by T. L. Haddix
“Sheriff, I’m going to hold you to that.”
Chapter Five
Maria had just finished folding a load of clean laundry when her phone rang Monday evening. When she saw Ethan’s number on the screen, she frowned.
“Hello?”
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you at home. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, what’s up?” she asked as she grabbed a soda from the fridge.
“I need a big favor. I wouldn’t ask if Beth weren’t involved. My parents were just over here, and well, I guess it’s better if I just show you. Are you in front of a computer?”
“I can be.” She hurried upstairs and into her home office. With a tap on the space bar, she woke her computer up. “Okay, I’m ready.”
He rattled off a website address. When the site came up, the startling image of Beth embracing another man filled the screen. The caption “Love is in the air,” scrolled below the image, and several people had made comments about the image in an area underneath it.
“Oh, wow. That’s Raven Lynch, right?” Maria asked.
“It is.”
Raven was a local businessman who owned Leroy’s upscale art gallery. He was also completely out-of-the-closet, openly gay.
“I don’t understand what someone’s trying to do here, Ethan. I mean, everyone knows Raven’s gay. This is almost funny.”
Ethan’s sigh echoed over the phone. “Yeah, that was our first reaction, too, but my parents were not amused. Beth’s been crying for two hours now.”
Maria’s heart sank. “Oh, no. Surely your folks didn’t think this was real?”
“I’m afraid so. I hate to ask this, but can you see what you can find out about it for me? Off the clock?”
“Absolutely.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’ve heard of the place that hosts this forum. It has a nasty reputation for being slow to respond in removing user-posted content. If you’d like, though, I can start the process to have this post pulled from the site.”
“That would be wonderful. I’ll owe you big time for that.”
“No, you won’t. We’ll consider it a fair exchange for that advice you gave me the other night. Besides, I can’t call myself your friend and just let this stay up there.”
After they hung up, Maria settled into her office chair and started digging through the forum. The audacity of the post infuriated her. It came too close to the attacks perpetrated against Beth last year that had led to her being shot and nearly killed. Maria knew the similarity had to be weighing on Beth and Ethan. They’d struggled so hard to get where they were now. If there was any way she could help with this slander, she’d do her damnedest to pull it off. It was the least she could do.
Chapter Six
The first sign Wyatt had that something out of the ordinary was going on was when Tara Michaels-Lewis, a local business owner, called 911 early Tuesday morning. She reported that her ex-husband had shown up at her house drunk, gun in hand. Ethan was dispatched, along with Deputy Wes Mason, but since Wyatt was nearby, he responded as well. When he arrived at the scene, Tony West was sitting on Tara’s front porch. Tony had a whiskey bottle in one hand and a pistol lying on the floor beside him.
“Tony, what’s going on here?” Wyatt asked as he, Ethan, and Wes approached the man with caution, guns drawn.
Eyes bleary, the man raised his gaze to Wyatt. “She won’t have me. She lied and told me she’d take me back, but now she won’t have me.” He lifted the nearly empty bottle and drained it the rest of the way. “Stupid bitch. I never should have married her to begin with.”
“Why don’t we go somewhere to talk about this, Tony? Maybe we can figure out what’s going on.” Wyatt spoke gently, not wanting to provoke the man into reaching for his gun.
Tony tossed the bottle into the yard, narrowly missing Wes’s foot. “Sorry ‘bout that, Deputy. My aim’s not so great right now. I was trying to hit that ugly little troll.” He pointed to a garden gnome at the edge of a flowerbed. “Always hated that thing.”
Wyatt tried again, putting a little snap into his voice. “Tony. I need you to stand up and move toward me.”
With a weary sigh that sounded as if it came from the bottom of his soul, the inebriated man stood, leaving the gun behind on the porch. As soon as he was clear of the steps, Ethan and Wes rushed in.
“We’re going to put some handcuffs on you, Tony. Just until we get some things straightened out, okay?” As Ethan spoke, Wes applied the cuffs, then stepped up onto the porch and secured the gun. He wasn’t surprised to find it loaded. He went to the door, and Tara opened it. Her face was white, the freckles standing out against her pallor.
“Tara, are you okay? He didn’t get inside, did he?”
She shook her head. “No, Sheriff. But I thought he was going to break the door down for a few minutes there.”
When Tony started yelling behind them, Wyatt turned. A third deputy had arrived, and the men had the situation well in hand.
“Why don’t we go inside, and you can sit down and tell me what happened?” Wyatt suggested.
She led him inside and into the kitchen, where she sank down into a chair with a half-sob. “I’m sorry. It’s just… I don’t know what happened. He showed up here last night, flowers and champagne in hand. Seemed to think I was ready to reconcile with him.”
Wyatt handed her a tissue from the box on the table. “And you aren’t?”
She shuddered. “No! I’m remarried. Happily. I haven’t spoken to Tony in months. I can’t imagine why he would think I wanted to reconcile. It’s certainly not because I’ve encouraged him.”
“So what happened? I’m guessing you told him you weren’t interested.”
“Of course. He got angry, and we had an argument. I told him to go away, and he did. I thought that was the last of it. My husband isn’t home right now; he’s traveling for his job. When the doorbell rang a little while ago, I certainly wasn’t expecting to find Tony out there, drunk. Luckily, the screen door was locked, or he would have gotten in.”
Puzzled, Wyatt asked, “Did he give you any reason for why he thought you wanted to get back together?”
She shook her head. “None whatsoever. He just kept ranting about how I’d led him on. But like I said, I haven’t talked to him in months, not even via email or texting.”
Wyatt rubbed his jaw. “I’ll head outside, see if he’ll talk to me, and I’ll send someone in to take your statement, okay?”
Back outside, he headed for Ethan, who stood at Wes’s car, talking to a dejected Tony West. Ethan started in his direction and met Wyatt halfway.
“What’s Tony say about this?” Wyatt asked.
The detective made a face. “Says he was set up, and keeps calling Tara all kinds of nasty names. But he won’t tell me how he was set up. Maybe once he sobers up, he’ll be more cooperative. How’s Tara?”
Before Wyatt could respond, his phone rang. He answered and shot a look at Ethan. “No, we’ll be right there.”
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked as Wyatt put the phone back in its holder.
“We have another domestic on the other side of town. You’re with me. Wes, take care of things here,” Wyatt called out as he hurried toward his vehicle.
As they pulled out of Tara’s driveway, Ethan following behind in his own car, Wyatt radioed in and got the information from dispatch.
“And we have another call that just came in on top of the one you’re going on, Sheriff,” Carrie said.
“What is it, a full moon?” Wyatt asked. Though Olman County had its share of crime, it wasn’t normal for the calls to come in such quick succession. Whatever was going on, Wyatt hoped the disturbances were just a fluke.
Chapter Seven
Maria was considering taking a break Tuesday afternoon when Ethan tapped on the frame of her office door to get her attention.
“Hey, come on in. And close the door, please. I hear you had an exciting morning,” she commented as he took a seat in front of her desk.
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You could say that. Were you able to find anything?”
“Yes and no. I actually found quite a bit more than I expected to, but the information has raised more questions than it’s answered. I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning’s usually a good spot.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Usually. But I’m not sure where that is. You know I looked at all this as a favor to you, did it on my own time, and I didn’t use department resources, right?”
Ethan frowned. “Right. And I wouldn’t ask you to use official channels.”
“Well, unfortunately, I think I may have stumbled across some elements which are going to take us toward an official investigation.” She blew out a breath. “Let me ask you something. By any chance, have you noticed that we’ve had to handle a lot more fights, a lot more calls about… domestic disputes, I guess, lately? This morning was the perfect example.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess there have been more calls. I attributed the increase to the upcoming holidays. Why?”
She scowled. “Because I think someone deliberately set up this forum with the sole intent of using it to cause trouble here in Olman County.” She turned her computer monitor around so he could see it. “Look at this. After you called me, I spent a few hours lurking around the site, just getting a feel for the place. When word came down about this morning, I remembered this thread. It caught my attention last night, but its significance didn’t hit me until I heard what happened with Tony West.” She clicked on the link.
When a picture of Tara and Tony, dressed in wedding finery, came up, Ethan frowned and sat back in his chair. The first post, entitled “Did you miss me?” was dated three weeks prior.
He cursed and rubbed his neck, as though warding off a tension headache. “Tony swore that she’d set him up, but he wouldn’t tell us why he thought that. You think this post is where his idea came from?”
Maria answered, trying to keep the tension from her voice. “I think so. If you read these posts, they’re pretty inflammatory. To someone like Tony? They’d be like a message from God.”
“But why would someone want to start rumors like that? I know, I know. People are twisted. But what possible goal could they have? And was there a posting for the second situation we dealt with this morning?”
“Yes. There was. As to the whys, you’re the detective. But I do have something more. I did some recon and dug deeper. I got hold of the IP addresses of the people who started this post, as well as the one about Beth and a few others. Don’t ask how, by the way. All the user names are different, but all the IPs originate from the same place—Norway.” She could tell the information had shocked Ethan.
“Norway? Really? Okay, what am I missing?” he asked.
Tapping her pen on her blotter, she explained, “A person doesn’t have to be a registered user of this forum to start a topic or post on a thread. The company who runs the website that the forum is attached to did that deliberately. It’s part of the appeal of these types of forums. Some of the sites they host are harmless, but a lot are armpits of humanity. That being said, most people don’t realize that when they make a post on these threads, even if they do it anonymously, they’re still leaving tracks. Okay?”
“Sure. I do know that much. But what does that mean with regards to what’s happening here?”
“You know we have the Olman County Chatter here, right? The locally owned forum that’s heavily moderated? Local happenings, politics, sports, community stuff. It’s actually a decent little forum, a little gossipy, but for the most part, a place where people in the community can come to discuss current events or whatever.” When he nodded, she continued. “This other forum? It’s the complete antithesis of the Chatter. Delving into its readership and posts is like wading into a pit of angry vipers. Some of the same user names you’ll see on the Chatter also appear on this forum. Keep in mind, though, that since you don’t have to be a registered user on the second forum, anyone can use those names. The same people posting on this toxic forum might or might not be the same people on the Chatter.” She paused, taking a long drink from the mug on her desk.
Ethan took advantage of the break to ask a question. “So the person or persons who set up this ‘toxic’ forum, they’re using it to manipulate the goings-on here in Olman County? Wouldn’t that take a lot of time and effort, not to mention people?”
“Have you ever heard of sock puppets?”
He quirked a brow. “Um, yes. I was a kid once. Why do I get the feeling you aren’t talking about those kinds of puppets, though?”
She smiled. “Because I’m not. In internet forums, sock puppets are fake identities created by people with the intention of subverting the truth one way or another, fake customer reviews of products or services, to say something publicly as someone else that you couldn’t say as yourself, that sort of thing. They’re also used to cause trouble, like what’s going on here.”
“So people who create weird user names, like Beatlesfan99, are they considered sock puppets?”
Maria shook her head. “Not really. It’s like, well… like my username on social networking sites. I don’t want just anyone to be able to look me up, so I go by SDITchick. I’m still on there as me, and my friends and family know who I am, but not the general public. I didn’t create the name with the purpose of deceiving anyone in mind, but to protect myself from strangers.”
“Okay, makes sense.” He stretched out his legs. “So you think someone has created sock puppets and is posting inflammatory topics about people here in Olman County. Again, why? What’s the motive?”
“To cause trouble, is my best guess. And from what I can tell, it’s working like gangbusters. Aside from these two examples, I was able to find four more instances that go back as far as mid-August, that correlate to incidents the department was called out on. All the IP addresses of the OP—that’s Original Poster—came from Europe.”
“So it’s likely the same person?”
“Yes. And it means that whoever is doing this is masking their IP address, which means they’re familiar with the tactics we’d use to find them.” She watched as the implications of that sank in.
“Does that mean you can’t trace this back to whoever created those posts or threads or whatever?”
“No, but it’s going to be incredibly difficult to do and cost more man-hours than I think you’re going to want me to put into this. That’s not to say I won’t be digging deeper. There are some avenues I can explore that might lead us in the right direction. However, I think your best bet is going to be to pursue it from this end, the real-world aspect.”
Ethan was obviously flummoxed. “I wasn’t expecting this. When was the forum set up?”
“Early May. Also anonymously, but that might be a little easier to trace.”
He gave a decisive nod. “Good. Here’s what I’d like to do. Do you have the time available right now to follow this? To see how many more cases might be related to this forum?”
She pulled up her schedule on the screen. “I can, but I’m going to have to shuffle some things around. That might lead to some overtime for the lab crew.”
He stood. “Then start shuffling. I’ll get the approval for the OT. My gut’s telling me this is important. And here I thought this was just some nasty rumor-monger who wanted to hurt me and Beth.”
Maria got up and came around her desk to open the door. “I certainly wasn’t expecting this either, and my gut’s screaming at me, too. I’ll talk to the minions, move some things around, and start looking into this officially. I’m assuming this is ‘eyes-only’ for now?”
“Yeah. Until we know what we’re dealing with.”
They walked together toward the stairs, and once they reached the doors that led to the restrooms, Maria reached out a hand and stopped him. “How’s Beth doing, by the way?”
He shrugged. “She’s upset. More because of the way my parents acted than becaus
e of the picture. Shoot, she thought that was almost funny. Mom was just livid, though. I’ve never seen her like that. You know she and Beth have always been close. It broke Beth’s heart, the way she talked last night.”
“I know it had to. I can’t imagine it, really. That’s not like Stella at all. I know you said the other night that she’d been acting odd. Is something going on with her that might be influencing her somehow?”
His laugh was bitter. “At this point? Hell if I know.” He patted her arm and headed down the hall. “I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for doing this.”
As he descended the stairs, Maria continued into the restroom, her heart heavy with concern for her friends. Something was definitely going on with Ethan’s mother. She’d try to stop by the library in the next few days to speak to Stella, see if she could figure out what the problem was. With everything Ethan and Beth had been through in the past year, the last thing they needed was family trouble.
Chapter Eight
Wednesday afternoon, Maria and her best friend, Detective Stacy Kirchner, grabbed a late lunch at the Lighthouse, taking advantage of the restaurant’s endless soup and salad deal. A cold front was moving through, leaving southern Indiana wet and miserable. The weather suited Maria’s mood perfectly.
“So you had a late-night date with Wyatt. Hallelujah! Gimme details, girl.” Stacy’s eyes sparkled as she waited for Maria’s response.
“It wasn’t a date. It was waffles and scrambled eggs, and it only happened because we were working on the Sterling case. You’re reading way more into this than what it was, Stace.” Maria scowled. “Way more.”
“Seriously? You’ve had a crush on him since I first met you. You finally got him to yourself for the evening. I can’t believe you didn’t take advantage of that.”