was neither large nor opulent. It had a window, but it was shuttered to protect the multitude of computer screens in the room from glare. There were no personal photographs or memorabilia with the exception of a plaque holding several military decorations and an honorable discharge diploma.

Beaman's desk faced away from the door and was pushed up against the wall which was the functional office lay-out rather than the power-play mind-game layout of having the desk in the center of the room. Velma had not expected that and mentally revised her impression of the man. Shoved into the corner of the room was a small round table with two chairs. A laptop computer and piles of print-outs covered it.

Beaman turned, 'Yes? Oh, hello Randall, Ms. Dinkley. How can I help you?"

Velma stepped forward, "I need to spend some time in your security software."

"I'd prefer not."

Velma was not surprised. "It's imperative to resolving this case." She naturally used her most formal, technical language when in a confrontational situation.

Beaman looked at Randall, who nodded. He returned his gaze to Velma. "Fine. Are you okay with working on the computer on my meeting table?"

"Yes, that will be acceptable."

"It looks like you two have everything in hand." Randall La Gorce stepped to the door. "I'll leave you to it." And he was gone.

Velma watched him go and then focused on Beaman. "How many people have access to the software?"

He shrugged, "Everybody. Every time someone comes through a door with their access fob, they are entering their name into the system."

"I mean, how many people can actually manipulate information within the system?"

"Two."

"You and Jimmy Epstein?"

"That's correct. But Jimmy can't shut off an alarm. Only I can do that."

"What can Jimmy do in the system?"

"He has full access to the guard scheduling module. He can do anything in that module that I can. He needs it to coordinate the guards' schedules."

"Does he have any access to the Access Control or Intrusion Detection modules?"

"None."

"How are you notified of an alarm?"

"Our system is cloud-based, so any alarm shows up on my phone."

"How about schedule changes?"

"Same thing."

"How often does that happen?"

"Changes?"

She nodded.

"Pretty often. The guards have known each other for a while and they swap shifts pretty regularly or have to cover each other when someone has to come in late or leave early. There are changes every week."

"How much attention do you pay to changes?"

"Not much. Jimmy's been here for years. He's trusted."

"How about alarms?"

"I immediately log in if an alarm is registered. And I call in to whoever is on duty and have them talk me through it."

"And there have been no alarms during the period that the ghost has been showing up."

"There have been no unexplained alarms. Correct."

"Unexplained alarms? How about explained alarms?"

"Nearly every day one of the Society employees sets off an alarm in the morning before the system disarms or in the evening after the system arms. I'm notified and call the guard on duty. Usually, they have already let the person in, and I reset the alarm."

"How long does that take?"

"I'm an early riser and am awake when the alarm comes in, so the whole process from notification to reset is less than thirty seconds."

Velma looked up, "What are the arm and disarm times?"

"It automatically arms at 1900 and automatically disarms at 0700

"Okay. What about schedule changes? How many of those have there been during this period?"

"There's been an uptick. But it's summer and the weather's good. There's usually an increase in people swapping shifts around to arrange vacations and the like."

Velma wrote nothing down. She would type all of this information when she sat to work on the computer. Her memory allowed her to remember every word in order.

Beaman turned back toward his computer. "Let me set you up with a temporary username and password and then I'll turn you loose."

It took five minutes for Velma to be operational. Beaman stayed in the room (which was disconcerting) but she put it out of her mind and focused on the data. Data was her friend. First, she went through the superficial data. The stuff that scrolled past on the surface that Mr. Beaman or Jimmy Epstein would see on opening into the graphic user interface. Everything was here and in order.

She then took the next step and ran a subroutine that analyzed the metadata of all stored files looking for inconsistencies. She wrote it from scratch but had done this so many times before that it took less than sixty seconds. She let it go and, while it was running, moved into the intruder detection portions of the system. She brought it up and could see a map of each floor one at a time. She worked the filter to show magnetic switches for door and window alarms, and then motion sensors, and finally tamper switches. Something was missing. She looked again.

She switched over to the access control system and found the same question.

"Mr. Beaman?"

There was a slight edge in his voice as he replied, "Yes?"

"I can see the motion sensors you put into the utility chases but I don't see any alarms or controls on the hatches you had put into them."

"There are none. I have budget restrictions. The motion sensors will alarm if anyone tries to access the building through any of those chases. That meets the requirements of the mission."

"So, no one can crawl through the chase but they could get into it and, if they stay in the same place, trigger no alarm."

Beaman saw where this was going and, like any good government-trained bureaucrat, went into CYA mode. "The Society didn't include 'insider threat' prevention in my budget."

Velma now knew where to look and pulled up the alarms log. Each one had a brief written explanation of the alarm, including the employee that had triggered it.

"Mr. Beaman?"

The security manager's agitation was no longer hidden. "What is it, Ms. Dinkley?!"

"Who is Anne Fisher?"

This stopped him. "She's an air-headed executive secretary that keeps accidentally tripping alarms. She works on the third floor and has to work long hours because she works directly for the Society Board."

"How long has she worked here?"

"I don't know. A few years, I guess."

"And she only became air-headed recently?"

"How do you mean?"

"There were no false alarms registered to her until about four weeks ago. Now she seems to average a few per week."

He stood and walked around to her table to look at the computer screen. "Let me see that."

Velma stood herself and stepped out of the way to avoid close proximity as he bent toward the monitor.

He mumbled under his breath, "How did I miss that?"

Velma wasn't great at recognizing hypothetical questions, so she answered. "Probably a mixture of some complacency and the fact that you are trying to run the entire security system here and we are looking at just this one item."

He didn't seem to appreciate her analysis. "I'll call her in."

"Not yet please. While she is probably involved, she doesn't have the access to get around within the building to make the ghost appear and disappear. As you said, only your security guards have that. She is likely an accomplice but we have no evidence. If we bring her in now, we alert the actual ghost and have no proof of anything against her. All she has to do is keep her mouth shut and we have nothing. She's part of the 'how' but we need the 'who'."

Just then Velma's subroutine finished running and her screen showed one metadata anomaly. She read the description and then used the anomaly to run a search through the different door access files throughout the building. There was a pattern.

Velma had her 'who'. She needed to call Fred. It was trap time.