Part 47 (1/2)
”Then they did what? Built their own?”
Bug said, ”Sure, the schematics were in Hecate's safe.”
Rudy smiled. ”Hecate had them? No one else?”
”No...” began Bug, but he slowed to a stop, then carefully said, ”Not that we know of.”
”Let me ask this, then,” said Rudy. ”If you, Bug, had those blueprints or schematics or whatever they're called for computers and you knew about MindReader, could you build a computer that approximates what MindReader does?”
”Hecate and Paris couldn't do that. They were geneticists and-”
”I'm not asking about them. I asked if you could do it.”
”Me? Well, sure, I could do it, but-”
”Ah,” said Rudy.
”Wait,” said Bug, ”what's 'ah' supposed to mean?”
”It means that if you could do it,” I said, ”then someone on your level could do it.”
”They'd have to have some access to MindReader. At least some basic understanding of the software written after Pangaea was created.”
Rudy nodded. So did Church. And me.
”But there's no one else I know of who could do it. Even Yoda and Nikki couldn't do it.”
”I'm not asking about them,” said Rudy. There was another pregnant pause, then Rudy glanced at each person at the table. ”We are absolutely certain Artemisia Bliss is dead, yes?”
Hu started to laugh, but Church raised a hand.
”I believe you visited the crime scene,” said Church. ”You saw the body.”
”Her body was identified from dental plates and DNA,” added Circe. ”There's no doubt that it was Artemisia Bliss in that cell.”
Hu and Bug gave emphatic nods.
Rudy smiled. ”No doubt at all?”
”Where are you going with this, doctor?” demanded Auntie.
That's when I got it, and I slapped my hand down on the table so hard everyone except Church jumped. ”Christ on a stick!”
”Joe,” said Rudy quickly, ”what's wrong?”
”I'm a G.o.dd.a.m.n idiot is what's wrong.” Hu began to smile but I pointed a finger at him. ”And you're every bit as stupid as I am. As we all are. s.h.i.+t, Rudy's absolutely right and this is staring us in the face. I mean ... we even said it but threw it away.”
”Captain,” said Church, ”skip the dramatics. What are we all missing?”
”Burn to s.h.i.+ne,” I said. ”It's right there.”
”What is?”
”This is Artemisia Bliss.”
”Um,” said Hu, ”I'm pretty sure we already covered that, Einstein. She'd make a great suspect if she wasn't ashes in a box.”
”No,” said Church, leaning forward, ”hear him out. I think I know where he's going with this, and I'm afraid I agree.”
Everyone looked from him to me. Rudy nodded encouragement.
”Okay,” I said, ”we all put it on the table. Artemisia was smarter than almost everyone, right? Smart and devious. She was on Auntie's s.h.i.+t list because she tried to hack MindReader. She got fired and arrested because she copied and sold a lot of the information we've been trying to keep the bad guys from using. She was bagged, tagged, and the judge hit her with max penalties. She was going to jail and she'd never get out. She was done.”
”And somebody killed her,” said Hu again, leaning on it so Captain Shortbus could understand the concept. But I shook my head.
”Somebody killed someone.”
”No,” said Circe, ”Joe, you're forgetting that Jerry Spencer collected DNA from her corpse and it was an exact match to hers on file. It was her.”
I gave another shake. ”Jerry pulled DNA from a corpse and it matched DNA on file.”
”What?”
”Step back for a second and look at this from a distance. Think about how to do this and let's pretend we're all actually smart for a minute.” I said this last part while looking directly at Hu.
Church was already nodding. Rudy and Circe were a step behind him. Hu had to already be there, but he so did not want me to have figured this out.
It was Bug who put it into words.
”The DNA we matched it to was not physical DNA. We matched the samples Jerry collected against data stored in the system.”
”Right,” I said. ”Data stored in the system. We only have the computer's word that it's actually Bliss's.”
”No,” said Hu, shaking his head, ”you're talking about MindReader.”
”Right,” I told him. ”I'm talking about a computer. Computers are basically storage devices. You can put anything in there you want. And Artemisia Bliss is one of the most brilliant computer experts who ever lived, as you're so fond of telling. f.u.c.k, man, you hired her. You want to sit there and tell me that she isn't smart enough to have faked the data in MindReader?”
Hu cleared his throat. ”Well ... she, um, wrote the code for the bio-data retrieval software.”
Rudy said, ”Oy.”
”But the pa.s.swords were all changed after her arrest,” insisted Aunt Sallie.
”Sure,” said Circe, ”but I'm sure you didn't go in and change every line of code she ever wrote. Or all of the millions of lines of code she supervised. Joe's right, she could have built her own false evidence right into the code. Hidden it so that it popped up whenever any data was entered for a comparison with hers.”