John’s Reviews > Reader's Digest Condensed Books; 1979 #4, Volume 125: Sphinx / Cold Is the Sea / Worlds by Heart / The North Runner / Intruder > Status Update

Conway nodded. He, too, felt uneasy in the isolation of the computer room, in the heart of the empty building. At the door he looked back, puzzled. Open the door, Greiner-
He saw that Geeiner's face had turned pale. I already keyed the exit code, Greiner said slowly. It doesn't work. He's changed the code that opens the doors.
The door is jammed-he must have done that earlier. I should've guessed!

Prochaska? The man who froze to death . . . he was the one. He got off too easy, Eddie said bitterly. You know what I had planned for him? I was going to doctor his credit, ruin him, make him see what it was like to beg for a can of gas. But would you believe it? He didn't have any credit. That stupid old man always paid cash for everything! I had to find something he couldn't pay cash for- like utilities.

People think they don't leave any traces of themselves, but they do-wherever they do.This country is a maze of record systems. On the state level, there are driving records, criminal records, labor records, tax files. This state has a centralized student information system, & so do many others.
When you move up to FED, there are 100's of data banks. The US Office of Educate has a migrant student record system.

Kenny Nance's check was $50 short. Grinning, he carried the check into James Conway's office. Okay, he said, I know we've got budget problems, but why start with me?
The expression on Conway's face stopped him. It isn't only you, Kenny. It's every city employee on the city payroll.

That makes this incident different from all the others, Egan observed. Arson means he was there, at the school, lighting a match. It's a different kind of crime.

There was a small explosion, followed almost instantaneously by a fiery blast as the saturated pile of debris burst into flames. The flare-up gave the fire a strong start before enough heat reached the detector on the ceiling to trigger the alarm.
With a custodian living in a mobile home just beyond the football field, the school board had voted against the extra expense of a direct connection to the fire department

The brake marks on the slick payment told the story. It was confirmed by Jack Hurley. The driver of the Saab, he said, had tried to brake at the last minute, but he was traveling at 50 mph on the icy street. The traffic light, Jack Hurley repeated over & over, had not changed when it was supposed to.