by Rick Mofina
They painstakingly identified foot and tire impressions, first eliminating those of the witnesses, local law enforcement and any known service vehicles. Fortunately, the scene was pristine in that regard. They photographed and made casts of the impressions they found for further analysis and comparison.
Things were going well, Anderson thought, as she collected her tablet and left the scene. She followed the flagged path of entry and exit to update Pratt, who got out of his vehicle when he saw her.
“Where’re we at, Staci?”
“The ME says they’ll be ready to transport the body before dark for an autopsy in Ramsey.”
Pratt nodded.
“We’ll do our spraying for blood then.”
“What about time frame on death? How long was she there?”
“Hard to pinpoint, we’ll defer to the ME. But the way things look, with insects, status of decomposition, et cetera, I estimate less than a week, maybe even three or four days, hard to say.”
“All right.”
“Once we can analyze the tire impressions we may have a suspect vehicle for you.”
“That would be good.”
“One other thing.” Anderson cued some clear photographs on her tablet. “Take a look.”
They were very tight, clear pictures of marble-sized, circular impressions in soft soil in a grouping of three in a triangular shape.
“What’s that?”
“We’re fairly certain these are impressions of a tripod. Now, given this is bird-watching country, they could’ve been made by birders.”
“Right.”
“They could’ve also been made by the killer.”
“Are you saying he may have recorded this?”
Anderson nodded.
CHAPTER 38
New York City
Sirens echoed in the night when Kate got out of the cab at 6th Avenue near Times Square and walked along West 46th Street.
A few hours ago, Hugh Davidson had called her at home, excited that he’d arranged a meeting with a computer network security expert who was an ex-contractor with the CIA and the NSA.
“We have to meet him tonight,” Hugh said. “We’re lucky. These people rarely step out of the shadows. Our guy’s been involved in some nefarious projects.”
The bar where they’d arranged to meet was slivered between the Cafe Ocho and Samantha’s Hair Salon. Kate arrived early and stayed outside to scan the street for people coming and going. There was nothing unusual, just another night in Manhattan after spending a frustrating, fruitless day following leads.
This meeting with Hugh’s contact could be something.
Now, while waiting on the street for him, Kate used her phone to check on the competition. She read the latest Associated Press story on Rampart, a situational piece containing no real news. It emphasized the challenges of identifying the staggering number of new victims. It’s only a matter of time before they identify my sister. Kate pushed the thought aside and stood firm, drawing on Nancy’s encouragement to never give up her fight to learn the truth about Vanessa.
That’s why she’d come down here tonight. Plus, she was still on the story. She followed her personal rule to avoid taking the subway after dark. Having been alone much of her life, she knew how to take care of herself. When it came to meeting news sources who were strangers, especially those with questionable backgrounds, she kept her guard up.
My name and face are out there, along with a lot of freaky people.
Twenty minutes and still no sign of Hugh. Kate texted him. Maybe he’s in the bar already? When she didn’t get a response, she went in.
Live piano music was playing above the laughter of the after-work crowd blending with the conversations of the night crowd. As the TVs above the bar flashed with sports and news, Kate searched for Hugh.
It was futile.
Fortunately a booth nearby was emptying and she moved fast to claim it. A server cleared the table, Kate ordered a diet cola, then her phone vibrated with a text from Hugh.
A pipe burst in my bldg. I’m flooded. Can’t make it. Sorry.
Darn, Hugh. How will I know him?
He’ll know you.
What’s his name? Appearance?
I’ve never seen him before.
What!?!
He goes by Viper.
Seriously?
Yes. Sorry, Kate. I have to go. Good luck.
Great. Shaking her head, she set her phone on the table.
Her drink came with a bowl of peanuts. She munched on a few as she took inventory in a bid to spot her source. The place was packed with Manhattan white-collar types. She noticed a man nearby warming a stool at the bar. Tie loosened, he was stealing glimpses of her while pretending to watch the TV overhead.
What? Now he was grinning and offering Kate little waves.
He couldn’t be Viper. No chance.
She turned away, sipped her drink and checked the time on her phone.
Viper was half an hour late.
This was starting to feel like a washout.
Well, she still hadn’t exhausted the Denver angle. She had more work to do following up on the information Will Goodsill had sent her. Maybe there was a link to Nelson and who he really was. She consoled herself with the belief that the Colorado case still held promise, before she glanced at one of the TVs showing a news report on Rampart.
A sudden wave of sadness rolled over her. For the first time she realized that she’d have to think about planning a funeral for Vanessa.
Kate shut her eyes tight for a second.
How much more of this I can take?
“Kate Page?”
A man in his twenties—early twenties—materialized at her table.
“Yes.”
“I’m a friend of Hugh Davidson’s. We were to meet.”
The stranger was about six feet tall with a medium build. He had dark, slicked-back hair cut short, a stubbled goatee and stud in his left lobe. He was wearing a polo shirt under his leather jacket.
“I suppose I should ask you your code name.”
He started to grin, nodding to himself.
“Viper. But you can call me Erich.”
“All right, have a seat, Erich.”
As he removed his jacket, Kate noticed small tattoos on his toned arms.
“May I get you something?” A waitress set down a coaster.
“Tomato juice with ice.”
After the server left Kate asked why he’d ordered the juice.
“Are you under twenty-one, Erich?”
“I’m twenty-two.” His eyes went to Kate’s phone. “May I?”
She pushed it his way and he inspected it without touching it.
“What was that all about?” Kate asked.
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “I have an interest in the types of phones people use.”
“You’re twenty-two, and Hugh says you did some work for the CIA and NSA. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of work?”
“Network security.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“I can’t discuss that.”
“Figures. Oh, Hugh couldn’t make it because—”
“I know why.”
“Who are you working for now?”
“I’m freelancing here and there. I do okay.”
After Erich’s juice arrived, Kate waited until the server had left.
“Okay, then,” she said. “Hugh told you why I need help.”
“You’re trying to find Carl Nelson, the guy the FBI’s looking for.”
“Yes. Are you willing to help me, to help me confidentially?”
Erich nodded
.
“Hugh told you that neither I, nor Newslead, can pay you?”
“Not a problem,” he said.
Kate sipped her drink, heartened to have help.
“All right, so what can you do, how does this work, because I can’t tell you how badly I want to find this guy.”
“It’s about your sister.”
“That. Yes. And all the other victims.”
Erich looked off at nothing. “I’ll give you an overview, how’s that?”
“Yes.”
“For starters, I’ll tell you what’s going on. The FBI will have secured IP addresses of every computer Nelson’s had access to.”
“Home and work?”
“Right, cell phones, laptops. They’ll look at his online history, with every site he’s visited, every email he’s sent, every online transaction. They’ll get warrants or subpoena the networks he’s been on.
“Sounds exhaustive.”
“It’ll likely be useless and the FBI knows this, given Nelson’s line of work and his mind-set.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been following the case. He’s supposedly a network security expert. He’ll know some tricks of the trade, and he’s already attempted to cover his tracks. So he’s likely taken steps not to leave any digital trail.”
“Oh.”
“Additionally, if he never touches a computer and goes off the grid, he’s gone. Then it becomes the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack search, leaving police to rely on traditional evidence like fingerprints, license plates, DNA and eyewitness sighting, or anticipating and leveraging who he might physically contact.”
“Right.” Kate’s heart sank.
“However, I don’t think that’s the case with Carl Nelson.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, he’s stolen access to private financial data for some forty million people, which is child’s play, by the way.”
“For you, maybe.”
“My guess is Carl’s going to use that data while he’s on the run.”
“What if he doesn’t? What if he stays off the grid and uses cash?”
“It’s possible, but today there are places that won’t take cash, increasing the chances that he’d use one of his stolen digital identities.”
“If that’s true, then how would you know who, what or when?”
“There are some protocols I could run.”
“I see. Okay.”
“Look, I have to go,” Erich said. “I’ll work on this, I’ll keep in touch.”
“Wait, I’ll give you my cell phone and email—”
“I don’t need any of that.” He smiled.
“Or course,” she said. “Before you go, tell me something. Why agree to help? Is this sport for you?”
“Sport?”
He looked into his glass of tomato juice.
“No, a few years ago a friend of mind, who was quite troubled and naive, had been lured over time by an online predator who eventually raped her. She committed suicide. I was a pallbearer.”
“Oh, God.”
“Police couldn’t find the man responsible, so I looked for him with a vengeance. In my zeal, I attacked a few places, intruded—guess you’d call it hacking. But I found him.”
Erich nodded and finished his juice. Kate suddenly noticed that he’d been drinking it with the napkin wrapped around the glass so he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints. He pulled on his jacket to leave.
“You got this?”
“Yes. Wait. Erich, what happened? You found the creep, what happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
CHAPTER 39
New York City
The morning after her meeting with Erich, Kate got to the newsroom around nine-thirty.
Something about this “Viper” character disturbed her.
Implying that he’d been involved in someone’s death as an act of vengeance had left her feeling uneasy. So did the way he held his glass, as if being careful not to leave fingerprints. It prompted her to head straight for the business section.
She found Hugh at his desk, wearing a pale blue shirt and bow tie. He was putting his jacket on a hanger when he saw her.
“Kate, I’m sorry I stood you up last night. My apartment’s a disaster. So how’d it go with Viper? Did he show up?”
“Yes. What’s the story with him tracking down an online predator who assaulted his friend and then died?”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that. Did Viper have something to do with his death?”
“Yes. Let me buy you a coffee and explain.”
Downstairs in the building’s food court Kate recounted her meeting. Then Hugh told her how he’d first found Viper through industry sources when he wrote a series on corporate cyber security.
“He’s kind of a ghost,” Hugh said. “After his friend’s suicide, he used his skill to track her rapist. Turned out the bad guy was a computer expert, contracted with the NSA. Viper broke several laws infiltrating supposedly impenetrable systems to secure damning evidence against the guy.”
“Then what?”
“Viper alerted the FBI, provided them with everything. When they went to arrest the man, he led them on a wild high-speed chase through Virginia that ended with his car wrapped around a tree and his death.”
“Wow.”
“Later the CIA and the NSA reached out to Viper to work for them.”
“He’s that good?”
“He’s that good. Did he agree to help you?”
“Yes.”
“Count yourself lucky.”
* * *
Back at her desk Kate’s coffee was kicking in.
Having Viper on her side had spurred her to continue her own investigation on Nelson. She returned to the Alberta-Colorado angle, reexamining all the old documents that Goodsill had sent her from his trash grab fifteen years ago. The circumstances concerning the initial Denver suspect, Jerome Fell, niggled at her. The one document that seemed to be a misdirected notice regarding a burial site in Chicago of Krasimira Zurrn puzzled her. The page in the attachment was torn, creased and stained from the trash.
She couldn’t find an address on it for anyone in Colorado.
Kate began flipping through her notes but was interrupted by the ping of a message from Reeka.
Reuters just moved this. How did we miss it? I’m at the airport heading to Atlanta. Get on it and keep us posted.
Kate, are you OK to get on it? asked Chuck, whom Reeka had copied on the message.
Reuters had an exclusive, short breaking-news item that said Rampart police had confirmed the identities of four of the twelve recently discovered victims and were poised to release their names.
Kate’s stomach twisted as her sister’s face blurred before her eyes.
Vanessa could be one of them. It could all end here.
Her fingers shook over her keyboard as she moved to respond. She stopped, took a breath, regained her composure, then typed her answer to Reeka and Chuck.
I can handle it. I’m on it.
Before she knew it, she was on the phone to Brennan in Rampart, pushing aside the betrayal of his promise to keep her updated on identities.
“Brennan,” he answered.
“Kate Page. Reuters says you’ve identified four more victims.”
A long silence followed until Kate broke it.
“Ed, is my sister one of them?” Her voice quivered.
“No. She’s not.”
“You tell me right now. I deserve to know.”
“She’s not, Kate.”
“You’re certain.”
“We have your DNA. Remember, you volunteered it?”
Kate swallowed hard, briefly relieved. But her heart broke for the families of the dead.
“Okay.” She collected herself. “Are there any new developments in the case?”
“No. Work continues on the investigation.”
“I want the four new names for a story.”
“Give me twenty minutes. We’re wrapping up notifying the families.”
Half an hour later Brennan emailed Kate a news release that was going out in fifteen minutes. It was succinct, with few details, identifying the four victims as: Camila Castillo, twenty-four, missing from Mesa, Arizona, for six years. Kathy Shepherd, nineteen, disappeared from Greensboro, North Carolina, three years ago. Tiffany Osborn, twenty-five, vanished after going to a movie in Lexington, Kentucky, five years ago. Valerie Stride, twenty, had been missing from her suburban home in Orlando, Florida, for three years.
Kate looked into their young faces in the accompanying photographs, their bright smiles and eyes filled with hope. Her heart ached for them, for the horrors they must’ve suffered. The magnitude of evil was crushing.
Four more victims identified.
Eight more to go. Eight more chances for Vanessa to be one.
Who knows how many more victims they’ll unearth?
A chill shot through her as she concentrated on her story. The desk wanted her copy ASAP. She set out working with the news library assembling and detailing the circumstances of each case. Once she felt she had enough information, she sought numbers for relatives of the women, then steeled herself for the anguish of calling the four families in mourning.
The next hour passed with a quick succession of heart-wrenching interviews. Most of the families wanted to talk, wanted to share their grief, starting with Tiffany Osborn’s father in Kentucky. “You know, Tiff came to me in a dream last week and said, ‘Everything’s going to be okay, Dad.’” Kate then reached Kathy Shepherd’s mother in North Carolina. “It’s just not real,” she told Kate. “It never was. I still expect my little girl to walk through the door.”