by Gayle Wilson
“Don’t show her this, Jace. Not now.”
“You don’t think she might be aware of this already?”
“I can’t imagine her knowing and not doing something about it. I can’t imagine any mother letting this stay up.”
Then she hadn’t been exposed to the kind of parents he’d met. He’d known women who would have written that stuff about their daughters. And who would then have sold them to the highest bidder to satisfy their addictions.
“Andrea wouldn’t do the kinds of things described here,” Lindsey said. “I know you didn’t know her, but…she really was shy. That,” she nodded at the monitor. “That wasn’t her.”
“Then someone put the site up in her name.”
“Can they do that?”
“All the time. These places don’t require an ID. Anybody can get a space and then fill it with whatever they want.”
“But why would they do that to Andrea? Why write things that vicious? All that sexual detail. As if she were nothing but a…” She stopped again, clearly unwilling to characterize the dead girl in the way she’d been represented on the site.
“As a joke,” Jace suggested. “Hazing. Or bullying.”
“It ought to be against the law.”
Her tone said he was in charge of that. He doubted she wanted to hear all the reasons local law enforcement couldn’t police both the Internet and the streets.
“It takes a while for the law to catch up with the technology, which is changing too rapidly.”
“Do you think this had something to do with her death? That and the pregnancy rumor, maybe? Or that this is where that rumor originated? You did know about that, right?”
“Several people told me. Would she have come to talk to you about something like that?”
“About being pregnant? Or the site?”
“Either. Both.”
“I don’t know. All I know is she didn’t talk to me.”
“The kids ever talk at school about these profile sites?”
“Of course. Somebody will say something about what they’ve put up. Pictures or something. A blog. Some of them maintain their own sites, too, I think, separate from the group ones.”
“Would you be comfortable asking your students about this?”
“Andrea’s profile?” She had started shaking her head before she finished her answer. “All that would do is point it out to people who haven’t seen it. Do you think we can get them to take it down? Considering the circumstances.”
Considering the fact Andrea was dead.
Jace knew he could lean on the owners to accomplish that. After he’d leaned on them to find who’d put this up.
“I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime I’d appreciate your help with your kids. If you don’t want to ask all of them, then choose a couple you trust. Ask if this particular profile was being talked about at school. If they all knew about it. Or maybe more importantly, if Andrea did. Will you do that?”
He could ask those questions, of course, but they would be more forthcoming with Lindsey. Oftentimes, if a suspect trusted the interrogator, he’d add things he wasn’t asked.
“I’ll be glad to. As soon as it’s down,” she said, her tone adamant. “I’m not going to take a chance on word getting out about this and having hundreds of people rush to view it.”
He wasn’t sure how quickly he could accomplish what she wanted. But Lindsey wouldn’t have an opportunity to interact with her students until Monday anyway. Which reminded him of something else he needed to ask.
“You recognize any of the names attached to the comments?”
“Most of them don’t have names. Just a nickname or a picture. Or some kind of icon. Those that did, the names were so common I couldn’t connect them with any particular student.”
“We need to make a list of them anyway.”
“I can do that.”
“And you’ll talk to the kids about how many people knew about this?”
“I’ll ask, but I’ll be selective.”
“Could you call them this weekend? Talk to them over the phone, maybe?”
“As soon as you get this filth about Andrea taken down.”
He’d dropped Lindsey back at home on his way to the address David Campbell had given him over the phone. There had been half a dozen things about last night he knew he needed to follow up on. With the couple of hours of sleep he’d managed to grab while Lindsey read through the profile he’d shown her, he believed he’d remembered most of them.
First on his agenda was an interview with the kid who, according to the principal, had been charged with cutting off the lights. Campbell had assured Jace that his instructions had been clear that only the lights on the field were to be killed.
The principal had asked about Lindsey, saying that he’d tried to call her last night and had not gotten an answer. Jace had been noncommittal about the reason for that.
In his opinion, it was no one’s business where Lindsey spent the night. With her concerns about her neighbors, however, and his own uncertainty about the culture of school politics in this district, he’d not been inclined to reassure her boss about her safety by telling him the truth.
He pulled up in front of a neat two-story colonial, checking the address on the mailbox against what he’d written in his notebook. According to Campbell, Steven Byrd was one of the most dependable kids in the senior class. A fine, upstanding young man who had applied to Duke and had a very good chance of being accepted. And yet he can’t manage to carry out a simple order without screwing it up?
Putting his cynicism on hold, Jace climbed out of his car and walked up to the front door. He pressed the bell and then waited, idly examining the neatly trimmed shrubbery along the front of the house.
He turned when the door opened. The boy who stood just inside the threshold was heavyset, with a shock of brown hair in need of a trim. Behind the thick glasses he wore, the blue eyes widened when he saw Jace, a reaction that he quickly controlled.
“Steven Byrd?”
“That’s right.”
Jace removed his badge holder from the front pocket of his jacket, flipping it open to show his ID. “Detective Nolan. I’d like to talk to you.”
The kid took his case, making a show of studying it.
“May I come in?” Jace asked when he finally handed it back. “I have some questions I think you can provide answers to.”
“Is this about what happened last night?”
“That’s right.”
“Could we talk out here?” The boy took a step toward Jace, pulling the door almost closed behind him. “My mom’s asleep. She works nights.”
“She work last Tuesday?”
There was no reaction this time except a slight puzzlement when the kid repeated, “Tuesday night?”
“PTA meeting at the school.”
The kid looked relieved. “She went before work.”
“And where did you go Tuesday night?”
“I didn’t go anywhere. I was studying.”
If Steven Byrd had been involved in putting the rattlesnake in Lindsey’s hamper, nothing about his face gave him away. Jace didn’t believe anyone this age could be that good an actor. Or that practiced a liar.
“I understand you’re the one who cut off the lights at the stadium last night.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who told you to do that?”
“Renee asked me if I could do it, and I said sure.”
“Renee?”
“Renee Bingham. She’s the head cheerleader.”
“You talk to Mr. Campbell before you cut the lights?”
“Just Renee. She said she’d talked to him, and he’d said it was okay. They wanted to do the candlelight thing for Andrea.”
“What did she tell you about the lights, Steve? Exactly.”
“Just to cut them off. She said she’d signal me from the field when it was time. She said to watch her after the band got through, and she’d cue me when I was s
upposed to kill them.”
“She didn’t tell you just the stadium lights?”
“No, sir. I understood her to say all of them.”
“You remember her exact words?”
“Can you cut off all the lights? Something like that.” He seemed less certain this time. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think it was important enough to memorize what she said.”
For some reason that touch of sarcasm infuriated Jace. Maybe it was his exhaustion. Or the fact that, despite denying the need to fill the prescription for pain meds he’d been given last night, the burns on his chest and arms hurt like hell.
“You did hear what happened at the ticket booth while those lights were out?”
“Yes, sir.”
Apparently the kid was bright enough to read Jace’s face. The tone he’d used seconds ago was missing this time.
“Somebody set fire to it. With Ms. Sloan inside,” Jace went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “So I’m thinking that the instructions you received might be important enough for you to try and remember the exact words.”
“I think that’s what she said. I’m sure of it. ‘Cut off all the lights.’ That’s what I did. If Mr. Campbell told her something else, you need to talk to Renee.”
“Yeah? So you think she’s the one who got it wrong.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, refusing to back down. “And I’m sorry about what happened to the booth. Ms. Sloan is my favorite teacher. Believe me, if I’d had any idea anything like that was going to happen—”
His eyes briefly considered the burn on Jace’s cheek before they met and then held on his. There didn’t seem to be any attempt at deception in their clear blue depths.
“Know much about snakes, Steve?”
Jace wasn’t sure why he was pursuing this. Using every standard he knew to evaluate when someone was telling the truth, Byrd looked like a choirboy. Still, something bothered him about the boy’s attitude.
“It’s Steven.”
“Okay, Steven, you know anything about snakes.”
“Snakes? No, sir. Not much. I had a couple of ringnecks when I was a kid.”
“No rattlers?”
“No, sir,” the kid said with a grin, which faded pretty quickly when Jace didn’t respond to it.
“How about Andrea Moore? What do you know about her?”
The boy’s face settled into a properly serious expression. “She was a junior, so we didn’t have any classes together. She was always quiet. Didn’t come to a lot of extracurricular things at the school. I mean she was nice and all, but…” He shook his head. “I didn’t really know her that well.”
“Got a computer?”
“Yes, sir.”
Again, there had been no reaction other than a slight puzzlement. Jace was beginning to feel he was making a fool of himself. “Know anything about manipulating images?”
“Like photographs, you mean?”
Jace nodded.
“A little. I can add a background and stuff.”
“Put people in and out of the picture?”
The kid acknowledged his ability with a quick tilt of his head. For the first time since Jace had begun asking questions, Steven looked uncomfortable.
“You have a page on ‘My Place’?”
“Everybody at school does.”
Definitely defensive. And despite Lindsey’s desire not to advertise Andrea’s profile to her fellow students, Jace needed to follow up on that reaction.
He’d already called the company to have the page taken down, but he couldn’t be sure it had been. And he couldn’t afford to let the boy regroup. He needed to press him right now on what he knew.
Besides, there was always the possibility that Lindsey was wrong about Andrea’s character. And he knew damn well she wouldn’t like that idea, either.
“Did Andrea Moore have one?”
The flush started along the sides of the kid’s neck, moving slowly into his cheeks as he tried to decide whether or not to lie. In the end, he made the right decision.
“Yes, sir.”
“You read it?”
“Everybody did.”
“I didn’t realize she was that popular.”
“It wasn’t that.” The kid again seemed to be weighing his answer. “It was pretty graphic. Her profile, I mean.”
“As in having a lot of pictures?”
“No, sir. As in being sexually explicit.” The color in the kid’s face deepened, emphasizing every blemish of his skin.
“Was she that kind of girl, Steven? That’s not the impression I’ve gotten.”
“Like I said, I didn’t know her all that well.”
“You remember the central picture on her page? The big one of Andrea?”
Byrd nodded.
“You think it was manipulated?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Andrea’s head imposed on someone else’s body.”
The blue eyes considered the idea, but after a moment the boy shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But you know people who could do that.”
“Some.”
“Name them.”
“Sir?”
“Who do you know that could manipulate a picture like that?”
Byrd laughed, shaking his head at Jace’s naivety. “At least half the senior class. Probably lots of other kids, too. Everybody does that kind of stuff.”
“Could you tell if somebody had?”
“If they had done it to Andrea’s picture, you mean?”
Jace nodded. He wouldn’t mind seeing what kind of setup Byrd had. Maybe he could tell something about his level of expertise from his hardware. And maybe glean some information about the boy’s personality from his room.
“It’s possible,” Byrd said.
“Now?”
“You mean…I told you. My mom’s asleep.”
“Maybe we should wake her up. Tell her what happened last night. And about Andrea’s profile. See what she thinks.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
Jace knew he’d finally punched the right button. He could almost feel the panic emanating from the kid. He just wasn’t sure if it was because of last night or because of Andrea Moore.
Part of his theory about the church fires had, from the beginning, been that whoever set them off had a curfew and someone checking up on whether or not they kept it. The fact that Byrd was so concerned about his mother knowing what was going on set off Jace’s radar.
“We can go back to my room,” the boy said. “I’m no expert—don’t claim to be—but I can take a look at the picture for you. Maybe figure out if it’s been shopped.”
“Thanks, Steven. I really appreciate your offer to help.”
Sixteen
“The kid didn’t claim to be an expert.” Jace’s accent seemed more pronounced over the phone. “But he doesn’t think the image was doctored. We printed a copy, and I’m going to show it to Andrea’s mother to see if she recognizes the picture.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
The woman had just lost her daughter. Lindsey couldn’t imagine that she would be concerned right now about a picture of her that had been posted on the Internet.
“Steven said that everyone knew about that site.”
“Oh, my God, Jace. If that’s true…Do you think that’s why she did it? Because people were looking at that and saying things about her?”
“I don’t know. I do know that I want to find out who put it up. If someone else did it, then I want to know who.”
“If someone else did it?”
“We won’t know that until we hear back from the company.”
“Can they tell you?”
“They’ll give me what information they have. Whether or not we can trace it to the computer that was used to put the stuff up is a different question.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’d have to have pretty compelling evidence of who was involved to co
nfiscate computers.”
“Is that what you’d have to do?”
“I don’t know. And I won’t know until I find out what information the Web site host can give me. In the meantime, I’m going to see if this picture is really Andrea.”
“I don’t think her mom is going to like seeing it.”
“Considering that her daughter is dead and this site may have played a role in her death, I think she’d want to know. With suicide it’s the not knowing that’s the hardest.”
“Not harder than the loss.”
“No, but feelings of guilt can make that harder to bear. In this case, it looks as if the mother did everything she was supposed to. I think she’d like to understand that it wasn’t any failure on her part that precipitated this.”
“You’re right. Will you let me know what you find out?”
“I’ll call you later this afternoon. The invitation’s still open, by the way.”
“Invitation?”
“My place. Tonight.”
It sounded like a date, except they both knew it wasn’t. “You have to sleep sometime.”
“I thought I’d catch a few hours on the couch. If you’re comfortable with that.”
He meant if she were comfortable with him not staying up to keep watch. And she was. She knew she could sleep just knowing Jace and that gun were in the apartment. Whether that was a good idea or not was another thing entirely.
“Can I think about it?”
“All day.”
“Thanks. And thanks for last night. For letting me stay,” she added, wondering if he’d think she meant the fire. Not that she wasn’t grateful for that. “Thanks for everything, actually.”
“I think I liked it better when you didn’t trust me. Or like me.”
“I never said I didn’t trust you.”
He laughed. “I notice you didn’t deny the other.”
She couldn’t. She’d been physically attracted from the start, but liking him had taken a while. “Fishing?”
“For compliments? Yeah, all those nice things you’ve been saying have confused me. I don’t know how to act anymore.”
“How about like a detective?” she suggested. “And let me know what you find out.”
“I’ll call you,” he said again. “And Lindsey?”
“Yeah?”