“Does she say anything about Haley and her father? I still think these two men were involved in some type of pedophilia ring. I was going over the FBI’s Crime Classification Manual this morning. They call more than one pedophile working together a Cottage Collector. They use pornography as a means to communicate with other pedophiles.”
“I just can’t see either Don or Drew whipping out pornographic pictures of their daughters one day over the barbecue,” Carolyn told him. “Don knew Veronica was a probation officer. Approaching Drew would have been far too risky.”
“Okay,” Hank said. “What if Drew was the one who started it? They could have met each other in a chat room, then realized they knew each other. Shit happens, you know.”
Carolyn was more interested in the diary. “From what I can tell, Jude wrote some of these pages in the days leading up to Veronica’s murder.”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” she said, fighting back tears. “I need to go outside and get some air.”
Hank came over and put his arm around her. “Drew’s dead, Carolyn. He can’t hurt Jude or anyone else. Isn’t that some consolation?”
“Not really,” Carolyn said, rushing out of the conference room.
CHAPTER 28
Tuesday, October 18—2:15 P.M.
Marcus’s office was located in an office building in Century City. He waited in the parking lot until Mary and the police department’s computer expert arrived, then took them up in a private elevator that could only be operated with a key. His offices encompassed the entire floor.
The name of his company was not on the door. All the sign said was PRIVATE. Ricky Walters was carrying Don Snodgrass’s computer. A hyperactive man in his late twenties, he had dark, unruly hair, and a tall, wiry frame. Mary followed the men into a small reception room. The only furniture was four industrial-type chairs.
“This is basically for show,” Marcus explained. “We don’t allow visitors.”
“Why all the cloak-and-dagger?” Ricky asked, looking around the small room. “What exactly do you do? I thought you were a computer programmer.”
“I am,” Marcus said. “My work is classified. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait out here.” He started to take the computer, but Mary stopped him.
“This computer is evidence in a homicide. I can’t let it out of my sight. Surely you understand our position. What if I’m asked to testify as to who had access to it? Snodgrass’s attorney could claim we planted any information we might find. Why should I take a chance like that when I’m not certain you can help us?”
“Oh, I can help you,” Marcus said, a confident expression on his face. “I just can’t allow you inside my lab.”
“We’re police officers, for God’s sake,” Mary said, raising her voice. “Are you telling me we drove all the way down here for nothing? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You solicited me, remember?” Marcus shot back. “If you’ll calm down and let me take the machine, I can solve your problem within minutes.” When Mary just glared at him, he added, “Okay, fine, but I need time to set up.”
He walked over to an intercom, depressing the button to talk. “It’s me, Jim. Stash any classified material we have lying around, and turn off all the monitors except for the teraflop. You and the rest of the guys go grab a coffee at Starbucks. Leave out the back door.”
“What’s going on, boss?”
“I’ve been asked to take care of a problem that doesn’t involve you and the others. I’ll call you as soon as I’m finished.”
“Sure thing,” the voice said. “I’m all for Starbucks.”
“Can they bring me a double espresso?” Ricky asked.
“Are you crazy?” Mary said, placing a hand on one hip. “You’re already jumping out of your skin. Just being around you makes me nervous.” Once Marcus turned around, she added, “I really appreciate this. I’m sorry I got carried away. We’re desperate to solve these murders. What we need might be inside this stupid box.”
Ricky Walters’s eyes were enormous. “You have a teraflop? You must make more money than God to afford a teraflop. Shit, I’d love to work for you. I could go to the car and get my notebook. My resume is on it.”
“What’s a teraflop?” Mary asked, having heard the word but not entirely certain what it meant.
“A supercomputer,” Ricky said. “A teraflop means a trillion floating point operations per second. A baby like that’s worth a minimum of twenty million. IBM made one called the Blue Gene/L that does 280.6 teraflops. They don’t have to do nuclear testing anymore. A computer like this can simulate it.”
“I don’t own the teraflop,” Marcus said. “It belongs to one of my clients.”
“Who made it?”
Marcus’s apprehension disappeared. Ricky’s excitement was contagious. “Hewlett Packard. It’s got a Linux operating system, and Intel’s Itanium 2 processor. Before I opened my own consulting firm, I worked for Intel. I was one of the people who designed Itanium 2. When it started acting up, I spent six months on-site trying to fix it. Finally, they agreed to ship the thing to me, so my entire team could work on it.” He used the intercom again, and no one answered. “What we’re interested in at the moment is TOTS, teraflops off the shelf. You can put together a cluster that works at teraflop speeds for under a million.”
Marcus placed his palm on a pad and the door swung open. Behind it was a steel wall with a code pad. He turned his back so Mary and Ricky couldn’t see, and punched in the numbers. Once the steel door clanked open, he spun around and faced them. “You’ve never been in this room, understand? This room doesn’t exist. The only reason I agreed to let you in is we’re moving to a smaller location next week once we get rid of the monster.”
Even though the lab was enormous, the rows of computer terminals made it seem cramped. There were eight workstations. All the monitors were blank except one. Marcus took Snodgrass’s Dell computer and disappeared behind a row of glass to connect it to the Hewlett Packard teraflop. Then he dropped down in one of the chairs, booted up the Dell, and went to the bios setup utility. “I was hoping he hadn’t set an administrator password, but he did.” He typed a string of code on the adjacent computer, then leaned back in his chair as data flashed on the screen so fast it was nothing more than a blur. “It’s running every possible eight-character letter and number combination.” Before he could say anything else, the password appeared. “He used upper-and lowercase, which made it slightly more difficult. My guess is SwTaNgEl means sweet angel.” He smiled at Mary. “I try to figure out personalized license plates when I’m stuck in traffic.”
“So you’re in?”
“Not yet,” Ricky told her. “Now he’s got to crack the Windows password. I tried to find a password recovery disk in Snodgrass’s desk, but he must have it locked in a safe somewhere. We can reinstall Windows, but like I told you before, it’s risky.”
As soon as the teraflop cranked out the Windows password, which turned out to be a random combination of letters and numbers, the main screen opened. “What precisely are we looking for now?” Marcus asked.
“Child pornography, or any type of pictures that appear even slightly erotic.”
Marcus searched through the gallery section, finding photographs of naked little girls among the normal shots of dogs, families, birthday parties, Christmas, and other holidays. The girls were taking baths, playing in a rubber swimming pool, getting dressed, or chasing each other through the sprinklers. None of the poses looked even slightly suggestive, let alone erotic. “Is this what you were looking for?”
“Not exactly,” Mary said, disappointment heavy in her voice. “The two girls resemble each other, so they’re probably his daughters. I guess it’s normal to snap these kinds of photos when kids are that young. That doesn’t mean Snodgrass didn’t get turned on by them, though. We need something more recent.”
Marcus checked the photo imaging program used by Snodgrass’s Canon digital camera. T
he two girls were older, and most of the shots looked like the others he’d found in the gallery. “Whoa,” he said, “is this the kind of thing you’re talking about?”
Mary nudged him out of his seat. Haley appeared to be around eleven or twelve. She was wearing a bikini bathing suit bottom with no top and smiling for the camera. She must have been about to enter puberty, as her nipples were slightly swollen. “This is exactly what we’re looking for,” Mary said, peering up at Marcus.
The room fell silent as Mary went through the rest of the pictures, hoping to find more similar shots. She came to one with a teenage girl lying on her stomach in a bed, nude except for a pair of white cotton panties. Her head was turned to the side, and her eyes were closed as if she was sleeping. She knew it was Haley as she recognized her profile. “What does this picture tell you?”
Ricky spoke up. “That her perverted father was sneaking into her room and taking pictures of her while she was sleeping.”
“It’s more than that,” Mary said, zooming in on the image. “Just because her eyes are closed doesn’t mean she’s asleep. Look closely at her face. Wait,” she said, wanting to get a closer look at the area around her eyes and cheek. “See that right there? I’m almost certain those are tears, and look at her expression. If she was asleep, she was having one hell of a nightmare.” She rotated the image, seeing an object protruding from underneath the girl’s hips. “I’m fairly certain that’s a pillow. It’s pink like the sheets. She was posed, don’t you see? He must have put a pillow under her to lift up her hips so they would stand out more. He could have also wanted her on her stomach because she was older and had developed breasts by then. I think Snodgrass snapped this either before or after he had sex with her.”
“Jesus,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “I’m not sure I want to see this, Mary. Why don’t you take the computer back to the police station now that you have all the passwords? In fact, I can remove them. That way, you won’t have to mess with them.”
“You can’t do that,” Mary said sharply. “The prosecutor might want to use the passwords to show Snodgrass had something to hide. See the exposed skin on her neck? The rest of her body is tan. Why aren’t there any tan lines on her back?”
Marcus said, “A lot of teenage girls undo their bathing suit tops when they’re lying on their stomach. I recall my daughter doing it. I used to get on to her. She’d forget, sit up, and expose herself.”
“Haley’s not wearing bikini underwear. You can tell because the fabric is bunched up at the bottom. You can see her crack. Did your daughter pull her bathing suit down that low?”
“No, but today, you can see girls exposed like that just about everywhere.”
“The lowrider pants are a fairly new fashion trend,” Mary continued. “Look at the date. This picture was taken five years ago. Haley was thirteen then. The point I was trying to make is her whole body is tan. She’s been sunbathing nude. Her parents don’t have a pool. They may have another house or cabin somewhere, though, a place Snodgrass could have taken her where he could watch her run around naked. Can you tell when he created that password?”
“Which one?”
“Sweet angel, if that’s what it means.”
“Doubtful,” Marcus said. “Once a bios password is changed, it’s changed. You’ve got to understand, this is about a seven-hundred-dollar machine. Do you think sweet angel means something sinister? It sounds pretty innocent to me.”
Mary stood, giving him back his seat. “If he created it after his daughter was murdered, it might be touching, almost like a prayer or remembrance. Before, well, this could refer to an incestuous relationship. Pedophiles think that way. They believe the sweet young child they’re having sex with was sent to them to fulfill their special needs. They don’t believe they’re harming anyone. Many times they convince themselves the victim actually seduced them.”
“I’ll check the sites he visited on the Internet,” Marcus told her, opening the drop-down box on the browser. Most of the sites appeared harmless. The majority of them were bank and credit card sites. Some were for news and entertainment. Others were commercial sites such as Amazon and eBay, along with a variety of online stores, most of them selling clothes for women. Marcus then searched through the document files. “None of the files appear to be encrypted,” he told them. “Didn’t you say he was an accountant? I don’t see any client lists or spreadsheets. He must keep anything related to his business on his office machine. That, in itself, is unusual, since so many people work both at home and at an office.” He opened Microsoft Outlook, and read through some of the e-mails. “This is mostly Chatty Kathy stuff.”
“What are you talking about?” Mary said, never having heard that expression before.
“Girl talk,” Marcus told her. “I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t think this is the father’s computer. It looks like it belongs to the wife. Even all the purchase receipts are for the kind of things a woman would buy. I mean, every guy likes gadgets of one kind or the other. Whoever uses this machine bought a stand for a blow-dryer, wooden hangers, nightgowns at Victoria’s Secret, pillow shams, four Sassybax bras, which reduces invisible bra line, whatever that means.”
“Enough,” Mary said, giving Ricky a look that would drop an elephant. “I told you to bring the computer that was in the spare bedroom. What did you do, mix them up and bring me one of the girls’ machines?”
“Of course not,” Ricky said, defensive. “The girls’ computers weren’t password protected. They also weren’t Dells. What’s the problem? The guy still took those racy pictures of his daughter.”
Mary took several deep breaths to keep from exploding. Every time they seemed to be making progress, they hit a brick wall. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Ricky. If a mother takes a picture of her daughter scantily dressed, it’s hard to classify it as child pornography. Female pedophiles aren’t common, and those that exist generally work in concert with a male. It’s doubtful if the Snodgrasses are that type of people, although it’s not completely implausible. Husband and wife teams usually sell child pornography as their main source of income, or they’re involved in child prostitution rings.”
Marcus spun his chair around. “Didn’t Hank think this was a pedophilia ring at one time?”
“Yes,” Mary said. “Now that Drew is dead, and from what Jude has told Carolyn about Stockton, we’ve been focusing primarily on Snodgrass. Even if the father did take the pictures, the fact that the computer was used primarily by the mother won’t help us get a warrant to arrest her husband.”
Marcus tore off a piece of paper with the passwords on it, and handed it to Mary. “If you have any more problems, give me a call. I have a great program for cracking codes I can give you, but on an ordinary machine it would take forever to run.”
Marcus disconnected the Dell and handed it to Ricky, then looked over at Mary. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of highly paid employees sitting around drinking coffee. We think we resolved the problem with the teraflop, but we need to keep testing it before we ship it out and move back into our regular space.”
He escorted them through the maze of doors.
“Thanks again,” Mary said, pumping his hand. “When are you and Carolyn getting married?”
“Whenever you catch the killer,” Marcus said, a downcast look on his face.
The detective’s cell phone rang. “Holy Jesus,” she said once she concluded the call. “That was Hank. We finally caught a break. The Santa Barbara PD arrested Reggie Stockton. They found him sleeping on the beach. He should be at the station by the time we get back.”
“I left Carolyn there,” Marcus said. “I was going to take off now and pick her up. If you don’t think she’ll be ready to leave, I can stay and try to get some work done. The people I work for don’t like to wait, and I haven’t been minding the store lately.”
Mary nudged Ricky through the doorway. “Go to the car,” she told him, waiting until he shuffled off down the corridor b
efore turning back to Marcus. “I think he wants you to hire him so he can play with your fancy toys. He’s good at what he does, so just so you’ll know, you can’t have him.”
Marcus laughed. “I have all the employees I need right now.”
“Oh, regarding Carolyn,” Mary added, “she’ll want to be present when we interrogate Stockton. She believes he may be our killer.”
Reggie Stockton was seated at the table in an interview room. Mary and Hank were seated directly across from him, and Carolyn was standing in the corner.
Stockton didn’t look like the same person Carolyn and Mary had met at Circuit City. His white T-shirt was torn and filthy. He hadn’t shaved and had a scruffy beard, which made him look older and unsavory. He kept scratching different parts of his body. He’d tested clean for narcotics, but his demeanor was typical of a drug addict.
Stockton had waived his right to have an attorney present, so Hank dived in. “Gee, Reggie, my partner was worried something had happened to you. One of your girlfriends was murdered, and the other almost died in a hit-and-run accident.” He brushed a piece of lint off his black slacks. “You’re not having very good luck when it comes to the ladies.”
“Look, man,” Reggie said, speaking in a thick New Orleans accent, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I graduated from high school last year. I was working at Circuit City and saving money to go to college. I didn’t have the time or the money for girlfriends. Ask my mama. She’ll tell you.”
“Your mama, huh?” Hank said, narrowing his eyes. “Are you talking about that nice lady you conned into letting people think she was your mother? We know all about you. Your real name is Reginald Marcel. You were in jail in New Orleans when Katrina hit. After you escaped, you hid out at the convention center. That’s where you met Mrs. Stockton. How old are you, Reggie?”
“Shit, you know everything. Why ask me things you already know?” He glared at Mary, throwing his arm toward her. “I knew she was gonna figure it out. Bitch tricked me into leaving my fingerprints in her car. That’s why I took off. I’d rather live on the street than go back to New Orleans. That place is a pit, man. Hell’s got to be better. The cops there are worse than the criminals. They busted me for a crime my brother committed. I haven’t even seen the fucker since I was twelve, and I gotta do his time because we got the same last name.”
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