It was midafternoon. The company cafeteria was largely empty, apart from those with a habit of afternoon coffee or tea. In the farthest corner, a man and a computer sat across from each other. The laptop displayed the video of a woman with her arms folded, while the man was savoring his victory sandwich.
“Tell me,” Maria began, slightly tinny through the laptop’s speakers, “how did you know that Johnny was both the perpetrator and the victim?”
Zach took a sip of coffee before answering. “Perpetrator-wise, he was the only person who was able to do it. His tendency to not handle stressful situations well also provided cover for his information hoarding. He was very good at it. I didn’t even realize that it was happening until the next day when Sasha was finally able to send me the copies of the production documents.”
“Right, you mentioned something about a double John signature, was that it?”
“It was certainly a hint. After I got those documents to John and crossed-checked when he was out of email reach, etc., he was able to identify five documents with a forged signature.”
“And this was before you went back to this Bunker Ditch place, right?”
“Yep.”
“What about the victim part?”
“That I wasn’t sure about. People panic and hoard information for different reasons. He could have easily started ranting about the company stealing credit for I knew. What stood out, though was that if he was the perpetrator, he was being awfully thoughtful about it. He hid everything in plain sight instead of simply locking it away or destroying it. The information could be retrieved and things could still be fixed. He tried to frame someone he knew would be exonerated sooner rather than later. It was as though he didn’t want to destroy the company or the people around him. If anything, he was trying to protect them from as much fallout as possible without outing himself.”
“Still a gamble.” Maria tilted her head to the side. “But it’s always better to offer the benefit of the doubt than to get caught up in slander.”
“Exactly.”
Maria decided to switch topics. “That’s about as solved as it’s going to be for now. Let’s move on to the stuff I sent you. Were you able to look it over at all?”
“Briefly. I didn’t get back until an hour ago. Hence my very delayed lunch.” He held up the overloaded sandwich.
“Right. Any thoughts?”
“Probably a bit random, but why were the stairwell doors open the day that the building was closed?”
“That is a bit random.” She thought for a moment. “They were open. Maybe the system was just operating like usual. The doors are supposed to lock and unlock automatically, according to business hours.”
“Sounds like the next step is visiting the cybersecurity department.”
“They’re not done with their analysis.”
“When do you think will be finished.”
“The estimate was at least a week if not longer.”
“Huh. The stuff I asked for only took a day or two. What’s going on with this stuff.”
“If you can, I’d like you to find out.”
“I still have that trip to the Philippines scheduled to start next week.”
“Just do what you can. Now, is there anything else that stood out to you?”
“There is one thing. The fact that the intruder took such a roundabout path. Makes me wonder if the person knew the layout of the building and used that for the wonky route on purpose.”
“Especially the going up rather than going down part?”
“Yep.”
Maria rested her cheek on her chin. “Hm.”
“How’s Brandi?”
“As well as one would expect.”
“Would you like me to check on her?”
“Only if you have something work-related to talk to her about. I think routine would be good for her right now.”
“You’re working from home for the rest of the week. That’s hardly routine.”
“Whatever routine that can be maintained,” she corrected. “Is there anything that you would need to ask her about?”
“Well, you got me all of the notes already, but I don’t have much by way of Brandi’s personal thoughts on this. I could schedule a meeting with her to talk about it. Would that be routine enough?”
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“Yeah, do that.” Maria frowned.
“Bored?”
“I do not handle confinement well.”
“This is from the lady who had no problem going into an active submarine.”
She pointed down. “I don’t handle this type of confinement well. It feels too much like a prison sentence than a matter of safety.”
Zach shrugged. “It’s only until next week.”
At this point, he had finished his sandwich.
“I’m going to head back up, alright?”
“Alright, keep me posted.”
He signed off and went back upstairs, half tempted to retrace the path the intruder took. He had too many other things to get to, though. Documenting the events at Bunker Ditch took priority as the events were still fresh in his mind. Next, was preparing for his trip to the Philippines. The time length of the trip was up in the air. That required additional planning for contingencies. Then, there was Brandi. Zach had not really gotten to know her yet. I guess it’s about time that I did, he thought.
On Thursday of that week, Zach wandered into Safina’s. Brandi was already there and waiting. Zach ordered his lunch and sat down.
Brandi started the conversation. “I hear that you’re going to the Philippines next week.”
“Yes,” Zach confirmed while settling into his seat. “It’s my first time going.”
“Is it?” She smiled and sipped her coffee. “Are you at least meeting up with someone you know?”
“It will be my first time meeting Dr. Samuel.”
“Really? Wow, I don’t know if I could just up and go to another country like that without at least meeting up with someone I know.”
“You’re in the interdisciplinary department. That could very well happen.”
She scratched her head. “I’d be so nervous,” she admitted. “How would you not get lost? Or what if you wind up in a dangerous area and no one speaks English?”
“That can all happen here, too.”
“Well, some of those things, sure. But the lack of English speakers?”
Zach raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that you’ve never heard a language other than English here?”
Brandi face-palmed. “Right.” She cocked her head to one side. “Huh. I guess I just never thought about it that way. So, what do you do when something like that happens? Has it happened?”
“Sure.” Zach looked up, thinking. “Have you ever had any self-defense or survival training?”
Brandi’s eyes grew large. “No! Do I need that?”
“Probably not, but having it can make the problems you do encounter seem smaller.”
“I guess that makes sense. After all, even the office was set … on fire …”
There it was. “Can you give me your observations about that? You can use the full jargon if it helps.”
“Do you know all of the terms?”
“No, but I can look it up.”
Lunch arrived.
“The point is to get your take on things.”
“I’ve already talked to Maria and others, though. I’ve talked about it so much over the past few days. I just want to get back to the other stuff, ya know?”
“I get it, I really do. I got really sick of having to defend myself when I dealt with some document forgery a while back.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t pretty. It got to the point that I felt like my sanity was being questioned. And you know what? That’s what the forger was hoping for. That I’d lose credibility with myself and the client.”
Brandi sat back, thinking. “That’s the one thing that hasn’t happened.”
“What is?”
“My client trusts me. Even after everything, he still trusts me. And I don’t feel like I’m losing my sanity. It also doesn’t quite feel like my sanity is being questioned. It’s more like someone is trying to frame me for something and no one can figure out what this person is trying to frame me for.”
“Examples?”
She leaned forward. “Okay. So, arson is typically done to destroy evidence. That’s probably what the corrosive package was for. Except it didn’t ignite in my office, where there would be evidence, but in the mail room. That failed, so someone snuck into the building and made this big to-do about getting into the mail room, not my office. My office doesn’t appear to be touched.”
“Appear?”
“The video was tampered with. How the intruder got in or out is missing, but all of the stuff between was left untouched.”
“Are you sure that the in-between stuff wasn’t tampered?”
“That’s what the cybersecurity department is trying to figure out.”
“You said that your office was left untouched. Are you sure about that?”
She hemmed and hawed before answering. “Positive.”
“Really?”
“With all of the unstable substances that I deal with, my office got a separate lock so that no one could accidentally wander in.”
“What would it take to get in?”
“My badge and key. Together.”
“You have to use your badge to get into your office?”
“Yep.”
“Because of these samples in there?”
“Yep.”
“Why would you be nervous about traveling to another country? It sounds like being in your office would be riskier!”
Brandi laughed. “You get used to it. Anyway, dust has settled in places, so if someone were there, there’s a good chance I would have noticed.”
Zach blinked. “How long has this stuff been sitting in there?”
“Long enough.” She nonchalantly sipped her coffee.
He rolled his eyes. “Out of curiosity, are there any other cases that you’re handling right now?”
“Only one other. It’s this extension of what I was working on in grad school. The client is actually my old university lab.”
“So super familiar and routine?”
“Familiar, yes. Routine, never. The lab runs all sorts of experiments. Anything that’s slightly outside of their skill set; they outsource to me.”
“Would this be a chemistry lab?”
“Metallurgy to be exact.”
“So you make alloys?”
“Nope. They make the alloys. I do other stuff, like check if it’s resistant against corrosion, radiation and stuff.”
“You do what?”
Brandi pursed her lips. “You might have a point about the risk thing.”
Zach face-palmed, thinking back to the spec lab. “Wait. If your office is that risky to enter, would the intruder know about it?”
“Uh, I don’t follow.”
“If the intruder knew, the package would be sent to your office to destroy evidence like you said. If that’s the case, would the intruder dare to enter your office himself?”
“That would be potentially stupid.” Her face lit up. “The intruder knew. He had to!” One eye squinted. “But I still don’t get the focus on the failed fire-package. Was he really retrieving evidence with that rigamarole route?”
“Could someone determine what caused the package to ignite and from that determine where it’s from?”
“Of course! The inside had two different powders separate by a thin plastic film. The barrier there broke, causing the powders to mix. That caused the initial fire, since one powder was a strong acid and the other a strong base. The other bag of powder found deep within the paper pile was more telling. It was a tiny sample of potassium graphite, which is pyrophoric.”
“Pyro … as in flammable?”
“Yep. Reacts to air. Fortunately, the seal on that didn’t break.”
“Can you identify where it came from?”
“Already did that.”
“Oh?”
“The crystal structure matches the patented alloy that my client makes.”
“It’s from your client?!”
“Yep.” She calmly continued eating her lunch, Zach gaping at her.
