by S. J. Maher
I suppose, if I am to be honest, I would also have to admit that I’ve learned some things about myself that are less than flattering, but how many people, under the kind of pressure that I’ve endured, would have handled themselves as well?
And I am still learning and growing, making new rules for myself. For example: no more Ambiens for Candace. I need to keep a clear head, make sure that my memories are accurate. Telling the truth is easy. When you lie all the time—and thanks to Kevin I have no choice about that—you have to remember all your lies. I need to be supercareful. But I can be.
I was exhausted but happy when I finally left the coffee shop and set out through the sunny streets, plotting my next move.
At the library, at one of the computers, I set up a VPN to hide my IP, then signed in to iCloud. I waited while it processed my password, then breathed a sigh of relief when I was in. I clicked on Find My Phone and asked the server to locate my old iPhone 6. Within a minute, a green dot appeared on the screen over a map of Flatbush. I laughed, quietly, because I didn’t want to attract the attention of the librarian.
Hi, Kevin.
CNNarticle.pdf
CNN BREAKING NEWS
FBI seeks ‘hipster killer’ in Sandy Hook swatting death
UPDATED 3:13 PM ET, THUR JULY 12, 2018
(CNN) The FBI is looking for a missing New York woman after hoax messages led agents to fatally shoot a man at Sandy Hook Elementary School, site of the tragic 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
The New Haven field office of the FBI is seeking the public’s help in finding 26-year-old Candace Walker after the apparent “swatting” death of her former coworker, Kevin Reisenger.
Walker, who tabloids dubbed the “Hipster Killer,” has been on the run since last month, when she is alleged to have pushed her sister, Jessica Walker, and coworker Wayne Hooper in front of a subway train in New York City, causing their deaths. She is also wanted in the knife slaying of New Jersey man James DeSouza.
Reisenger was shot by an FBI sniper this morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School, apparently after hoax social media posts convinced agents that he was about to fire on the school. Police sources say Candace Walker is believed to have authored those posts, which were posted on a Sandy Hook “truther” website.
Sandy Hook “truthers” believe a government conspiracy is suppressing the real story of the massacre at Sandy Hook, where Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults in 2012.
This is the latest example of swatting, in which pranksters make false reports to induce SWAT teams to target their victims. The practice has been blamed for numerous deaths at the hands of municipal police forces across the United States. This is the first swatting carried out by the FBI.
Police sources say investigators believe Walker used Facebook to lure Reisenger to the school.
“This shows every sign of being a carefully calculated act of deception, which had a tragic outcome,” said Chris Samuels, the special agent in charge of the New Haven field office of the FBI.
Walker first made headlines last month when nude images of her were shared through her social media accounts, which she blamed on a hacker.
Samuels says Walker, who was last seen in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on June 30, is believed to have changed her appearance. They urge anyone who spots her not to confront her but to report her to the police.
“She is considered to be armed and dangerous,” he said. “We are pursuing multiple leads and hope to apprehend her in the near future.”
Liste.pdf
List of items in daypack found at Montreal Airport Marriott on July 12, 2018
▸ One black Moleskine notebook
▸ One folding steel Extreme Ops brand combat knife
▸ Five pairs of women’s undergarments
▸ One pair of flip-flops
▸ One Old Navy bra, blue in color, size 34B
▸ One black Abercrombie & Fitch cotton dress
▸ Three T-shirts, one black, one yellow, and one blue
▸ One Old Navy cotton dress
▸ One pair of blue jeans from Banana Republic
▸ One iPhone charger
▸ One hardcover copy of The Portable Dorothy Parker, 1973 edition, with markings inside showing it is from the Albright Memorial Library in Scranton, Pa.
▸ One plastic pencil case containing:
- A worn toothbrush and travel-size toothpaste
- Five Trojan condoms
- One tube of mascara
- One lipstick
- One eyeliner pencil
- One eyeshadow palette
- Nine Ambiens in an unlabeled pill box
- A blister pack of 30 Rohypnol tablets with eight pills missing
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: July 12, 2018, 4:44 p.m.
Subject: Notebook scan as requested
Dear Special Agent Samuels,
Please find enclosed, as discussed in our phone call of earlier this afternoon, three attachments:
1) Walkercahier.pdf: An electronic scan of a notebook an officer obtained this afternoon.
2) CNNArticle.pdf: The CNN story that was on the computer Walker was using when last seen.
3) Liste.pdf: A list of the items in a daypack that Walker left behind with the notebook.
It is the hope of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal that this will help you in your investigation into the death this morning of Kevin Reisenger in Newtown, Connecticut.
The notebook is a cardboard-covered Moleskine Ruled Pocket Notebook, black in colour, measuring nine by fourteen centimeters, with a glued-in elastic band.
It was found just before 3 p.m. on July 12, by Constable Augustine LaTendresse, in the business centre at the Montreal Airport Marriott.
I tasked Constable LaTendresse with visiting the hotel after your ViCAP colleague, Special Agent Ron Smith, contacted me this morning to request our help in locating Candace Walker. He informed me that the IP address of the hotel’s business centre was used to send hoax messages that led to the officer-involved shooting that killed Reisenger.
As requested, Constable LaTendresse showed hotel staff a picture of Walker. The business centre manager, Gaeten Ouellette, recognized her as a customer who had just left in a hurry after spending much of the day using a computer there.
Constable LaTendresse discovered the bag containing her notebook in the kiosk she had been using. Constable LaTendresse suspects that she fled when she saw him crossing the hotel’s lobby.
Ouellette told Constable LaTendresse that Walker now has short black hair. She was wearing a dark blue dress.
We should be able to provide you with video from the hotel security system later today.
I hope this report will help with your investigation and I ask that you let me know at your earliest convenience if you will be seeking a warrant for Walker. We have already put her on a watchlist for Canada Border Services Agents at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
I have outlined the facts of the case to Chief Inspector Raymond Boucher, who is considering what to do to ensure the safety of Montrealers. He is ready to discuss next steps with your team at your earliest convenience, as am I.
Yours truly,
Detective Sergeant Jean-Frederick Lapointe
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped me with this novel.
I want to thank my indefatigable agent, Amy Moore-Benson, of Meridian Artists, for her wise counsel, good humor, and sharp eye, and Laurie Grassi, my editor at Simon & Schuster, for patiently working with me to improve the manuscript. It occurred to me during the editing process that most readers don’t realize how much editors are responsible for the finished books they read.
I want to thank retired FBI agent Kenneth Gray, RCMP Sgt. Pete Merrifield, and private investigator Derrick Snowdy for helping me with law enforcement questions.
I want to thank the Martin Wise Goodman Trust and Harvard Universi
ty’s Nieman Foundation for a fellowship that gave me the chance to explore new ways of writing and thinking. I’d like to thank Anne Bernays, whose fiction class helped me think about writing in useful new ways, and Professor Mark Jude Poirier and my classmates in Advanced Screenwriting, who helped me fix early problems with this story.
I’d also to thank Preston Browning Jr. and the Wellspring House, a writer’s retreat in Ashfield, Massachusetts, a marvelously quiet place to work.
Many friends read the manuscript and offered encouragement and helpful suggestions: Chris Borelli, Carrie Croft, Luanne Gauvreau, Camille Labchuk, Veronique Laffargue, Rena Langley, Kady O’Malley, Julianne MacLean, Kelly Maher, Andrew Mayeda, Selena Ross, Mike Rudderham, Leslie Stojsic, Wonbo Woo, and Beisan Zubi.
I am lucky to have such good friends. Thanks, you guys!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Tim Krochak
S. J. MAHER is an award-winning journalist who has uncovered scandals, reported from remote outports, jails, warships, hospitals, parliamentary chambers, Afghanistan, and Haiti. His second novel, Salvage, was shortlisted for awards by the Crime Writers of Canada and the International Thriller Writers. He writes his books at anchor on his old sailboat, Free Spirit. Visit him at sjmaher.ca or follow him on Twitter @stphnmaher.
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Deadline
Salvage
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Stephen Maher
“Résumé,” copyright 1926, 1928 and © renewed 1954, 1956 by Dorothy Parker; from THE PORTABLE DOROTHY PARKER by Dorothy Parker, edited by Marion Meade. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
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Interior design by Carly Loman
Cover image: Shutterstock / Maria Savenko
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Maher, Stephen, 1965–, author Social misconduct / S.J. Maher.
Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-982109-06-6 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-982109-07-3 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS8626.A41725S63 2019 C813′.6 C2018-905217-1 C2018-905218-X
ISBN 978-1-9821-0906-6
ISBN 978-1-9821-0907-3 (ebook)