by Jean Rabe
“Harlan Crook,” Piper grumbled.
Thresher’s address book was filled with the names of businesses, organizations, and their phone numbers, no names of people. It also listed website addresses and his passwords to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookBub, Facebook, Edward Jones, eBay, his online bank account—that set her stomach to churning—Outlook, LOTRO, whatever that was, Scott’s Fantasy Football Pick’em League, and some she couldn’t make out because the ink had run. Most of the passwords were similar—Clementine47, Marmalade47, Camaro47, 47Clementine, 47Camaro, 47Marmalade, and for the sites that apparently required a symbol, Clementine#47, Camaro#47. Forty-seven. He’d been that old when he left the Navy. Anyone who knew about him—the names of his pets, the name of the stuffed monkey his wife had treasured—with a dose of patience and persistence could have been able to figure out the passwords.
Tucked inside the back cover was a list of members of the genealogy club, lines through three names—maybe old farts who had died or quit and went on to another hobby. A second sheet was the latest bill from his veterinarian. Camaro had his shots and nails trimmed four days ago. According to the paper, the golden retriever was ten. Same age as her dad’s pug Wrinkles, she noted.
He had a laptop in the side drawer, probably the one he had at the library. Piper decided she’d take it back to her apartment. The search warrant would cover computers. A deep drawer was full of hanging files—bills, tax returns, more veterinarian records, some military records, his wife’s death certificate, information on this house, photocopies from the sale of his farm parcels.
“I can fix this door, Punkin. Hey, you here?”
Piper met him in the entryway.
“Beautiful house, Mr. Conspiracy had.”
He was dressed in a suit and was wearing a navy pinstripe tie she’d given him several Christmases ago. She raised her eyebrows.
“I have an interview at two.”
“For the Santa Claus job.”
“Chief announced his retirement yesterday, and I called in this morning, just curious. They want to talk to me right away.” He grinned. “I’ll ditch this jacket and fix this door. Easy fix. You don’t want people breaking in. Sad about Mr. Thresher.”
“Yes, sad.”
“He had a good run.”
That’s what Dr. Neufeld had said. Again, she wished he would have run a tad longer.
“Thanks, Dad. Okay you take the dog, at least for a while?”
His shoulders dropped a little in resignation. “Sure. There’s a cat, too, right? Maybe Oren—”
“I’m taking the cat. At least for a little while.”
“Let me get to work here. When I’m done I’ll take the critters home and get over to my interview. I don’t want to be late.”
“Santa Claus would be fortunate to have you.”
“It would, wouldn’t it? A short drive from Rockport, and there’s that Christmas store I love. A dozen different varieties of fudge in the candy counter.” Paul Blackwell retreated to his car for his tools. “Too bad about Mark.”
“Mark the Shark,” Piper quietly corrected.
28
Twenty-Eight
Diego reported that a fourteen-year-old Toyota Celica was registered to Melanie Taylor.
It was the only Celica registered to someone in Spencer County. VIN—Vehicle Identification Numbers—showed up in the system until said vehicle was processed as destroyed or sold for salvage parts. Every owner of a vehicle could be tracked from date of manufacture.
Melanie Taylor was listed as the only owner, bought it shiny new.
But she’d let the tags on the car expire in April.
Piper drove to Melanie’s house in Fulda and discovered the place had a For Sale sign in the front yard. Neighbors said Melanie had died in early February. Explained the expired tags, Piper thought, but not where the car was.
The neighbors had no clue about the car, said they’d seen a middle-aged couple bringing out boxes shortly after the funeral, figured it was relatives who were picking out the choice pieces.
Piper headed back to the office, determined to track down Melanie’s relatives and learn who the car had been gifted to. There’s been no transfer of registration, which should have happened if the car had been properly willed to someone.
She gritted her teeth as pain lanced down her arm. Piper had a prescription to help, but the bottle said, “May cause drowsiness. This drug may impair the ability to drive or operate machinery. Use care until you become familiar with its effects.” She’d wait until she got home.
Diego had come with the search warrant for Thresher’s and would be going through the house to find anything else relevant. Then he’d make sure it was secure and the ADT Alarm working again. They’d found an extra set of keys, and Piper was keeping one of them in case she needed to get inside again. She’d arranged for deputies to patrol by the house several times during their shifts.
It was two and she was starving, so on her way out of Fulda she stopped at Nang’s quick mart and ordered a late lunch. Linner, he called it, lunch-dinner. Like brunch, but later. She ordered the fried rice “house special” with chicken, shrimp, eggs, and carrots.
“So friggin’ good,” she pronounced it. “So sorry about the paint on your truck.”
“Not your fault.” Nang sat across from her, sipping tea.
Piper had her customary big mug of coffee.
“You are hurting,” he observed.
“Oh hell yes,” she admitted, knowing she winced every time she moved. “But I’m gonna take my medicine when I get home, put my feet up, and pet my newly-acquired or perhaps-temporary cat named Marmalade.” She told him about Mark the Shark and fought to keep from crying.
“I’m interviewing a young man in a little while for my dispatcher opening. But I’m thinking it might be an interrogation.”
“Someone who applied for a job is a suspect? In your bones on the bluff?”
“No, suspected of stealing from Mr. Thresher. Maybe responsible for the spray paint, too. It’s a long story, and I can’t talk about it. Open investigation.”
“Sure.” He sipped at his tea and smiled at her.
God, he was good-looking. Why did he have to be good-looking and smart, industrious? Why did she have to be smitten with him? Why the hell had she stopped at his quick mart in January looking for clues to the county’s serial killer? She’d been stopping at the quick mart ever since.
“I’m taking tomorrow off, I think.” She finished the fried rice. Piper had eaten quickly; she’d been famished and in a hurry to get back to the office. “Unless in the next two hours I figure out what happened to an old Celica.”
“You need a day off. It will help you heal.”
“I know. I’ll be better for taking it easy for a day. I have an interview Monday.”
“You are very busy.”
She smiled back. “I like being busy.”
“You shine.”
“You always say that, Nang.”
“Because you always shine.” He got up and waited on a customer who purchased gas and three lottery tickets. He worked behind the counter a few minutes. When he came back, she was just finishing the coffee. He was carrying a small take-out bag.
Piper raided an eyebrow.
“Four Saigon egg rolls,” he said. “And shrimp sausage wrapped in bean curd. I know that despite all the groceries, you won’t cook tonight.”
“I won’t need to the way I pigged out just now. But I’ll take them anyway. How much do I owe?”
He shook his head.
“I’m taking tomorrow off,” she repeated. Though she intended to do some work at home. She had two boxes of the old cases sitting under her kitchen table, and she had Mark’s laptop. “I won’t be going into the office,” she corrected herself. “Because fate will not smile on me and deliver that Celica today. I won’t be so lucky. Both the people I’m wanting to help are dead—some nine-year-old boy and Mark Thresher. I will stay out of the office tomorrow, Su
nday if I need it. Two days away might do me good. Give me a fresh brain. All the groceries you bought—”
“I will cook some of them, teach you a recipe or two,” Nang interrupted. “Sunday afternoon I am busy with a wedding reception I am catering. But Saturday? I will take Saturday off. I had already planned on it, scheduled three employees to cover the day. There’ll be too much noise around here to suit me.”
He referred to construction of the garage next to the quick mart. The building had been going up fast, and Piper had noted a well where a hydraulic lift would be installed so a car could be raised for work on the undercarriage. She suspected the lift—and the rest of the mechanic equipment—would be expensive. But Nang was shrewd with money. Twenty-seven, and he’d made a thriving business with his gas station/grocery store/Vietnamese restaurant—and occasional catering concern.
“Maybe we can watch a DVD. My dad’s got some,” she said.
“So do I.” Nang pointed to the Red Box against the wall. “Something that blows up? A new release that blows up real good?”
“Definitely.”
He stared at her. “You’re going to work this weekend anyway, aren’t you?”
“I’m not going into the office. I’ve some things at home, files and stuff. A good way to spend Sunday.”
“You remind me of my mom’s old dog, a pit-mix. Once it had a hold of a bone or one of those supposedly-indestructible chew toys, it would not let go. And the toys, well they never lasted long.”
“I look better than a pit bull.”
“You shine, Sheriff Blackwell.”
Back in the office, she searched through old death notices, discovered that Melanie Taylor died of congestive heart failure and that her designated memorial was the American Heart Association. She found a listing for Melanie’s daughter, Madeline Schwartz, and after some Internet searching came up with a phone number. Madeline and her husband lived in Bloomington.
“Didn’t see mom’s car anywhere when we came back and went through her things. We figured she’d sold it. Don’t think I have any paper on that—got a box of her papers. But I’ll look through it this weekend and call you if I come up with something,” she’d told Piper.
Piper growled softly. Who the hell was driving Melanie’s metallic gray Celica? Someone in that car had shadowed her and Mark Thresher.
“Shit,” she said as Oren came in her office. “Shit and two is four—”
“And four is eight,” he said, finishing the old cribbage phrase. “What’s up?”
“Melanie Taylor—”
“Retired archaeologist from Fulda,” Oren said. “Smoked two packs a day. What about her? She died a couple months back. Probably because she smoked two packs a day. Born here, moved to Evansville and worked the Indian mounds. Made headlines with some of her finds in the early seventies. Wrote a book that was a bestseller, made a bundle. Retired back here about ten years ago. What about her?”
That was the thing with small counties, Piper was discovering. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, and Oren was a wealth of information.
“You’re not applying for the Santa Claus chief’s job are you?”
He shook his head.
“Thank God.” Had she just admitted to Oren that she didn’t want him to leave? She groaned at that.
“So what about Taylor?”
“I dunno. I dunno.” Piper tapped her good hand on her desk. “She had a car.”
Oren sat in the chair across from her desk and looked up at the clock. She’d told him they had an interview coming in at four. It was almost four now.
“She had a car that had been seen around Mark Thresher’s place. But she couldn’t have been driving it because she was dead.”
“Sorry to hear about Mr. Conspiracy,” Oren said. “Real sorry.”
“Maybe it’s connected.”
“What’s connected?”
“Melanie Taylor and Mark Thresher. The car.” Piper remembered Melanie’s name crossed off the old fart’s club list. “But just how is it connected?”
“Your interview is here,” Teegan announced. “He’s a kid. Still in high school.” She ushered Ezekiel Whitman in and pointed him to the empty chair next to Oren.
Zeke the Geek had dressed up for the occasion. Khaki pants, shirt and tie, sport coat. He carried a briefcase and set it on the floor next to him. He looked nervous.
Piper explained the requirements for deputy, that he didn’t meet them, but that he could qualify for the dispatcher job. She wanted to get the interview out of the way first, get him relaxed, and then hit him with all manner of questions that had been simmering on the drive from Nang’s.
“Sometimes dispatchers grow into deputy openings,” Oren pointed out. “That’s how JJ started here, and she’s our investigator.” Piper noticed he didn’t add that JJ was also on her way out of the department.
Zeke looked disappointed. “Okay. Okay. I figured I was too young, but I was hoping. Dispatcher, yeah, I’m interested. Okay. Yes. Definitely. I want to work in law enforcement. And I really don’t want to go to college. But I have to admit, I don’t really know what a dispatcher does. Answer the phone?”
Oren chuckled. “A lot more to it than that.”
Piper cradled her aching arm. “A dispatcher connects people in the county to the emergency services they need—deputies, ambulance, fire. They prioritize calls and decide in many cases who should respond. It’s a massive responsibility, even though the county is small in population. You’d have to keep records, files, oversee the filing systems, handle case logs, accident logs, warrants, restraining and protective orders. And that includes maintaining and updating 911 computer information. You’d have to keep medical run and fire run sheets, VIN checks, towing logs, be familiar with GPS, maps, and the county.”
“Wow. A lot more than answering the phone,” Zeke said.
“And there’s even more to it,” Oren added. “Our dispatchers have to maintain the department’s equipment, make sure everything’s working. They attend training courses and they have to work with other departments, like Rockport and Santa Claus police.”
Piper wondered how her father’s interview had gone.
“I’d really be into all of that,” Zeke said. “What do I have to do to apply?”
“You have to answer our questions,” Piper began.
She called the interview over at five, and Oren excused himself.
“Following a lead on the bones,” he said. “I’ll tell you Monday what I come up with. Got Millie’s graduation tomorrow.”
“I have an appointment with my couch tomorrow,” Piper said. “Enjoy the graduation. Basil Meredith comes in at nine. Meet me here at seven?”
“Sure.”
“We’ll compare notes. I have another package of Dark Italian.” She detected a hint of a smile on Oren’s face. “Nang carries it at his quick mart.”
Oren waved and disappeared.
“Don’t leave yet,” she told Zeke. “I want to talk about something else. I need to ask you a few questions about computer hacking and email spoofing.”
She noticed he started to look nervous again. Very.
29
Twenty-Nine
Piper had received one more message while she’d been eating linner at Nang’s.
Like the new paint job on your new car?
Heard you got shot bitch
Too bad U R still breathing
Go back 2 the Army B4 someone aims better
Leave the cheddar alone
Because of the cheddar remark, Piper was sure it was the same vile soul who’d sent the others. Plus, it looked like Piper had sent the note to herself.
“There are apps out there, spoofing apps,” Zeke said. He rubbed his palms on his thighs. “Some don’t cost you anything. You can put them on your phone and call folks. The apps cover your real number. Telemarketers use them all the time. It’s not illegal. Really, it’s not illegal. Some apps are randomized, always assigning a different phone number when
you call. Some apps let you plug in whatever phone number you want. You can make it look like somebody’s mother is calling them.”
Piper didn’t have a phone problem.
“I’m talking email.”
“Sure. Sure. Okay. It could be as simple as making up a similar email address. For instance, if yours is Blackwell@gmail, maybe the sender uses Blackwell@qmail. The q and g look a lot alike with certain fonts. It can look like the same email address.”
“That’s not it.”
“Okay. Well, there are apps that let you send email, and your own account doesn’t show. You can make up a fake email address if you want to.”
“Or use someone else’s email address.”
“Yeah. Or make it look that way. The right term is email anonymizer. Most all of those are free. Most email addresses are free. Gmail, which has a good security level, Outlook, Yahoo, GMX. You have something like Lycos, and you can create aliases within your account. A great one is HMA. That’s got a disposable email option. You can set an expiration date for the account, and you don’t have to provide any personal information to sign up. I know one place where you can get an email address for two weeks, then it’s destroyed. There are web-based services where you never have to create an account. Things like AnonEmail throws distance between you and your messages. The site relays it several times before it hits its intended target. There’s a thing called 10 Minute Mail, at least I think it’s still working. It sets up a disposable email account, and you’ve got ten minutes to send your messages before the account is erased. Silent Sender might do the same thing. Or you can just hack their account. That’d be just as easy. But if you’re not a hacker, maybe you’re a guesser, good at figuring out passwords. And there are browsers, too, TOR, that prevent snoopers from finding out where you are—who you are. I often use a VPN, especially when I’m someplace using a public wifi. I don’t want people logging into my tablet. Most all of these tools are easy to find.”