Spinney sat straighter in his chair, recognizing the contents of the garage's hard drive. He worked with computers routinely, was young enough to consider them a standard piece of office equipment, and played with them with his two kids at home. They were as natural to him as a typewriter was, or used to be, to Joe Gunther-just as Leppman had been saying.
But this was different-a freeze-frame, forensic snapshot of an entire hard drive's moment in time. It was the computer equivalent of stopping a stage production in mid-motion and then wandering among the motionless, mute actors from all angles, studying their positions relative to one another and the audience, including angles that wouldn't be otherwise available.
Of course, instead of actual people and a stage, here you had screen-mounted data, only some of it readable. But to Spinney the impression was similar, and he sat transfixed as his host moved the cursor among the serried lines of type.
"This is the main chat room," Leppman was saying. "It's going to be a bit messy. The data is overwritten all the time, kind of like conversations are at a noisy dinner party. What did you say the name was we're interested in?"
Lester paused before answering, thinking of all the various labels they'd attached to the man, including the uniquely descriptive Wet Bald Rocky. "Rockwell," he said.
Leppman typed in a search inquiry with that name and hit "Enter." Instantly it reappeared on the screen, floating clearly among the garbled letters.
"Well, he's here, all right," Leppman murmured, still working the cursor. "Let's see if he's chatting with anyone in particular."
He was. Just below his name, they noticed Mandi144, which Leppman copied down on a pad by his hand. Searching for Rockwell a second time, Mandi was once more right beside him. This trend continued several more times.
"So," Leppman announced, "we've got an ongoing conversation. That's good-means a relationship is building. You already know about Rockwell, right?"
Spinney was caught by surprise. "What? No, I mean, we think he's a dead man we found in Brattleboro, but that's about it. That's why we're doing this."
Leppman took his eyes off the screen to look at him. "Not Mandi? She's probably the one in trouble here."
Lester's brow furrowed. He felt he was missing something. "In trouble? How?"
Leppman looked incredulous. "Child predation. Rockwell's going after her."
"Why do you say that?" Lester asked. "I mean, I know it's all over the place, so I'm not saying you're wrong. But what did you see?"
Leppman hesitated, blinked a couple of times, and returned to studying the screen before admitting in an abashed tone, "Nothing. I guess you're right. Just jumping to conclusions. Let's dig around some more." He stopped again abruptly to ask, "You do have a way to secure subpoenas as we go, right?"
Spinney nodded. "By phone and fax." He pointed to a fax machine in one corner of the large office, adding, "If that's all right."
Leppman nodded enthusiastically. "No, no. That's great. Done it before with other agencies. I just wanted to make sure. Don't want any loopholes."
Spinney glanced at him covertly, wondering if this civilian's enthusiasm wasn't maybe getting a little too much stoking by association. He made a note to ask Joe later. It was a common enough sight to see consultants become more aggressive bloodhounds than the actual hunters-and pay a psychological price as a result.
Leppman had returned to the hunt. "We've got snippets of exchange here and there-usual introductory chitchat. Bingo," he finally said, straightening. "What did I tell you?" He tapped the screen with his fingertip. "Right there. She says, '14. U?' See that?"
Spinney was already reading the next line. "And Rocky says, '19.' There's a crock."
Leppman was shaking his head, continuing to scroll the lines before them. "I knew it. There's so much of this out there-guys preying on children." He fixed Lester with a determined look. "That's one of the biggest reasons I do this work."
Lester nodded, figuring the man needed some kind of response.
But Leppman wasn't watching. "These are tricky cases to prosecute-you ever done one before?"
"Nope," Spinney acknowledged.
"The bad guys-or their lawyers, at least-hide behind all sorts of excuses. And they're getting better and better as they get more knowledgeable about this high-tech world. They can make the claim that what the police find on their clients' computers was put there by a cookie or a virus or Christ knows what else, and then they convince the jury of it. I mean, who hasn't gotten spam in their e-mail? Or all those pop-up ads-where do those come from? Juries absolutely believe that complete strangers can put whatever they want onto your computer, no problem. Blame TV for that-there's no technical wizardry that can't be done if you know how to do it, right? Mostly baloney, of course, but these are paranoid times."
He added a few more notes to his pad. "Okay, I got the date and time stamp for this chat. That'll come in handy when you figure out what Rocky was doing when and where. The biggest catch here, though-since you seem a little vague on everyone's identity-will be the chat room profiles of both Mandi and Rockwell. From there, we should be able to get their IP addresses, which will finally-after you get those subpoenas I mentioned-land us the home addresses through their Internet service provider records. Their monthly bills, in other words."
Lester didn't bother pointing out that he actually understood a great deal of this already.
Leppman had by now switched over to another computer, so that he could access the Internet rather than merely study the static contents of the Steve's Garage clone.
"Huh," he grunted. "Rockwell put a block on his chat room profile. No surprise there. Being a kid, though, Mandi was a little less cagey. She lied about her age-you can't log in, supposedly, unless you're over eighteen-but all the rest looks legit."
He scribbled down her particulars onto his pad. "Okay, so far, so good. She even gave us an address, which is unusual-the standard profile is hobbies, age, gender, general location, and the rest. I guess Mandi's still used to filling out forms correctly. Great for us."
He sat back and rested his hands for a moment, not bothering to turn his head as he spoke. "One last step before we get legal-this is just something I've learned through habit. So far, all this has been pretty much public domain information-something anyone can do with a computer and a connection. I do one more thing along similar lines: I check that address I just got against one of the mapping programs, just to make sure it's not in the middle of the Hudson River, or Lake Champlain, or Christ knows where."
He put his hands back over the keyboard and began typing. Lester watched as the screen did its version of scratching its head-portrayed by a small ticking-clock icon-before finally flashing, "Address not found."
Leppman tried a couple of variations, equally unsuccessfully, and then sat back in his chair again. "Nothing. Well, so much for good little Mandi. I guess she saw me coming after all." Lester watched his profile, again caught by the man's level of engagement. "No sweat," he said. "I'll get on those subpoenas."
JMAN: U there? JMAN: Mandi144. U there? Mandi144: hey JMAN: thot I got the wrong time Mandi144: nop. Probs w/ my mom JMAN: wat? Mandi144: she got fired. At home a lot JMAN: bummer Mandi144: ur telling me. R plans r messed up now JMAN: I cant cum up? Mandi144: Ill tell u when
Chapter 17
"Your mom tells me you're a police officer."
Joe looked up from the coffee machine, where he'd been hoping the spigot over his paper cup wouldn't either miss or overflow. He was so used to everyone knowing what he did for a living-and had been, it felt, for two lifetimes-that he was almost startled at the question.