29

CONNOR EASED HIMSELF INTO HIS USUAL CHAIR IN CONFERENCE ROOM 11436 at the California Department of Justice. Max Volusca sat on his right, a stack of documents and an interview outline in front of him. The witness sat across the table from Max with Carlos Alvarez at his side. Connor was a little surprised to see him handling another false claims case after his performance on the Hamilton Construction lawsuit. Apparently he’d managed to spin it into a success story. Well, Connor would be happy to help him add a similar line to his resumé for this case.

The witness was Franklin Roh, whom Allie had identified as the IT chief at Deep Seven. Roh looked the part. He wore a conservative gray Brooks Brothers suit with a burgundy tie. His shirt was so stiffly starched that it looked like he was dressed in white cardboard. Designer glasses that would have been stylish ten years ago hid his almond eyes. His hair was suspiciously pure black despite the fact that he was at least fifty.

Roh’s face was bland and expressionless. In fact, it was almost motionless except for the mechanical movements of his jaw as he sucked cherry cough drops.

Max went through the preliminary background questions with his typical speed. Roh graduated from Seokyeong University in Seoul, South Korea, in 1976. He worked for the Korean Ministry of National Defense for ten years before emigrating to the United States and getting a master’s degree at MIT. Then he worked at Microsoft for a decade. In 2005, he accepted the position of chief information officer at Deep Seven.

Once Max was through the preliminaries, he reached for the top document on his stack. Connor glanced at it, expecting to see one of the invoices Allie found. But instead he saw half a dozen lines identifying what appeared to be computer files.

Max handed it to Roh. “Is this an accurate list of all the drives in Deep Seven’s computer system?”

Roh looked at it for nearly a minute, long enough to read it several times. “It appears to be, yes.”

Max nodded and checked an item off his interview outline. “And where do you keep customer billing and payment records?”

Roh licked his lips quickly. His tongue was brilliant red from the cough drops. “Those are, ah, in multiple locations. I believe most are on the G drive.”

Max jotted down a note. “Which server?”

Again his crimson tongue darted around his mouth. “Number three.”

Another scribble on the outline. “Anywhere else?”

“I… I am not sure. Perhaps if you ask someone from accounting they can—”

“Are there billing or payment records on that encrypted server, number —” Max hunted through his notes, but Connor kept his eyes on Roh. The man sat motionless, breathing rapidly. Sweat rings began to form in his armpits and his cheeks fluttered as he dissolved another cough drop in his mouth. Max found what he wanted and looked up. “Sorry about that. Server number four. Any customer billing or payment records there?”

“Perhaps Korean. I mean, perhaps there are records from a Korean client. But no government money. None.” The words came tumbling out of Roh’s mouth, stumbling over each other in their haste to convince Max Volusca. “So there’s nothing for you to care about because there’s nothing government there.”

The DAG stroked his second chin thoughtfully and looked at Roh for several seconds. Then he glanced down at his outline. “How often does Deep Seven back up its servers, and where do you keep the backup tapes?”

Max then launched into a long series of questions about Deep Seven’s computer infrastructure. For some reason, he seemed to be trying to establish that CBI had seized every accounting database at Deep Seven. Roh recovered his composure after a few minutes, and soon Connor had to take notes to keep his mind from drifting. Come on, Max. Why are you screwing around with this stuff?

Finally, Max pulled an invoice out of the stack of documents in front of him. Connor glanced over and recognized it as one of the ones Allie had found. Connor perked up and made a conscious effort not to smile.

The DAG handed it to Roh. “Do you recognize this document, Mr. Roh?”

Roh studied it for several seconds. “This appears to be one of our invoices.”

“An invoice to the state of California, correct?”

“Yes, the Department of Water Resources.”

“Is the invoice accurate?”

“I assume so.”

Max arched his eyebrows. “Do you really? Well, if you wanted to check on whether it was accurate, what would you do?”

Roh smiled and swept his ruby tongue over his upper lip. “I would ask someone from accounting.”

“Okay, assume they’re all out at lunch. Every one of them. And you need to know right now. What would you do?”

“I can’t imagine that happening. But if it did, I suppose I would look at the other, ah, materials in the customer file.”

“Materials like this?” Max tossed three pages of billing detail record across the table.

Roh glanced at them and held them up against the invoice. “Yes.”

“And this?” Max handed him the smoking-gun Excel spreadsheet.

“Yes.” He picked up the billing detail and began comparing it to the spreadsheet. “I—these numbers don’t, ah, they don’t appear to match.”

Alvarez leaned over and whispered to his client. Max folded his arms and watched with a satisfied look on his face.

Connor couldn’t hear what Alvarez and Roh were saying, but they didn’t look happy. Roh kept studying the documents, as if he could somehow make the fraud go away if he looked at the numbers hard enough. Alvarez knew better and sat back, his face flushed and grim.

Losing sucks, doesn’t it, Carlos? Connor felt a little sorry for his opponent, but not much. Carlos Alvarez was smart and very competitive, but he played by the rules and was a decent guy outside the courtroom. Connor appreciated that. There were other lawyers he’d rather see take sucker punches from Max Volusca.

But Alvarez had it coming. He was a good lawyer, but he didn’t stick to representing good people. The wicked lay snares for their own feet, and if Alvarez wanted to walk with the wicked, he’d get caught with them too.

Roh finally looked up with a light of dawning comprehension in his face. “This is why you are investigating us?”

“I ask the questions here,” Max replied. “And I’m asking why the numbers on that spreadsheet don’t match the numbers on the bill your company sent.”

“I cannot imagine how this could have happened.”

Max snorted. “I can.”

Alvarez’s face reddened under his immaculate silver hair, but Roh hardly seemed to notice the DAG’s sarcasm. “No, I mean I don’t understand the technicalities. The computer procedures. The invoices are generated directly from the spreadsheet. Someone would have to go in and manually alter the invoices after they were generated.”

“So you’re saying this couldn’t have happened by accident?” Roh turned toward Alvarez again.

“Answer the question first!” Max boomed.

“Can I talk with my attorney?”

“Not while there’s a question pending.”

Alvarez looked as though he had just swallowed something sour. “I’m afraid that’s how the rules work, Franklin.”

Roh dropped his eyes to the documents and slowly shook his head. “I cannot think of… of an accidental scenario.”

Bingo! After that little admission, Connor had trouble imagining what Deep Seven’s defense would be. This case was going to settle faster than he had anticipated.

Max smiled. “Okay, now you can talk to your lawyer.”

Alvarez and Roh left the conference room, and Connor turned to Max. “Nice work. So, when are you guys going to intervene?”

Max glanced out the conference room window. “Yeah, we need to talk about that.”

“What do you—” The door opened and Connor broke off in mid-sentence.

Alvarez and Roh resumed their seats. Alvarez nodded. “Go ahead, Max.”

“Okay. I’ve only got one question left.” The DAG shoved a small stack of paper across the table. “Can you think of an accidental scenario for these invoices and spreadsheets?”

Roh looked at the documents for several minutes. Then he sighed and shrugged. “As I am sitting here today, I cannot think of such a scenario.”

Max checked the last item off of his outline. “All right. That’s all I’ve got. Thanks for coming in today.”

They all stood and the lawyers began to pack up their notebooks, pens, and other paraphernalia. Unlike last time, Alvarez made no effort to take any of the documents Max had shown to his client.

Roh cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Volusca. Now that the interview is over, may I ask a question?”

Max shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“When can we have our computer equipment back? It is inconvenient to use our backup servers.”

The restrained eagerness in Roh’s voice made Connor look up. The man’s face wore an unmoving and carefully casual smile. But his knuckles were white as he dug his fingers deep into the chair in front of him.

“Tough to say,” Max replied. “We should be done with the investigation soon. Maybe a couple of weeks.”

Roh nodded sharply and his smile looked more genuine. “Ah, very good. Thank you.”

Once Roh and Alvarez were gone, Connor turned to Max. “That went about as well as could be expected. Weird, but well.”

“Uh, yeah.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Listen, I appreciate all the cases you and Allie bring in. You’ve brought us a lot of winners over the years, but this isn’t one of them. I’m going to recommend against intervention.”

Connor sat in stunned silence. He’d figured out that something was bothering Max, but he would never have guessed this. “Max, I don’t get it. Why? You saw how he reacted to those invoices.”

“Yeah, but those are the only ones we found. That’s what— twenty thousand? Not worth fighting over.”

“That’s it? You’ve looked at all the invoices and those three are the only bad ones?”

Max nodded. “We sent a team of auditors through every one of those databases.” He pointed at the invoices on the table. “Those are the only fraudulent ones.”

Connor shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. This isn’t a twenty-thousand-dollar case. No one hires Carlos Alvarez to solve a twenty-thousand-dollar problem. And did you see Roh? Your investigation scares the snot out of him. He’s hiding something big.”

Max pressed his lips together and tapped his pen against his notebook for several seconds before responding. “Yeah, I did notice that.”

“And what about those witnesses I talked to? It was like I was talking to ex-mafia types and asking them about the mob.”

Max arched his bushy eyebrows. “Maybe they were masons or Nazis.”

“That was one guy, and his grandson did disappear. And he was right about that server four.”

“All true.”

“So you’ve got to keep digging.”

Max reddened slightly. “No, I don’t. Not unless this company is stealing from the great state of California.”

“So you’re going to drop it? Seriously?”

“Yes, I am. In case you forgot, I work in the False Claims Unit.” Max’s face darkened further as he spoke and his voice rose. “We prosecute false claims cases. Big cases. Cases that are worth spending the taxpayers’ money on. This isn’t one of those cases, Connor. If you want to go after these guys on your own, be my guest. And if you think there’s something criminal going on, call the cops.”

“But don’t call you.”

“Not unless you find a lot more stolen state money.”

Connor bit back an angry retort. “Come on, Max. This is the Department of Justice, not the Department of Finance, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s also not the Department of Running Down Connor Norman’s Hunches That Something Funky Is Going On.”

Connor held his tongue between his teeth and counted to ten. “Thanks for your time, Max.”