Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set Nanci Rathbun (i love reading books txt) 📖

“Yeah,” Spider replied, “but why the big hiding act? Did he make off with a ton of money?”

“No. Marcy told me he didn’t touch his pension money. He absconded with a little over fifteen thousand from their checking and savings accounts, combined. It wasn’t enough to incent him to skip out the way he did.”

“And he sure wasn’t living high in Stevens Point,” Bobbie said.

“Although,” I ruminated, “he didn’t go into the shelter until eight months ago. He had money at the beginning, though it wasn’t a lot. But even before the trail got cold, I couldn’t locate him.” I sighed. “Maybe he had a third identity.”

“Could be,” Spider said. “I’ll run his prints through a couple of databases. Who knows?”

Bobbie grinned. “Hold on.” He took the baggie with the capsule and tiny scroll from his satchel. “In case the crazy bastard wiped the razor before he ran out, this is the paper with the password.” He laid the baggie on the desk. “It was rolled up and put into this capsule”—he indicated the clear capsule, almost invisible inside the plastic bag—“then hidden under a deodorant stick. Only reason I found it is that the wheel that rolls the stick up was stuck. I used gloves.”

“Nice work,” Spider told Bobbie, who preened a bit. Spider held the evidence bag up and gave a low whistle. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he quoted.

“It does have the feel of Wonderland,” I agreed. “One of the residents at the home where Hank worked—a mentally competent one, I might add—told me that the aide on duty went missing on the night Jim Beltran died.”

“Angie, you didn’t tell me that,” Bobbie scolded.

I banged the heel of my hand on my forehead. “Sorry, Bobbie. I got so excited when you found the password that I overlooked it. However, the aide’s disappearance may be unrelated to Hank’s death.”

Spider shook his head. “I don’t trust coincidences. A man with a secret identity dies, another man disappears from the same place, on the same night. It’s too fluky. What was the aide’s name?”

“Karl with a ‘K,’ Jorgensen spelled ‘sen.’ Augusta, the resident who has her wits about her, said he didn’t fit his Scandinavian name, though. He was dark-haired and dark-complected. About five-ten and muscular. Karl and she got along pretty well. He even helped her balance her checkbook.”

Spider turned back to the keyboard. One of the three screens flashed and he said, “No Social Security records for a Karl Jorgensen in Wisconsin in the past ten years.” His right eyebrow moved, but I wasn’t sure if he quirked it, or if it was simply a sign of their perpetual motion. “Can you get me a set of Jorgensen’s prints, Angie?” he asked. “Maybe from Augusta’s checkbook? Of course, I’ll need hers, too, for elimination purposes. And a photo would be helpful.”

“I can get the prints, if you trust me with your gizmo and show me how to use it. But the picture?” I thought for a moment. “The staff at Padua Manor wears ID badges with pictures, but I’d never get past Mrs. Rogers, the administrator. The facility and her office are both locked.”

“Push button or key?” Spider asked.

“Neither. They use card readers.”

“Even better.” Spider’s lips rose in a diabolical smile. He opened one of the office’s many steel cabinets and motioned us over. “Ever see a rare earth magnet?” He extended a silver disk in one palm and a silver box in the other hand. Bobbie and I both shook our heads. “Very powerful,” Spider told us. “This baby is made from neodymium. It’s less than four inches in circumference and under an inch thick, but it can hold four hundred pounds.”

I waited, sure there was a reason for this lesson.

“The thing is,” Spider continued, “card reader devices read the unique magnetic force embedded in a plastic card, identify the pattern and match it to a database entry, and then disengage the locking mechanism on the door. A strong enough magnetic force will scramble the reader and cause the lock’s bolt to withdraw for a second or two.” He grinned. “And you’re in.”

“You mean, break in?” It wasn’t as if I’d never done it. Bobbie and I illegally entered his former place of business to get evidence to exonerate Tony Belloni, but that was a case of trespassing, since we had no intent to commit a crime once inside. Breaking into Padua Manor to steal information from a computer or paper file would expose us to a charge of felony burglary, if we were caught. I could lose my P.I. license, Bobbie would never get his, and Wukowski would explode in ice cold anger. Wrestling with the possibilities, I finally decided there were times when wrongdoing was the only way to set things right.

Spider placed the disk and box on the wooden floor and walked back to his desk. We followed like preschoolers on a field trip. “You have to be extremely careful with the magnet, though. It can badly pinch any part of your body that’s between it and iron. And there are newer readers that aren’t disrupted by external magnetic force. The good news for our nefarious purposes is that the manufacturer hasn’t retrofitted the original readers with the newer design. How old is the facility?”

“Not new,” I said. “And it’s pretty ratty-looking. According to Augusta, they never spend an extra cent, so there’s a good chance their readers are vulnerable.”

“That’s to our advantage,” Spider told me. “If the magnet doesn’t do the trick, I can create a box that will capture the code when the administrator puts her card up to the reader. Then I can make a duplicate card. But let’s try the easy way first.

On a second huge monitor, he brought up several satellite images of Padua Manor. “What about surveillance cameras?” Spider asked as he zoomed in and out of various portions of the pictures, which didn’t look like they came from Google Maps. Probably some highly sensitive source, I thought.

“None