Lost Light

you and Linus made this report, how did that go?”
    She shrugged.
    “Linus and I just took turns typing the numbers into his laptop.”
    “Isn’t there some sort of computer scanner or copier that could have recorded the serial numbers much more easily?”
    “There is but it wouldn’t work for what we had to do. We had to randomly select and record bills from every pack but keep each recorded bill in its original pack. That way if the money was stolen and split up, there would be a chance of tracing every pack.”
    I nodded.
    “Who told you to do it that way?”
    “Well, I guess it came down from Mr. Skaggs or maybe Mr. Vaughn. Mr. Vaughn was the one who dealt with security and the instructions from the insurance company.”
    “Okay, so you are in the vault with Linus. How exactly did you record the money?”
    “Oh, Linus thought it would take forever if we wrote down the numbers and then had to type them into a computer. So he brought his laptop in and we entered them directly. One of us would read off the number while the other typed.”
    “Which one of you did which?”
    “We both did. We switched. You might think sitting at a table with two million dollars in cash on it is a real thrill but it actually was boring. So we switched around. Sometimes I read and he typed, and then I’d type while he read out the numbers.”
    I thought about this, trying to see how it could have worked. It might appear that having two employees put the list together would provide a double-checking system, but it didn’t. Whether Simonson was reading off numbers or entering them on the laptop computer, he was controlling the data. He could have made up numbers in either position and Jones would not have known it unless she looked at either the bill or the computer screen.
    “Okay,” I said. “Then when you were finished you printed out the computer file and signed the report, right?”
    “Right. I mean, I think so. It was a while back.”
    “Is that your signature on there?”
    She flipped to the last page of the document and checked. She nodded.
    “That’s it.”
    I held out my hand and she gave me the document back.
    “Who took the report to Mr. Scaggs?”
    “Probably Linus. He printed it out. Why are all of these details so important?”
    Her first suspicion of where I was going. I didn’t answer. I flipped the report she had been studying to the back page and looked at the signatures myself. Her signature was below Simonson’s and above Scaggs’s scrawl. It had been the order of signing. Simonson, then her, then it was taken to Scaggs for final sign-off.
    As I held the report up to the light from the porthole, I thought I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. It was only a photocopy of the original or maybe even a copy of a copy, but even still, there were gradations in the ink in Jocelyn Jones’s signature. It was something I had seen before on another case.
    “What is it?” Jones asked.
    I looked at her while putting the document back into the murder book.
    “Excuse me?”
    “You looked like you saw something important.”
    “Oh, nothing. I’m just looking at everything. I have just a few more questions.”
    “Good. I should get downstairs. We’re closing soon.”
    “I’ll get out of your hair, then. Mr. Vaughn, was he part of this process in which the money was prepared and the serial numbers documented?”
    She shook her head once.
    “Not really. He sort of supervised us and came in a lot, especially when the money came in from the branches or the Federal Reserve. He was in charge of that, I guess.”
    “Did he come in when you guys were dictating the numbers and typing them into the computer?”
    “I don’t remember. I think he did. Like I said, he came in a lot. I think he liked Linus so he came in a lot.”
    “What do you mean, he ‘liked’ Linus?”
    “Well, you know.”
    “You mean Mr. Vaughn was gay?”
    She shrugged.
    “I think he was, but not in an open way. It was a secret, I guess. It was no big deal.”
    “What about Linus?”
    “No, he’s not gay. That’s why I don’t think he liked Mr. Vaughn coming in so much.”
    “Did he say that to you or was that just your take on it?”
    “No, he sort of said something about it one day. Like he joked, saying he was going to have a sexual harassment suit if this keeps up. Something like that.”
    I nodded. I didn’t know if this meant anything to the case or not.
    “You didn’t answer my question before.”
    “What