Options

CHAPTER fifteen

  The next couple of hours were very painful. Painful in the sense that Grace, thorough by nature and career choice, showed her true colours about "checking" my files against Ev’s. She had her auditor’s hat on and was all business. Because my files contain a jumble of papers in no particular order we decided to use Ev’s as the starting point.

  Evelyn’s files were neat and orderly with all the papers ordered by date with the most recent information on top. All documents in the files were neatly punched with two holes in the top of each page and secured in the file with metal clips. I never believed in using those metal clips because I considered them a hazard. When a clip caught you under the fingernail and gouged out a hunk of skin, your files ended up with blood all over the papers. Not a pretty sight.

  Grace was methodically taking each sheet of information from Evelyn’s files and matching it to one in mine. This was time consuming because I had to rifle through at least three inches of paper each time to find the matching sheet. Grace would then check the computer system to see if the information was the same. A simple three-step process but because of the shape of my files it was taking too long. And it was embarrassing. Thankfully Grace didn’t comment.

  By six-thirty Grace was satisfied that the process I had described could be proven. I got the final numbers from Didrickson, gave them to Ev, and she entered it in the system. Easy. Grace was also satisfied that all stock option grants that had been approved by the board of directors over the last three years were safely entered in the computer.

  "Good, good," Grace was mumbling to herself. She was scrolling through the information on the computer on a final check.

  "We’re finished?" I asked. She kept her attention on the computer screen and nodded. I lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. I was leaning back in my chair stretching my neck when I heard a light tapping on the door behind me. I turned around and Ray was standing there with a bunch of papers in his hands.

  "Raymond," I said. "To what do we owe this pleasure? Good to see you up and about at this time of day."

  "Ha ha," he deadpanned. "I’ve been up since eight when Grace called me. All these early morning wake-up calls are ruining my beauty sleep."

  "Ah, the important life of a system administrator. Doesn’t it feel good to be needed?" I joked.

  "Yeah, just great. At least the system wasn’t down this morning," he said.

  I looked over at Grace who was still staring at the computer screen. "Grace," I said to get her attention. Boy, could she focus. She took a couple of more seconds and then looked up.

  "You’ve got that information for me?" she asked Ray.

  "All right here," he said as he passed her the papers. I held out my hand to take the papers but he passed them directly to Grace. Damn.

  Grace started flipping through the sheets of paper which were stapled in the corner. "Educate me," she said. "What is all this?"

  Ray walked around to the other side of the desk and I made myself small in the chair. After the last couple of painful hours I felt I deserved some compensation. If I sat here quietly I might be lucky enough to pick up some information.

  Grace ignored me and started firing questions at Ray.

  "This indicates what?" she asked and pointed to a line of text on the page. I thought about leaning forward and trying my reading upside-down trick but thought better of it. I had to keep myself invisible.

  "That’s the user i.d.," Ray said. "The numbers beside it indicate the date and time the user was on the system and the line underneath shows how long their session lasted."

  "What’s this?" Grace asked.

  Ray studied the information beside Grace’s finger on the piece of paper. "That shows which part of the system the user was logged onto."

  "For example?" Grace asked.

  "For example, if the user was using the accounting part of the system or the employee information system, these numbers indicate that," Ray said. "So, this information shows Ev was logged onto the computer, the date and time, and here it shows that she was using the stock option system."

  "How far back does this information go?" she asked.

  "The current system keeps it for a year. We have information stored off site for all the previous years."

  "So you can tell every time a person uses the system?" Grace asked Ray.

  "Of course. There’s all sorts of information in the background that's transparent to the user. If I needed to, I could find out exactly what keys they punched while they used the computer."

  "Good. That’s what I needed to know. You told me this morning on the phone that the system showed that Rick Cox was on the system on Thursday night. Show me where the log confirms that."

  Ooh. So the culprit was Rick Cox. I didn’t know what to make of this little tidbit. First of all, I thought, Rick Cox using a computer was totally unbelievable. Out of the question. We may be a high tech company, but none of our executives were users. Well, maybe they used scotch but they certainly didn’t use computers. In fact, one of the biggest laughs we had was when Chris Oakes was interviewed for the Globe & Mail business section and the picture that went along with the story showed him sitting in front of his computer, supposedly working away. The only keys he punched were on his telephone to use voice mail. Oakes could talk good computer. Cox on the other hand was a total technophobe. He had respect for computers because they meant money and money was his business. But to actually use a computer was beneath him. And probably rightly so. Unless you were a secretary or a finance type, using computers to generate information or gather information was below an executive. They had people to do that for them. Rick Cox using our internal computer system was totally unbelievable. He would have a user i.d. because everyone in the company did. But Rick actually logging on and creating or generating information? No way. He’d call someone at home and get them out of bed before he did that. I wonder if Grace understood this.

  "Now explain to me levels of access," Grace demanded. "Who exactly has access to the different systems?"

  "Select people are identified as users and depending on their job descriptions or responsibilities, they have access to different levels. For the stock option system, there are three people who are users. That means those three are the only ones who can input information, change information and gather reports," Ray said.

  "And the three users are? You mentioned Rick Cox and Ev. Who’s the third?" Grace asked.

  "Jay Harmon."

  "Jay. Oh yeah. He’s one of the management trainees. He’s working for Cox now, isn’t he?" Grace looked over at me for confirmation. At least she knew I was still sitting there. I nodded rather than answer out loud. Better not to break her concentration.

  "Show me some instances of Jay’s usage of the system," she said to Ray.

  He pointed to the first entry on the top page. "Here," he said. "Jay was the last person to log into the stock option system. See," he ran his finger across the page, "that’s his user i.d., this shows the date and time he was on the system, this number here shows he generated a report. I don’t know what the report was, I’ll have to check."

  "God. This is like learning a new language," Grace laughed. "What’s this t.i.d.?"

  "Terminal identification. That shows which computer the user was logged on to," Ray said.

  Grace was now really intent on the information. She was a quick study and was flipping the pages. Ray backed up and sat on the credenza behind Ev’s desk. We were both quiet while Grace did her reading. I glanced at some of the pages as they flipped by and all I could see was a jumble of letters and numbers. She turned back to the first page of the document and ran her finger down the page.

  "There. That’s the entry. Right?" she said.

  Ray slid off the credenza and looked over her shoulder.

  "Yup," was all he said.

  "Translate for me," she demanded.

  "User i.d. is Rick
Cox’s. He logged on at eight-nineteen p.m. He was on the system for about three minutes. This number indicates he was in the stock option system. The number beside it indicates what part, or sub-menu of the stock option system, but I’ll have to check what that is. And the terminal i.d. says he was logged on to this computer. Ev’s." He rattled off the information like he was reading a Dr. Seuss rhyme.

  "Okay. And the two entries above it are Jay Harmon’s?" Grace asked.

  "Right. Both entries are almost identical. User i.d. is Jay Harmon’s. Date and time. Stock option system. I’ll have to check what part of the system. And the terminal i.d. is his own computer," Ray fired off.

  "How do you know all the terminal i.d.’s?" Grace asked.

  "I know all the terminal i.d.’s and all the user i.d.’s. Can’t remember a phone number but I know all my users." Ray grinned.

  "One last question Ray. How many people know that you can access this information? Do the users know that their usage is tracked and records are kept?"

  Ray looked at me. "The technical types in this company would certainly know. They design these systems. The users though, I don’t know. Kate, were you aware of this?" he asked me.

  "Hell no. I suppose if I thought about it, it makes sense. But I just use the system. I don’t know how it works."

  Ray said to Grace, "And that’s probably typical of everyone except the techies. People love having computers and using them but don’t understand the guts of them."

  "Well thank you for the lesson. I’ll keep these records," she said. "I don’t think there’s anything else right now. Ray, go on home and if I need you I’ll call you."

  "You're welcome," he replied. "I’m at your service."

  After he left Grace looked up at me across the desk.

  "Well, I suppose you’ve figured it all out?" she said.

  "Basically. Rick Cox logged on to the system and made the changes to his stock options and a couple of other people’s on the night Ev died. What time does the log say he did the dirty deed?" I asked.

  Grace looked at the sheet. "Eight-nineteen," she said. "Why?"

  "No reason," I said and stood up. I needed to think. Something wasn’t right here but I wasn’t going to share my thoughts with Grace. Yet.

  "Anything else?" I asked her.

  "Not from you. Thanks so much. Your files were a great help," she said.

  "Yeah right," I said. I gathered up all my stuff and headed for the door.

  "Kathleen," Grace said. I stopped and turned around.

  "I’ll have to ask you to keep this information to yourself. What’s happened here is very serious and the fallout is going to be messy."

  "I know," I said. "Mum’s the word."