The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [99]
He lifted a small duffel bag from his shoulder and handed it to me. I extracted a leather lineman’s belt loaded with tools and a dangling line tester and strapped it around my waist.
“Too tight,” he said. “Loosen it up a little bit, so it hangs down some.”
I did as he suggested.
“Better. You good to go?”
I took a deep breath and nodded.
“Kate?”
She gave him a thumbs-up, eyes fixed on her computer screen.
“Okay, then.”
He took his phone from his pocket and dialed.
“Ellen Cho, please.… This is Sergeant Landon of the New Rochelle Police Department. I believe you own a red Volvo wagon, New York plate number CSN one-one-three-six.… Probably not. It’s just that one of our patrol cars found your license plate in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven off the Post Road this morning, and we wanted to let you know that we have it, and to make sure that you drove the car out that way.… Really? Has anyone else driven the car? … Well, I hate to say it, but that actually is kind of troubling, because the two things that occur to me are that somebody stole your plate, or maybe even that someone stole your car.… I’m absolutely sure. I’ve got the plate right here in front of me. When did you last see the car? … Uh-huh … Right. That’s exactly what I think you should do. If the car’s there, don’t worry about it. One of my guys lives out in your neck of the woods, and I’ll have him drop the plate off this afternoon on his way home. On the other hand, if the car’s missing, you should probably head over to the White Plains police department as soon as possible and file a report.… Right. They’d be the ones to handle it.… You’re welcome. We’re happy to help. Have a nice day.”
He hung up and looked at me.
“She’s on her way.”
I exited the stairwell, duffel bag in hand, and began walking slowly toward Ganesa’s office. A flustered-looking Asian woman in her mid-thirties opened the door when I was about ten feet away.
“Hi,” I said. “You with Ganesa?”
“Yes.”
“Verizon,” I said, pointing at the logo on my shirt. “People downstairs had a leak and their phone system shorted out. Conduit carrying your lines got wet, too. We need to run a few quick tests before we try to power their system on again.”
“My boss is on a call, and I have to go run an important errand. Can you come back in twenty minutes?”
“Folks downstairs are out of business without their phones. And I’d hate to bring their system up and take yours down.”
She hesitated a moment and then nodded.
“All our equipment is in the closet to the left of the pantry. You need me to show you?”
“No. Everything comes out of the same chase on this side of the building. And I think I’ve been here before—your boss is Karl somebody, right?”
“Mohler,” she confirmed. “Make sure you pull the door closed behind you when you leave, please.”
“Will do.”
She hurried off toward the elevator as I stepped into the reception area. The decor was generic—beige walls and carpet, mahogany-veneer trim, and a couple of framed posters from Monet’s water lily series, one of which looked to be hung upside down. The interior door that led to Mohler’s office was still closed. I made my way to the equipment closet as quietly as possible, both hands pressed to the sides of my belt to prevent it from clattering. The router was where Claire had indicated, and looked exactly like the picture in the manual Kate had shown me. I picked it up, tipped it facedown, and gently inserted a paper clip into the pinhole in the back, performing what Kate had called a “hard reset.” A hard reset restored the router to its factory settings—including the factory issued password, which Kate had also found in the manual. The power light on the front of the router cycled from green to red to flashing yellow. Flashing yellow meant it was rebooting. Setting the router down, I reached into the duffel and pulled out a compact wireless access point with network and power cords wrapped around it. The access point went on the shelf next to the router, the network cord connected it to the switch, and the power cord went to an