engineer always dresses for the con. I have friends who’ve sewed together complete Pac Bell linemen uniforms.”
“That’s good,” Tony Mott said to Bishop, adding more data to his continuing education file.
Anderson nodded his approval of this suggestion. Shelton called homicide headquarters in San Jose and arranged to have some troopers check the adhesive against samples of theatrical glue.
Frank Bishop took off his wrinkled suit jacket and hung it carefully on the back of a chair. He stared at the photo and the white-board, arms crossed. His shirt was already billowing out again. He wore boots with pointed toes. When Gillette was a college student he and some friends at Berkeley had rented a skin flick for a party—a stag film from the fifties or sixties. One of the actors had looked and dressed just like Bishop.
Lifting the crime scene file away from Shelton, Bishop flipped through it. Then he looked up. “The bartender said that the victim had a martini and the killer had a light beer. The killer paid. If we can get ahold of the check we might lift a fingerprint.”
“How’re you going to do that?” It was bulky Stephen Miller who asked this. “The bartender probably pitched them out last night—with a thousand others.”
Bishop nodded at Gillette. “We’ll have some troopers do what he mentioned—Dumpster diving.” To Shelton he said, “Have them look through the bar’s trash bins for a receipt for a martini and a light beer, time-stamped about seven-thirty P.M. ”
“That’ll take forever,” Miller said. But Bishop ignored him and nodded to Shelton, who made the call to follow up on his suggestion.
Gillette then realized that nobody had been standing close to him. He eyed everyone else’s clean clothes, shampooed hair, grime-free fingernails. He asked Anderson, “If we’ve got a few minutes before that computer’s ready . . . I don’t suppose you have a shower ’round here?”
Anderson tugged at the lobe that bore the stigmata of a past-lifeearring and broke into a laugh. “I was wondering how to bring that up.” He said to Mott, “Take him down to the employee locker room. But stay close.”
The young cop nodded and led Gillette down the hallway. He chattered away nonstop—his first topic, the advantages of the Linux operating system, a variation on the classic Unix, which many people were starting to use in place of Windows. He spoke enthusiastically and was well informed.
He then told Gillette about the recent formation of the Computer Crimes Unit. They’d been in existence for less than a year. The Geek Squad, Mott explained, could easily have used another half-dozen full-time cops but they weren’t in the budget. There were more cases than they could possibly handle—from hacking to cyberstalking to child pornography to copyright infringement of software—and the workload seemed to get heavier with every passing month.
“Why’d you get into it?” Gillette asked him. “CCU?”
“Hoping for a little excitement. I mean, I love machines and guess I have a mind for ’em, but sifting through code to find a copyright violation’s not quite what I’d hoped. I thought it’d be a little more rig and rage, you know.”
“How ’bout Linda Sanchez?” Gillette asked. “She a geek?”
“Not really. She’s smart but machines aren’t in her blood. She was a gang girl down in Lettuce Land, you know, Salinas. Then she went into social work and decided to go to the academy. Her partner was shot up pretty bad in Monterey a few years ago. Linda has kids—the daughter who’s expecting and a girl in high school—and her husband’s never home. He’s an INS agent. So she figured it was time to move to a little quieter side of the business.”
“Just the opposite of you.”
Mott laughed. “I guess so.”
As Gillette toweled off after the shower and shave Mott placed an extra set of his own workout clothes on the bench for the hacker. T-shirt, black sweatpants and
“That’s good,” Tony Mott said to Bishop, adding more data to his continuing education file.
Anderson nodded his approval of this suggestion. Shelton called homicide headquarters in San Jose and arranged to have some troopers check the adhesive against samples of theatrical glue.
Frank Bishop took off his wrinkled suit jacket and hung it carefully on the back of a chair. He stared at the photo and the white-board, arms crossed. His shirt was already billowing out again. He wore boots with pointed toes. When Gillette was a college student he and some friends at Berkeley had rented a skin flick for a party—a stag film from the fifties or sixties. One of the actors had looked and dressed just like Bishop.
Lifting the crime scene file away from Shelton, Bishop flipped through it. Then he looked up. “The bartender said that the victim had a martini and the killer had a light beer. The killer paid. If we can get ahold of the check we might lift a fingerprint.”
“How’re you going to do that?” It was bulky Stephen Miller who asked this. “The bartender probably pitched them out last night—with a thousand others.”
Bishop nodded at Gillette. “We’ll have some troopers do what he mentioned—Dumpster diving.” To Shelton he said, “Have them look through the bar’s trash bins for a receipt for a martini and a light beer, time-stamped about seven-thirty P.M. ”
“That’ll take forever,” Miller said. But Bishop ignored him and nodded to Shelton, who made the call to follow up on his suggestion.
Gillette then realized that nobody had been standing close to him. He eyed everyone else’s clean clothes, shampooed hair, grime-free fingernails. He asked Anderson, “If we’ve got a few minutes before that computer’s ready . . . I don’t suppose you have a shower ’round here?”
Anderson tugged at the lobe that bore the stigmata of a past-lifeearring and broke into a laugh. “I was wondering how to bring that up.” He said to Mott, “Take him down to the employee locker room. But stay close.”
The young cop nodded and led Gillette down the hallway. He chattered away nonstop—his first topic, the advantages of the Linux operating system, a variation on the classic Unix, which many people were starting to use in place of Windows. He spoke enthusiastically and was well informed.
He then told Gillette about the recent formation of the Computer Crimes Unit. They’d been in existence for less than a year. The Geek Squad, Mott explained, could easily have used another half-dozen full-time cops but they weren’t in the budget. There were more cases than they could possibly handle—from hacking to cyberstalking to child pornography to copyright infringement of software—and the workload seemed to get heavier with every passing month.
“Why’d you get into it?” Gillette asked him. “CCU?”
“Hoping for a little excitement. I mean, I love machines and guess I have a mind for ’em, but sifting through code to find a copyright violation’s not quite what I’d hoped. I thought it’d be a little more rig and rage, you know.”
“How ’bout Linda Sanchez?” Gillette asked. “She a geek?”
“Not really. She’s smart but machines aren’t in her blood. She was a gang girl down in Lettuce Land, you know, Salinas. Then she went into social work and decided to go to the academy. Her partner was shot up pretty bad in Monterey a few years ago. Linda has kids—the daughter who’s expecting and a girl in high school—and her husband’s never home. He’s an INS agent. So she figured it was time to move to a little quieter side of the business.”
“Just the opposite of you.”
Mott laughed. “I guess so.”
As Gillette toweled off after the shower and shave Mott placed an extra set of his own workout clothes on the bench for the hacker. T-shirt, black sweatpants and
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