“Eventually, I do wake up. I repeat the ritual of looking around the room, but this time, everything is normal. I think what’s most scary about this is that I really can’t tell the difference between being asleep and awake. The room is so real.”
Sam nodded understandingly. “You know, I can remember having almost an identical dream when I was a kid. In most cases these dreams come from a feeling of helplessness. The world is too big for us and we don’t have control over its effects on us. The timing on this dream is interesting, as is the fact that it’s recurring. I suspect our therapy sessions are starting to have a deeper impact. As we discussed, sometimes things get a bit worse before they get better.
“So tell me about Richard.”
“You know that Richard is my best friend. We’ve been friends forever and we’ve been through some really rough times together. I’ve always trusted him completely – well, except for my psychotic episode.
“Anyway, lately, I’m getting a strange feeling about him. I can’t put my finger on anything concrete, but it just seems like something is going on that he’s not telling me about. Like I said, I’m probably just being paranoid.”
“It’s possible that you’re being paranoid. But just as we’ve talked about you not believing everything you see, hear, or think, you can’t not believe everything either. You need to get to the point where you trust your deductive powers, and then your instincts.
“You know, it’s quite possible that Richard is keeping something from you or is a bit resentful after your return. After all, the company was pretty much all his while you were out. I’m not saying you have anything to worry about. I’m just suggesting that what you’re sensing may be accurate, but your condition might be magnifying its significance.
“Look at it objectively, and if it seems appropriate, have a talk with him. He’s certainly been there for you. And, he’s been really supportive of your efforts to get back into the company. I think you should keep the door open with him. Talk to him.”
“That makes sense. Thanks!”
“Well, we don’t have a lot of time left today. I want to take our remaining time to continue with free association. I went through your answers from last time and they gave me some ideas. I created a set of words so we can do some word association. Let’s give it a try and next time, I think we’re going to do a bit deeper dive.”
10
Detectives Mike McKensey and Bob Simpson had just left their status meeting with their boss, Lieutenant Jim Connors. Connors wasn’t pleased.
After weeks of investigation, they had no leads and Connors was pushing for them to move on.
“I can’t believe we’re at a dead end,” Bob began. “Nothing. We’ve got nothing.”
“Yeah, and I don’t like Ashima’s daughter Brittany for the murder. I know she has a lot to gain, but when I talked to May about it, she suggested I take a look at how many bombings had been done by women. I searched, and if you rule out terrorist suicide bombings, I couldn’t find any – zero!”
“I sometimes forget that your wife works homicide for Marin County. I gotta admit that I never thought it would work – you two. Most cop relationships with regular people fail miserably so I couldn’t imagine two cops married to each other.”
“But you know Bob, I think that’s why it works. First, we’re older than most. We’ve each been through those bad marriages where our spouses could never understand our hours, the risks we take, the depression, or the stress.”
“Yeah, sure. Now you’ve got twice as much!”
“No. Really. We each understand what the other is going through. And when we talk about our cases, the other can not only listen and understand, they can give new perspectives. Like with Brittany. She looked good for it, and maybe she still is, but May’s right. Women just don’t seem to use bombs to kill people.”
“Yeah, but Brittany is a piece of work. You remember what George said about how she behaved when she got to his office after meeting with us? Instead of the emotional wreck we saw, he saw a cool, calm, focused Brittany. I still like her for this. She’s smart. Too smart.”
“You may be right, Bob. But she voluntarily turned over her laptop and phone to us and the techs found no emails or visits to bomb-making sites.”
“Like I said, she’s smart, and we don’t know how smart. She told George that she could help out on the computer side. Maybe she’s a hacker that’s good enough to hide her tracks from our techs.”
“Maybe. It just doesn’t feel right to me. The tone of the emails is male. Plus, I have a gut feeling that the guy who gave George the trafficking lead is the murderer. Brittany couldn’t get the detailed information that guy has given George. I may believe in coincidences but having those emails go to George back to back is no coincidence. We’ve got to keep looking.”
“Yeah, but will Connors let us spend more time on this without another lead? I know I like Brittany, but we’ve got bupkis. We can’t hold her; we can’t get a warrant to search further; and we can’t get resources to tail her. We’re stuck. Sometimes I hate this job!”
Chapter 3
“My goal is to see that mental illness is treated like cancer.”
- Jane Pauley
1
With all the attention his articles on the trafficking case were receiving, George had been getting into the office much earlier than usual. He wanted to be responsive to the countless email and social media postings asking about trafficking. The more people knew, the sooner human trafficking would end.
So it came as no surprise that George was sitting at his desk when the first email came in. It was just like the last time except that George was receiving it in real time.
______________________________
From: tf7u93ig8vpk4
Date: November 13, 20XX 07:59 AM PDT
To: George Gray
Subject: Exposing Unethical Zillionaires
Hello George,
I’m pleased to see how successful we were in bringing down Ryan Hamilton and his perverted use of the Net for human trafficking. With your articles and social media postings on the subject, I think we’ve made a real dent in trafficking and have dramatically increased the public’s awareness of how insidious trafficking is and how it can exist in plain sight.
As you might imagine in receiving this email, I’ve got another one for you. Boris Yanofski, the founder of NoConspiricies.com needs to be stopped. I know. A lot of people think his site is just trash that appeals to conspiracy theorists everywhere. That is certainly true. However, it has enabled him to amass a fortune and to wield un-justified political influence while further enriching himself. Unfortunately, there is no law against this in the US (unlike in Europe where there are laws that protect citizens from this type of malicious disinformation). But there is a law against murder.
If you open the attached file using my name as the password key, you will see proof that Yanofski murdered his wife.
Since you don’t know how I got this, I believe it can legally be used as evidence. While this alone won’t bring down Yanofski’s empire, his wife’s family will likely shut it down once he’s convicted. Have fun!
tf7u93ig8vpk4
______________________________
George didn’t know who Yanofski was and he didn’t remember anything about an internet mogul committing murder. Surely that must have made some news.
He used Janey’s special software to scan the attachment for viruses and finding none, opened the zip file. In it was a document that described the murder, and a video.
According to the document, Yanovski, his best friend and future business partner Mikhail Papapovich, and Yanovski’s wife Sandra were hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierra Nevada. Just above a cliff with a drop of thousands of feet, Yanovski asked Papapovich to take a video of him and Sandra against the spectacular backdrop. The shocking video showed the couple posing and then Yanovski pushing his wife over th
e edge.
Although the family suspected foul play, with just the two witnesses who claimed this was a hiking accident, that’s what the inquest concluded. Yanovski inherited his wife’s fortune which he used to launch NoConspiracies.com.
George spent the next hour scouring the Net for information about Yanofski, his wife, and NoConspiricies.com. He was about to leave his office to present what he’d found to Morris when he heard another email come in. His intuition told him to take a look, and indeed, just over an hour after the previous message, here was one from the murderer.
______________________________
From: rtuf8n6pgm52h
Date: November 13, 20XX 09:01 AM PDT
To: George Gray
Subject: Kaboom!
George ol’ Buddy,
It’s that time again. Another bitch is about to bite the dust. Or should I say be blown to dust. A hint for the cops: same MO as last time. But I doubt they can do anything with less than 48 hours remaining.
rtuf8n6pgm52h
______________________________
George forwarded the emails to Morris and wound his way through the mostly empty cubicles to Morris’ corner office. As usual, Morris was hard at work. He didn’t look up so George knocked softly on the door frame just as Morris’ computer indicated incoming email.
“I assume that’s from you?”
“Yeah, it looks like round 2 is on. Both for the Internet corruption and for the murder. That one came in less than an hour after the first. It’s getting harder to believe this is a coincidence.”
Opening the second message first, Morris suggested they call Mike McKensey. He picked up on the first ring.
“McKensey.”
“Mike, it’s Morris and George at the Sentinel. We’ve got another email from the murderer. It’s short.”
After hearing the contents, Mike responded, “Shit! I’m not sure what we can do about this. It’s a credible threat, but I don’t see how we can stop the Postal Service, UPS, and every other carrier from delivering packages for 48 hours. I guess we can alert them and they can increase their scanning. Maybe we’ll get lucky, but I think the chances are thin.
After a pause, Mike continued. “You know George, all we have to go on from the last murder was that you knew the victim and she had screwed her husband in some way. It’s a longshot, but maybe you know this one too. Maybe our perp is targeting people you know. What do you think?”
“I guess it’s possible,” George replied pensively. “I’ll put together a list of all the tech wives I can think of who might have left their husbands and I’ll get it to you ASAP.”
“Okay. In the meantime, I’ll have our tech come over to get a look at the email. It probably won’t go anywhere, but you never know. Even the smartest make mistakes sometimes.”
“Ah, there is one more thing you should know,” Morris interjected nodding towards George.
“Yeah. About an hour before that email came in, I got another one from the guy that exposed Ryan Hamilton’s trafficking. The last time, the two emails that came in didn’t seem related, but once again, we’ve had both the offer to expose an Internet bad guy, and notification of an impending murder not far behind.”
“Sorry to interrupt, George, but before we dive in deeper or I forget, given my advancing senility, I just wanted to say that I followed your stories on Hamilton, and you did a fantastic job. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Our Special Victims Unit couldn’t be more pleased. Not only did you help take down a real scumbag, they’re getting more leads on trafficking than they ever have. You’ve given victims and witnesses the courage to come forward. Anyway, go on.”
“Thanks Mike, I’m responding to emails and posts every day. I do feel like I’ve helped raise awareness of something that lives beneath the surface of our everyday lives. But now, it looks like we’re on to something else.
“Like the last time, I got two emails. The tones are different, but the formats of the emails are the same. This one claims to have proof that Boris Yanovski murdered his wife. There’s a video attached showing him pushing her off a cliff.”
“I’ll be right over,” Mike replied, clearly excited. “We investigated Sandra Yanovski’s death but couldn’t come up with any evidence. The family was convinced that Yanovski murdered his wife to get her fortune, but we had to drop our investigation for lack of evidence. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got!”
“Hold on Mike,” Morris interrupted gravely. “We haven’t even verified that what we have is valid. I don’t think we’re ready to turn it over to you.”
“Morris and George, I’m sorry to pull this on you since we’ve been working so well together, but you are in possession of material evidence relevant to a murder investigation –“
“Which to my understanding is closed,” Morris argued.
‘Sorry guys. I’ll see you in fifteen. And George, email me that list.” And he hung up.
“Morris looked at George and shook his head. “He’s right. We have to turn it over.”
“Well, do you think he’ll give us an exclusive on the story?”
“I don’t see how he can do that George. He’ll have his techs verify the video is original, then he’ll go to the DA. He’ll probably ask us not to publish anything until the DA decides to charge Yanovski. Then again, there’s no reason you can’t have a story ready to go. Get Mike that list of tech wives that you know and then get to work on the Yanovski story. At least we can be the first to press.”
George paused for a second in thought.
“You know Morris, when we did the story about Ashima James’ murder, we didn’t mention the email tips or the reasons given for the murder. Although we talked with Mike about not scaring the public with the possibilities of other murders, maybe we should put something out now. I mean, we have a real credible threat.”
“I don’t know George,” Morris lamented. “Yeah, it may be credible, but how do we get the information out without creating some kind of panic. I’m sure the package delivery companies would be at our throats. Hm. Tell you what. Why don’t you see if you can draft something short in the next hour or so. I’ll run it by legal and we can discuss it with Mike when he gets here.”
“Will do, Chief!”
“And don’t call me Chief!”
2
It was after eight when George finally got home. Janey had dinner on the table ten minutes later.
“So tell me about it, George. You sounded excited on the phone, but worried too.”
“I am worried,” George replied taking a large gulp of wine before downing a forkful of the vegetarian lasagna that Janey had made. “It’s a repeat. I get an email about Boris Yanovski. Then, less than an hour later, one from the murderer cavalierly stating that his next victim will die within forty-eight hours.
“I suggested writing a story about the impending murder and while I drafted something that might have warned people, legal didn’t sign off on it and Mike McKensey shot it down from his side. We’re not doing anything to prevent the next murder other than trying to warn some wives of technologists to be careful. Well, I guess the police have asked the major delivery companies to do extra scanning of packages being delivered today and tomorrow.
“I feel so impotent. I can’t do anything to stop the murders and so I’m complicit. If I weren’t there would these women still be killed?”
“George, I know what you’re feeling. You have one of the toughest jobs. You do great things exposing corruption like with the trafficking, then you get caught up in something over which you have no control. You just have to stand by and watch it happen. That’s a terrible place to be.”
“Yeah. Just when I’m feeling like I’ve made a real difference, I get hit with this murder. And this Yanovski thing. You know, with all the violence we see in movies, TV, and video games, you’d think you’d become jaded about it. But that video. Oh yeah, the informant sent me a video. It shows Ya
novski pushing his wife off a cliff. I was blown away.
“I’ve been asking myself why it hit me so hard. And while the cold-bloodedness of it was bad, at some point I realized that he wanted to film it. He probably has watched it over and over. What kind of person could do something like that?
“You know, I spent the whole day doing research on this guy and how he works. What’s weird is that he doesn’t seem to have a specific political agenda. He inflames the left as much as the right. He either finds or creates conspiracy theories and targets susceptible people to believe them and to propagate them.
“The recipients think they’re getting real news from family and friends – sources that they trust. And the reach of the stories expands and expands.
“From what I can see, he just wants to stir things up. At the same time, he’s making hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising. He even runs crowdfunding campaigns which supposedly will combat the evil that these conspiracies reveal. And it’s growing. The more people turn against each other, the more he can capitalize on his stories.”
“Yanovski is a piece of work. This guy is using the money he inherited from his wife to turn us all against each other. Someone on his staff is a genius at manipulating social media. And people just eat it up.
“According to Mike McKensey, after verifying that the video was not doctored, they picked up Mikhail Papapovich, Yanovski’s best friend, the one who took the video. They showed it to him and he flipped. They arrested Yanovski. All this in one day, if you can believe it.
The Misogynist Page 9