Seated at her conference table inside her crammed and cramped office, Superintendent Didomenico looked defeated and worn.
“What were these girls doing?” she asked Rainy.
“I believe they were sending text messages with their pictures,” Rainy said. “But there is no way for me to prove it.”
Didomenico, a meticulous woman in her fifties, wore her wavy hair short. The coloring, Rainy observed, was a mix of blond, brown, and—not unexpectedly—a lot of gray. The white piping of her black sweater tastefully matched the single strand of pearls around her neck. Judging by the numerous staff interruptions for which Didomenico had to apologize, the job evidently pulled in more directions than the superintendent had limbs. Yet her face didn’t show the strain, and her eyes remained patient and kind.
The superintendent sifted through dozens of computer printouts of the images Rainy had brought with her. All the images were sanitized in some way, to conceal anything revealing, except for the girls’ faces. That was what she had come to see Didomenico about.
Rainy was convinced that Lindsey’s image belonged to a fetish series, previously unknown to authorities, that was actively being sold to child porn rings on the Web. Teen girls sexting—that was what Rainy believed the multimedia format images to be.
Defense attorneys liked it when their clients were found in possession of only known series. It was easier for them to argue that the evidence had been planted on their clients’ computers. Known images and series were widely available on the Internet and therefore more easily obtained. But a single unknown image put some doubt into that defense. Hundreds of unknown images made that strategy almost laughable.
It was hard to get one’s hands on an unknown series. It took work. It took effort. It took real commitment. Rainy knew how men viewed images like the ones of Lindsey Wells. They were hot, sexy, and alluring. The girls were no longer prepubescent. They were in their late teens, with bodies that were well developed. They could turn on most any man. They certainly did James Mann. It didn’t surprise her in the least that a market existed for these images.
Of the forty girls in what Rainy dubbed James Mann’s Text Image Collection, ten of them (according to the superintendent) attended, or had recently graduated from, Shilo High School. Each girl had taken an image of herself in some stage of undress. And somehow, those images ended up on James Mann’s home computer.
Ten of forty.
“This is very troubling news, Agent Miles,” Didomenico said as she flipped through the picture archive again. “What do we do from here?”
“Well, I’m going to want to speak with the girls individually. I need to know when the pictures were taken. What their ages were at the time. And more importantly, why they took the pictures.”
“You’d question all the girls?” Didomenico said with alarm.
“It’s the only way for me to track down the path these images took. Of course, they could have been emailed. Uploaded to a Web site. They might have even been taken using a Web camera on a site like Chatroulette or Omegle. Hard to tell. I think they were sent by cell phone. But that’s just my theory.”
“Well, in that case, why not just check with the cell phone providers?” Didomenico said.
“Would if I could,” Rainy replied. “But the only cell phone provider that stores that sort of information beyond thirty days is BlackBerry. So even if we did obtain a search warrant for their cell phones, we’d never be able to see the content of the messages the girls sent.”
“I hate the idea of your questioning all these girls. News of that would spread quite quickly, I’m afraid. It could even become a national story, with lasting implications for the girls. What good will come of this, Agent Miles? If you don’t mind my asking.”
That question had given Rainy pause. What good would come of it? The Feds had their case. Mann possessed well over a thousand illegal images, enough content to warrant federal prosecution. Add to that interstate trafficking charges, coupled with Lindsey’s official ID, and the USAO had more than enough evidence to proceed with a federal case. But Rainy had a job to do. She would be discreet, of course, but the crime needed to be investigated properly and the girls had a legal right to make their victim impact statements.
It was the law. It was just the way things were done.
“I promise to keep as low a profile as possible. But what if I spoke to the school as a whole?” Rainy asked.
Didomenico looked perplexed. “That sounds worse.”
“It may prevent future incidents,” Rainy suggested. “I can talk to them about the dangers of certain behaviors on the Internet. Perhaps then some of the girls I need to question would actually come to me. That way I wouldn’t have to do as much digging around.”
Didomenico’s expression brightened. “That’s a wonderful idea,” she said.
Rainy left Didomenico’s office with plans to present to the student body her well-traveled talk about cyber safety and the dangers of sexting. She made clear her post-assembly plans to Didomenico. Either the girls involved in the Mann investigation would come to see Rainy, or she’d go to see them.