Chapter 11
Faulty Inspections and Impregnable Computer Programs
September in Toronto not only brought rain, but with children returning to classes, it also meant shorter lines at Canada's AdventureLand. When Elijah and Becca arrived at the park and explained the purpose of their business, the attendant called for a public relations worker to escort them to the Main Office.
Upon arriving through the main doors of the office, a short middle aged, stocky man came up to talk with them.
"Mr. Deville, you wanted to see me?" he said.
"Well I don't know. Who are you?" asked Elijah.
"I am Kevin Craig, the computer system's manager for the park and the ride operator for the Colossus on the day of Scott Taylor's accident."
"Then you're exactly the man I want to talk to," replied Elijah. "First of all, I'd like you to meet my partner, and sister Rebecca Deville."
"A pleasure miss," he said. As he stuck out his hand to shake hers, he leaned over and whispered into Becca's ear to ask if her brother always came to theme parks dressed in a three piece suit. She laughed in amusement.
"What's so funny?" asked Elijah in disgust.
"Oh, nothing Elijah," Becca said. "Mr. Craig here was just admiring your suit." Elijah sneered when he heard that because he knew that he was being made fun of. To show his displeasure, he rather curtly told Mr. Craig to show them the ride. As they were walking to the back of the park, Elijah remarked to Craig that the park seemed rather empty that day, to which Craig responded that during the fall this wasn't abnormal because the kids were at school.
"Here we are Mr. Deville, the Colossus!" Craig said, pointing his finger to the top of the first hill.
"Wow!" Elijah and Becca said in unison as they looked straight up.
"A true work of art isn't it? It's too bad that she hasn't been allowed to run since the accident," said Craig.
"It certainly is Mr. Craig," Elijah said in amazement, "and you designed the entire thing."
"No, not me personally. The ride's design was all Scott's idea; I was the lead designer of the computer system that would run it," Craig replied.
"If you're the system's manager for the park, how did you find the time to do this?" Elijah asked.
"Well, I do work with other people Mr. Deville. When I say that I was the lead designer, it didn't mean that I wrote the computer code for it, I meant that I came up with the idea for how the ride was going to work, and I then had a team of programmers write the program. After it was complete, I and a few others examined the code and tested the program right up until launch day to work all of the kinks out."
"These few others you mentioned, now who would they be."
"Sally O'Day and Herman Moon, my quality and control computer program testers, and Daniel Morris, the ride inspector for the park."
"Would it be all right with you if I sent Becca to talk to Ms. O'Day and Mr. Moon?" Elijah asked expecting a harsh response.
"No of course not!" Craig replied, with concern present in his voice. "They're in the computer lab on the 3rd floor of the main office testing some programs."
Elijah told Becca to quickly go and interview the two, as he continued questioning Kevin Craig.
"So then, Mr. Craig, I'd like you to show me how the computer program is supposed to operate."
Kevin led Elijah up to the platform to where the master computer was housed.
"Now you see Mr. Deville, the way I designed the program was absolutely tamperproof. Before anyone was placed into the ride, the system scanned all of the sensors placed in various points on the cars and the tracks to see if there were problems. If there was a minor problem, the screen would flash yellow, and the ride operator could decide to abort future rides or continue."
"What kind of errors would a yellow warning indicate?" Elijah interrupted.
"Yellow warnings could be for a minor alignment error, higher than expected winds, a small dirt buildup on the tracks, or slower than expected speed readings on the rides before it. All are minor things, and all could be cleared at the operator's discretion. If the operator chose to abort for a yellow warning, they wouldn't send out any more cars with people on them, but the empty cars would be sent around the track again, allowing the other two sets of cars to be able to unload their passengers."
"What would happen once the ride was completely empty?" Elijah asked.
"That all depends. If the yellow warning was because of a minor malfunction, it would have to be fixed, if it was for weather, obviously we'd have to wait for the weather to change. Generally speaking operators were trained as to which yellow warnings should be aborted and which should be allowed to be cleared," Craig said as he observed Elijah staring off into space, obviously in deep thought.
"Oh I'm sorry Mr. Craig," Elijah said, awakening from his trance. "I was just pondering something. So if there was a yellow warning that an operator could receive, I would therefore assume that there was a more serious warning also."
"Yes," Craig responded, showing Elijah the screen. "There could be a red warning. Red warnings are critical warnings signifying severe weather, including lightning, sensor failures, track rust, brake fatigue, etc. If an operator gets a red warning, it is impossible for them to clear it, in fact the entire ride stops immediately. Power is cut to the ride (except for the computer of course) and those cars out on the course are slowed to complete stop."
"Wouldn't that be dangerous to immediately cut power to the ride, I mean, what if a set of cars were at a high intensity portion of the ride, couldn't they could get hurt?" Elijah inquired.
"When we think of power being cut off," Craig explained, "we think of one type of switch: off and on. That's not how it is programmed to work. For this ride, we designed a computer program that would control the electricity using a smart power system. This means that the computer controls its own power and can cut off electricity to any portion of the ride if it detects a problem. When a red warning is issued, the computer, knowing where each car is on the track, manages the power and braking systems accordingly and slows the cars down to a stop on a safe part of the track. Of course, sometimes, as in the case of track failure, the ride might need to be shut down quicker, leaving cars in a less than desirable position on the track. This is sometimes unavoidable, but in fact should be a rare occurrence given our inspection procedures."
"Was a red warning issued the day of the crash?" Elijah asked.
"The only red warning that was issued was after the cars left the track. The computer, immediately being unable to locate the set of cars that it had just sent out, locked down the ride and declared a crash."
"Now you said that the computer program was tamperproof, but could it be fooled into thinking everything was OK, but in actuality it wasn't?" Elijah asked.
"Before the accident I would have said no, but obviously that wasn't the case. My only explanation is that the killer, your client, changed the sensors attached to the car, having already programmed them to send faulty information to the computer in order to trick it," Kevin said throwing his hands in the air.
"I don't think that's what did it. The police examined all the sensors and all of them were working perfectly when compared with other sensors on the ride. No, I think that the computer program itself was tampered with to give a false reading."
"That's impossible, the program was tested and re-tested in various situations and there was nothing wrong."
"Was the program changed or updated anytime before the accident?"
"It was updated the day before the crash, but only after it was tested extensively by Sally, Herman and Daniel."
"Who was the one who updated the system?"
"I did."
"So you took the CDs from the main office safe, where I assume they were kept and then came here to install the update?"
"No, Daniel Morris, the park's safety inspector, brought them to me, as he always does.
"When did he deliver the up
date?"
"If I remember right, it was about 1 PM, just after lunch. We then went down and installed the program onto the computer. No other changes were made until a few weeks ago, when we got permission to begin testing again so that the ride could be re-launched when the park opens next spring."
"If I could get a copy of the program that was installed on the day before the accident and the program that was just installed it would be most appreciated."
"Sure, I'll have Jennifer, my secretary, retrieve a copy for you. Mr. Deville," Craig said looking at his watch, "Now if you don't mind, I have an important meeting to get to. If you have anymore questions, feel free to set up an appointment."
"There is just one more thing before you go Mr. Craig," Elijah said.
An annoyed Craig stopped in his tracks and turned around.
"What is it?" Craig said indignantly.
"Where were you on the evening of June 30th?"
"At home alone," Craig said.
"That's not much of an alibi," Elijah stated.
"I guess not. But then again, I don't need one."
"Let's hope for your sake that you don't," Elijah stated, signaling to Craig that he was done.
With that, Craig went off running to the eastern section of the park, while Elijah started walking up to the front gate. Just as he was passing through the young children's section of the park, he noticed Daniel Morris talking on a walkie-talkie, so he approached him to ask him a couple of questions.
"Mr. Morris!" Elijah yelled. " I'm Elijah Deville. Can I have a minute of your time?"
"Mr. Deville, I'm quite busy right now, perhaps some other time," Morris said as he pushed Elijah aside and began walking away.
"Mr. Morris, you can either answer my questions now, or the entire world could hear about what you were doing with Scott Taylor's wife if I tell it in court."
Morris stopped, turned around and came back to Elijah. "What are you talking about?"
"The fact that you were having an affair with Audrey Taylor for more than a year before Scott was murdered."
"You're fishing Mr. Deville. Audrey and I began a relationship six weeks ago, if you don't believe me, just ask your sister."
"Oh Mr. Morris, I have talked to my sister, and she's talked to Audrey's neighbors who remember seeing your car with the license plate 'DRAGON' sitting in the Taylor driveway on nights when Scott wasn't home. What were you doing Mr. Morris?" Elijah asked looking straight up into the eyes of Daniel.
"So, we were having an affair, what is it to you?" Morris asked angrily.
"Nothing now, but it could mean something later. Anyway, it's not the affair that I want to talk to you about; it's the inspection process for the Colossus. How did that work?"
"It's nothing much. Everyday I or one of my inspectors would examine each ride thoroughly before the ride was officially tested. We'd use a checklist to check everything on the ride from the cars to the track. For the parts we couldn't get to, we'd run a diagnostic on the computer. After that was done, we'd sign the checklist and it would be filed with the safety department of the park," Morris explained.
"So on the day of the accident, you inspected the ride?" Elijah asked.
"Absolutely! Since it was a brand new ride, it is usually customary for the head of inspections to do the final walk around. I ran that inspection at 9:30 AM."
"So you did the final inspection, and missed that some of the casings had been torched and that several bolts were missing. How is that possible Mr. Morris?"
"You can't tell my boss this," Daniel said, his voice going down to a whisper, "the truth is, I didn't do a full inspection that morning. I was two hours late, so all I did was run a full computer diagnostic, which told me that the ride was in perfect order."
"Why didn't you tell the police this?"
"I could have been fired. Besides the ride had undergone a full inspection the afternoon before. I wasn't expecting anything to be wrong, so I didn't see the harm in just asking the computer to inspect the ride," Morris said.
"This is major news Mr. Morris, one that won't be remaining a secret for much longer I can assure you. It almost makes me wonder if you didn't intentionally skip the inspection knowing full well that the ride had been sabotaged," Elijah said pointing his finger at Morris angrily.
"Now why would I do that, I had no reason to kill Scott Taylor," Daniel responded as he got closer to Elijah.
"Sure you did! For his wife. You were afraid that he'd find out about you and Audrey and fire you. So you did the only thing you could: kill him!" Elijah yelled loudly.
"You've got it all wrong!" Daniel said raising his voice to match that of Elijah's. "Scott knew about Audrey and me and he approved."
"Approved? Why should I believe that?"
"Because it's the truth," Daniel responded, stepping back and lowering his voice. "Scott was spending more nights at the office and recognized that he wasn't meeting the needs of his wife. Sure, when he found out about 6 months ago he was mad, but Audrey calmed him down by telling him that she was lonely. She assured him that she still loved him, so he let us still see each other."
"That is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard. What man on earth would knowingly let his wife have an affair with another man and be OK with it?"
"I don't know about most men, but Scott Taylor was fine with it. Besides, I couldn't have killed Scott, for I was home the night before watching the Toronto baseball game. I remember that game well because it was the first time I'd ever seen a right fielder throw five guys out at home plate. It would have been six, if that stupid umpire hadn't screwed up a call in the eighth inning. So if you want to pin this murder on someone, you'd better look elsewhere, because it wasn't me," Daniel said emphatically.
Elijah reluctantly told Daniel that he'd have to look into the affair and his alibi further, but assured Daniel that they would talk again. As Elijah exited the children's area, he met up with Becca who told them that the two testers really didn't have anything to say that wasn't already known.
Just then, both of them caught a glimpse of a man running out of the main office with a clipboard in hand. Although they couldn't quite make out who it was, they did know that he was heading for the loading docks. Curious about what was going on, they decided to follow him. Hiding in the bushes so as not to be seen, they observed this man and a delivery person unloading boxes into the back of a shuttle vehicle used for transporting materials around the park. The man's back was turned from them, so they still couldn't identify who he was. From their vantage point, they also couldn't make out the name on the truck or the boxes so they decided to move closer, not noticing that a mysterious shadow was beginning to creep ever so slowly up from behind them.
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