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Sometimes, detective work is too easy... |
| Detective Reema Sullivan brushed the hair out of her face as she sorted the afternoon mail. Taxes, utilities, car payment, insurance, credit cards, home repairs, office rent… everything was a bill! She dumped the pile on the kitchen table with a sigh as her husband Dan came in with his briefcase. “Any cases today?” “Someone offered to pay us a hundred bucks to find their lost cat,” he said with a wry smile. “Somehow, I don't think it's worth our time.” “Ugh. Maybe tomorrow. Someone, somewhere is in need of our services.” She gave him a reassuring smile, reminding herself why they chose this career path. Two years in, being private investigators wasn't quite as sustainable as they'd assumed it would be. Perhaps it was time to take on a side hustle. “You know, we both minored in computer science in college. Maybe we should put an ad in the paper offering our services as programmers. Might be an opportunity to make money from home while still maintaining our career.” Dan shrugged. “Good idea. Better than doing nothing, waiting for clients.” *** Two mornings after they advertised themselves in the paper, the phone rang at the office. Dan picked up the call and put it on speaker. “Sullivan and Sullivan Detective Services. How may I help you?” “Hey, are you the guys with the classified ad?” a gruff male voice asked. “Sure.” “I’m Harris O'Reilly. You're just what we need. I'm looking for someone to proofread software before it goes in for live test runs. We'll pay up to a thousand dollars a program.” “Really?” Dan leaned forward, glancing up at Reema. “We can do that. How advanced is the software?” “Mainly business related, drafts of webpages and office applications. Nothing like sending people to Mars. All you need is a keen eye, patience and a working knowledge of JavaScript, Python and C++.” “Awesome! What company will we be working with?” “Grand Rock Products. Let me have your email address, and I'll send you all the onboarding information straightaway.” Dan gave Harris their business email, and they hung up. Reema clasped her hands. “Goodness, what an opportunity. I can't wait!” “Yeah. Nothing like a good armchair occupation during lean times.” Dan googled Grand Rock Products, finding it a legitimate software company with good reviews on Glassdoor. He scrolled through their staff, looking for Harris O'Reilly and not finding him. “Might be unlisted,” he mused. “This is too good to pass up. Wonder what the catch is.” They filled out the applications Harris emailed, were accepted almost immediately, and started working on the first files via the site portal he'd provided the link to. Harris told them he would be their main contact at the company, and there was no need to reach out to anyone else. *** Proofreading draft software proved almost too easy. Dan and Reema completed two projects a day, making nearly ten grand their first week. “We should've been doing this all along,” Dan said, scrolling through a wall of code. “I can't believe they're paying us so much.” “Seems rather funny, actually.” Reema pasted together a list of bugs she'd found in her program. “Why hire us to do this? A big company doesn't need to outsource simple work.” “This is exactly what they'd want to outsource. That way they can focus on the big design issues.” “But a thousand dollars a program?” “Can't look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe they want Americans working on it.” Reema had to admit, Dan was happy as a clam, now that there was enough money to ease tension. They planned on running additional advertising to promote their detective business, eventually being able to transition away from their “side hustle.” But still, something seemed peculiar. After two weeks, Reema accidentally deleted one of the files and had to figure out how to retrieve it. “I'm going to call the company directly.” She reached for the phone. “Harris instructed us to route all communication through him,” Dan observed. Reema shrugged. She put the phone on speaker. When she explained who she was, the customer service representative was puzzled. “I'm sorry, but you are not in our system. Could you tell me who exactly has been sending you these files?” No one under the name Harris O'Reilly was employed by Great Rock Products. Reema was transferred to corporate to speak with a manager. “This is highly suspect. You mean to tell me you've been accessing our proprietary program files and modifying them?” “Someone hired us to do it.” “Indeed. It rather seems you are a hacker. I know exactly who is authorized to handle proofreading our software, and it isn't you or your husband!” Reema eyed Dan with a look. His jaw went slack. He rubbed his forehead, avoiding her gaze. “We're innocent parties, I can assure you.” she spoke into the phone. “You expect me to believe that?” The manager yelped. “Our teams have been finding multiple security flaws in our systems since you began your so-called proofreading work. I've already launched an internal investigation into potential hackers. It seems I've found them!” “Look, we're investigators, not hackers. We don't have the advanced computer science capabilities required to make damaging changes to your software.” “Baloney.” “If we've been doing it by ourselves, who's been paying us?” “That's not my problem. I'm having you two arrested for tampering with proprietary software.” Reema's mind spun, trying to connect the dots. “Listen. I'm trying to help you out. Have you fired any employees lately? It looks to me like someone's hacking your company and needs us to pin it on.” “Very clever.” The manager paused a moment. His angry tone grew thoughtful. “About a month ago, we fired the director of cybersecurity analysis. He was accused of workplace harassment.” “That sounds like a potential suspect. Was he upset?” “Furious. Who wouldn't be?” He paused again. “Did you say you were private investigators?” “Yes. If you like, you can retain us to look into the situation. We would certainly be interested in getting to the bottom of our fraudulent employment.” “Obviously, so would I. I'll have to check you two out thoroughly first. I don't suppose you would be the hackers if you've called up inquiring about your quote-enquote jobs. Nevertheless… I'll get back with you.” He hung up. Reema let out a long breath. “Good grief.” Dan shook his head. “Were we ever taken for a ride.” Reema sniffed. The old “I told you so” came to mind, but… she had fallen for the easy work almost the same. Now all that remained was to bring the hacker to light. *** After a day or two, the manager, Josh Trumbull, decided that Dan and Reema were legit detectives and brought them in to deal with the company's security situation. They still maintained contact with Harris O'Reilly, as their only link to the culprit. At the offices of Great Rock Products, Josh sat them down in front of his imposing desk. “Any progress made?” Dan shuffled some papers. “Harris is using a burner email to keep in touch with us. We're considering setting a trap for him… it would require your participation.” “Tell me.” “We thought if we could prepare a phishing email, it would infect his device and give us more info about who he is and what he's doing.” A slow grin spread across Josh's face. “Hack the hacker? Oh, that's a good one. How will you manage?” “It should be simple enough,” Reema nodded. “Right now, he doesn't suspect we're on to him. We send him edited program files all the time as part of our job. Presumably he throws them out. We just need to come up with a way of ensuring he has to actually open one of them.” “Perfect. What you need to do is call him up, ask him to check and read back a portion of source code to ensure it was transmitted properly. If he wants to maintain the appearance of a normal boss, he'll do it.” “But if we're dealing with the former director of cybersecurity…” Dan observed. “Seems like a cheap trick.” “He assumes he's dealing with morons, no doubt,” Josh chuckled. “I mean, honestly, you really fell for someone calling you up and claiming a company wanted to hire you based on your newspaper ad? And began blissfully opening unverified files he emailed you?” Dan and Reema squirmed in their seats. “We had bills to pay,” she murmured. “We thought it was legit,” he mumbled. “Hey, if you can help me get this guy apprehended, I'll overlook your youthful stupidity. Next time you need a side gig, do DoorDash or UberEats. Seriously.” *** Three days later… “I’m glad that's over with,” Reema sighed, looking over the headlines about a disgruntled cybersecurity employee caught hacking his former employer. “We managed to avoid getting any bad publicity out of it. That could have crashed our careers. Who would hire detectives who fell for a get-rich-quick scheme?” “At least we turned the tables on him,” Dan said. “What fun it was seeing him fall for our phishing file.” “I'm surprised he didn't send us one.” “That's because he had bigger fish on his plate. We were just the broke jokers who would have been left holding the bag.” “Good grief…” Reema giggled. “Why does this seem so funny?” “Idunno. Think we should start taking life more seriously?” “Nah. Whatever for?” They high-fived each other, suppressing goofy laughter. “We're A-OK.” notes ▼ lyrics to A-OK ▼ video ▼ |
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