The Terminal Experiment

CHAPTER 35

Sandra drove down the Don Valley Parkway to Cabbagetown, parking outside the very first Food Food store at the corner of Parliament and Wellesley. According to directory assistance, the centralized order-processing facility was located upstairs from this store. Sandra walked up the steep flight of steps and, without knocking, simply entered the room. There were two dozen people wearing telephone headsets sitting in front of computer terminals. They all seemed to be busy taking orders, even though it was only two in the afternoon.

A middle-aged woman with steel blond hair came up to Sandra. “Can I help you?”

Sandra flashed her badge and introduced herself. “And who are you?”

“Danielle Nadas,” the blond woman said. “I’m the supervisor here.”

Sandra looked around, fascinated. She’d ordered from Food Food many times herself since her divorce, but hadn’t really had any mental picture of what was at the other end of the telephone line — over videophones, all you saw were visual ads for Food Food specials. Finally, she said, “I’d like to see the records for one of your customers.”

“Do you know the phone number?”

Sandra started to sing: “Nine-six-seven…”

Nadas smiled. “Not our phone number. The customer’s phone number.”

Sandra handed her a slip of paper with it written on it. Nadas went over to a terminal and tapped the young man who was operating it on the shoulder. He nodded, finished taking the order he was currently processing, then got out of the way. The supervisor sat down and typed in the phone number. “Here it is,” she said, leaning to one side so that Sandra could clearly see the screen.

Rod Churchill had ordered the same meal the last six Wednesdays in a row — except…

“He had low-calorie gravy every time but the most recent,” said Sandra. “For the most recent, it shows regular gravy.”

The supervisor leaned in. “So it does.” She grinned. “Well, our low-cal stuff is pretty vile, if you ask me. It’s not even real gravy — it’s made from vegetable gelatin. Maybe he just decided to try the regular.”

“Or maybe one of your order takers made a mistake.”

The supervisor shook her head. “Not possible. We always assume the person wants the same thing they ordered last time — nine times out of ten, that’s the case. The CSR wouldn’t have rekeyboarded the order unless there was a specific change.”

“CSR?”

“Customer Service Representative.”

Ho boy, thought Sandra.

“If there’d been no change,” said Nadas, “the CSR would have just hit F2 — that’s our key for ‘repeat order’.”

“Can you tell who processed his most-recent order?”

“Sure.” She pointed to a field on the screen. “CSR 054 — that’s Annie Delano.”

“Is she here?” asked Sandra.

The supervisor looked around the room. “That’s her over there — the one with the ponytail.”

“I’d like to talk to her,” said Sandra.

“I can’t see what difference all this makes,” said the supervisor.

“The difference,” said Sandra coolly, “is that the man who ordered that meal died from a reaction to the food he ate.”

The supervisor covered her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said. “I — I should call my boss.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Sandra. “I just want to speak to that young lady over there.”

“Of course. Of course.” The supervisor led the way over to where Annie Delano was working. She looked to be about seventeen. She’d obviously just received a repeat order, and had done exactly what the supervisor said she would do — tap the F2 key.

“Annie,” said Nadas, “this woman is a police officer. She’d like to ask you some questions.” Annie looked up, eyes wide.

“Ms. Delano,” said Sandra, “last Wednesday night, you processed an order from a man named Rod Churchill for a roast beef dinner.”

“If you say so, ma’am,” Annie said.

Sandra turned to the supervisor. “Bring it up on screen.”

The supervisor leaned in and tapped out Churchill’s phone number.

Annie looked at the screen, her expression blank. “You changed his regular order,” Sandra said. “He always had low-calorie gravy before, but last time you gave him regular gravy.”

“I’d only have done that if that’s what he asked for,” said Annie.

“Do you recall him asking for a change?” Annie looked at the screen.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t recall anything about that order at all. I do over two hundred orders a day, and that was a week ago. But, honest, I wouldn’t have made the change unless he asked for it.”

Alexandria Philo went back to Doowap Advertising, co-opting one of the few private offices to do more interviews with Hans Larsen’s coworkers. Although her particular interest was Cathy Hobson, she first briefly reinterviewed two other people so as not to make Cathy suspicious.

Once Cathy had sat down, Sandra gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’ve just heard about your father,” she said. “I’m very sorry. I lost my own father last year; I know how difficult it can be.”

Cathy gave a small, civil nod. “Thank you.”

“I’m curious, though,” said Sandra, “about the fact that both Hans Larsen and your father died very close together.”

Cathy sighed. “It never rains but it pours, eh?”

Sandra nodded. “So you think it’s a coincidence?”

Cathy looked shocked. “Of course it’s a coincidence. I mean, goodness, I had only a peripheral involvement with Hans, and my father died of natural causes.”

Sandra looked Cathy up and down, assessing her. “As far as Hans goes, we both know that what you’re saying isn’t true. You had some sort of romantic involvement with him.” Cathy’s large blue eyes blazed defiantly. Sandra raised her hand. “Don’t worry, Ms. Hobson. How you choose to run your life is your own affair — so to speak. I’ve no intention of exposing your infidelity to your husband — or to Hans’s widow, for that matter. Assuming, that is, that you had nothing to do with his murder.”

Cathy was angry. “Look — in the first place, what happened between me and Hans was a long time ago. In the second place, my husband already knows about it. I told him everything.”

Sandra was surprised. “You did?”

“Yes.” Cathy seemed to realize that she might have made a mistake. She pressed on. “So you see,” she said, “I have nothing to hide and no reason to try to silence Hans.”

“What about your father?”

Cathy looked exasperated. “Once again, he died of natural causes.”

“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you,” said Sandra, “but I’m afraid that’s not true.”

Cathy was angry. “God damn it, detective. It’s hard enough going through the loss of a parent without you playing games.”

Sandra nodded. “Believe me, Ms. Hobson, I would never say such a thing if I didn’t believe it to be true. But it’s a fact that your father’s dinner order was tampered with.”

“Dinner order? What are you talking about?”

“Your father was on a prescription drug that had severe dietary restrictions. Every Wednesday when your mother was out, he ordered dinner — always the same thing, always safe for him. But on the day he died, his dinner order was tampered with, and he received something that caused a severe reaction, forcing his blood pressure to intolerably high levels.”

Cathy was flabbergasted. “What are you talking about, detective? Death by fast food?”

“I’d assumed it was an accident,” said Sandra. “But I did some checking. It turns out that the national MedBase was compromised a few days before your father died. Whoever did that could have found out that he was on phenelzine.”

“Phenelzine?” said Cathy. “But that’s an antidepressant.”

“You know it?” asked Sandra, eyebrows climbing.

“My sister was on it for a while.”

“And you know about the dietary restrictions?”

“No cheese,” said Cathy.

“Well, there’s a lot more to it than that.”

Cathy was shaking her bowed head in what looked to Sandra like very genuine astonishment. “Dad on an antidepressant,” she said softly, as if talking to herself. But then she looked up and met Sandra’s eyes. “This is crazy.”

“An access log is kept for MedBase. It took a lot of work, but I checked all the accesses for the two weeks prior to your father’s death. There was a bogus login three days before he died.”

“Bogus how?”

“The doctor under whose name the access was made was on vacation in Greece when it happened.”

“You can log on to most databases from anywhere in the world,” said Cathy.

Sandra nodded. “True. But I called Athens; the doctor swears he’s been doing nothing except visiting archeological sites since he got there.”

“And you can tell whose records were accessed?”

Sandra dropped her gaze for a moment. “No. Just when whoever was using the account logged on and logged off. Both accesses were at about four A.M. Toronto time—”

“That’s in the middle of the day in Greece.”

“Yes, but it’s also when the MedBase system is under the least demand. I’m told there are almost never any access delays at that time. If someone wanted to get on and off as quickly as possible, that would be when to do it.”

“Still, using food ingredients to trigger a fatal reaction — that would require a lot of expertise.”

“Indeed,” said Sandra. A pause. “You have a degree in chemistry, don’t you?”

Cathy exhaled noisily. “In inorganic chemistry, yes. I don’t know anything about pharmaceuticals.” She spread her hands. “This all seems pretty farfetched to me, Detective. The worst enemy my father had was the football coach from Newtonbrook Secondary School.”

“And his name is?”

Cathy made an exasperated sound. “I’m joking, Detective. I don’t know anyone who’d want to kill my father.”

Sandra looked off in the distance. “Perhaps you’re right. This job gets to you sometimes.” She smiled disarmingly. “We’re all a little prone to conspiracy theories, I’m afraid. Forgive me — and, please, let me say again that I’m sorry your father passed away. I do know what you’re going through.”

Cathy’s voice was neutral, but her eyes were seething. “Thank you.”

“Just a few more questions, then hopefully I won’t have to bother you again.” Sandra consulted the display on her palmtop. “Does the name Desalle mean anything to you? Jean-Louis Desalle?”

Cathy said nothing.

“He was at the University of Toronto at the same time you were there.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“True. Let me put it to you more directly: when I spoke to Jean-Louis Desalle, he recognized your name. Not Catherine Hobson — Catherine Churchill. And he recalled your husband, too: Peter Hobson.”

“The name you mentioned,” said Cathy, carefully, “is vaguely familiar.”

“Have you seen Jean-Louis Desalle since university?”

“Goodness, no. I have no idea what became of him.”

Sandra nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Hobson. Thank you very much. That’ll be all for now.”

“Wait,” said Cathy. “Why’d you ask about Jean-Louis?”

Sandra closed her palmtop and put it in her attache case. “He’s the doctor whose database account was compromised.”