Members of the Major Case Squad had broken off into various groups by the time we returned to the squad room on the upper floor; some in small teams discussing and exchanging ideas; some alone with telephones pressed purposefully to their ears; still others already out on the streets. No matter the particular duty being executed, though, they were all striving toward a singular purpose. To find a killer and stop him before anyone else could become a victim.
“The systems administrator of the Miller woman’s ISP is supposed to meet one of us at their office around noon,” the young detective named Chuck told us. “He says they keep their logs for ninety days, so we might have a good shot.”
The three of us were positioned around Ben’s desk in a small huddle of our own. My friend stood leaning against the piece of furniture with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and a dejected scowl glued to his angular features. The young detective had accosted us with the information almost as soon as we had come through the double metal and glass doors that served as an entryway to the squad room.
Ben nodded thoughtfully and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Tell me again what this is gonna do for us?”
I was just swallowing a handful of decomposing aspirin from a bottle that looked like it had been rolling around in the desk drawer for the past decade. I had tried to eyeball a measurement that looked like it might equal somewhere around three or four whole tablets, then finally gave up and simply filled my palm with the chunky granules. Hopefully the analgesic would kick in soon because a small troll with a ball peen hammer was already having a party inside my skull.
I chased the crumbling white pill remnants down with a quick gulp of fresh coffee that wasn’t much better than the hours old brew from earlier. The bitter tang of the medicine combined with the java leeched into the back of my tongue, and I had to bite back a reflexive gag.
“Whoever sent her the threatening e-mail,” I finally explained, setting my cup aside and forcing myself to ignore the throbbing in my temples, “would most likely have an e-mail address or a domain header embedded in it. If we can get that information, we should be able to trace it back to their service provider and get their billing information.”
“Unless the sender spoofed it,” Chuck volunteered.
“Yes, that’s true,” I agreed.
“Spoof?” Ben shot a puzzled look between us.
“Masked or somehow altered the address and domain,” the young detective detailed. “Kind of like electronically filing off a serial number.”
“Simply fuckin’ lovely.” Ben’s right hand went up to smooth back his hair as he muttered the curse.
“Even if it was spoofed, as long as they have the POP-three logs and the original piece of mail, the assigned routing number should at least allow us to track it to the mail server that delivered it originally,” I offered.
Chuck returned an animated nod. “True, but that’s all you’d get. No account info. And if you’re talking AOL or something, that’s a big goddamned ISP. That’s not even taking into account if it was sent through an open relay.”
“So what’s the story? There’s still a way ta’ track ‘im down even if he did this ‘spoofing’ thing, or no?” Ben queried.
“In theory, yes,” I told him. “I have to be honest though, I don’t think this guy is that computer savvy. In fact, we should consider the fact that the threatening e-mail might not have even come from him.”
“Whaddaya mean?” my friend asked.
“This kind of hate crime is not terribly uncommon,” I replied with a shrug. “The idea of taunting or degrading someone from behind the anonymity of the keyboard is terribly appealing to some. Unfortunately, there are a large number of individuals out there who are closed minded and hateful but are just a little too inhibited to step over the line in person. Hide them behind a computer monitor and a phone line and they suddenly change. The inhibitions disappear because they believe no one knows who they are, and they think that they can’t be caught.”
“So you’re sayin’ this kinda shit happens all the time?” Ben appealed.
Chuck had been bobbing his head at strategic points throughout my statement. “It’s rapidly becoming the preferred method of sending anonymous hate mail.”
I shrugged in agreement. “Sure. I’ve been on the receiving end of threatening e-mail myself.”
“What the fuck?” Ben’s eyes grew wide. “Why haven’t ya’ ever told me this before, white man?”
“Why?”
“So maybe I could do somethin’ about it.”
“So you could do what, Ben?” I questioned. “Fly halfway across the country and beat up… oh, I don’t know…” I shrugged and shook my head before continuing, “maybe a beer swilling bigot in his mid-twenties whose biggest thrill in life is denigrating others over the internet just for something to do? People like that aren’t worth your time any more than they are mine.”
My friend stared at the floor for a moment, silently working his fingers on a tense knot at the back of his neck. “Okay,” he finally spoke. “So if I understand what you two are sayin’, this lead may or may not get us any closer to our guy.”
“Right,” Chuck answered.
“Correct,” I agreed. “But there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to go talk to the administrator of Kendra Miller’s ISP and see what kind of information we can get.”
“You know,” Chuck offered, “internet stalking is a federal crime. You might want to get the Feeb’s in on this.”
Still massaging the base of his neck, Ben twisted around and motioned across the room with his free hand. “Hey, Constance, you got a minute?”
We were sitting in a small waiting area in one corner of the homicide division squad room. My auburn-maned wife was planted lethargically in her seat next to me, one leg draped over the other, unmoving. Ever since I had known her, whenever she sat with her legs crossed, she would invariably begin lightly tapping her foot in the air to a rhythm only she could hear. Her now uncharacteristic motionlessness was a sure indicator of her fatigue.
Her upper torso was slightly twisted and tucked neatly into the crook of my shoulder with my arm hooked about her. She cupped a half-full coffee mug in her dainty hands, absently running the tip of a neatly manicured nail around its rim.
I rested my chin lightly atop her head, and since her contaminated jacket was draped across a seat several feet away, all I could smell was the fresh sweetness of juniper wafting from her soft hair. I closed my eyes and relaxed, feeling the fistful of aspirins beginning to force my headache into submission.
“We’ll be leaving in about thirty-minutes or so, I guess,” I told Felicity in a quiet voice. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I wouldn’t expect more than an hour or two.”
“That’s okay,” she answered with an exhausted near whisper. “I called my client before I came up here. They still want to see if we can do the shoot today, so I really need to be getting over there then.”
Between her lingering hangover and coming down from the adrenalin rush, I knew she was fading fast. I also had no doubt that she would muster a second wind and do everything in her power to make her client happy-and she would succeed as usual. This evening, however, one could be certain that she was going to crash and crash hard.
“You look to me like you need a few more hours sleep as opposed to working,” I admonished. “No offense intended. You’re still the prettiest sight I’ve seen all day.”
“Aye, none taken,” her voice lilted as she rested against me. “Surely I feel like I could use it myself. And I suspect you need to have your glasses checked then.”
“Uh-huh. My glasses are fine, sweetheart.”
“Ahh, you’re just besotted then.” My petite wife let out a satiny, musical laugh then stretched cat-like against me and pressed herself deeper into the cradle of my arm. “Oh, and I almost forgot, Austin called shortly after you left this morning. He’d like to take us to dinner tomorrow night if we’re free. I told him I’d check with you.”
“I don’t see why we couldn’t,” I said with a slight shrug. “I can’t say what’s going to happen between now and then, but as far as I know I’ll be available. And I definitely didn’t get to spend much time with him last night. How did all that work out anyway?”
“What’s that? The fight?”
“Yeah,” I said and gave her arm a squeeze. “Best I could get from you last night was that you’d bailed him out.”
She let out a breath and inhaled deeply. I could feel a slight movement of her head against me as she gave a shallow nod. “The charges were dropped. Austin didn’t hurt him that badly, and seems that after Daddy was finished threatening the hotel management with lawsuits, they were apologizing and assuring him they would take disciplinary action against the bartender.”
“Leave it to Shamus,” I muttered with hollowness in my voice. “So some poor stiff is going to lose his job on top of getting pummeled by my brother-in-law, all because he happened to make a joke about me? I can’t live with that.”
“Aye, I’m thinking not, so don’t worry,” she returned. “Daddy told them they should leave it be. Just let men be men and be done with it.”
“If the guy dropped the assault charges though, you can be sure he got some pressure from the upper management.”
“Aye. Surely you’re correct on that.”
“I realize Austin felt he was just being loyal to a family member, but he should really go apologize to the man.”
“He probably already has.” She reached over and gave my thigh a loving pat. “That’s where he was planning to go this morning after breakfast.”
A flat-bottomed mass of clouds hung like an anvil over the small corner of Saint Louis’ south county-an oppressive reminder of winter casting a harsh, blue-grey silhouette across the mounded snow. The temperature managed to bootstrap itself to a few degrees above the freezing point by the time the clock hands met at twelve. This, in combination with the moderate amount of sunshine that peeked through, had already rendered the small dusting of the fresh white stuff we had received overnight to a damp memory. It was now continuing to work silently at melting away the remnants of the recent miniature blizzard.
The general populace of the city and county were visibly active in the wake of this serendipitous “heat” wave. Self-service car washes were raking in the quarters as patrons choked their small lots-everyone vying for positions to wash the corrosive road grime from their vehicles. For every clean car to exit on the backside, seemingly two more would rush to join the throng waiting for a turn. As we passed by these small pockets of frenzied activity, we saw no less than a half dozen fender benders caused by the impatient confusion.
Special Agent Mandalay turned the dark sedan into the parking lot of a plain looking strip mall on Gravois. Due to the possible federal jurisdiction surrounding this crime-or portion of a larger crime-she and I had been elected to make this call. Constance was, of course, the official representative of law enforcement. I was along simply as a translator. Someone to make sense of any computer and internet jargon she might not be familiar with.
Everyone else, including Ben and Deckert had either remained behind or set out in different directions, all intent on following up other leads, sparse as they were. Another purpose for my friend to remain at the MCS command post was to be able to direct the actions of the squad. Even his superior officers were giving him free rein over this case based on his recent past history with the last serial killer and to an even greater extent, me. Because of his relationship with me, as well as the circumstances surrounding the last case, he was viewed as the ranking officer when it came to crimes that dealt with anything even remotely related to what they termed “occult dealings.” I suppose that in their opinion, a madman going around murdering Witches by all the conventions of the Inquisition fell under that particular heading. I guess I had to agree.
The long brick building we were rolling toward across the wet asphalt was nestled comfortably between a small restaurant on the right and what appeared to be a light industrial area to the left. A laundromat equipped with its own bar, aptly titled SUDZ, occupied one end of the structure. Neon signs painted on the window boasted a Tuesday and Thursday singles night. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but then I had never been one for enjoying either activity-doing the laundry or singles night at a bar. Not even when I was single.
The opposite end housed the office and showroom of a small accounting firm with a decidedly ethnic name. A few other nondescript businesses occupied the center, with our destination sandwiched in between. South County Online Internet Services, L.L.C.
Constance nosed her sedan into a space in front of the establishment and directly next to an older, but apparently well maintained, Cutlass Supreme. The car showed almost no sign of the chalky, whitish-grey salt that coated her vehicle and in fact, was even steaming slightly in the sunlight as water from an extremely recent wash evaporated into the chilled air. It couldn’t have been pulled into its space very long before we arrived.
A haggard looking man with shoulder-length hair, dressed in denim jeans and an oversized sweatshirt bearing the logo of a modem manufacturer stood outside the door of the service provider. His winter coat hung limply open over his thin frame, and his wide eyes bore the signature glaze of the programmer’s trinity-caffeine, nicotine, and a late night spent staring at the sixty hertz scan of a computer monitor. Years ago, before I had gone into business for myself, I had seen a very similar face staring back at me from the bathroom mirror each and every morning.
He took a deep drag from the remains of the cigarette held between his thumb and forefinger as he watched us get out of the vehicle. With a lazy flick, he sent the butt sailing through the air in the direction of a large coffee can without even looking. I assumed the receptacle was partially filled with sand, but it was impossible to be sure as it was already overflowing onto the sidewalk with the extinguished remnants of countless other cigarettes. The butt impacted the concrete near the can and exploded a small shower of red embers outward to quickly die then rolled to a stop and laid smoldering amidst the others that had come before it.
The bedraggled man nodded in our direction as he blew out a thick cloud of smoke intermixed with steamy breath. “You two the cops that called?”
Constance reached into her coat as she stepped around the front of the car and withdrew the leather case containing her credentials. In a practiced motion she smoothly flipped open the wallet with one hand to display her badge and identification to him.
“I’m Special Agent Mandalay with the FBI,” she stated in an even, businesslike tone. “This is Mister Gant.”
“FBI, huh. I was just expectin’ cops,” the man grunted then chuckled lightly. “Shouldn’t you be a redhead and shouldn’t he be taller?”
Constance glanced over at me with a thin frown sealing her lips but refrained from commenting on the TV show reference she had probably heard more times that she could easily recollect. Fluidly closing the leather case, she thrust her identification back into her pocket and looked back to the man.
“You are the systems administrator for this Internet Service?” The tone of her voice turned the statement into a question, and she motioned to the sign on the window that proclaimed South County Online to be the “Leading Edge In Internet Information Services.”
“That’s me.” He extended his hand as he acknowledged in a somewhat unsettled tone, having most certainly noticed Agent Mandalay’s cold reaction to his quip. “Rocky Wendell.”
We exchanged quick handshakes and then followed him through the door into the dark interior of the building.
“I can put some coffee on if either of you want any,” he told us as we tagged along through the reception area, past a service desk, and into a corridor lit dimly by a glowing exit sign.
“Thank you, no,” Constance gunned down his offer with sharp, vocational politeness. “We’re running a little short on time, so if you could just answer a few questions about one of your clients, we’ll let you get on with what’s left of the weekend.”
Wendell hesitated for a moment after slapping a pair of switches and stood studying her face as fluorescent illumination poured into the hallway and rear half of the building. It was becoming obvious that the petite federal agent’s demeanor had him off balance. It was almost as if he wasn’t quite sure how to handle dealing with a woman in a position of authority.
Finally, he simply shrugged then turned and continued down the corridor. “Suit yourself.”
“Kendra Miller, yeah, here it is,” Wendell told us from behind a glassy eyed stare at a screen positioned on his desk, “Witchvixen at yadda yadda yadda.” He ripped off a string of keystrokes, and we could see the light of the screen flicker across his face as it changed. “According to her activity log, I think she might have taken that nickname a little too seriously… Says here she was subscribed to some of those wacko newsgroups… alt dot WitchCraft, alt dot Witches, alt dot Wicca…”
“Do you have any record of her complaining of threatening or harassing e-mail?” Agent Mandalay interrupted him before he could continue reading off the list.
“Just a second.” He tapped out another series of clicks and clacks on the keyboard, then once again the screen flickered, and he slowly began nodding. “Yeah… yeah, looks like about a month ago. She got a crank e-mail and called. Looks like we just set up a trap filter on her account for that addy.”
“Did you have to trap an entire domain?” I inquired.
“Nope, whoever it was didn’t bother to spoof it. Address and IP were clean. It was an easy trap, not that it mattered. She only got the one e-mail.”
“Nothing else?” I pressed.
“Nope. Just the one.” He shook his head. “We e-mailed a notification of the problem to the originating server and didn’t even get an acknowledgement back. We assumed they just took care of it.”
“Can you give us a copy of that information?” Mandalay asked.
“Sure.” He rolled back a foot or so and punched the power switch on a laser printer that was positioned behind him. “You want a copy of the original crank e-mail too?”
“Please.” She nodded.
We watched on in silence as he rapidly issued a series of commands through the keyboard then sat back and raised his eyebrows at us. “Be just a second. It’ll spool just as soon as the printer warms up. You know, if you want my opinion, she was pretty much looking to get harassed if she was hanging out on newsgroups like that.” He let out a sudden cackling laugh. “I mean get serious. Witches? What a bunch of nutballs.”
Constance and I remained silent and waited patiently as the device came ready then began spitting out sheets of paper. After a moment, Wendell gathered the short stack of warm twenty-pound bond and handed it across the desk to Constance.
“Originating SMTP server is part of a privately owned domain,” he offered as she leafed through the pages, handing each one to me in succession as she finished scanning it. “Info is right there in the header.”
“Rowan,” Constance said as she handed over a sparsely printed page, “have a look at this.”
The text contained the standard date, time, tracking number and header information one would find on any e-mail. The TO line read “witchvixen@sthcnty-online. net.” The FROM read “wtchhnter@repent. com.” The body of the message was what really struck home. In bold black against the stark white paper the words “Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live” stared back at me. Below that familiar sentence was another, far less eloquent phrase, “You will burn you fucking bitch!”
I glanced over at Constance and raised an eyebrow then turned my attention back to the man behind the desk.
“Did you by any chance run a check on this domain to see who owns it?” I asked.
“Just a sec…” he replied and once again assaulted his keyboard.
Almost instantly the laser printer wound up from a low squeal to a high pitched whine like a miniature jet preparing for takeoff. With a sharp click followed by a dull thunk, it peeled off a fresh sheet of paper from the tray and a moment later spit it out the top. Wendell snatched it up and perused the printing on its face briefly before tossing it on the desk in front of me.
“That’s a ‘whois’ on it,” he explained. “Shows who the domain is registered to, gives a contact name, phone number, all that. From the looks of the address the owner’s local.”
I gave the listing a quick once over, noting the address as well, then slid it over to Constance who picked it up and began to quickly read.
“We appreciate all your help, Mister Wendell,” she told him as she slowly stood and extended her hand, all the while still looking at the information on the page I had just given her. “We will be sure to contact you if we have any further questions.”
I followed her cue and rose up from my chair as well.
“Glad I could help,” the man returned as he shook her hand then looked over at me and reached out to shake mine. “Mind if I ask you something?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well I always thought you Feds were supposed to be clean cut and all,” he spoke as he pumped my right hand and gestured at my hair with his free appendage. “But you’ve got a ponytail and a beard. What’s up with that? You some kind of undercover agent or something?”
“Mister Gant isn’t with the Bureau,” Constance volunteered.
“She’s right, I’m not.” I smiled at him. “I’m one of those nutball Witches.”