by Mike Markel
“I understand, I do.” I understood, but I didn’t know quite how to make her feel better about what had happened. “Abby, do you think the guy—the one with the beard and the baseball hat—you think he might’ve had something to do with what happened to Professor Rinaldi?”
Abby didn’t say anything for a moment, but I heard her sobbing a little. “Tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about that. Haven’t really thought about Professor Rinaldi at all. But I feel really shitty how I was thinking about snaking her girlfriend … and now something bad happened to her. And the last week, with all the threats I’ve been getting, the way my whole world’s been turned inside out—I’m ashamed that I’ve been thinking about my own situation, not about her.”
“Okay, Abby, I’m sorry that all this stuff has happened. Let me just say, I’m glad the university is helping you stay out of sight until this blows over. But I want you to think about this: The university is doing the best it can to comply with the federal laws about sexual discrimination. And they want the best for you. They do. It’s just they’re not in the business of protecting people. The police are. If you reach out to us, we can work on getting you set up in the right kind of place so that you feel physically protected. I can have a female officer with you 24/7. And we can work with the different service providers—Google, your phone company, everyone—to try to stop the harassment and threats. We can go after the company that’s hosting the video, see if we can take it down. We can do all that. But you have to come in and meet with us. I know the prosecutor is committed to helping you. Will you think about that, Abby?”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes lately. Let me think about it. Can I call you at this phone number?”
“Any time. Just call me. We can set it all in motion.”
“I need to think this through. Figure out what I want to do.” Then she ended the call.
I looked at Ryan. “She did it.”
“Screwed Krista twice?”
“Focus on the case, perv. She killed Virginia.”
Chapter 21
“What did Abby say?” The chief was walking towards our desks in the detectives’ bullpen.
“You tell him,” I said. Ryan would be able to tell the story faster and clearer.
“Actually, quite a bit,” Ryan said. “She was curious about the lesbian lifestyle. Krista came on to her. They set up a date at Abby’s apartment. Krista comes over, with a videographer in tow. The women have sex. The guy’s supposed to edit the video and give it to Abby. Next thing she knows, she’s getting harassing and threatening emails and texts that point her to the video online. She’s horrified and terrified. She contacts the university because so many of the messages are from CMSU people.”
“Why didn’t she contact us?”
“She’s ashamed, doesn’t want her parents to find out. She thinks if only the university knows, it’s less likely to become public knowledge.”
“Were you able to convince her to work with us, Karen?”
“I tried.” I shrugged my shoulders. “She said she’d think about it.”
“Do you buy her story?” He looked first at Ryan.
“I do. It hangs together. She’s a small-town girl. Once she gets to the university and into this porn class with Virginia, it really opens her eyes. She’s curious, wants to experiment. Krista seems kind of safe; after all, Virginia brought her into her own home. She’s not a scary junkie who’s going to hit her on the head for twenty bucks for her next score. But the thing that sealed it for me was the way Abby described how it gave her a thrill to be in an affair with Virginia’s girlfriend. Abby seemed to have a sophisticated understanding of her own limitations.”
“How’s that?”
“She knows she isn’t that special. She’s not intellectual, certainly compared to Virginia. Being able to attract Virginia’s girlfriend—if only for a while—is a limited girl’s version of an accomplishment.”
“What about you, Karen? You buy Abby’s story?”
I shook my head. “What I mean is, yes, I agree with Ryan that it hangs together. The curiosity about screwing a woman, getting a charge out of nailing her professor’s girlfriend—all of that’s plausible.”
“Then why doesn’t it work?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet, but it seems too neat. The way she tells it, Krista and this guy with the camera set her up: They promised they were making her a private video, the two women screw, the guy leaves, so the two women screw again. Then a couple days later, when Abby learns she’s online in lesbo porn, she says she realizes she was scammed. She says she felt like she fell for an email scam where she won a lot of money but first she’s gotta give them a few hundred bucks.”
Ryan said, “Well, she could be right that it’s a scam about money: Krista and the guy got her to appear in a porn video without her knowledge or consent, and Abby doesn’t get any money for it.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, “but I’d have a different reaction if I fell for that trap. I wouldn’t be thinking of it like someone screwed me out of some money. I’d see it as something much more sinister. I’m on the Internet now, with my face in this woman’s crotch. It’s not that they screwed me out of the proceeds, or even that I’ll never be able to get a job, or anything like that. It’s not even the public shaming. It’s that it was a personal betrayal by Krista—after they made that great connection at the bar and in the sack. I didn’t hear Abby talk about that.”
The two guys were silent for a little bit, thinking. Finally, the chief spoke. “You could be right, but your theory works only if Abby was emotionally involved. It could be that she was mostly curious about lesbian sex.”
Ryan said, “Remember how she said she’d made some sex tapes before—you know, put a videocam on a tripod? I don’t see her as having a grand passion for Krista. I see her as being scared about exactly what she said scared her. That she was being bullied and threatened. That she was being shamed publicly. That she’d have to leave school. That her parents would find out.”
The chief said, “You asked Krista about the video already, right? What was her story, Karen?”
“That Abby offered her three hundred bucks to have sex. When Krista shows up, the video guy’s already there—he’s Abby’s friend, not Krista’s—so Krista asks for two-hundred more. They screw, then Krista walks away with the five-hundred. She doesn’t know anything about who the guy is or how the video got online.”
“What do you like about that story?”
“It’s simple, streamlined. Krista’s a hooker. She sees a way to make five hundred in an hour. No cut for her pimp. She doesn’t ask questions. She takes her clothes off and earns the money.”
“And she doesn’t worry about the videographer attacking her?” the chief said.
“She risks her life every time she does a john.”
“She doesn’t worry that the video’s going to be uploaded?”
“Worry that a porn producer will see has a great body and knows how to screw?”
“She’s not curious why a college girl would be willing—and able—to pay her five hundred?”
“From Krista’s perspective, American college girls are rich, spoiled babies. They don’t have to turn tricks to survive. And this particular college girl is so privileged she can take a course where all they do is talk about porn. So she gets turned on by this hooker, wants to screw her, pays her five hundred.”
Ryan sat at his desk, running his finger across the metal coil at the top of his skinny notebook. The chief stood next to my desk, looking down at the floor, his hands on his hips. The thing I like about both of these guys is that they take me seriously. They know they’re not always right, and that sometimes a woman—even a deeply screwy woman like me—can see something they don’t.
Finally, the chief spoke. “What do you want to do next?”
Ryan spoke. “When Abby called, Karen asked her if we could have access to her email and phones. She said okay, she’d already told the universit
y she could look at them.”
The chief said, “What are you looking for?”
“We could see the harassing and threatening messages. And we might find something that points to who’s doing it. Richard Albright, for example.”
“What do you think, Karen?”
“I don’t mind doing it, but I don’t think we’re gonna find anything. Richard Albright or anyone else on her ass is not gonna use a traceable address or phone number.”
“There’s another problem,” the chief said. “I’m not sure the university would let us see her email. Since they didn’t inform us and ask for help, they might just want to sit on it. And the phone records? She could give us her phone and we might be able to see something on her SIM card, but we can’t go to her phone company with a formal request. There’s no active case or even a complaint.”
“I don’t mind asking Arthur Vines, if you’re okay with it.” Ryan addressed the chief, then turned to me.
“Great,” the chief said. “Talk to him. You okay with that, Karen?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “But you know what I’d also like to do? Look harder at the victim’s computers and phones.”
“Where are you on that?”
“We brought in her laptop and cell from her house. And I asked Robin to get her computer and phone at the university, bring them in.”
“You haven’t looked at them yet?”
“Haven’t had a chance. That rally on campus and the fraternity party—now the Abby thing—have taken a lot of time.”
He looked at me hard. “Like I told you, I can split off the fraternity party and the harassment, put another set of detectives on it.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re all connected, Chief. If you bring in another set of detectives, it’s gonna take them a while to get up to speed, and we’ll end up tripping over each other’s feet.”
He nodded. “I need you to review all the vic’s records. Do it today. If it turns out we missed something that was staring us in the face …”
“I hear you, Chief. You’re right. This afternoon.”
The chief turned and walked toward his office.
“Well,” Ryan said, “that was pleasant.”
I shook my head. “He’s right. I’m gonna call Jorge, set up a meeting for one pm, go over all of it.” I looked at my watch: 11:43. “Let’s meet here at a quarter to one, work out our questions, okay?”
“I’ll start drafting the questions for him.”
I set up the meeting with Jorge. Ryan and I went our separate ways for lunch. I’d brought a sandwich, which I grabbed from the fridge before heading over to a little park a few blocks from headquarters. It was a shabby quarter-acre wedged into a triangle of land between two intersecting streets. The city put down wood chips, installed some kids’ play equipment and a couple of benches, put a storm fence around it, and paved three parking spaces. I liked it: no cops hung out there.
I wasn’t feeling too good about the chief having to point out that I’d failed to check all the electronic forensics first. That was basic procedure, and I screwed up. What I said to the chief was true, about how the case just started to ooze out in a couple directions. But the chief was right that I should have made the time to review the electronics first and told him if I needed more help. I’ve screwed up like this before: I want to show my boss I can do it all, and in the process I make it clear I can’t do any of it right. Shit.
When I got back from lunch, Ryan was at his desk. I could see he’d written a whole page of notes on a legal pad in ink.
“You’ve been working.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve got a strategy. Let me run this by you.”
I sat down. “Go.”
“We want to see communication between Krista, Abby, and Virginia—any combination. Plus, any communication with other players: the department chair, Daryl Sorenson; the state board of ed guy, Cletis Williams; the Christian tough-guy, Richard Albright; the frat boy, Martin Hunt. And one other person: her son, Robert.”
“Good. What are we looking for in the communication among the three women?”
“There could be a lot of incidental chatter between Virginia and Abby about the course, but we want to know if Virginia saw the porn video—or had anything to do with uploading it to the site.”
“To confirm whether it was a love triangle or whatever. Can we tell if Virginia uploaded it by looking at her computer?”
“If we get really lucky,” Ryan said, “she’ll have an email from the company acknowledging the upload. But it’s possible we could figure it out another way: If she has the video on her C drive, and her History shows that she visited the porn site’s Contact page or Submission page or something like that, it would show at least that she considered uploading it.”
“If Virginia’s computers or phones show she knew Krista was screwing Abby,” I said, “that could be the link between the video and Virginia’s murder.”
“That’s right.”
“If it was a love triangle, it could get Virginia killed a couple ways. Abby falls for Krista, and Virginia finds out about it. Virginia decides to slut-shame Abby by putting the video online—”
“You see her as willing to do something like that?” Ryan said.
“Yeah, I do. She was a bitch—with a temper. Remember, she insulted her department chair in a public meeting, and she threatened the state board of ed guy who pissed her off?”
Ryan nodded. “So Abby gets in a fight with Virginia after class Monday night, pushes her down the stairs. Or Krista gets in a fight with Virginia. We know that happened because there are fourteen witnesses. After class, Krista comes back with her videographer or her pimp or another hooker with some upper-body strength, and they throw her down the stairs.”
“All right, that sounds good. We know Jorge’s already looked at Virginia’s laptop and cell. And Robin said she was gonna bring in her office computer and look at her phone.”
Ryan and I headed down to the basement and squeezed into Jorge’s tiny office. “What have you got for us?”
“I can tell you anything you want to know about her home laptop, and I have the log of the calls on her cell. What do you want to talk about first?”
“What about her office computer and phone records?”
He shook his head. “Never got that stuff.”
“Shit.” I pulled my cell out of my big leather bag and called Robin.
“Hey, Karen.”
“Robin, I asked you to get Virginia Rinaldi’s office computer and phone logs. Jorge says he never got them.”
“I asked the university counsel—I can’t remember his name …”
“Vines.”
“Yeah. I asked him. His secretary wasn’t sure when he’d be able to get back to me.”
“Let me guess: his schedule is very tight?”
“A lot on his plate,” Robin said.
“Fuck. Listen, I can’t do this now, but I need that stuff ASAP. I want you to call the chief, tell him Vines is stonewalling us on Virginia Rinaldi’s electronics.”
“He’ll understand that?”
“Yeah, he will,” I said. “Just do it—now. Okay?”
“Done.”
“Thanks.” I ended the call.
I turned to Jorge. “Okay, so you’ve been over Virginia’s laptop, and you’ve got her cell records from her phone company, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. The laptop. Remember that video file from that fraternity asshole’s computer the other day? We need to know if she’s got that file on her laptop or if she’s visited that site from her laptop. Can you do that?”
“Think I can.” He turned on the projector, throwing the image of his screen on the wall. He ejected a disk, then rummaged around on his desk for another disk. “Let me get the image of the fraternity asshole’s computer.” He slid the disk into his computer, wrote a few characters on a sticky note, and stuck it on the back of his hand. Then he re-loaded the other disk and hit some keys for a litt
le bit. The images on the screen were moving too fast for me to understand what he was doing.
“Yeah, the porn file is on her laptop.”
Ryan said, “Where was it?”
“Just sitting on the desktop.”
“Had she renamed it?”
“No, the name’s the same: just a string of characters.”
I said, “All right, had she gone to the porno site to view it?”
“What’s the name of the site again?” Jorge asked.
Ryan answered. “CollegeGirlsXXX.”
Jorge needed two seconds. “Yeah. You got any hard questions?”
“All right, wiseass,” I said. “Did she upload the file to that site from this computer?”
Jorge smiled. “Oh, that’s good.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. He tapped a few keys, and up came the porn site. It was a black background, with boxes about two inches square with frames of the videos lined up neatly in rows. Along the right side of the screen were ads for sex toys and meet-and-fuck sites. He scrolled to the bottom of the screen and leaned in to read the small text. He hovered over a text link, then pulled the sticky note off the back of his hand and wrote a few more characters on it. Then he hit the text link, pulling up the submissions page, which was big box full of legal text like you see all the time when you want to use a service on the Web.
He turned to me. “I know she’s viewed the file on the site, but she didn’t upload it to the site—at least, not from this laptop.” He paused. “Wait a second.”
“What is it?”
“I need to check whether she used any other browsers.” He went back to the desktop. “No, good, all she uses is Firefox.”
“Did she look at other videos on CollegeGirls?” Ryan said.
He pulled down the History window. “A few dozen.”
“Straight or les?”
“Les.”
“Anything else on the laptop before we go to the phone?”
“No. You want to know who she talked to?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Jorge inserted a card into the side of his computer and pulled up a long spreadsheet. “What do you want to know about the phone?”