There was a silence in the room as the resonances of all this settled in, including one note Joe was surprised that Willy then addressed.
"Mrs. Gunther," Willy said, sitting forward to look her in the eyes, "I wanted to say how sorry I was to hear about Leo. How's he doing?" She allowed for a sad smile and shrugged under the shawl draping her shoulders. "I don't know. No one does. We can only wait, and hope, and see what happens." She paused and then reflected, "Which is more than E. T. has right now, and for that, I guess, we should all be grateful."
Mandi144: U cumming up? JMAN: lol – there's a word I lik Mandi144: me 2. My rules, tho JMAN: rules? Mandi144: no cars, no reel names, not my home JMAN: no cars? Y? Mandi144: fantasy I hav. Saw it in a movie. 2 complet strangers. Luvd it JMAN: wat movie? Mandi144: never nu the name. But he came off a bus. They never even talked. JMAN: we cant talk? Mandi144: lol. Sur we can. But everything else stays. JMAN: kool. Where we meet? Mandi144: motel JMAN: I lik it
Chapter 16
Lester Spinney craned over his steering wheel to better appreciate what he was approaching-a huge, modern, spread-out house crowning a slight rise, overlooking the southern narrowing of Lake Champlain below, and New York's Adirondack Mountains off in the distance. The driveway had already prepared him for something-off Route 7 somewhere south of Shelburne Village, it cut through a sheltering copse of trees and extended a quarter mile before revealing this monster house-but he still hadn't expected the total package of the view. The lake looked almost like a planned part of the landscaping.
He pulled to a stop in the immaculately plowed parking area near the four-car garage-he suspected that the driveway was heated-and slowly climbed out from behind the wheel.
The building's front door opened, and a woman in her mid-twenties greeted him with a wave. "Hi. Are you Agent Spinney?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She burst out laughing. "That would be my mother. I'm Wendy. Come on in. Dad's in the office."
Spinney grabbed hold of a box from his backseat, containing a laptop and the hard drive with all the Steve's Garage data that Rob Barrows had sent him days earlier, and crossed the asphalt to the girl at the door. He stuck out a couple of fingers from under the box in greeting. "Lester's my name," he said. "Glad to meet you."
She carefully squeezed his fingers and pointed down a long hallway. "Wendy Leppman-Gartner, officially, that is. My pleasure. Go right on down there. Last door on the left. It's open. Would you like some coffee or something?"
He looked over his shoulder as he started off. "Nope. Thanks. All set."
Halfway through his journey, the hallway opened up to a truly enormous vaulted room, with wooden beams overhead and a far wall constructed solely of glass. He suddenly felt there was nothing, aside from the building's own heat, separating him from the wide-open spaces he'd admired on the drive in.
He blinked against the glare, noticing a figure shifting on the couch in the middle distance.
"Hello?" he asked cautiously.
"I'm the wife," came the cheerful reply. "Sandy Gartner. Sandra Stillman Gartner, MD, if you're taking notes, which would be a neat trick, given your load. Just keep on going. John's all set up for you."
Nodding at the shape, which by now had assumed an elegant slimness, Lester marched on, disappearing into the dark hallway beyond.
At the end, as promised, he found another room, lower-ceilinged and slightly darkened by broad wooden blinds that still allowed for the view, along with a man-tall, patrician, and lean like his wife-who rose from an imposing cherrywood desk and crossed the floor to relieve him of his box.
"Agent Spinney?" he echoed his daughter, placing the box on a corner of the table and shaking hands. "I'm John Leppman. Delighted to meet you."
Spinney looked around quickly. The wood motif of the blinds was carried throughout the room, including the ceiling and a parquet floor, making the half-hidden wall of glass an anomaly in what would otherwise have been a good Hollywood stand-in for an ancient, manly British lord's study.
"Wow," he said.
His host laughed. "Yeah-a little over the top. Have a seat. I think I heard Wendy offer you a drink already."
"Yes, sir."
"John, please." Leppman indicated a chair next to his own, both of which faced a bank of oversized computer screens, hard drives, printers, and assorted other paraphernalia. Leppman set about removing Lester's paltry equipment and connecting it to his own, speaking as he did so.
"I gather Tim Giordi steered you my way. Terrific guy."
"Actually, it was Chief Giordi and my boss, Joe Gunther," Lester admitted.
"Right. Gunther." Leppman nodded as he worked. "Famous name. Good to work for?"
"The best."
Leppman laughed. "There are no recorders running, Agent Spinney."
Lester protested, "No, no. Really. And call me Lester, or Les. Doesn't matter."
John Leppman quickly finished up and settled into the seat beside Lester's, making the latter feel as though the room should now take flight toward some galaxy far, far away.
In tune with the metaphor, their captain rapidly began typing commands onto the keyboard before him, still speaking. "I guess you know by now that I do this a lot for the police," he said, his eyes on one of the screens. "Locals, state, even the odd fed, now and then."
"So I heard," Les commented. "I might have guessed, too, from the way your wife and daughter introduced themselves."
Leppman laughed. "Yeah. Cops are in here all the time. This has become a bit of a passion, ever since I realized you guys didn't have the equipment or the money to compete with the bad guys out there."
Lester simply nodded.
"Not to mention," Leppman added with a self-deprecating snort, "that I've even become a member of the family, if you stretch things a little. I'm the new town constable, and a part-time certified police officer." He cast a sideways look at his companion, adding, "Not that it means much around here, and certainly not to you guys, but it's fun and interesting to do."
"Every bit helps," Lester commented supportively, although constables-or, more precisely, the vague controls overseeing them-made him nervous.
Leppman was back running the computer, his fingertips flying across the keys. "Anyhow," he continued, "it was more of a gesture. This is where I can really help, and certainly Tim's been great about using me whenever he can."
"Internet predators mostly, I heard," Lester said conversationally, watching two of the screens before them come alive.
Leppman tilted his head equivocally. "Mostly, just because of the volume involved-I helped identify eight men in three days about six months ago, and that was only in a twenty-five-mile radius around the PD. But I do other things, too. I did a wire transfer embezzlement case not long ago for a bank that didn't want any bad publicity. And there was a drug deal using e-mails that I just helped Tim and his guys with."
Lester nodded toward the screens. "That's what got us going with this. The sheriff's department is running with it, but the guy had pictures of the stuff and everything."
Leppman shrugged. "It's a shame, really. Chat rooms and the Internet are mostly wonderful outlets-real extensions to how people naturally mingle, while easing the potential social burdens of appearance or social awkwardness. People can be so much more honest there, plus, you can get information, products, services, a few laughs, and even find that special someone. Sad that it's mostly the bad aspects that attract all the headlines.
"Still," he added with an incredulous look, "when people do screw up online, they certainly can do it with style. It's amazing to me-everyone thinks they're all alone when they're on the Net. Totally crazy. I tell people it's like taking your clothes off in a crowded room and thinking you're by yourself just because your eyes are shut… Okay, here we are."