Dead Deceiver

by Victoria Houston

  “The creep? We tried. Like I said, he literally ran us off the place.”

  Lew lowered her head in thought. “It’ll take a little doing with the judge, Doc. Search warrants aren’t easy to come by these days. Living near a crime scene isn’t ‘probable cause,’ I’m afraid. Let me work on it but tomorrow is the earliest I can make the call.”

  “I realize that. This may be a long shot but Ray and I both think we should be able to check it out.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Osborne opened the back door to let Mike out one last time.

  As he waited for the dog, he checked the barometer on the mudroom wall. The barometric pressure had plummeted, signaling the approach of new snow. Just then the phone in the kitchen rang and Osborne left the inside door open as he went to answer it.

  “Doc,” said Lew in a worried voice, “sorry to call so late but have you any idea where Ray and Suzanne might be? It’s after eleven and I know she was planning to drive home early in the morning.”

  “Hold on,” said Osborne, “I just let the dog out. I’ll step outside and see if they might be over at his place because I saw lights when I drove in.”

  He set the phone down and stepped out into the backyard. Winter stripped the leaves from the oaks and maples that buffered his property, making it easy to see the warm glow from the interior of his neighbor’s house trailer.

  Osborne picked up the phone, “Yep, from the looks of it someone’s home. Want me to walk over and see what’s up?”

  “Would you please? I’ve tried both their cell phones with no luck. But, Doc, be careful. I don’t want to embarrass either of them if—”

  “Lewellyn, I am the father of two daughters who have put me in this position more than once. I can handle it. Call you back in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you, sweetie.”

  Osborne hung up with a big grin on his face. He loved it when she called him names.

  The night air was invigorating even though he was ready for a good night’s sleep. Looking down the long drive, he was surprised to see lights out on the ice. Oh, come on. Did Ray have Suzanne out ice fishing this late? The poor girl. Osborne shook his head. Honest to Pete—what is the guy thinking?

  Hurrying past the trailer home, he aimed his flashlight towards the lights on the lake. A monster bluegill was staring straight at him—bulbous eyes glinting in the moonlight, its jaws wide open to showcase two human beings sitting side by side on folding canvas chairs, their happy faces ruddy in the glow from lanterns set in the snow around the fish.

  “Hey, Doc,” Ray stood up, “whaddya think?”

  “What on earth?” Osborne looked the fish up and down. It was a round ball about five feet in diameter and painted a dark greenish-blue with darker vertical stripes and a bright orange belly. The back of the gill facing him sported a large black dot.

  “I’m entering the ice shanty contest,” said Ray. “Check out the inside. Suzanne helped me make it and we finished just a few minutes ago. Cool, huh?”

  “Amazing,” said Osborne. He bent to peer inside. The interior was surprisingly spacious and would certainly hold at least two fishermen seated. A small propane heater sat on a circle of plywood and a lantern hanging off a hook made it feel cozy.

  “How did you do this so fast?” asked Osborne.

  “Pretty simple, really,” offered Suzanne. “Ray had one of those pop-up portable tents so all we had to do was rig some wire fencing to give it some shape and cover it all with canvas sheeting. I painted the canvas,” said Suzanne with pride. “Nice job, don’t you think?”

  “She painted,” said Ray, “I stapled.”

  “And managed to avoid stapling himself,” said Suzanne with a laugh. “But I have had to listen to a lot of bad jokes.

  “Sit down, Doc, and have a soda with us,” said Ray.

  “Thanks but I’m here because it’s after eleven and someone’s mother is worried,” said Osborne. “Let me call your mom so she knows Ray hasn’t gotten you into big trouble.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s that late?” said Suzanne. “I had no idea. Tell her I’m on my way.”

  “In a minute,” said Ray, pulling her back down in the chair by the sleeve of her jacket. “Let us … bask for another … two minutes … in the beauty of our creation. Then … you can leave.”

  “All right, twist my arm,” said Suzanne, slapping her arms with her mitts to keep warm.

  “Tell Doc what you’re going to do.”

  “Oh, come on, I’m not sure about it yet,” she said, hedging. “Ray’s trying to talk me into a major life change, Doc.”

  “If … I win the contest.”

  “Right. If he wins the ice shanty contest, then I am supposed to sell my firm and go back to school.”

  “That is a major life change,” said Osborne. “How did you two come up with that idea?”

  “It’s me, really,” said Suzanne. “I was having such a good time doing this today that I told him how much I’ve always loved working making art—design, painting, drawing. I’m good at it, I know.

  “But when I was getting out of high school and knew I wanted to be able to make money so I wouldn’t have to dance at places like Thunder Bay—it was my guidance counselor who recommended accounting. He said people always need accountants. And he was right but after twelve years I know it’s not how I want to spend my entire life.”

  “So … I told her,” said Ray, raising the index finger he always raised when he was convinced he had a brilliant idea, “that … given all the change in her life because of the divorce—why not apply to a good grad school and get that Master of Fine Arts? Make change work for you. Right, Suzanne?”

  She shrugged. “I’m thinking about it. I’ve always dreamed of going to Cranbrook Academy of Art over in Michigan. But I doubt I can get in.”

  “Hey, if I win the contest—you’ll have that for your portfolio.”

  “Yeah, well … we’ll see.” Suzanne got to her feet. “I gotta get going. You call me if you win, okay?”

  “One more joke,” said Ray, “then you can go.”

  Suzanne sat down again. “This is the last one and I mean it.” But she smiled and Osborne could see she was reluctant to leave.

  “This friend of Doc’s took his wife to a restaurant—”

  “Leave me out of this,” said Osborne, raising a hand in resistance. He glanced at Suzanne, “I am not responsible for any of this.” She laughed.

  Ray ignored him, saying, “But the husband ordered first. Said he wanted the strip steak, medium rare. The waiter asked him if he was sure: ‘Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?’ he said. ‘Nah,’ said Doc’s friend, ‘she can order for herself.’”

  “See what I mean?” said Suzanne, getting to her feet as she punched Ray in the shoulder. “Really bad jokes. Okay, guys, I am out of here.”

  “I’ll walk you up to your car,” said Osborne. “Ray, you coming?”

  “Okay if I stay here?” asked Ray, looking up at the cloud cover overhead. “I have a couple tip-ups I’d like to keep an eye on for awhile. With that snow coming, I think I got some hungry crappies lurking under the ice, doncha know. Suzanne, I’ll see you when I see you.”

  Suzanne leaned down to give him a peck on the cheek. “You be sure to call me, win or lose.”

  “Deal.”

  As they reached the driveway and Suzanne’s car, Osborne said, “Ray seems in very good spirits. What do you think? Your mother and I were worried that he had started drinking again.”

  “He seems okay now,” said Suzanne. “This was a fun day for both of us. You know, Ray is a real sweetheart. But a friend, that’s all.” She smiled as she put the key in the ignition. “A good friend period, Dr. Osborne. I am not stupid.”

  “You are your mother’s daughter,” he chuckled.

  “At least we don’t have to worry about the hard drive in that computer,” said Beth as she and Bruce Peters picked their way through the jumble of debris, which was all that was left of the Sch
umacher’s den. Stepping carefully so as not to dislodge anything, Doc and Lew followed behind.

  It was Monday morning and Beth had been working in her office when Lew called to see if there had been any new developments

  CHAPTER 23

  “At least we don’t have to worry about the hard drive in that computer,” said Beth as she and Bruce Peters picked their way through the jumble of debris, which was all that was left of the Schumacher’s den. Stepping carefully so as not to dislodge anything, Doc and Lew followed behind.

  It was Monday morning and Beth had been working in her office when Lew called to see if there had been any new developments in the spam investigation. On hearing that things were quiet at the moment, Lew told her of the break-in at Dr. Schumacher’s.

  “I would like to stop by your office and introduce you to Bruce Peters from the Wausau Crime Lab,” said Lew. “He may need your help with the computer situation. Do you have the time to follow us out to Dr. Schumacher’s place?”

  To everyone’s relief, she did. After a quick introduction to Bruce and a discussion of the need for a computer specialist to be involved, Beth had not hesitated to follow them out to Patience’s home.

  “What do you mean no need to worry about the hard drive?” asked Lew, astonishment on her face as she closed the door to the den door behind her. “I just told Bruce on the drive out here that we suspect the data thief who has been illegally harvesting emails from the college network may have destroyed the laptop in order to cover his tracks.

  “I also told him that the illegal network access must have originated from Patience Schumacher’s laptop since our thief had to have her user name and password to get into the network. Am I wrong about that?”

  “Oh, you are quite right, Chief Ferris,” said Beth, her voice matter of fact and unhurried. “But during the telephone conference call late yesterday afternoon with Julie, Dani and I were warned that Dr. Schumacher’s laptop could hold valuable data, so we decided it would be wise to put it in a safe place as soon as possible.

  “Right after our meeting, I called Dr. Schumacher and arranged for Dani to drop off a replacement computer. Her laptop is in a locked closet at the college.”

  “Excuse me,” said Lew, checking her cellphone, “I have a call from the switchboard. Doc, would you take over please?” She walked into the next room.

  “Beth, when exactly was it that you dropped off the new computer?” asked Osborne.

  “Maybe three o’clock—right around then.”

  “So, Bruce,” said Osborne, “we know Dr. Schumacher went out for an early dinner with friends, which is when we think the break-in occurred.” Bruce jotted the timeframe down in his notebook.

  “Okay,” said Bruce, “got it. And then?”

  “Since then, Dani—”

  “Excuse me,” said Bruce, “but who is Dani?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Beth, “I should have explained this earlier. Dani is a student of mine at the college, and a very good little computer tech who knows our system well. She and I have emailed Julie data footprints from the laptop as well copies of the spam messages, which Julie has forwarded to her team of techs.

  “Perhaps Chief Ferris has mentioned already that Julie’s crew has been working on similar email fraud investigations. When they saw our data, they immediately picked up on a pattern that confirmed something very, very interesting: our Wheedon College interloper has set up hosting in China with access to as many as twenty-five servers.”

  “Whew, that’s amazing,” said Bruce. “That was fast.”

  “Well, Dani was good enough to spend most of Sunday emailing all the information that we’ve collected so far.” Beth turned to Lew, “I am not worrying over the hours she works. Does that seem okay to you, Chief Ferris?”

  “Beth, whatever works,” said Lew. “If there is a problem with payment, I’ll negotiate that with the college. I know the family responsibilities you have so Dani’s involvement is critical.

  “Beth heads up the computer technology department at the college but she also has four children, a husband and the funeral arrangments for a close friend of hers who was murdered last week,” Lew explained to Bruce. “Beth, whatever works for you, please.

  “What I cannot stress enough is this: the minute either you or Dani see any sign of the spammer on the college computer network—and if that means they may be on the campus—you must alert me ASAP. Surveillance and apprehension is my duty. I cannot allow either of you to be placed in harm’s way. Is that understood?”

  “Yes. And I have made that clear to Dani, Chief Ferris,” said Beth.

  “Good,” said Lew. “Sorry to have interrupted, please go on filling us in on the details.”

  “Sure,” said Beth with a nod. “Julie explained to us that her tech team knew right away what to look for because it is happening everywhere. Early this morning, I had an email from Julie saying they were able to determine that whoever is doing this has harvested around over a hundred thousand student email addresses from the tech college network across the country—and is currently running thirty or more spam campaigns using at least that many domain names. Did I mention that Julie told us they make money selling the addresses to other spammers? Possibly as much as a million bucks in this case. That’s in addition to the money they make off the fake offers.”

  “Wow,” said Bruce, “this is hard to believe.”

  “Currently, they’ve been seducing the students with supposed discounts on smartphones,” said Beth. “First thing this morning I made sure that all the colleges affected will have sent out warnings, but that may be a little too late for several thousand kids. Our worry now is that the spammers may use the students’ credit card information to commit identity theft.”

  “I have a question,” said Bruce. “Who’s this Julie person?”

  “Julie’s an expert on digital forensics,” said Lew. “She’s a colleague of Gina Palmer’s, a friend of Doc’s and mine—a professor of journalism who has a cabin up here. She’s helped our department out in the past with database-driven investigations. Julie has a broader reach when it comes to this type of investigation.

  “Currently, she is supervising a team of computer engineers contracted by several major corporations that have experienced fraud involving spam and identity theft. Under the umbrella of ‘digital forensics’ they are designing software that can track illegal use of computers internationally. Pretty impressive and, I assure you, new to me. Does that answer your question?”

  Bruce nodded, rapt. “Please, keep talking—you’ve got my attention. I’m thinking of getting into computer forensics myself. This is fascinating, and it’s all happening at a small college in Loon Lake?”

  As they spoke, Osborne picked his way through the debris. In one corner, a sketchbook had been torn into tiny strips. Only the cover remained in one piece; on it, Charles had written his name and phone number and the words “in case this is lost, please return to.” Whoa, thought Osborne, looks like Charles’ name alone was enough to set off the intruder.

  “Bruce,” said Lew, “the reality is simple: the crime may be occurring via the Internet but the perpetrator is launching it from a computer located somewhere under our noses here on the Wheedon College campus. I have to apprehend that person or people—and soon.” Lew shook her head, “what frustrates me is the fact this is a federal crime and I’m getting no support from the FBI.”

  Beth nodded in agreement. “I’m with you, Chief. And besides the fraud, the spammer has installed viruses that have infected the hard drives on a number of our computers. It’s costing us a lot of money.

  “But I’ll tell you one thing: after this experience, I’m going to recommend we develop a curriculum on computer forensics.”

  “That will put Wheedon College on the map,” said Bruce.

  “You better believe it,” said Lew, thinking as she spoke how lucky it was that they had had Gina Palmer to make the connection to the digital forensic experts. Better yet—Wheedon
College was equally fortunate to have someone like Beth on staff.

  “What if you didn’t have advice from this woman Julie?” asked Bruce. “What then?”

  “Chief Ferris and I talked about this,” said Beth with a nod towards Lew, “We—meaning the college—would be at the mercy of the spammer until whoever it is decided they had mined enough money and information from the students and moved on to a new target.”

  “How much money are we talking about?” asked Bruce.

  “Yes,” asked Osborne, “what is the estimate at this point?”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Beth,” said Lew, “but Julie advised us it could run up to a million dollars or more. These poor college kids have given up their credit cards and bank information thinking all these offers are coming from the school. Now that the spam is making its way through this network to all the other tech colleges,” Lew raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness, “who knows how much damage will be done.”

  “That much?” Osborne was stunned. “Unbelievable the reach the spammers have once they’re inside an entire network. All that from a single, solitary computer?”

  “Right,” said Beth. “We’ve been able to prove that the initial spam was sent under Dr. Schumacher’s name and the data footprint confirms it originated from her laptop. We have to assume that whoever is at the heart of this operation must have—or had—access to this house. Dr. Schumacher has a desktop computer in her office at the college, but the home office laptop was the source of the initial messages.”

  “Her husband maybe?” asked Bruce, his eyebrows raised. “Or kids? Does she have teenagers?”

  “No children. And, yeah, the husband is a definite suspect, which is why I made sure that Dr. Schumacher would not be here this morning. The woman is overwrought as it is so until I have enough evidence to consider the husband ‘a person of interest’ …” Lew hesitated as she gazed around the room.

  “Given what Beth just told us about substituting a computer—one with different settings and no access to the college network—for the original laptop makes it easy to explain what we see here: our spammer was so upset to find the original laptop gone that he went berserk. Threw a homicidal temper tantrum Thank goodness Patience was not home or she may have been assaulted.”