Access Denied, page 9
part #3 of Turing Hopper Series
A sudden thought struck Tim. Something that Maude and Turing probably hadn't thought of—he suspected neither of them had ever gotten behind on their bills. He wasn't sure Turing even had bills.
"Tuting, what about the bill collectors?" he said.
"What do you mean?" Turing asked.
"The people who call you up to harass you—they're not always from the company you owe money to," Tim said, warming to his topic. "Sometimes creditors hire a company to do it for them."
Or in the case of real deadbeats, with uncollectible debts, they sell the debts to a debt collection company for
pennies on the dollar, and the debt collection company tries to collect enough to make a profit," Maude added.
"Yeah, but we're not talking about people that far gone, are we?" Tim said. "These people can still use their cards. They're not total deadbeats. But delinquent enough that some of their bills have gone to collection. What if our thieves have access to people's credit records because one of them works for a bill collector?"
"Tim, that's excellent!" Maude said.
"Might one bill collector handle several companies that issue credit cards?" Turing asked.
"They handle a lot of companies," Claudia said. "They're experts."
"And maybe it's not even their credit card debts," Maude added. "More probably something like their phone bill, or their rent, or their doctor's bills—a local creditor, who would hire a smaller, local bill collector. That's why all the victims have local addresses."
"Hang on a second," Tim said, pulling out the yellow pages. "Damn, there's four columns of collection agencies in the phone book. Mostly local phone numbers."
"Where are their offices?" Maude asked. "I bet a lot of them are out in the far suburbs, where office space is cheaper. Which would tie in with our thieves wanting drop-off sites in Oakton and Leesburg. They probably live nearby."
"Hard to say exactly where some of them are," Tim said. "They don't all show addresses."
"Of course, if you were in the business of harassing people over the phone, maybe you wouldn't want your address published, either," Claudia said.
"I can find out from a reverse directory where the ones without addresses are located," Turing put in.
"Problem is there are about forty with local numbers," Tim said. "With or without addresses."
"Lot of leg work, checking them all out," Claudia said.
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"We can't possibly check out that many," Maude said.
"Maybe we don't have to," Turing said. "Has Sam's paralegal come up with that complete list of Rose Laf-ferty's creditors yet?"
"I'll find out," Maude said. "And I'll ask Sam how we can find out which collection agencies they use."
"A lot of these collection places are law firms," Tim added. "Maybe Sam knows someone who does this. Give us some inside scoop on how it works."
Tim sat back and watched with contentment as Maude and Turing scrambled into action, carrying out his suggestions. Maybe he wasn't a complete bust as a PI after all.
Rose Lafferty's limited financial history helped us this time. She'd managed to stay only slightly behind on rent, electricity, and water. As a result, none of those bills had been sent out for collection. She d abandoned the phone a year and a half ago. So apart from her MasterCard, she didn't have all that many creditors: a collection of doctors and hospitals, though the amounts seemed rather large, especially when compared to her meager income.
"Maude," I asked, "is Rose Laffert) unwell?"
"Apart from being extraordinarily stressed, she's fine." Maude said. "It's her daughter who's sick."
"What's wrong with her daughter?"
"Rose said she didn't know." Maude said. "But she might open up when she gets to know us better. Sam's trying to get more information."
"See if she has," I asked.
"Like Maude says, Rose doesn't know what's wrong with her daughter. " Sam said, when we reached her. ''That's the root of her financial problems, by the way — the daughter's illness. The girl got sick, and it wasn't clear why. so the doctors started running a whole raft of tests. They 'it ruled out everything from AIDS to West Nile virus, but they haven't figured out what's wrong. And mid-
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way through the tests, Rose lost her job, and that meant she lost her health insurance. She couldn't continue the testing."
"And the doctors just abandoned them?"
"No, not all of them," Sam said. "Some of them are still treating the kid, as far as they can, even though they know they may never be paid. And if the girl has a bad spell, Rose takes her to the emergency room. But that's Band-Aid stuff The kid's never going to get well unless they figure out what's wrong with her, and that could take thousands and thousands of dollars' worth of tests."
"There's no agency or charity that will pay for it?"
"Maybe, but you'd have to be a whole lot better at working the system than Rose is to make that happen."
"You could make it happen," I said.
I heard Maude giggle. What was so funny?
"I could, but it's a hell of a lot of work," Sam said. "A hell of a lot of nonbillable hours."
"So bill us," I said.
"Get it started, anyway," Maude said. "I'd say the first priority would be to get whatever tests she needs scheduled as soon as possible."
"Agreed," Sam said. "Of course, we may need to settle some of the existing debts to make that happen."
"You find out what it will take and we'll figure out how to come up with the money," Maude said.
"Excellent," Sam said. "You won't necessarily be out the money permanently. I think we probably have a good case against Rose's former employer for wrongful termination. But it could take months for money to come in from that, and we need to get this moving right away."
With that she signed off.
"Turing?" Maude said, her voice much more tentative than usual. "We can find the money, can't we? It's important. You can't imagine how important without seeing that little girl."
"Rose is helping us," I said. "We can help her. And her daughter."
"We could probably set up a charitable foundation, funnel the funds through that, and have a tax benefit for Alan Grace," Maude replied, sounding like her normal self.
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That sounded reasonable. Before returning to focus on my analysis of the debt collection firms. I sent a message to John Dow. the financial AI P. asking for help on foundations. So much for my
lotion to meddle less in human affairs.
Once I analyzed the bill collectors who had been calling Rose Lafferty. I found only one in the Washington area. Professional Re-rj Services. Located in Sterling, a suburb near Ashburn and not that far from Lees burg and Oakton.
Their y el Ion pages display ad indicates that they special: retail, medical, and utility collections and in medical billing.
That sounds promising.
Although unfortunately, their database isn't online. Unlike
it card companies, whose databases are nearly all accessible online. At least theoretically, though some of them have such good security that even KingFischer hasn't yet figured out how to crack them.
Professional Recovery Struces has a website, but it's totally static. Three pages of information about their capabilities. Not i a live e-mail addr.
Maddening, because they almost certainly have some kind of
>:il database of files about the borrou ers from whom they 're trying to collect. They probably also have Internet access for exchanging information with one or more of the credit bureaus. If I had ation — their account numbi .ample — maybe I
could use it to get back into their system. But I'd need some kind of inside information to do that.
"Maude," I said "How can we get inside that place?"
J, Ue?" Naude saidn leaning back in her desk chair. 'Shall I assume from your choice of pronouns that you can't hack in and need real-world help?"
"Hack in where"-'" Claudia asked, looking up from the stack of resumes Maude had asked her to review.
They listened as Turing explained the dead ends she was encountering in investigating the credit agency.
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"Places like that won't welcome someone asking whether their employees are committing credit card fraud," Maude said, finally. "We may need to steer the police to it."
Turing didn't say anything. Maude suspected she didn't like the idea.
"Maybe not," Claudia said. "What's the one thing you know for sure about a place like that?"
"You don't want to hear from them," Tim said, from where he was leaning in the door frame.
"Yeah, but another thing is you don't want to work there, either," Claudia said. "Believe me. I actually had to do some collections calls on my first job, because I was the junior person on staff. Man, what miserable work! Can you imagine doing that all day long, day after day? Calling up people and giving them a hard time about debts you both know they can't pay, and having them go off on you."
"You think we could find a disgruntled worker who'd help us?" Maude asked.
"Maybe, but better yet, let's put our own disgruntled worker on the payroll," Claudia said. She stood up and began pacing the floor of Maude's office—a sign, Maude knew, that she was excited about something. "A place like that has heavy turnover. They probably recruit all the time. Let's see if I can get hired."
"Worth a try," Maude said.
"I don't see any job postings in the Post or any of the local employment services I can access," Turing said.
"That was fast," Claudia said, with a laugh. "Why do I suspect you had the same idea and already started looking?"
"Perhaps they go through a recruiting firm," Maude suggested.
"Correction:—They advertise in the Post, but the last one was two weeks ago," Turing said. "Is that too old?"
"No, that's fine," Claudia said. "I'll say I'm moving up here from Miami to be with my boyfriend, and I need a job.
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Tim can play the boyfriend—I can give his address and phone as local contact info. And if they mention the out-of-date ad, I'll just say I picked up the most recent Post he had."
"Better give my address instead," Maude said. "If the other thief works there, he or she might follow the murder case, and if the police release Tim's name and address ..."
"Good point," Claudia. "You can be my aunt. Come on, Tim, let's go find a pay phone so I can call them."
Claudia has an interview with Professional Recovery Services tomorrow at noon. So far so good. It remains to be seen if she'll actually get hired, although she's optimistic.
"Relax," she said. "They wouldn't interview me so soon if they weren't desperate for bodies. And I could practically hear them drooling when I said I was bilingual and had done some collections work before. I'm as good as hired. Worry about what I should look for when I'm in."
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First priority, I suppose, is to confirm that the other five identity -theft victims we know about are on PRS's system. If they're not, then PRS probably isn't the source of the credit card numbers, and Claudia can cut short her career in the collections industry.
Assuming they're all in the PRS system, though, the next step would be to see how easy it is for employees to get credit card information on the people from whom they're trying to collect. If any employee can just call up a complete file on everyone in their computer databases, our list of suspects is as large as their employee list. I hope they're a small firm.
"Don't forget recent terminations," Maude said, when I shared this with her. "The accomplice could be someone who worked there any time within the last year or two and quit when he or she decided that identity theft was easier than debt collection."
An even larger field of suspects. So we need all their employees' and former employees' names and demographic information. Including
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Social Security Numbers. I can find out a great deal about the suspects with SSNs.
Although for that matter, so could a seasoned hacker. So anyone with access to SSNs stays on our suspect list, whether or not they have official access to credit card information.
Once we get the names of all the employees, I can search for connections between them and Tayloe Blake. And have Tim check them out. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Yll see if Claudia and Tim can come up with some ideas.
For now, they've gone off in Claudia's rental car to observe the PRS building. I'm not sure what they hope to learn from this, but Claudia wants to do it, and I'm not sure what else to have them do.
Before she left, Claudia helped Maude finish reviewing the huge file of resumes Maude has been carrying back and forth from home to office for nearly a week, and Maude has given the recruiter the names of the candidates she wants to interview, and asked her to set up interviews starting Monday morning.
For some reason, Monday morning seems very far away. I wonder why Maude does not ask to see some of them tomorrow. I suppose it takes the candidates more than a few hours' notice to arrange their schedules for an interview. Or perhaps Maude thinks things will be quieter by Monday. I wish I shared her optimism.
She's packing up, preparing to leave the office for her dinner with Dan Norris. Unlike Claudia, Maude seems apprehensive about this meeting. I agree with Maude —/ think it unlikely that this dinner is a purely social occasion.
With either Tim or Claudia or both of them in her office most of the day, I didn't really have a chance to discuss the deer issue with Maude. And anxious as she feels right now about encountering Norris, I suspect I should postpone the discussion till tomorrow.
Maude located Dak's easily. The
restaurant occupied a modest one-story building in a section of Columbia Pike that alternated between small strip
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malls and low-rise commercial buildings. She cruised through the parking lot twice before finding a space, and noticed several patrol cars scattered among the cars and SUVs.
She spotted Norris's tall, lanky form immediately. He stood just inside the door, talking with two uniformed police who seemed to be leaving. But he was watching the entrance. She wasn't sure whether to be amused or insulted when she saw his glance flick over her and return to the cops. Then his head snapped back as her face registered. As she walked toward him, he said something to the officers— presumably a farewell, since it was accompanied by brisk, businesslike handshakes.
"Maude, you're looking great!" he exclaimed.
"Thanks," she said. She was tempted to say something sarcastic—"Don't sound so surprised" or "About time, right?"— but decided, just in time, that it would only sound defensive. She glanced at the departing police officers.
"Yeah, it's a cop hangout," Norris said, following her glance. "The food's good and the prices reasonable."
"And I presume I'm in no danger of being mugged in the parking lot."
Norris found that particularly amusing.
The food was indeed good, but conversation proved awkward.
"Did you talk to Turing and Tim?" Norris asked, after she sat down.
"Yes, and they'll call you if they think of anything that would help, but I'm not sure there's much they can do."
Norris nodded. He didn't look satisfied.
"Look," Maude said. "The police don't really suspect Tim of being involved in this credit card fraud, do they?"
"Probably not," Norris said. "I told them I didn't think it likely that Tim was mixed up in it."
"That was nice of you."
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"I told them it was more likely he was up to some kind of crazy vigilante stunt."
"Thank you, I think," Maude said, shaking her head. "So, next question?"
"Sorry," Norris said, wincing. "I don't know when to quit, do I?"
Maude shrugged.
"Recovering workaholic," Norris said. "And probably not recovering that rapidly."
"It's hard, especially if your job makes you feel guilty about having a life."
"Tell me about it. Wrecked my marriage, and my kids will never nominate me for dad of the year. And I'd be a liar if I blamed it all on the Bureau. I did it to myself."
The sudden shift from interrogation to confession unsettled Maude.
"How old are your children?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation in a more conventional direction.
"Katie's twenty, and going to the University of Virginia,'" he said. "Steve's in tenth grade. I get alternate weekends. Crazy system."
"Why?"
"I spend hours thinking of things we can do together— things he'd enjoy. Nine times out often it's a disaster."
"Perhaps that's his choice," Maude said. "What does he like to talk about?"
"Talk? He doesn't talk. He answers the occasional question under duress."
"What do you talk about with him?"
"When he was a kid, he used to love hearing about my cases," Norris said, in a softer tone. "Now—who wants to hear the old man bragging about his successes?"
"If he's so hostile, tell him about the failures," Maude said. "Perhaps he'd enjoy it."
"It's a thought," Norris said, appearing to take her words much more seriously than she intended. "I've tried everything else."
"Then again, I'm no child psychologist," Maude said.
"Yes, but you work with all those precocious programmers," Norris said. "You must have learned something. I could tell him about the time we went in to arrest an international arms dealer and ended up with two Benedictine nuns."
Maude felt less uncomfortable as he told the story. But still a little anxious. She studied his lean, angular face, looking for clues to his motive. If he saw this as a business meal, she wished he'd come out with whatever he wanted to ask or say. And if he intended it as a social occasion—well, he should have found a better way to initiate it than calling Maude to chew her out about meddling in one of his cases. Every minute, she found herself liking Norris more, but trusting him less.
