Whoa! She’d said they’d just had dinner. “Did she report it?”
“Too embarrassed. Felt like it was her fault. She didn’t want to destroy her business by making it public. So, no.”
I nodded, pieces of the puzzle falling into place at last. Her reaction, and the lie, suddenly made sense. “Did he put information about her on his MySpace account?”
“Her and a whole lot of others. He’s a bastard,” said John.
Catherine nodded. “I think Molly’s hoping that if the right person gets angry enough at Stone, he’ll get his due.”
I still didn’t quite get this whole MySpace thing. “What did he say about her—and the others?”
Catherine sneered. “He posted details about her and his other conquests.”
“He admitted to rape on MySpace?”
“Oh, no!” said John. “He paints a different picture. According to him, he’s Mr. Macho and the ladies can’t resist him. And he says that these women even post comments about how good he is.”
“That’s bizarre. What’s his MySpace address?”
They both shrugged. John said, “No idea.”
The rest of the conversation started turning into a rehash, so I politely excused myself. Back in the hallway, Meyer looked bored. I told him I needed to do a little more checking and left to see what some others might say. Unfortunately, I had no luck with 105 or 106. That wrapped up the first floor, but at least I had something to look for on MySpace, even if I didn’t know what it meant or where to look for it—yet.
I returned to find Meyer standing where I’d left him in the hall, this time looking forlorn. “That girl came by.”
I opened my hands in the universal what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about gesture.
He said, “From the insurance agency. The one at the computer. She was crying again.”
If what I’d just heard was true, I could understand why. “Let’s go. I have some computer work to do.” Somehow, I had to find Stone’s account at MySpace.
Chapter 30
ABC Stores are a staple in Hawaii. They’re a chain of general stores that carry things like sunscreen, flip-flops and cheap mementos. They also have important stuff for locals like batteries and sunscreen and flip-flops—and junk food. Come to think of it, I guess the tourists like junk food, too. In Honolulu, there are more ABC Stores than hookers. At least, that’s the way it seems. Maybe I just hang out on the wrong street corners.
After we had a supply of batteries and had outfitted Meyer with the ability to hear again, we went back to my apartment. First thing, I noticed that there was a message. It was short and to the point.
“Mr. McKenna, this is Molly. From Clacket Insurance. You were here—well, you know. I told my boyfriend about your visit. He wanted me to tell you that Stone’s user name is Island Giant. As if!” Try as I might, I couldn’t recall having given her my phone number. Or my name.
It only took a minute to jot down the user name, fire up the computer, open my browser, and find the MySpace web site. Their home page had a search box at the top, a member-video section in the left-hand column and a sign-in area in the right-hand column. I didn’t have a MySpace account, so I took a chance and typed “island giant” in the search field. Instantly, a page labeled “Find a Friend Results for island giant” included just a thumbnail photo of a dark-haired man with sunglasses and a strategically placed guitar. That’s it, that’s all he wore. One of the information fields was for location and that said this guy was in Honolulu. I clicked on the photo and got the profile page for Island Giant.
Now, I’m not by any means what you’d call a prude, but this was beyond my comprehension. I definitely had the right guy, because there was a biography area in which he said his friends called him Jimmy. He also described his interests as music, women, and flying. The page included details about Stone himself, including a physical description that sounded as if it had been written by a male-enhancement-drug-email writer. There were three major sections, one on Enhancing the Dating Experience, one for Business and one for something called “No Boundaries.”
Under the dating experience section, there were photos of women in various stages of undress. The one thing that they all had in common was that their photos were taken in bed and in poor light. Some had sheets pulled over them; others weren’t so lucky. The style of the photos, the looks on their faces, and the location had me wondering if the women might have been drugged. If Stone was date-raping his victims as John from the CPA’s office had said, I doubted that any of them could have walked, talked, or said no to anything. One of the photos caught my eye—it was Molly at Clacket Insurance. In the office, I’d thought she was quite pretty, and her smile had brightened the room. But, she was barely recognizable in this photo; almost naked, dazed, eyes apparently dulled by drugs.
If I hadn’t just met her, or if I ran into her on the street, I’d never recognize her. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she’d made a mistake that would haunt her for the rest of her life. I clicked on the photo of Molly, and my browser switched to a new profile, this one for her.
After a huge blowout with my boyfrend, I was looking for fun. Island Giant made sure I got it. He had XTC that made my nite awesum. Jimmy is huge and he did me over and over. Anytime he wants it, I’m ready. Screw my asshole boyfriend, he’s so gone.
There was more about Molly and her taste in men. There were also about fifty “friends” who said they wanted to meet Molly the next time they were in Honolulu. I went back to Stone’s page and began clicking on some of the other women’s photos. They all had similar stories. I remembered Molly’s plea—just because it was there didn't make it true. I reviewed a few of the other women’s stories. Several of them sounded suspiciously alike. They had the same spelling errors. They used the same jargon.
Had Molly really posted her info? Or was Stone offering up testimonials? John had called Stone a braggart. He’d also said that Stone had no fear of retribution over what he was posting, true or not. I called Alexander’s cell phone; he answered on the second ring.
I said, “You need to get over here. We’ve uncovered Stone’s MySpace page—you won't believe this.”
“What you doing on MySpace, brah?”
“Later. I’ll tell you later. Are you coming?”
“I just finished a tour. I still have to tie down the boat. It could take me an hour to get there. You supplying lunch?”
“You know what, I just might.”
I checked out the Business link. There weren’t any pictures of women in this area, but it had a photo of Shapiro’s plane and more bragging about Stone’s importance and how he had saved a small, failing business. He didn’t name the business, but it sounded suspiciously like Shapiro’s. There was another photo of the partners, the one that I’d found in Shapiro’s records. Then there was one showing the cargo hold of the plane. The hold was stuffed full of boxes like the one from Shapiro’s storage area. Violins. Going where?
The caption read: “My personal aircraft for delivering musical instruments to my stores on each island.” Stone’s bio had said he liked flying. Was he a pilot also?
The bio moved on to the music business and lessons offered by Stone. There were details about instruments sold by Stone Music and claims that they sold more violins than any other musical instrument store in the islands. In fact, the site said, they sold hundreds of violins each month. Hundreds? Here? Did he sell on the Internet?
There was a discussion about what a wonderful music teacher James Stone was. He’d taught hundreds of children and adults to play. There were photos of a few of his prodigies; a child playing at a concert at the Iolani Palace, another who had gone on to a recording contract with a “major mainland record label” and another who had been accepted at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. The accomplishments continued and the hype sounded good. Too good, in fact. I wondered how much of it was true. After the date-enhancing section, the show-off tone gave away the author in an instant. Molly’s wo
rds echoed in my head as I realized that this site was all about Stone’s ego and had nothing to do with a legitimate business.
I returned to the Island Giant page and clicked the link for “No Boundaries.” I fully expected this to be an invitation-only area, and it was.
Meyer tapped my shoulder. “Finding anything important?”
I think I jumped about a foot. Talk about feeling like a teenager caught with his hand in his pants. I cleared my throat, “Stone’s a bastard. He uses date-rape drugs on women, then posts his exploits here. It appears that he's creating fake accounts so that some of the women can brag about him. He likes to brag, but he’s careful.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means certain women would never report that they’ve been taken advantage of by someone like Stone. It would be too damaging to their careers. Does Molly strike you as the kind who’d put compromising photos on a web site?”
“No way, no how.”
“Exactly. So let’s see.” I dialed the number and Molly answered on the second ring.
“Molly, this is McKenna, thanks for your message. I found the account.”
I could sense her stiffening up. “I have nothing more to say, Mr. McKenna.”
“I don’t mean to bother you, but would you just answer one question? Please?”
“Fine. What is it?”
“Do you have a MySpace account?”
“God no! Are you kidding? There’s no way I would—why are you asking me that?”
“I think Stone might have created one in your name.”
There was a long pause, then the sobs began. “Omigod. That bastard. That dirty— That’s why I’ve been getting all that—that—awful—e-mail.”
“You’ve been getting e-mail about, um, dates?”
“I always suspected him, but didn’t know what to do. I just started deleting them.”
If Stone had used Molly’s e-mail as a way to harass her, then her real address must be on the account. “Can you hang on one second? I think I can fix this for you.”
“I just want this to stop!”
“Hang on then.” I put the phone down and took another look at Molly’s MySpace home page. Sure enough, there was a Forgot Your Password link. I clicked the link and got a form that requested an e-mail address. I picked up the phone. “What’s your e-mail?”
“Why do you need that?”
“In order to close out your account, I need to be able to access it. It looks like all I need is your e-mail to request the password.”
She gave me the address, which I entered, and then clicked the button. A polite little message telling me how wonderful it was for them to be serving my needs greeted me. “Check your e-mail.”
A sniffle, a pause. “What?”
“I need you to tell me your password.”
“I have no idea what it would be. I didn’t even know he’d started an account in my name.”
There must have been a welcome message sent out by MySpace, which Molly had most likely trashed without reading it. “Check your e-mail, you should have it by now.”
A few seconds later, she said, “Oh, Christ. The password, it’s CrankyBitch, capital C and capital B.”
“You’re not one of those.”
“Wait’ll I tell my boyfriend. He’ll kill him.”
“We’ll get him for killing Bob Shapiro. I’m just sure of it. Don’t make your life any worse by dwelling on this.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” She hung up and left me listening to a dial tone.
Meyer lurked over my shoulder again. “Well?”
“I think we’re in business.” The first step would be to see what was in the No Boundaries blog. I went back to Stone’s page. The No Boundaries area was only available to invited friends of James Stone. Since Molly had just suffered with the harassment instead of trying to find the source of the problem, she’d never even known to come here. Never known that she was a “Friend.”
I clicked the No Boundaries link.
I entered Molly’s e-mail address and her password.
A few seconds later, I was rewarded with access to Stone’s innermost secrets.
Chapter 31
The deafening boom-boom-boom of a rap beat blasted from my speakers. The screen background color turned jet-black and crimson. I listened to the words of the rap song in awe. “Pushin’ drugs, pushin’ fun, gettin’ it all around. Kill the cop, kill the fed who try to bring us down!”
I muted the volume and stared up at Meyer. “Jesus. Talk about vicious.”
He stood with his mouth agape. Finally, he nodded. “I call that crap music.”
“It’s so—angry.”
Meyer pointed at my screen. “What’s that?”
I’d been so disoriented by the music that I hadn’t noticed what he was pointing at. But there, right in the middle, as part of the background, was the chalk outline of a body. The shape reminded me of the popular Hollywood-style body outlines so frequently used on police TV shows—the ones that real cops seldom use.
I started reading the text, which was difficult because it was red text on a black and crimson background. The chalk marks were in red, so it blended in with the words on the page.
If you’ve got a yearning to cross the Stoneman, you’ve got a yearning to die. Nobody messes with the Stoneman. You don’t steal from me. You don’t cheat me. You don’t mess with me at all. If you do, you’re dead. Just like Shapiro. The stupid son-of-a-bitch thought he could steal my product and learned the hard way. Wound up face down in the street because he got greedy and stupid.
I read it again, just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating. A confession? Online?
“Is this guy insane?” I pointed at the screen. “I’ve never seen anyone do something so stupid. Read this.”
The lines on his face were etched with sadness. “Can’t. The writing looks like a big blur to me.”
I read it to him.
He sat, his jaw slack. A tear formed in his eye, he wiped it away, then sniffled. “I’d call him a sociopath.”
I countered, “I’d call him an asshole.”
Meyer chuckled. “Okay, he’s a sociopathic asshole.”
I said, “This is just the first thing I found. I’m going to document it. Give me some time to get through the rest of his site.”
I created a new folder on my computer and named it “Shapiro Case.” Then, I started another folder under that one, and titled this one “Stone.” I opened Microsoft Word, then went back to Stone’s web page. I copied the text and pasted it into Word. I made a note that it had been copied from his site, listed the URL and the date and time.
I went on to the next page. A chill ran down my spine when I saw the photo on the page. It was Roger Lau. Below his photo, there was a caption that read: “Missing Since May 16, 2011.” The photo had been put onto a black and crimson background, on which, once again, there was text. As I read the words, Stone’s coldness seeped through.
On May 16, 2011, Roger Lau went missing. He had a wife, two kids, a dog, a mortgage, lots of relatives and, who gives a shit. He tried threatening the Stoneman. Was he so stupid as to think he could get away with that? He must have had no brains at all because now he’s gone. Vanished. Disappeared from the face of the earth.
Not exactly a confession, but close. I already hated Stone and his total lack of concern for anyone other than himself. But, how could he be stopped? The answer was in McKenna’s Sixth Skip Tracing Secret: people are weak, so use their weaknesses against them. Stone was arrogant, just like Johnny Bakerton had been. Johnny had been so arrogant that he’d forgotten to play defense. Stone’s weakness was his bragging and his drugs, and that would bring him down. I’d brought down Johnny; why not Stone? I said, “I need Harris. She’s got that user name and password from the original tip. I’m going to go get her. We can turn all of this over to the cops. This is way more than enough to get them to investigate.”
I extended my fist. Meyer looked at it quizzicall
y, then I saw recognition. He extended his arm gingerly and we tapped knuckles. Man, were we cool? I half-trotted to Harris’s apartment. I peeked through the window and spotted her at her computer. I knocked, she glanced up, then came to the door.
“Hey, McKenna, what’s up?” She seemed somewhat distant and uninterested. She was also dressed more conservatively than normal. Too bad about that part.
“We’ve got it. All of it. We know why Roger was killed. Why Shapiro got run down. We’ve even got the drugs they were smuggling! And this—” I pulled the flash drive from my shirt pocket. “This came from Shapiro’s safe-deposit box. I’ll bet it has more damaging evidence on it.” I dropped the little drive back into my pocket.
A smile spread across Harris’s face and she gave me a huge hug. “You are sooo good! Let’s see what you’ve got.” She locked up and we went back to my place.
We did a quick replay to catch Harris up on what Meyer and I had found. Then, it was time to continue on into new territory. We found more about Roger. Stone ranted about what a crappy mechanic Roger had been and how much he’d overcharged his best customers. He claimed that it was a waste of air to even let Roger breathe and now that he was gone, that wasted air wasn’t wasted anymore.
“He is so going to pay,” said Harris.
I copied everything and put it into another Word file. I said, “If the police investigated and found this, it could be damning stuff. But is it even admissible? And what’s it going to prove? That he’s nothing more than an asshole in the court of life?”
Harris gave me a wink. “Don’t worry about that. Cops all over the country are waking up to these social web sites and online evidence. If Stone’s got half a brain, this will scare the shit out of him.”
“But he’s not going to know about it until we go to the cops.”
“Exactly my point. Once he’s arrested and hears about this, he’s going to get plenty worried.”
The next link was titled, Mr. Kanakua. I sucked in a breath as I remembered the envelope from the bank. He put information about his drug connection here? I half-expected to see another face or a chalk outline. Instead, it was a photo of a violin. I’m not much of a violin connoisseur, but it sure looked to me like the one Shapiro had had in his storage closet.
Photo Finish Page 21