Simm seemed befuddled. “Who is this?”
“Frank Blackburn. We met this morning, remember?”
Simm’s voice hardened. He obviously wasn’t a fan. “Right,” he said. “What’s this about?”
“Tolan didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what? What’s going on?”
Christ, Blackburn thought, that sonofabitch Tolan had never even called the guy. A lie stands on one leg, all right. And Tolan had long ago reached the tipping point.
Blackburn filled Simm in, explained the conflict of interest, but remained purposely sketchy with the details. He and Carmody had decided to keep the recent revelations about Tolan under wraps. All Simm needed to know was that they had a witness they wanted answers from.
Sounding as groggy as a two-year-old past midnight, Simm agreed to get there as soon as he possibly could.
No telling when that would be. He was Carmody’s problem now.
After they hung up, Blackburn decided to catch a ride back to headquarters with the audio-tech boys, leaving the sedan in the lot for Sue to use.
Before they left, he took one last look in on Jane, wishing he could shake her a few times and get her talking. But he had a feeling the cocoon she’d wrapped herself in was like a Kevlar vest.
Not meant to be penetrated.
35
When Blackburn got to the station house, De Mello was playing his iPod so loud you could make out the tune from all the way across the squad room.
Sympathy for the Devil.
It was a wonder the guy still had eardrums.
His attention was centered on his computer screen, fingers ripping through the keys. Around him lay the remnants of a serious junk food overload. Candy and cupcake wrappers, an empty liter of soda, and a half-eaten Hostess apple pie. And, of course, coffee. Always coffee.
When Blackburn started his way, De Mello shut off the music. “Just the man I want to see.”
“You finally get a name for our witness?”
“Not yet. But things are popping here since we last spoke. Got two new items of interest.”
“Let’s have ’em,” Blackburn said.
De Mello slipped his headphones off and tossed them aside. “First, I’ve got Janovic’s bank statements. He definitely had a steady source of income.”
“Yeah? What’d you find?”
De Mello punched a key and an electronic bank record popped up on the computer screen. Using the mouse, he highlighted a handful of entries.
“He’s been making regular deposits over the last several months,” De Mello said. “Always the same amount. Always cash. But he’s got no visible means of support.”
Blackburn stared at the screen. “Two grand a month. Drug money?”
De Mello shook his head. “I checked with narcotics and they say he was strictly a consumer. And to bring in that kind of cash, he’d have to sell a lot of crack. Or suck a lot of dick.”
“Maybe it isn’t how many, but whose.”
“Extortion?”
“Steady deposits,” Blackburn said. “Always the same amount. Makes sense to me.”
He thought about what Mats had said at the crime scene. That Janovic knew his attacker. Blackmail was a pretty strong motive for murder.
The question was, who was Janovic blackmailing and why? Was there a way to connect Tolan to this?
They could try checking Tolan’s bank records for any steady withdrawals, but there was no way they’d ever get a warrant at this point in the game. Not without something stronger than a bunch of defaced photographs and a couple of bogus phone calls. Blackburn had already dropped off the copies of the website pages to the crime scene techs for closer examination, but figured Tolan had simply faked them to bolster his story. Attempts to connect with the actual site had ended with a 404 Page Not Found error.
“What else’ve you got?” Blackburn asked.
“Janovic didn’t have a home phone,” De Mello said. “So I went through his cell records and compiled a list of possible friends to look at. But unlike the rest of America, he didn’t seem to spend much time on the phone.”
“So what did he use? Smoke signals?”
“His favorite means of communication was the Internet. Some email, but mostly instant messages. Which leads me to the second item.”
De Mello dug around in the mess on his desk until he found a LifeDrive Palm Pilot. “Billy’s a wiz. Cracked this thing in record time.” He flicked it on, then handed it to Blackburn. “It’s got a wireless connection, and since Janovic didn’t have a computer, I figure he did his web browsing and instant messaging with this.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Check out the folder labeled BUNK BUDDIES.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
Blackburn pulled out the Palm Pilot’s stylus and began clicking through the menus until he found the folder in question. Another click brought up a list of what looked like code names.
“Notice all the asterisks?” De Mello said. “I’m guessing it’s a rating system of some kind. Take a look at the fourth one down.”
“DickMan229. Three stars. What about it?”
“It’s obviously an online nickname. So I tried Googling the words Bunk Buddies and found a small social networking website.”
“A what?” Blackburn had spent probably an entire fifteen minutes of his life on the Internet. Had found the place too impersonal, completely devoid of conversational nuance. Make a simple sarcastic quip and it was likely to be interpreted as a declaration of war.
“It’s a virtual community,” De Mello said. “A kind of gathering place where people with common interests make online friends, like Facebook and MySpace. Only Bunk Buddies is regional and caters to the local underground gay crowd. People looking to hook up.”
Blackburn risked asking the obvious. “I take it Janovic was part of this thing?”
De Mello nodded, then hit a few computer keys and a web page blossomed on his screen, showing a photo of Carl Janovic in full drag, listed as Carly921. Except for the hint of a five o’clock shadow, he didn’t look half bad. If Blackburn were blind drunk and suicidal, he might mistake him for Carmody.
In a box next to the photograph was a list of Janovic’s likes and dislikes, favorite bands, movies, books. It was all pretty innocuous.
“So what’s this have to do with DickMan229?”
“Take a look.” De Mello scrolled down to a section of the page that read CARLY’S BUNKMATES, which featured several thumbnail photographs. Men in various degrees of undress. He highlighted one of them, a shirtless guy who looked to be in his late twenties. DickMan229.
“If you click here,” De Mello said, wielding the mouse, “you go straight to an instant messaging system — Pillow Chat. I hot-synced the Palm Pilot and downloaded this log to the computer.”
He clicked a tab, changing to another screen. A text log popped up, showing an exchange between Carly921 and DickMan229. Blackburn read it. Or at least tried to.
CARLY921: hey b hru
DICKMAN229: iash
CARLY921: u up for some i&i
DICKMAN229: waw
CARLY921: 2nite spst
DICKMAN229: btwbo
Blackburn scratched his head. “What the fuck is this? Morse code?”
De Mello grinned. “Close. It’s chat speak. They’re setting up a date.”
Blackburn was dumbfounded and didn’t bother to hide it.
“Let me translate,” De Mello said, then pointed to each entry as he spoke:
“Hey, babe. How are you?
“I am so horny.
“You up for some intercourse and inebriation?
“Where and when?
“Tonight. Same place, same time.
“Be there with bells on.”
Blackburn stared at the screen, suddenly regretting that the computer had ever been invented. Hell, that human beings had ever been invented.