The closet held three dress-suits and a few oxford shirts.
John sized up possible hiding places. The easiest spot to hide something was in between the sweaters. Upon inspection, he found that only wool and cotton pullovers occupied the drawer. The other dresser drawers were also bereft of anything unusual.
He pulled out his keychain and found a small LED flashlight he kept attached there. Kneeling down, he shined it under the bed. He found nothing.
There, down on his hands and knees, John realized he was clueless as to where the papers were; he was just flailing around in hope of stumbling across them. He would need to do better than that. He stood up, a bit embarrassed at the weak effort, and sat down on the bed.
“Think, jackass,” he murmured to himself.
John considered a few possibilities. First, there was his earlier realization that the information could be somewhere else entirely; there was no guarantee it was in the apartment. Second, Hallman could have died before he ever stashed his papers or left the appropriate clues for someone to find what he wanted to share. Third, Dunglison never said there were papers, only information; that could be hidden on Hallman’s computer. Fourth, John considered whether Hallman might have mailed it to someone, but Dunglison said the information would be found, not delivered.
He stared at the bedroom, waiting for some clue to pop out at him, but he knew that he was waiting in vain. Unless he had some idea of where or how to find the hidden information, he was wasting his time. It would be a better use of time to let Harry pick the place apart while he sipped some coffee back at the office.
He stood to leave when the book on the nightstand caught his eye; it was Hamlet . His mind flashed to the one word written on the wall in Dunglison’s blood. Hallman’s last moments suddenly made sense to John. Just like Dunglison, Hallman was hiding his information in a book.
“Son-of-a-bitch.”
Flipping through the book revealed no notation on the inside. It was simply a pristine copy of Hamlet open to page 225, where Hamlet exclaimed to Horatio, “Alas, poor Yorick!”
John’s heart sank. Hallman’s recent memories, flooding back to him in a jumbled mess, could easily explain his last words. He sighed and replaced the book.
John walked back into the living room and started up the computer. The computer screen held the message: “No fixed-disk volume found.” Someone had deleted the partition from the drive. The only way to get information off the drive now, was to painstakingly crawl through the disk bit by bit, and that was only possible if the person forgot to securely wipe the drive. He was sure someone had beaten him to the apartment.
He turned and drank in the waterfall of books. If a book held the papers, as he thought a few minutes ago, it would take quite a while to go through them all. So even if someone beat him here, there was a chance that something could still be hidden in the bookcase. He scanned through the shelves, looking for something to be out of place, but each of the books was tucked snugly into its alphabetically correct place. Scanning down through the titles, John realized Hallman had two copies of The Canterbury Tales on the shelf. The same was true of A Christmas Carol and Frankenstein . He jumped to H , and there sat a second copy of Hamlet .
Reaching out, he grabbed the book from the shelf and tried to open it. The hardbound cover gave resistance until he heard a snap. The book opened, revealing a hidden compartment with folded papers. John slid the papers in an evidence bag and then tucked the bag into his coat pocket.
Reexamining the shelves for any books that might bear a similar appearance to the false book he had just pillaged, he found a false copy of Crime and Punishment that contained condoms and liquid KY lubricant. He closed the book and kept scanning, but nothing else seemed suspicious.
In the kitchen, he found Pete Alvarez’s
John sized up possible hiding places. The easiest spot to hide something was in between the sweaters. Upon inspection, he found that only wool and cotton pullovers occupied the drawer. The other dresser drawers were also bereft of anything unusual.
He pulled out his keychain and found a small LED flashlight he kept attached there. Kneeling down, he shined it under the bed. He found nothing.
There, down on his hands and knees, John realized he was clueless as to where the papers were; he was just flailing around in hope of stumbling across them. He would need to do better than that. He stood up, a bit embarrassed at the weak effort, and sat down on the bed.
“Think, jackass,” he murmured to himself.
John considered a few possibilities. First, there was his earlier realization that the information could be somewhere else entirely; there was no guarantee it was in the apartment. Second, Hallman could have died before he ever stashed his papers or left the appropriate clues for someone to find what he wanted to share. Third, Dunglison never said there were papers, only information; that could be hidden on Hallman’s computer. Fourth, John considered whether Hallman might have mailed it to someone, but Dunglison said the information would be found, not delivered.
He stared at the bedroom, waiting for some clue to pop out at him, but he knew that he was waiting in vain. Unless he had some idea of where or how to find the hidden information, he was wasting his time. It would be a better use of time to let Harry pick the place apart while he sipped some coffee back at the office.
He stood to leave when the book on the nightstand caught his eye; it was Hamlet . His mind flashed to the one word written on the wall in Dunglison’s blood. Hallman’s last moments suddenly made sense to John. Just like Dunglison, Hallman was hiding his information in a book.
“Son-of-a-bitch.”
Flipping through the book revealed no notation on the inside. It was simply a pristine copy of Hamlet open to page 225, where Hamlet exclaimed to Horatio, “Alas, poor Yorick!”
John’s heart sank. Hallman’s recent memories, flooding back to him in a jumbled mess, could easily explain his last words. He sighed and replaced the book.
John walked back into the living room and started up the computer. The computer screen held the message: “No fixed-disk volume found.” Someone had deleted the partition from the drive. The only way to get information off the drive now, was to painstakingly crawl through the disk bit by bit, and that was only possible if the person forgot to securely wipe the drive. He was sure someone had beaten him to the apartment.
He turned and drank in the waterfall of books. If a book held the papers, as he thought a few minutes ago, it would take quite a while to go through them all. So even if someone beat him here, there was a chance that something could still be hidden in the bookcase. He scanned through the shelves, looking for something to be out of place, but each of the books was tucked snugly into its alphabetically correct place. Scanning down through the titles, John realized Hallman had two copies of The Canterbury Tales on the shelf. The same was true of A Christmas Carol and Frankenstein . He jumped to H , and there sat a second copy of Hamlet .
Reaching out, he grabbed the book from the shelf and tried to open it. The hardbound cover gave resistance until he heard a snap. The book opened, revealing a hidden compartment with folded papers. John slid the papers in an evidence bag and then tucked the bag into his coat pocket.
Reexamining the shelves for any books that might bear a similar appearance to the false book he had just pillaged, he found a false copy of Crime and Punishment that contained condoms and liquid KY lubricant. He closed the book and kept scanning, but nothing else seemed suspicious.
In the kitchen, he found Pete Alvarez’s
Similar Books
