Chương 5
“The police released this to Maya.”
Inside were the broken pieces of the hearing device, sealed in the evidence bag.
Elena looked past him.
“Why did they release it to you?”
“They didn’t. Coach Danner signed for it. He asked me to bring it.”
“That seems like a poor choice by your coach.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mr. Bell cleared his throat.
“I asked to come.”
Maya stepped into the hall.
Mr. Bell’s eyes moved toward the small silver pieces.
“I should’ve stopped them before it got that far.”
Maya read his lips carefully.
“Why didn’t you?”
His fingers curled around the key ring clipped to his belt.
“My wife had surgery in February. I missed work. Mr. Crowe approved the hardship hours that kept my insurance active.”
Logan looked at him.
Mr. Bell continued.
“Vanessa took the roof key from my cart. I followed her. She said if I made a problem, she’d tell her father I’d given it to them. I believed her.”
Elena leaned against the doorframe.
“So you left my daughter up there.”
“No.” His voice broke on the word, though Maya caught only the shape of it. “I went to get help.”
“You went to get a nineteen-year-old with a stick.”
Mr. Bell looked at Logan.
“I went to the field because it was closest. Coach was at the far end. Logan saw me first.”
Elena’s anger had no easy target. That seemed to make it worse.
“You had a radio.”
Mr. Bell nodded.
“I did.”
“Security was downstairs.”
“Yes.”
“But you found the founder’s grandson.”
“Son,” Logan said quietly.
Elena looked at him.
“That correction matters to you right now?”
“No, ma’am.”
Maya took the plastic box.
“What happened to the key?”
Mr. Bell unclipped the ring and held it out. A brass tag marked ROOF ACCESS hung beside two master keys and a small black electronic fob.
“The physical key was back on my cart after the police came.”
“Vanessa returned it?”
“I didn’t see who did.”
“Was it logged out?”
“We don’t log the physical keys. We’re supposed to.”
Elena folded her arms.
Mr. Bell rubbed his thumb over the fob.
“The roof door also records electronic access. My fob opened it at eleven forty-seven.”
“You opened it?”
“I opened it when I followed them. But the record before that shows an administrator override at eleven thirty-nine.”
Maya looked at him.
“Whose?”
“I don’t know. Facilities can see the code.”
“Can you?”
“I could yesterday.”
The word could remained between them.
Mr. Bell looked toward the stairs, although no one was there.
“This morning my access was restricted.”
Logan straightened.
“Did you tell the police?”
“I told Officer Keene.”
“What did she say?”
“To stop talking about it until she could pull the records formally.”
Elena finally stepped aside.
“Come in.”
They sat around the kitchen table. Mr. Bell accepted coffee and then forgot to drink it. Logan declined anything until Elena put a glass of water in front of him anyway.
Maya opened the plastic box but left the evidence bag sealed. The heel had crushed the outer shell and split the battery compartment. A tiny wire curved through the broken casing like a nerve.
Logan looked away.
“You don’t have to do that,” Maya said.
“Do what?”
“Look guilty every time you see it.”
“I don’t feel guilty about breaking the chain.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
He drank water.
Mr. Bell watched them with the exhausted caution of a man who had already learned that every answer created another question.
Maya turned to him.
“Who can use an administrator override?”
“Dean Harland. Security. Facilities management. The head of school. A few assistants.”
“Students?”
“No.”
“Could Vanessa know a code?”
Mr. Bell hesitated.
“People write them down.”
Elena sat opposite him.
“Where?”
“Desk drawers. The security binder. Sometimes on the inside of the key cabinet because people are people.”
“That is an astonishing sentence.”
“I know.”
Maya asked, “Who knew the bucket was up there?”
“Facilities. We marked an area near the north parapet for waterproofing tests. It was supposed to stay locked in the storage cage.”
“Was the cage forced?”
“No.”
“Who opened it?”
Mr. Bell looked at his coffee.
“My fob.”
Elena stared at him.
“You opened the cage too?”
“I did not.”
“But the record says you did.”
“It will.”
Maya felt the shape of the problem before anyone said it. The key had been taken from his cart. His fob had remained clipped to his belt. Unless someone had copied its signal or borrowed it earlier, Mr. Bell’s account would look impossible.
Logan leaned forward.
“Can a fob be cloned?”
Mr. Bell shrugged.
“Anything can be copied if someone knows how. I don’t know how.”
Maya looked at the clipped ring.
“Yesterday, when Vanessa took the roof key, did she touch the fob?”
“She took the whole ring.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe twenty seconds.”
Logan shook his head.
“That’s not enough time.”
“You know a lot about copying access cards?” Maya asked.
“No. I know twenty seconds is how long people in bad stories need.”
Mr. Bell’s mouth twitched despite himself.
Maya opened her laptop.
“Then we find out what a good story requires.”
They did not solve it that afternoon.
That mattered.
The school’s electronic access system was managed by an outside security company that would not release logs to students. Officer Keene needed formal authorization from the head of school or a warrant. The head of school, Dr. Samuel Park, said the academy was cooperating but could not disclose security information during an active investigation. Martin Reese warned all employees against “independent evidence handling,” which frightened Mr. Bell into silence.
May you like
Logan called a former student who had worked in campus technology. The former student told him fob cloning was possible, but Briarwood’s newer system used encrypted credentials. He also told Logan to stop asking technical questions over the phone if the police were involved.
Maya searched old board meeting packets. The vendor contract for automated captioning had been approved six months earlier. Charles Crowe’s foundation had not donated directly to the vendor. It had donated to a nonprofit technology incubator that had invested in the vendor’s parent company.
