In his life, Michael O’Connell had broken into a number of empty stores, an occasional house, more than a few factories, and other places of business. He was confident in his expertise as he sat on the cold stairs and waited. He had not even taken the trouble to prepare some sort of wild-eyed story should someone have found him there. He knew that he was safe. O’Connell understood that love was protecting him.
It was nearly seven when he heard the last creaking noise from the elevator. He paused, bending his head toward the sound, and suddenly the world around him descended into darkness. The office manager had hit the master light switches next to the elevator. He heard the front door open, close, then click as the single lock was fastened. He glanced down at his watch, the illuminated face glowing just bright enough to read.
He waited another fifteen minutes before pushing through the door to the stairwell and reentering the vestibule. He was almost surprised by how easy it was all turning out to be.
He peered carefully through the glass front door, up and down the empty street. Then he quickly turned the single dead-bolt lock and let himself out.
Moving quickly, he walked the two blocks to his car and opened the trunk, removing the duffel bag that he’d concealed there.
It took him only a few minutes to return to the office building.
First, he reached inside his bag and removed several pairs of surgical gloves. These he rapidly pulled on, one on top of the other, a double thickness of protection. He took out a spray bottle of ammonia-based disinfectant and generously sprayed the lock handle that he’d touched. As soon as he’d finished that, he once again locked the door. He then sprayed the door handle to the stairwell and any place else he might have put his hands. Next, he climbed the stairs to the second floor, removing a small flashlight on the way up. He had covered the lens with a piece of red tape, cutting the light in half, making it next to impossible to spot from outside, through a window. He took his time, searching the hallway for any signs of exterior security devices, but found none. Michael O’Connell shook his head. He would have imagined that Murphy would select a more secure location. But infrared cameras and video-monitoring systems cost cash. What the building offered was probably the lowest of rents, and therein lay its attraction.
He smiled to himself.
Plus, what was there to steal?
No cash. No jewelry. No art. No portable electronic items.
Any self-respecting crook would have found significantly easier and considerably more valuable pickings elsewhere. Hell, the corner bodega probably had more than a thousand bucks in a metal drop box, and a useful twelve gauge on the shelf beneath the register. It would be a far more inviting target.
But ripping off a corner store junkie-style wasn’t what he had in mind. O’Connell looked around. What did this building have that was valuable?
He grinned again. Information.
The key to his adventure that night was to make sure the information he was seeking wasn’t quite what anyone would expect.
O’Connell took his time picking the lock to Murphy’s office, and when he finally let himself in, he was alert to possible secondary security devices, such as a motion detector or a hidden camera. As the door swung open, he pulled a thin balaclava over his head. The high-tech garment, designed to keep someone warm on some windy ski slope, covered everything except his eyes. He gritted his teeth, half-expecting to hear an alarm.
When he was greeted with silence, he could barely contain his delight.
Maneuvering cautiously through the office, he took a moment to assess what was there. He wanted to laugh.
There was a threadbare waiting room, with a desk for the secretary and a cheap, lumpy couch and armchair and a single inner office, where Murphy did business. A more solid door guarded this, and more than one dead-bolt lock.
O’Connell hesitated, reaching out with his hand to the doorknob, then stopped. He thought to himself, The cheap bastard probably has whatever security system he thinks he needs right in there.
He turned away and looked over at the secretary’s desk. She had her own computer station.
Sitting himself down at her chair, he clicked on the computer. A welcome screen came up, followed by an access prompt, demanding a password.
He took another deep breath and typed in the name of each of her dogs. Then he tried a few combinations of the two, blending them unsuccessfully. He considered possibilities for an instant, then smiled as he punched the keys for Pug Lover.
The machine whirred and clicked and O’Connell found himself looking at what he presumed were almost all of Murphy’s case files. He scrolled down and found Ashley Freeman. He fought off the urge to open that one instantly. Holding himself back would increase the pleasure. Then he systematically began going through every other file on the secretary’s machine, lingering on more than one occasion on the provocative digital pictures stored alongside some of the cases. Carefully, he began to copy everything onto some new rewritable computer discs that he had purchased. He did not think that he was getting everything that the ex-detective had on his own computer. Surely, O’Connell thought, Murphy had to be smart enough to keep some material concealed where only he could access it. But for his purposes, he had more than enough.
It took him a couple of hours to finish. He was a little stiff, and he stepped away from the secretary’s desk and stretched. He dropped to the floor and quickly did a dozen push-ups, feeling his muscles loosen. He went over to the inner door to Murphy’s office. He reached inside his duffel bag and removed a small crowbar. He made a couple of desultory efforts, scratching the door’s surface, digging into the wood, before giving up. Then he went over to the secretary’s desk, pried open the drawers, and tossed about the contents, strewing paper, printer cartridges, and pencils around the floor. He found a framed portrait of the two pugs, which he dropped, shattering the glass. As soon as he felt that enough of a mess had been made, he left, locking the door behind him. As soon as the dead bolt slid into place, he once again took his crowbar and broke out the doorjamb, leaving splinters of wood throughout the area, and the door ajar.
Next he went over to the counseling office and broke in there, using the same bash-and-batter technique. Once inside, he ransacked drawers and file cabinets quickly, spreading as much debris around as he could in a few minutes.
He went back down the stairwell and did the same to the attorney’s space. He tossed open file cabinets and dashed papers around the floor. He jimmied open the attorney’s desk, finding several hundred dollars in cash, which he stuffed into his duffel bag. He was about to leave when he decided to take a single whack at the drawers on the paralegal’s desk. She would probably feel left out if he didn’t trash her space as well, he thought, laughing to himself. But he stopped when he saw what was resting in the bottom of the last drawer.