by stewartgiles
FIFTY FOUR
WOLFIE
“What kind of Police force gives a Detective Sergeant two weeks off in the middle of a murder investigation?” Whitey laughed.
“How do you know about the case?” Smith asked.
“Twenty four hour news,” Whitey replied, “I can find out anything I need to know on this baby.”
He tapped the computer screen.
“My house was broken into while I was away picking up a murder suspect,” Smith said, “one of the guys who broke in rubbed me up the wrong way.”
“I see,” Whitey said with a knowing smile, “I want you to take a look at this.”
He brought up the Face Book home page on his browser and in the search box he typed in ‘Brain of Wolfie’. A new page appeared on the screen.
“Who’s Wolfie?” Smith asked.
Whitey laughed. “Do you like cryptic crosswords?” he said.
“Not really,” Smith said, “but my colleague does; I suppose you have to have a certain kind of brain.”
“When I first started dealing with these people they traded under the name BOW Enterprises but I couldn’t figure out what the BOW stood for. One evening in a marijuana haze, purely medicinal I might add, I was reading an article about the Rainbow of Life and it struck me.”
“I don’t get it,” Smith said.
“Rainbow of Life,” Whitey said, “Brain of Wolfie, they’re anagrams of each other. The old cult was tarnished so they couldn’t use the same name but they managed to keep the name only with the letters in a different order. It was genius. The man in charge even started referring to himself as Wolfie. He became the Alpha Wolf as it were.”
“And the rest were members of his pack,” Smith added.
“Exactly. Look at this page; they have over eight hundred members all over the world. Your sister may be on here somewhere. She will probably be using a different name but there might be something on her profile that you could recognise. Be my guest, scroll down and see what you can find. Do you like Indian food?”
“Not really,” Smith said.
“I’m going to order something anyway. You’ll like their Tandouri chicken; it’s not too spicy.”
Whitey stood up from his chair. He immediately grabbed hold of the desk. Smith looked concerned.
“Dizzy spell,” Whitey said, “I get them a lot these days; nothing that a Lamb Vindaloo can’t sort out. I’ll be back in ten minutes; help yourself to another beer.”
While Whitey was gone, Smith looked at the screen in front of him. Under the title ‘Brain of Wolfie’, it read ‘Spiritual Community’. Underneath, there was a picture of a wolf in a howling stance on the top of a rainbow.
“This is freaked out,” Smith said to himself as he scrolled further down.
He clicked on the Friends icon and a list of names appeared on the screen. They were in alphabetical order. Whitey was right; most of the names seemed to be made up. There were names like ‘Lone Wolf’ and ‘Mother Wolf’ but as Smith scrolled down further, something grabbed his attention.
“Find anything?” Whitey said. He put the food on a table in the corner.
“I think this is her,” Smith said, “Moonface Wolf.”
He clicked on it.
“Moonface Wolf?” Whitey exclaimed.
“From the book,” Smith explained, “The Magic Faraway Tree.”
“I’m still none the wiser,” Whitey said.
“It was Lauren’s favourite book. Moonface was her favourite character; this has got to be her.”
“What does it say?” Whitey asked, “You don’t mind if I eat do you? There’s nothing worse than cold Vindaloo.”
“Eat away,” Smith said. “Moonface Wolf,” he read from the page, “the Lord and the spirit of the wolf will guide me to ultimate enlightenment. This is scary shit.”
“Click of the information tab,” Whitey said with a mouthful of curry in his mouth, “she might have set privacy limits but we may get lucky.”
“This has got to be her,” Smith was getting excited, “Female, nineteen years old.”
“Christ this is a hot one,” Whitey said as he ate, “does it give any clue as to where she might be?”
Smith carried on reading.
“Married to the community,” he said, “In Allen Station. What the hell does that mean?”
“Say that again,” Whitey said.
“In Allen Station,” Smith repeated.
Whitey spat out his food. “She’s closer than I thought,” he said.
Smith looked back at the screen.
“What does it mean?”
“Another anagram,” Whitey replied, “look at the letters. In Allen Station.”
“You’re going to have to help me on this one,” Smith said.
“Tallinn Estonia,” Whitey said.
“Where the hell is Estonia?” Smith asked, “Geography’s not my strong point.”
“Former Soviet State,” Whitey said, “very popular for stag parties I believe.”
“I’m going to find her,” Smith insisted.
“Slow down my friend. Eat your chicken, Tallinn is a big place; we need to find out a bit more first. You don’t even know what she looks like now.”
“She can’t have changed that much in ten years.”
“I did. Now just chill; we need to think. Eat your food before it gets cold. Let me demonstrate to you the wonders of the computer generation.”
He sat down at the desk.
“I’m sure I have a dormant e mail address here somewhere,” he said.
He tapped away on the keyboard like a lunatic.
“Thought so,” he said eventually, “I need your help here. What other characters did Laura like in that book?”
Smith thought for a moment.
“She liked the angry pixie,” he said, “He always made her laugh.”
“Good,” Whitey said, “you are going to be Angry Pixie 20. I’ve found a nice picture of an angry pixie here. That will be your profile picture. You are, how can I put it, searching for guidance in a chaotic world. I should have been a writer. Ok, almost done. He typed in ‘Moonface Wolf’ and clicked on ‘send friend request’. All done.”
He had a sparkle in his eyes that was not there before.
“Please tell me you have a cell phone with internet access,” he added.
Smith took out his phone; he saw he had received two messages. He handed the phone to Whitey.
“It’s slow,” Whitey said, “but it’ll do the job.”
He quickly tapped a few keys and handed the phone back to Smith.
“There,” he said, “it’s all set up; you can access this page from your phone and if Laura or who you think is Laura accepts your friend request, you’ll receive a message to notify you.”
“It is my sister,” Smith said, “I’m positive.”
“Your user name is Angry Pixie 20,” Whitey said, “and your password is Tandouri. Can you remember that?”
“Of course,” Smith said, “I am a Police Detective.”
“You had two messages from someone called Erica Whitton,” Whitey said, “Girlfriend?”
“No,” Smith replied almost too quickly, “she’s a work colleague.”
He looked at the phone. The first message read ‘Willow given us info on possible new direction to take. Looks like he was set up’. The second one said ‘Hope you find what you’re looking for. x.’ Smith smiled at the kiss at the end. As he was putting the phone back in his pocket it beeped. There was a symbol on the screen that Smith has never seen before. He handed the phone to Whitey. Whitey pressed the retrieve button.
“Angry Pixie 20,” Whitey said, “you are now friends with Moonface Wolf. This is going to be interesting.”