Devine said, “It’s a lot better than it was decades ago. And consequently the real estate has gotten really pricey.”
“Anyway, this is the first time we’ve seen Sara’s house. We haven’t been back until now, you see.” He paused, gumming his lips. “And now we are.”
Ellen just stared at the pinecones in the fireplace. She looked like she was puzzled as to why her daughter had not yet appeared and offered her coffee or tea or a hug.
“What play did you go see?” asked Ellen suddenly, her gaze back on him — unnervingly so, Devine thought.
“Waiting for Godot. Sara actually recommended it to a mutual friend of ours.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Ellen.
Fred said, “Any good?” He seemed to latch on to this line of conversation to escape, for at least a few seconds, what was crushing him.
“It definitely makes you think,” said Devine, who was also thinking that Ellen Ewes would hate it. “So I guess she never mentioned it to you?”
Fred shook his head. “We hadn’t heard from her in a while. When was it last, Ellen?”
“The problem is the time difference. Her night, our day thing. But it had been over a week. She’s our only child. Was our only child.”
She stopped talking and commenced quietly weeping.
Devine started to think all this had been a very bad idea. He rose and said, “I don’t want to intrude anymore. Again, I’m so sorry. And if there’s anything I can do while you’re in town.” He pulled out one of his cards with his direct business and cell phone numbers on it and handed it to Fred, who took it without looking at it.
Devine glanced at Ellen, who was once more staring at him with an intensity he couldn’t quite understand. “Sara did keep a diary, as you mentioned. But it’s not on the list the police gave us. They couldn’t find one. Yet she’d been keeping them since she was young.”
“That’s odd,” said Devine. And it did seem odd. “Maybe she started keeping everything in her personal cloud. Lots of people do now.”
“I think Sara was a very good friend of yours.”
Devine felt his gut tighten under her stare. “I liked her. Everyone did.”
Ellen took the business card from her husband and gazed down at it for a tense moment. “You’re wrong there, Mr. Devine,” she said.
“What’s that, honey?” said Fred sharply.
Ellen turned the card over and over in her hands, like it was hot to the touch. “Someone clearly didn’t like Sara at all,” she said.
Chapter 25
When Devine got back to the house, Valentine was waiting for him in the living room, excitement and concern competing for equal time on his features.
“What’s up, Will?”
“Dude, the email?”
“What about it? Did you find out who sent it?”
“No. It’s untraceable.”
“Well, thanks for trying. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, it doesn’t even look like an email address.”
“No, Travis, is not that easy. I mean, I could not trace it. People I work with, they cannot trace it, either. At first, I think it is some kind of weird spoofing email or maybe hexadecimal.”
“What?” exclaimed Devine.
“Hexadecimal. A base system to simplify binary language computers use. But I dig deeper and it is not that either.”
“Okay, but people send anonymous emails all the time,” said Devine. “Don’t they?”
“There are many ways to sending such messages on internet,” said Valentine. “Cheap, not so cheap, hard, not so hard.”
Devine leaned against the wall. “You’re going to need to explain that.”
“New phone number, preferably burner or prepaid with cash or cloned credit card, fake name and info, new email account, Hotmail, Gmail. Different browser, use incognito mode, and off goes mail. Russia has Yandex webmail, no phone verification needed. Hotmail and Gmail require phone number, but that is bypassed with burner phone. Incognito mode still has location IP address sent with email. But this email has none of that.”
“So then it’s untraceable, you mean?”
“Not if person you send it to has resources. And by being cheap you create big problem.”
“What are the more expensive and better ways?”
“Use special service to do just what you want, send anonymous email. Built-in premier encryption, spoofed IP address, auto deletion from whatever server is used, password protect, no personal info required. Good shit like that.”
“Who does that?” asked Devine.
“Many platforms do proxy email. Some legit and reputable, others not so much. They all do that and do it good. Or you can jump over them and use VPN platform. But don’t do free service, they sell data to third party. Use premium service and your IP address goes poof.”
“Well, whoever sent that email must have used one of those services or the VPN method.”
When Devine eyed the Russian, the man seemed more serious than Devine had ever seen him. Gone was the pizza-and-beer caricature of a Russian hacker.
“Even with that, you can’t hide the computer’s MAC address. Every device has MAC address attached to network card. Is like fingerprint.”
“But this one doesn’t?”
“I think maybe they spoof address, make it invisible.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t a spoofing email?”
“Does not matter. We can break those systems, no matter which method used,” he said quite confidently. “No matter if MAC address spoofed. That is what we do! But this email was not sent on one of those platforms. It could not be. It has none of protocols required to send message over broadband, including an IP, or Internet Protocol, address.”
“So I guess it has to have all that stuff?”
“Of course, Travis, get with fuckin’ program.” Valentine sighed and sat back on the couch. “When you send email, sender and recipient IP addresses are in packet. Then it is directed to gateway or router. Then on to higher-level network. It does this over and over, until it gets to destination email address.”
“So then how did the email manage to show up in my inbox?” asked Devine, before answering his own question: “Someone had to have my email address.”
“Yes, this is true. But that is easy to get. The big thing, Travis, is we do not know who send it or how they manage to send it. I mean, we can’t even trace message to any portal on internet.”
“This is getting a little beyond my depth,” conceded Devine.
“There are basically five IP classes. Classes A, B, and C are used for public and private use. Class D for things like video streaming, TV networks, and such.”
“That’s only four classes. What’s the fifth?” asked Devine.
“Class E, not reserved for public. Mainly used for research. Is experimental IP class. If I had to guess, I say your email sent somehow using Class E, but I can’t figure out how.”
“It came in at nine twenty-two a.m. It said that a custodian found Sara’s body at around eight thirty that morning and the police were called. So less than an hour later someone knew she was dead and had details about how she died and where the crime scene was and what she looked like hanging there. And then they sent out a message only to me, as far as I know, that you guys can’t trace. That’s pretty damn fast.”
“You have to find out about this, dude. People I work for are freaking out over this. I mean seriously freaking out.”
“How can I find out about it if you guys can’t? I’m not a world-class hacker.”
“I mean talk to people. Talk to this dude that found body.”