A Sense of Justice

by Jack Davis

  “PJ, at some point you told me you’d found the hacking code on a number of porn sites, including some similar to the sites of the murder victims. Swinger sites, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When we try to connect the hacking to the murders, any good defense attorney is going to say that not all the hacked sites were swinger sites. And not all the swinger sites that were hacked resulted in murders. That is the first thing I’d do, just to discredit some of the government’s case in the eyes of the jury. We need a really solid connection between the two if we’re gonna go down this road.

  “Keith, if you can get me the analysis of the code, and it proves to be as distinctive as you say, we can use that in the probable cause for the hacking. We’ll need some other hard physical evidence, especially since our primary witness will be depicted as tainted. Any thoughts as to what that might be?”

  The group was stumped. After a few awkward seconds, Morley spoke up, “Chris, we’ll keep working on it. If there’s something, we’ll find it. We also have the Bureau working on aspects of the case. Someone will come up with something.”

  “Anyone on the phone have anything for the group?”

  When there was no response, Morley laid out the immediate short-term plan. Looking back and forth between Greere and Kruzerski, he started, “Ron, I want you and Bri to go back to Lublin tomorrow afternoon and get handwriting. Tell him we’re prosecuting Antonescu on the hacking and child porn charges and you need a statement from him confirming he didn’t give permission to use the network for any unlawful purposes. Make it seem like standard procedure for these types of cases. Get with FSD to find out what letter and word patterns they need. Come up with a good story and we’ll do a dry run tomorrow morning before you go over.

  “Lionel, I want you to keep up with the lab on any other results. The sooner we have something, the better, positive or negative.

  “Keith, keep going on the analysis of the code. We have to put together a case against this guy and your results will end up being a big piece of the puzzle.”

  The last item to be taken up was monitoring Lublin.

  “In conjunction with the Broome County Sheriff’s Department and the State Police, we’ve initiated twenty-four-seven coverage. We have units covering his house and different units set to cover his work location.” Chief Goodfellow then looked at Morley. “One of your personnel will be imbedded with our units for the duration of the surveillance.”

  “The State Police are providing helicopter support to assist when Lublin is moving. In the event of bad weather, we have five cars available for the tail. I’ve drafted an alert for all upstate mass transit units and with the approval of the group.”

  “Thanks, Chief. Excellent plan. I’ll take a look at the alert and let you know if it’s acceptable.” said Brown, in what to all present seemed like an effort to reassert authority and relevance.

  After Brown finished, all eyes turned back to Morley. “Chief, to help with tracking, a discreet tracking device has been placed on Lublin’s car.”

  As the chief thanked Morley, a muddled look came over Brown’s face when he realized that he should have, but hadn’t, approved the request. Morley saw the confusion grow to annoyance as he said he had worked with AUSA Carpenter to get subpoenas for Lublin’s bank accounts. PJ stressed they had seen no transactional records indicating their suspect was going to flee.

  Morley decided to avoid asking if his supervisor had any last words. “If there’s nothing else, have a good evening. Keep up the good work.”

  “Yeah, keep it up,” said Brown, who was caught off guard, obviously expecting to be called on to end the meeting. “And if you get anything important, you can contact me twenty-four-seven.”

  Peyton’s Follow-up Phone Call (10/19/09, 2005 hours)

  Morley was trying in vain to explain why he didn’t know when he would be coming home when he saw Peyton’s number come up.

  “Sean, I have an important call coming in. I’ll call you back before you go to bed. I promise.”

  As the call home dropped, Morley picked up the second one. “Hey, Ron, what’s up?”

  “There were a few things I wanted to tell you that I didn’t want to say in front of the group.”

  “I’m glad you called, I was going to call you tomorrow morning to run something by you, but this will save me the trouble. Tell me what you have and then I’ll see what you think about my theory.”

  Peyton began, “I was thinking a lot about the analysis you had done where you broke down the compromised porn sites by percentages.”

  Morley cut in, “So if you’re right with whatever wild-ass guess you’ve come up with, I get some credit since I gave you the idea.”

  “Yeah, I’ll make sure I footnote you when I turn this case into a doctoral thesis on hacker psychology. No royalties from any book, movie, or speaking deals though.”

  “Speaking deals, talk about your dream job. You, up on some stage in a tweed jacket, in front of an audience that doesn’t know jack-shit about real law enforcement. Two hundred nubile young coeds thinking, He’s so smart and distinguished, and…I’m going to stop here before it completely degenerates.”

  There was a pause. “Sorry, I was just playing out the logical conclusions to the scenario you described. Anyway, based upon what you said, there are some traits or characteristics that we believe the killer will exhibit. They may lead to patterns of behavior that could determine some of the evidence you’ll find when you hit him. I didn’t say anything earlier because if it doesn’t turn out to be true, I don’t want it noted in some report or case note that some slick defense attorney might be able to use against you. I figure if I tell you, if they turn out to be accurate, then I can submit the notes I have written up. It can go toward corroboration. If we’re wrong, then they never existed.”

  “Pretty nice scam you have; you’re either right or not wrong.”

  “If you don’t want to hear what I have to say—”

  “I’m sorry, I always want to know what you and your desk detectives come up with.”

  Peyton cleared his throat. “The group believes strongly, this individual hates women he considers whores.”

  “Wow, and I thought you’d be conservative in your speculation and not color outside the lines. You’ve really gone out on a limb on that one. A guy who brutally murders women who host porn websites may have a problem with loose women. I can’t wait to hear what else the group came up with, maybe that the killer is a multi-celled carbon-based life form that breathes air and eats food.”

  “Sometimes I forget what a dick you can be. If I didn’t have to solve this case for you, I’d just hang up right now. As it is, I’ll let your sophomoric insults roll over me. As I was saying, the guy hates women he thinks are whores. Since he’s a single guy, he will have porn on his machine and knowing this guy, lots of it. As anal as they say he is, he’ll have it somewhere on his personal machine, all nice and neat and categorized.

  “We actually speculate a good portion of it will be college girls. He’s around them so much at work he probably fantasizes about them. Our speculation is he uses the college porn to satisfy himself. What’s important is the fact that he will not have any swinger or MILF porn.

  “Anyone who could mutilate this specific type of woman in the manner he has is probably impotent around them.

  “I had Kruzerski check and there was no trace of semen at any of the crime scenes. That’s highly unusual in this type of case. Most men who kill whores like to humiliate them and force them to perform degrading sex acts. They almost always get off either before or after the victim is dead. Your guy doesn’t and I think it’s because physically, he can’t. That may add to his rage.

  “This plays out in your case in a number of ways. When you do hit this guy, you’ll find every type of porn imaginable, except older women and kids—none of that kind of porn. I did a little checking, and the older women sites are the second most popular or prevalent porn sites in the world
, right after teenage girls. The fact he doesn’t have it would be statistically relevant.”

  “I like it; we can use that in our probable cause statement later on. What else?”

  “Nothing you can really use to put the case together. The group believes there’s a strong possibility the killer hates his mother for some real or perceived inappropriate sexual behavior. I would try to interview her as soon as you can. We believe it will be a fruitful avenue of approach.

  “If he actually hates women because of his mother, there is an excellent possibility he has a strained relationship with her. If our supposition is true, then he may have alienated her and she may be willing to tell you things about her son you can use against him in the interview, as well as the case.”

  “Excellent, this is good stuff, keep it coming.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s it. We’re working on some theories but nothing’s fleshed out yet. The good thing is that, excluding me, you have two of the preeminent authorities in the world available to testify. Get this guy to court and you’ll have a psychiatric dream team available to root around in his mind.”

  “The hard part is going to be getting him to court. He’s done a good job at covering things up and using misdirection. It’s going to be a hard case to prosecute.”

  “Agreed, now what did you want to run past me?”

  Morley started with a rhetorical question, “Okay, who are the hardest criminals to catch?” He quickly answered his own question, “The really intelligent ones of course. Next, what subset of that group is the most difficult to catch?” Again, there was only a slight pause before he answered again. “The loner. There’s no one else to turn him in or roll on him. The intelligent loner—like the Unabomber—will always be the most difficult to catch. What other type of criminal do we deal with who is typically a loner?”

  Now Peyton was on track and answered before Morley. “Hackers.”

  “Exactly! They may have online friends, but an unusually high percentage are so socially inept they become loners over time. In our current suspect, we have almost the ultimate loner. As far as we can tell, he has no family. He has no girlfriend or close male friends. This guy can leave town with only one other person knowing about it, and no one cares or notices that he’s gone.”

  “Wow, you’re right. I guess it’s no wonder this hasn’t been put together sooner. We have an intelligent loner leaving the locals no clues, and not talking to anyone about it when he’s done. No one is looking at the possibility of the hacking being part of the scenario. They’re all assuming it’s some disgruntled client, not some computer genius. Our guy isn’t acting like ninety-five percent of the criminals out there. He isn’t bragging to anyone at the bar or spending the proceeds of his last heist on women and cars. He’s almost completely self-contained. He’s like a shark, a perfect killing machine.”

  “Not that perfect; we identified him.”

  Not Another One! (10/19/09, 2345 hours)

  Morley had just finished what he thought were his final calls of the night when the BlackBerry on his nightstand came to life.

  “Morley.”

  “PJ, it’s Doc. You got a minute?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I reviewed some of Lublin’s known source code this afternoon and evening.”

  “Who’d you get it from,” asked Morley, more than a little concerned knowing that no one in the SUNY organization had been briefed on the investigation.

  “Relax, boss, I didn’t get it from anyone. For now, let’s just say I went out and found it.”

  “Doc, you gotta stop doin’ this shit. It’s gonna backfire on us at some point.”

  “I know, I know, but I was bored and…anyway, you wanna hear the results?”

  “Go ahead.” Morley’s voice oozed with resignation.

  “I found an application Lublin wrote about five years ago. It was designed to allow two different versions of the same program to work together. The maker of the software should have written their new program to be backwards compatible with their older versions of code, but hadn’t.

  “Therefore, Lublin had to write a significant amount of code to get the different versions to play well with each other. I gotta tell ya boss, that much code is like having ten pages of a diary to conduct handwriting analysis against.”

  “That means you should be able to give me a definitive yes or no.”

  “I can,” said Swann. “It matches.”

  “Yes!” Morley sat up and pumped his fist. “Give me the cliff notes. What are you gonna dazzle the jury with?”

  “The first thing that jumped off the page for Lublin’s known code was the author’s use of references to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien. His variables started with Aragorn, then went to Boromir, then Celeborn on throughout the alphabet, each first letter represented by a name from Tolkien’s masterpieces.

  “The hacking codes also used Tolkien names. While much more obscure than the ones used for his work on the SUNY system, to someone like me, who loves the books, they stood out like neon signs on a pitch-black night. Both computer codes followed the same pattern.”

  “Let’s assume that no one on the jury is as big a fan of The Lord of The Rings as you. Also, while they may have heard of those movies, neither they nor I know what a variables is.”

  Swann laughed. “variables are used by the coders to represent something else, and most people who write code have some type of system to keep them straight.” Sheepishly, Swann explained that he used the names of former girlfriends.

  “Wait a minute, that either means you don’t write very long code, or you’ve had a—”

  “Let’s let that go for now, boss.

  “The next similarity in the code is how the author outlined his comments. Lublin has gotten into the habit of outlining his comments with symbols that represent the dates he conducted his work. He used the special characters above the various numbers on the keyboard to indicate the month and year.

  “Do you have your laptop open?”

  “Stand by.” Morley retrieved his laptop and opened it up. “Go.”

  “I can tell the known code was written in September of 2004 because Lublin puts ( )$ at the front of a comment. Look at your keyboard. The symbols above the numbers are what he uses to identify the date.”

  “And that is how the hacking code is written?”

  “Exactly. Then there is his—”

  “Doc, I’ll take your word for the rest,” said Morley, knowing the computer genus on the other end of the line would provide him with the most esoteric minutia of the analysis if not stopped.

  “Just make sure you’re able to clearly demonstrate the code has the same number of distinct similarities as a fingerprint. That’ll be enough to hold up in court.”

  “Oh, it’ll stand up.”

  “Figure out a legal way to get that code tomorrow.”

  “Will do. Night.”

  69 | A Ruse

  Johnson City, New York, 10/20/09, 0917 hours

  Morley was torn between not wanting the phone call to Lublin to be too soon after his call from Antonescu and needing to get the handwriting samples to move forward. While waiting until Tuesday afternoon wasn’t ideal, it was the best compromise available. There was enough other work to do to keep everyone busy that morning.

  “Mr. Lublin, this is Agent Greere of the Secret Service, you met my colleagues the other day.”

  “Yes.” Lublin had anticipated being re-contacted by the agents after Antonescu’s call.

  “As you’re probably aware from the unusual phone call you received yesterday from Mr. Antonescu, the case has taken a…twist. Before we proceed with prosecution, the US Attorney is requiring that we get a written statement from you refuting Mr. Antonescu bizarre accusations.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “No, sir, this is just a formality for court purposes. In a case this cut and dry, the defense will grasp at any straw. The US Attorney just needs
to have a document from you to paper-over any allegation of the defendant.”

  “I see. How long will this take?”

  “It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes. We can come over this evening and knock it out if you have time.”

  After how poorly the previous encounter with the agents had gone, Lublin wanted time to prepare. He wanted to use the next conversation to his advantage. “I’m busy this evening.”

  “I understand. We can stop at your office tomorrow morning and take care of it then.”

  The thought of the agents at his office didn’t appeal to Lublin. He tried to stall again. “I have a full day of meetings tomorrow.”

  “Mr. Lublin, we need to take care of this today or tomorrow. Tell me what is best for you, tonight, tomorrow before you go to work, or tomorrow at your office during the day?”

  Lublin decided that the best alternative was when he was at his freshest. “I leave my house at eight a.m. I can spare thirty minutes at seven-thirty. But that’s it. Thirty minutes.”

  “That’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  “One more thing. Agent Kruz…Krus…”

  “Kruzerski?”

  “Yes! He was very rude during the first interview. I would prefer if he didn’t come.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that Agent Kruzerski was unprofessional. I’ll mention it to our supervisor. For the interview it will be Agent Swann and me.”

  “Thank you. That’s a relief.”

  Morley was smiling as Greere hung up the phone. He looked at Kruzerski. “Lublin doesn’t like you.”

  “I wasn’t rude.” Kruzerski looked at Swann for confirmation.

  Swann looked away.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’ll make it even better when you show up tomorrow.” Morley then answered the confused looks. “Agent Swann is too sick. You know where Lublin lives, so it’ll be you and Ron…and the rest of the squad around the corner listening in on a wire.”

  Kruzerski grinned. “And he thought he didn’t like me before.”

  Lublin’s Written Statement (10/21/09, 0715 hours)