by Jean Rabe
“Wow.” Piper figured she should be up on this stuff. But she’d never been much for devices. A cell phone with an assortment bells and whistles, that’s all she carried. She’d never been much into social media because she considered herself a private soul, didn’t have a personal Facebook page.
“There’s a reason they call me Zeke the Geek. I know how to use all this stuff, but I don’t necessarily use it. I just like to know what’s out there and what you can do with it. Curious, you understand.”
“So you know how to spoof and hack.” Piper didn’t pose it as a question.
“Am I in trouble? Did the school call you?”
The high school?
“They had a hacker,” Piper took a leap. “And they’re pretty pissed about it.”
“How’d they know it was me?” Zeke started tapping his feet. “How could they possibly know it was me? I went anonymous. No way in hell could they know.”
“They know,” Piper bluffed.
“Oh God. I didn’t cover my tracks. I thought I’d covered everything. I screwed up. How the hell? President of the computer club and I screwed up. You didn’t want to talk to me about the job, really, did you? You wanted me to come in so you could arrest me. Oh God.” His words had come out machinegun fast.
“That depends,” Piper said, leaping further. “It depends on whether you come clean to me about the high school. Come clean about everything. Then I’ll make a decision.”
“Oh God.” Zeke sat back. “Oh God.”
Piper wondered if the young man was going to cry.
“Only twice,” he said. “I only hacked the school website twice. The other times. It was some other kids in the computer club. I swear to God only twice.”
“And—”
“I rearranged the teachers’ photographs back in November. At Christmas, I went in and changed the dates of graduation for every class for the next ten years. Oh God. I’m sorry. I wasn’t hurting anyone. It was just for fun. Just to show that I could do it.”
Piper believed him, but she decided to push it. “Those weren’t the only hacks you’re guilty of, Mr. Whitman. We know about the other sites you broke into.”
“The Dark Web? Man, I only went there once, twice. Quick ‘cause I was afraid of it. Just wanted to know if I could find it, you know. Grab a few tools.”
“No, I’m talking about you hacking bank software.”
“Jesus Christ! I’d never do that. You can give me a lie detector, Sheriff Blackwell. I didn’t do anything else. And the high school? I did it just to see if I could hack into the school’s system. I know. I know. I know. Stupid. President of the computer club, I thought I’d show off. Oh God. I’m sorry. I’m not going to graduate now, am I?”
Piper studied him. “I’ll be back. Don’t leave that chair.”
She got up and went to the break room, noticed that the helium balloon from Drew’s birthday lunch was still floating, but it had dropped down a few inches and was starting to deflate. She grabbed the ribbon and pulled it down, popped it against the doorframe, and put it in the trash. She poured a cup of coffee, added sugar and cream because it was Department Standard, not the good kind Nang had given her in that May Day basket. Her arm throbbed—one or two weeks in this sling. Argh, she thought. Just argh.
She stopped at Teegan’s desk.
“Nothing much going on, Sheriff. Everything’s pretty quiet. A guy named Basil confirmed a nine a.m. Monday interview. You have an eleven a.m. Skype interview with a Sheriff Polanger. Sounds like he has a Yooper accent—ya hey dere—like on that show Fargo. And a one o’clock here in the office with a Kevan Melkan. He sounded pretty nice, was real polite. You’re gonna fill the detective opening fast, aren’t you? I’ll miss JJ.” She set down a pen. She’d been scribbling jewelry designs in a sketchbook. “I’m sorry about Mr. Thresher. I’m going to miss him, too, really miss some of the weird calls from him. Aliens in the cornfield and such.”
“Maybe the county will produce another Mr. Conspiracy,” Piper said.
She returned to her office, sat at the desk, and stared at Ezekiel Whitman. Perspiration glistened on his forehead.
“Bank hacking. We’ll get back to that. Let’s talk email. I’ve been getting threatening notes sent to my department email address,” she started. “And it looks like I emailed them to myself from my longtime personal account. But I wouldn’t send myself nasty notes. So, maybe someone hacked into my email account, maybe someone just pretended to and used one of those anonymous things.”
“I didn’t hack you,” Zeke said. “I’d never. I’d never spoof you. I wouldn’t do it to anyone. Spoofing? It might not be illegal, but it probably should be. I didn’t—”
She took a long swallow of the coffee. It wasn’t even average. She set it down, and pushed her cell phone across the desk. “Read them.”
His fingers twitched, but he opened the directory and started scrolling.
“What’s cheddar?”
Zeke shrugged. “Cheese? Sharp cheese? I don’t eat cheese, extra calories.”
Piper didn’t really have anything in her email messages that she didn’t want read, nothing too personal.
“Oh, these aren’t good. These are threats. Cheddar. The cheddar reference here is money, Sheriff Blackwell. It’s a slang term, kinda old, but you still hear it. Wow, it does look like you sent them to yourself.”
“So how can I tell who really sent them? How can I tell if I was hacked or spoofed, beat all this anonymous sender stuff you told me about? The Dark Web tools?”
“You can’t.” Zeke shook his head. “You probably can’t tell. Not if the sender’s any good. Not if he used one of those accounts I mentioned, especially if he used HMA.”
“What?”
“Hide My Ass. Really, if he’s any good, you just can’t find him. It’s impossible. Maybe if you’ve got the Department of Homeland Security next door. Maybe they know how to do it.” A pause. “But I doubt it. HMA, some Dark Web stuff. Invisible.”
Shit.
“Okay. Let’s talk about hacking some more. Into bank accounts. Let’s go back to that.”
“I told you, I have never, ever, ever hacked a bank account. I’ve never done that. Oh God. Sheriff, just the school website. Twice. Only twice. Oh God. I am so screwed. Are you going to arrest me?”
She shook her head. “Since I believe you, since I believe that you didn’t send me the email, I’m probably going to hire you. I have to interview two more candidates for the dispatcher job. That’s required. I have to go through the motions at least. But I’m probably going to hire you, get someone with Internet savvy around here. And, no, I’m not going to arrest you. And, no, I’m not going to call the high school. No one from the school called me to report any problems with the website. Maybe they called the Rockport Police Department. Not my concern.”
“Oh God.” Zeke sat back, relieved, crossed himself, showing he was probably Catholic. He slid the phone back to her. “Thank you. Thank you. Hire me? Really?”
“And let’s talk about the old fart’s club,” she said. “And Mark Thresher and Melanie Taylor.” She paused. Their initials were the same. M. T. Another connection? “And a metallic gray Celica. Do you know anyone who drives a Celica?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t really pay attention to what people drive. Except Mr. Thresher from the old fart’s club. He has a sweet old car. I have a motorcycle. He has a couple of old bikes. We talk about motorcycles sometimes.”
“Do you drink coffee?”
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“I’ll get you a cup. It’s not very good, but if I hire you, then you’ll have to get used to it. I want you to tell me everything you know about hacking, how you can hack a bank. And why someone would do it, other than ‘because they can,’ okay?”
Piper walked around the office, wishing she was on her couch with Marmalade the cat and a pain pill. She went through the break room, looked at the bulletin board, then got Zeke a cup of coffee. She’d wa
nted him to stew for a while, let his nerves play.
She came back and held out the coffee.
“What did you do to your arm?” She’d seen him stare at the sling. Apparently his curiosity was trumping his nerves.
“I was shot.” She sat back behind her desk. “Now, hacking, banks and such.”
“Anyone can hack if they have a computer and patience, half an ounce of intelligence, and are careful with the websites they go after. You want to hack government sites, FBI and shit, you’re looking for trouble. Firewalls and security. Sure, you read about people who can hack that stuff. The really good hackers download stuff off the Dark Web, tools.” Zeke took a sip of the coffee and grimaced. “People think Russia hacked into the DNC’s email servers. I think it was, oh, two years back that somebody hacked into the Ukraine’s power grid—probably the Russians behind it. More than two hundred thousand people were without power for a long time in the Ukraine.”
He held the cup in both hands. Piper noticed he hadn’t taken a second sip.
“Bank hacking,” she prompted again.
“Well, they have firewalls. I’m sure they do. They’d have to.”
“Individual accounts.”
“I think you’d be better off hacking at the source. The person, not the bank. You’d hack into the person’s online banking. Grab their passwords. Find their PayPal accounts, a lot of those are tied to bank accounts. Get their passwords. If you have access to a person’s computer, well, most people save their passwords right in the computer. So if you get into their system, you can get the passwords that way.”
“Yeah, I’m figuring that,” she said. “I’m pretty certain someone either had access to his computer or hacked into his account remotely.” There was a series of law enforcement courses coming up over the summer about digital crimes; she needed to sign up. She was woefully out of her league with this. “Who could do that? Hack into an account like that? A bank account? PayPal? ‘Anyone with a computer and patience’ as you said? Anyone?”
“Well, I could, probably. But I wouldn’t. Anyone? Yeah. Any kid in their basement could do that if they really, really, really wanted to.”
“How? The Dark Web tools?”
“Probably don’t need that. If you don’t have access to their computer—you find a weakness in people and exploit it. You take advantage of the people who don’t know how to create strong passwords. A genealogy buff for example. I’m a little into genealogy now after helping with the old fart’s club. You exploit the weakness of someone into genealogy, family, history. You can figure out passwords by playing around with their relatives’ names, birthdates, wedding dates. That sort of stuff. Names and dates—a lot of people use those as passwords. Pet names. Fantasy football team names. Star Trek buffs use NCC-1701. A genealogy buff would use relatives, ancestors, birthdates.”
“Mark Thresher from the genealogy club was hacked, his bank.” Piper watched his reaction.
“Mr. Thresher? You think someone from our computer club did it?”
She pushed a legal pad toward him. “Give me the names of every student in your computer club.” She already had the names of the old farts via Mark’s address book. “Phone numbers or email if you know them. Real names, not nicknames.”
Again the words came machinegun fast. “You think it’s one of my guys? That’s why you’re asking me all these questions? I wouldn’t,” Zeke said. “I would never do that, hack someone, especially a friend. Geeze, he’s a neat old man, a friend. I’m going to give Mr. Thresher my old laptop, which while old is a helluva lot better than his laptop. Gonna give him my old iPad, too. He doesn’t have one. It’s got the Kindle app on it. He can read books and pump up the font size. I’m getting new tech for high school graduation. I am going to graduate, right? You’re not going to hang me up? You said you wouldn’t. He’s a little off, Mr. Thresher, but interesting. I’ll have to ask him at the club Tuesday—”
“You can’t ask him anything. Mr. Thresher’s dead. And I don’t want you alerting your club members that I’m investigating them.” Or will be after this weekend.
“Dead?” Zeke looked shocked. “Mr. Thresher’s counting worms? Piss. I liked him.”
“So did I,” Piper said softly.
Neither said anything for several minutes. Zeke stared into his coffee.
“I can still graduate, right? You said I was free and clear on that. You said you weren’t gonna call the high school.”
“I’m not calling the high school,” she repeated.
It was quiet for a few more minutes. Piper heard Teegan take a call about an accident near Dale.
“Are you going to hire me? For that dispatcher job?”
“It might be the late shift. The eleven to seven. That might be the one opening. The current dispatcher there, I’ll offer her the morning slot. Though I rotate sometimes.”
“I can do the late shift.” A pause. “So, are you going to hire me?”
“I have to interview two more people. That’s required.”
He nodded and looked around, clearly trying to figure out what to do with the coffee cup.
“But, yes, I’m going to hire you.”
“I can start the Monday after graduation.”
30
Thirty
Nathaniel Martin lived just past Christmas Boulevard in Santa Claus, not far from Oren’s neighborhood. The chief deputy figured he’d have a brief chat with Mr. Martin, get home in time for warm meatloaf and potatoes, and show his wife the cameo they’d be giving Millie tomorrow for her graduation.
Nathaniel was as tall as Oren, but would have had a few inches on him if his back wasn’t curved. An old man, though he hadn’t sounded old on the phone, the years had not been as kind to him as they had to Virginia Huffman. Nathaniel said he was eighty, and he’d been fifteen when his brother Rory drowned sixty-five years ago.
Oren sat on the couch, across from Nathaniel, who slowly rocked in an impressive high-backed glider he said he’d made in his workshop. The living room was filled with beautiful walnut furniture—a china cabinet displaying Depression glass, a narrow grandfather’s clock, and a curio cabinet filled with Precious Moments figurines, which Oren suspected had belonged to Nathaniel’s late wife. Two hanging lamps were carved walnut, as were end tables and a coffee table.
“I like to work with wood,” Nathaniel proudly said. He talked about the pieces and offered to show Oren more, eating into the meatloaf time. Oren obliged him and hoped his wife would be understanding.
Pictures on the wall were of people and dogs, and Oren recognized Rory from a photo that matched one in Virginia’s book. There was also a large framed photo of Christ kneeling at a rock and praying, sunbeams highlighting his upturned face. There were eight crosses of various sizes around the room, all but one made of walnut. It looked very Catholic to Oren. A rosary on an end table confirmed that.
Oren waited until Nathaniel was done talking about his woodworking. Then he explained about the bones in the park and his quest to put a name to them.
“You think they’re Rory’s?” Nathaniel shook his head. He had quite a mane, thick and snow-white to his shoulders, but the hairline had receded several inches, and age spots dotted the shiny scalp. More age spots were on the backs of his long hands, stains on the fingers probably from woodworking, and likely permanent Oren thought.
“Maybe they’re Rory’s. I don’t know, honestly. I’m fishing. Some bone specialist says the boy who was buried on the bluff was nine. Buried sixty-five years ago, it looks like. The nine-year-old thing—”
“Same age Rory had been when he drowned.”
“Same age as the Huffman and Killian boys,” Oren added.
“But they found Killian’s body, washed up, a dog walker. I remember that. You know, I still miss Rory, find myself talking to him sometimes.” Nathaniel stopped rocking. “I was fifteen when it happened, almost sixteen. Death didn’t mean as much to me then. Rory’s death was the first I had to deal with, and I don’t think I
mourned properly. I remember the service at the church lasting too long. Rory and Edgar and Neal. Three separate services, all lasting too long.”
“All Catholic?”
Nathaniel nodded. “But they found Edgar Killian, that dog walker did. There was a casket at that service, closed. That was the first service. I mean, the town knew they’d drowned. But no bodies. I think the parents were hoping the boys would turn up in Kentucky, like they’d run away from home. But everyone knew that they’d not run anywhere, that they hadn’t respected the river and the river took them. The Killians got to bury a body.” He started rocking again. “What makes you think it might be Rory? Those bones you found?”
“The age,” Oren said. “Nine years old. The bone expert believes it was a nine-year-old boy buried on the bluff, right-handed.”
“Most folks are right-handed. Nine out of ten I read once.”
“No nine-year-old boys were reported missing in the county that year.” That Piper has uncovered in those old records, he added. None in the newspapers he’d looked through at the library either.
“Could’ve come from outside the county.”
“Could’ve,” Oren agreed. “But I don’t think so. Bones on the bluff, I think it was someone who lived around here. The bluff means something to the locals.”
“Picnics,” Nathaniel said. “We used to picnic there.”
“No boy of any age had been reported missing sixty-five years back. That points to Rory or Neal.”
“Because if a boy drowns, he’s not reported missing,” Nathaniel said. “I get you. Makes sense. Rory and Neal—and Edgar until they found his body—were reported dead, not missing.” A gray-muzzled German shepherd padded into the room, sniffed Oren’s crotch, then laid in front of the grandfather clock, where he could watch both men.
“That’s right,” Oren said. “You’re not missing if no one is looking for you.”
“Rory’s in the river. His bones are,” Nathaniel said. He looked to the dog and smiled. “Duke’s a good boy.” The dog’s tail wagged. “I know in my heart the river kept Rory. Those aren’t his bones you found on the bluff. Rory died because he was stupid. But nine-year-old boys aren’t the brightest of God’s creations.” He crossed himself and silently mouthed something.