The Request

by David Bell

  “He admitted it. In that basement, he admitted it.”

  “He’s being less cooperative now. But the guilty will pay a price for their behavior no matter what.”

  “What are you saying, then?” I asked.

  “What I’m saying is that Amanda works in educational research and grant writing. But she also spends a lot of time online. Is she pretty adept with technology? Or are you?”

  “I know how to hook up a printer. I know how to use apps. But I’m not an IT guy or anything. Neither is Amanda.”

  Rountree sat back against the cushions. She scratched her neck and seemed to be considering what to say next. She pointed at the phone in my hand. “Anything there?”

  I looked at the screen. Nothing. But I could tell by the “read” receipts that Amanda had read my texts. She had seen them. Or someone had. Someone who had access to her phone. I told Rountree, and she nodded.

  “Detective, is Amanda in some kind of danger? You come over here asking about her, and asking strange questions about social media, but you’re not telling me what’s really going on. If my wife is in danger, then I want you and me out there looking for her, not just sitting here on the couch talking in circles about stuff only one of us appears to understand. So can you tell me what’s happening? Or else I’m going to get up and go find her.”

  Rountree scratched her neck again, and then she appeared to have reached the conclusion she’d been searching for. She leaned forward, placing her hands together in her lap.

  “Do you know anything about hacking someone’s Facebook account?” she asked.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  Her question threw me off. If she’d asked me how to build a rocket and fly to the moon, I wouldn’t have been more surprised.

  “I think I know what you mean,” I said. “Are you talking about someone getting your password and then doing something to the account?”

  She nodded. “Basically. Someone sends you a message that looks like it’s really coming from Facebook, and it asks you to log in. When you do, the sender captures your ID and password. And then they’re free to do what they want with your account.”

  “Okay, I get it. And I’ve had those messages sent to me before. But just because I use social media a lot doesn’t mean I’d bother doing that.”

  Rountree looked skeptical. Maybe all cops looked skeptical all the time. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m not lying, Detective. I’ve never done anything like that. Hell, I’m not sure I know anybody who would. Aren’t those usually Russian hackers or scam artists? Why are you asking me about that?”

  “Why do you think? We discovered that someone hacked into Jennifer Bates’s Facebook account. We’re not sure why they did it, but it means they could have been reading her messages.”

  “I had no interest in that. I wanted to stay away from her.”

  Rountree paused for the slightest moment before she asked, “Would Amanda know how to do that?”

  The gears locked into place in my mind. She’d shown up looking for Amanda, and then she’d started asking about Amanda’s ability to hack into someone’s social media account.

  “Amanda? Detective, you’re going to have to speak some kind of English for me to follow all of this. What does this hacking stuff have to do with us? If Amanda wants to look at my social media accounts, she does. Lord knows she has.”

  Rountree rubbed her hands together as though she was cold. But I doubted that explained the gesture. She looked like she was working up to something, taking a slow approach to broaching a difficult subject.

  “Do you remember how you received a friend request from Jennifer Bates while you were standing in her house the other night?”

  “You mean, when I was standing over her dead body? Yes, Detective. I haven’t managed to forget that moment. And I told you another one came through while I was sitting here in the house.”

  “Odd, no doubt. And disturbing. And of course, it doesn’t make sense. How could she send you that request while she’s dead on the floor? Right?”

  “Good question,” I said.

  “Unless someone else had control of her phone or computer or other device. But all the devices were accounted for. Her computer. Her iPad. And you took her phone, as we know. Nothing else was missing from the house. That helped us rule out robbery. Someone had been in the house to kill her, but they hadn’t taken anything valuable.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “But someone sent the request. Well, now that we’ve been looking through her belongings and her online profiles, we believe we know how that might have occurred. Someone had apparently hacked into her account. They must have used a phishing scam and acquired her password and logged in that way. Anybody who has a Facebook account can look to see if someone else has logged in to their account from another device. And it gives an approximate location of the person who logged in. Most people don’t know the feature exists, and most of us don’t use it. I never have. But I will now. So we think someone did that with Jennifer’s account. They could see everything she was doing. All her messages and everything else. They could take over the account and use it just like Jennifer could. And if they wanted, they could send a friend request that would appear to come from Jennifer Bates. And they did that the night you were in the house. Jennifer wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it. In fact, even if she were alive, she wouldn’t necessarily know anyone was viewing her private information or using her account. The average person wouldn’t know or maybe even think to know. And most hackers don’t want you to know they’re there, so they wouldn’t send a friend request that way. It stands out as odd behavior for a hacker.”

  Someone in the neighborhood turned on a saw, and the sound of it chewing through wood reached us in the quiet house. My phone sat quiet and still in my left hand. I wanted it to buzz or ring. I wanted to hear from Amanda.

  “You said you can see where this person logged in from.”

  “We can. But it’s very general. For example, it just says someone using a Mac computer logged on to Jennifer’s account in Rossingville. Not very helpful. But do you all use Macs? You seem like the type.”

  “We do.”

  “What web browser do you prefer? I like Safari.”

  “I use Safari.”

  “And Amanda?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Yes, Safari. It’s the best one for a Mac, isn’t it?”

  “Above my pay grade. Well, it turns out whoever was using Jennifer’s account was using Safari.”

  “But that could be anybody.”

  “It could. I’m playing a hunch here a little bit. You see, I knew about those Facebook messages that Jennifer Bates sent you a while ago. The ones Amanda knew about too. And then you told me Jennifer sent you a friend request after you’d found her body. We’ve been pressing both Aaron Knicely and Blake Norton about this hacking, and neither man claims to know about it. Mr. Knicely hasn’t really stayed up on technology. He doesn’t have a lot of money to spend on it. And Mr. Norton, as I’m sure you know, is a self-proclaimed Luddite, someone who avoids that stuff as much as possible. Now, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t do it, but I tend to believe their denials.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. And we know your wife saw those messages, so she might have a reason to look more closely at them. A jealous wife. Home with a baby. And you told me last night . . . you don’t know where she was at the time Jennifer Bates was murdered. We know Jennifer was alive in the morning because Mr. Norton was over there. But in the afternoon, Amanda said she went to the store. Did she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you called her. And?”

  “She didn’t answer.”

  “You thought Jennifer died at twelve fifteen because of the broken watch. Logical. That was our initial thought. But it turns out, she broke the watc
h last week while jogging. Her grandmother gave it to her, and she was wearing it until it got fixed. Her mother told us she felt horrible about damaging her grandmother’s watch. That’s why she kept wearing it. The medical examiner believes she died much later than twelve fifteen. You said her body felt cool when you touched it but not cold. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “If she’d died around noon, she would have been cold. Late afternoon or evening, cool. It’s not scientific, but it backs up what the medical examiner concluded based on her body temperature. About the time you called Amanda and got no answer. About the time she said she went to the store.”

  “You’re throwing a lot of stuff at me, Detective,” I said. “Amanda wouldn’t know how to do something like this hacking.” My words were true. It wasn’t some weak defense, offered out of blind loyalty. I meant it. “She couldn’t have. I would have known if she could do that. She used tech, but she wasn’t a gearhead about it.”

  “Did she know anyone who could do that?” Rountree asked. “If not you, was there someone else?”

  The protest rose within me, adamant and forceful. But as quickly as it rose, it withered and died inside my chest.

  The answer was right there. And I knew it.

  Of course.

  Steve. The IT guy she used to work with. The one who was in love with her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  I asked Rountree to give me a moment, and she agreed. Although she also said, “Time is urgent now. So just a moment. A very short moment.”

  I went down the hall to the half bathroom we’d renovated shortly after moving in. I turned on the water in the pedestal sink and splashed the coldness against my face over and over. The bracing coolness felt good.

  As I toweled my face off, I looked in the mirror. None of it seemed real. Like I was staring at a picture of a TV character or someone on the news and wondering how their life had ended up so far down the wrong path. But the face belonged to me. And so did the life.

  When I finished wiping the loose drops off my face and neck, I went back out to the living room, where Rountree was sitting, her thumbs working over her phone as she sent a text.

  She looked up and waited patiently while I returned to my seat. She listened without showing any surprise while I told her about Steve the IT guy and how he could have been the person to help Amanda hack into Jennifer’s Facebook account.

  “Do you know his last name?” Rountree asked.

  “Detective, maybe I should talk to Amanda first.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re saying all kinds of things that are bigger and more dangerous than anything I could have imagined. What you’re saying is crazy.”

  “Maybe it is. But the sooner I talk to Amanda, the sooner she can be cleared. That’s how it works. So, do you know this IT guy’s last name?”

  “I never knew it. I didn’t want to know it. I was so disgusted by him coming on to Amanda in that way.”

  “Did he harass her? Was it something she needed to report?”

  “No. Not like that, I guess. He just asked her out. She didn’t feel like it crossed any lines of legality or ethics.”

  “So it was the same as Jennifer writing to you, right? Basically.”

  “I guess. Look, talk to that guy. You can find him at her company. It’s out on Old Lexington Road. I’m sure he still works there. You can get his name and contact information from them.”

  “We’ll look,” Rountree said. “We’ll talk to him.”

  “Hell, maybe Amanda’s with—” But I cut off my own thought. I couldn’t bear it. And it couldn’t really be possible, could it? I’d been the distant and absent one lately. I’d been the one working too much. Had I driven her away?

  But why that morning? Where would she have had to go without telling me or her parents what she was doing?

  The thought of calling her again crossed my mind, but did I really want to know the answers to all of these questions? What if what I learned was worse than anything I could have imagined?

  Had I told her everything about my past only to have her keep something huge from me?

  “I’ve taken up enough of your time, Ryan,” Rountree said. “And we certainly have some information to use going forward. I suggest you stay here, close to home, in case Amanda comes back. And if she does, you need to notify us right away. We do need to talk to her.”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  Rountree stood up, but she made no move for the front door. She held her phone in one hand, and she leaned down, studying my face. “Are you okay, Ryan? Would you like me to call someone for you? A friend? Another family member? Maybe your in-laws?”

  “No.” My voice was distant and small. My mind raced through the events of the past couple of days, trying very hard to piece things together. And one piece of the puzzle stood out and refused to fit. “Detective? I told you that when I saw the data on Jennifer’s phone, there were Facebook messages that sounded threatening. I pointed those out to you when I turned everything over.”

  “I remember. Are you going to ask me who we think those messages came from?”

  “Do I want to know any of this?”

  Rountree straightened up and glanced at her phone. Whatever she saw there failed to interest her. “We don’t know who they came from. Those have been hard to trace.”

  “Can’t you find the IP address or whatever?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s not that easy when someone uses a personal computer. A computer in your home may not even have a fixed IP address. What we do know is that someone threatened Jennifer Bates via Facebook message on the day she died. We know that person said they were going over to her house to see her. And Amanda’s movements at the time of Jennifer’s death are unaccounted for.”

  “She was . . . ,” I said. I almost said, She was home. Then I remembered.

  “You told me she was out,” Rountree said. “You told me last night she called your mother-in-law to come and babysit Henry while she ran an errand. One we can’t trace.”

  “She went to the store.”

  “Did she? Will the bank records show she purchased something? What did she need to buy so urgently that she suddenly was calling her mother to come over and watch Henry?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And we don’t know where she went.”

  “This is completely absurd. What you’re saying is completely absurd.”

  “Let me ask you another thing. Does your wife own a pair of gloves? Black winter gloves? Last night you told me there was a glove on the floor of Ms. Bates’s house. And you were right. We did find that glove there. A lady’s glove. We thought it might belong to Ms. Bates, but then why would it be out in the middle of the floor when it’s not that cold outside? So maybe we’re rethinking things. Maybe the glove was dropped by the killer. We’re checking it for DNA, of course.”

  “Lots of people own black gloves.”

  “But likely only one DNA profile will be on there. Maybe two if it touched the victim.”

  “I don’t believe any of this.”

  “Why don’t I just have a look at her devices? Laptop, iPad? It won’t take long.”

  “Do you have a warrant?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “You’re wrong. You’re wrong to even think these thoughts. Just let it be.”

  “Prove I’m wrong, then,” she said. “Find your wife and let her explain it all. Then everybody can move on.” She started walking to the door and didn’t look back, even as she said, “I’ll be back with a warrant, then. It won’t take long.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  I refused to sit around.

  I refused to wait.

  I stood in the middle of our living room surrounded by the photos of our life. A wedding portrait. The “For Sale” sign in the yard t
he day we moved in. Henry on Amanda’s stomach moments after he was born. We’d built all of this. A life together.

  Did it mean nothing?

  But it was me. From the first day I’d met Amanda, I’d been lying. I never told her what I thought was the truth about the accident. I lied to her about going to Jennifer’s house.

  How could I expect honesty back from her? I’d started the lying. Had she built on top of it?

  I took the risk of calling Karen and Bill. I hoped against all evidence to the contrary that Amanda had come to her senses, completed whatever task she was involved in, and returned to her parents’ house to get Henry. As the phone rang at their house, I moved to the kitchen, remembering that just over an hour ago Amanda and I had sat down to coffee, hoping to begin the process of turning the page on everything that had happened. I walked past the spot where we sat together and looked out the back window, seeing the dogwood tree in my neighbor’s yard sprouting white blooms. I hoped to see Amanda’s car pulling in, Henry strapped in the back, life on the cusp of returning to normal.

  But no one was there.

  When Karen answered, I asked her if Amanda had shown up to get Henry.

  “She sure hasn’t.” A TV played in the background, and I expected Karen to place her hand over the phone and ask Bill to turn the volume down like always. But she didn’t. “Bill is out right now running an errand. Ryan, can you tell me what’s going on over there exactly? I’ve started seeing these things on the news, and then you call here like you don’t know where Amanda is.”

  “That’s because I don’t know where she is.”

  “Ryan, they’re saying that someone tried to kill you. That you were mixed up in an accident that caused a girl to get killed when you were in college.”

  My throat constricted. Mallory. I couldn’t imagine the pain the news summoned up in her and Bill.

  “I was there, yes. A girl was killed in an accident. Another girl was hurt.”

  “Were you driving?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”