Over the Edge

by Gloria Skurzynski

  “I’m contacting all my online friends. There are dozens of anonymous remailers out there, and I can’t hack into all of them by myself. I need help.”

  “Wait!” Steven grabbed Morgan by the shoulders. “I just heard you say ‘hack.’ That’s illegal, isn’t it?”

  Morgan turned to face him. “Not when the FBI does it. The FBI uses a system called Carnivore to spy on the e-mail of U.S. citizens.”

  “You’re not the FBI,” Steven told him.

  “No, I’m not.” Morgan pushed back the chair, looked up at Steven, and stared defiantly into his eyes. “You can call the FBI if you want to. They’ll investigate this threat to your wife—when they get around to it, which means when they have enough people to put on this case. Like, maybe, in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, this crazy guy who sent the threat and probably pushed your wife off the cliff has time to come back and try again.” Slowly, Morgan folded his arms across his chest. “Or—you can let me and my friends do it. And you’ll find out right away. It’s your call, man.”

  Steven’s jaw worked as he contemplated Morgan, who sat before him as if he didn’t really care which way Steven decided. But Jack knew that was all a bluff. Morgan wanted desperately to discover who had sent the e-mail.

  At last, quietly, Steven said, “Get him.”

  Morgan pumped his fist, and with a grin that spread all across his face, whispered, “Yes!” Then he turned to Jack and said, “Pull up some chairs, this is about to get interesting.”

  Morgan would make a great teacher, Jack thought. Even though he stayed focused on whatever it was he was doing on the computer, he also kept up a running commentary, explaining everything to Jack. “What’s happening now is, I’m sending e-mails to all my gaming partners, telling them what I need. Each of us will hack into about three or four anonymous remailer systems to look for the e-mail your mother got. Then we’ll know which one sent it. It’s tricky, because usually an anonymous e-mail goes from one remailer to another several times. Each one strips off identification from the message before he relays it the next time, so it can’t be traced backward.”

  “You mean—maybe you won’t be able to trace it after all?” Jack asked, disappointed.

  “Hey, you’re dealin’ with the pros here,” Morgan bragged. “We’ll nail this jerk to the wall. Two things we know—the size of the message and when it was sent. They’re like fingerprints. That’s what we look for.”

  Words flashed on and off the screen so fast Jack had trouble reading them. “The guy probably used the cheapest anonymous remailer he could find to send the threat,” Morgan was saying, “which means it got relayed through only a couple of systems. At least, that’s my guess. The more security steps the message goes through—meaning the more times it gets relayed—the harder it is to trace, and the more it costs the sender. I figure this guy was either too stupid or too cheap to do it the complicated way, with lots of relays, plus encryption.” Morgan shot a glance at Jack. “Encryption means turning the message into codes so no one can read it.”

  “I know that,” Jack said.

  An hour passed. Then another quarter hour, and all the while Morgan kept chattering like a magpie. “I ran a port scanner to find out what services are running. Now I’m looking for documented security holes or exploits in those services. I’m getting user access—if the FTP daemon e-mails me the password, I’ll be able to crack the file, then do a reverse e-mail.”

  Morgan might have been speaking in Swahili for all Jack understood. His father looked just as lost.

  At last Morgan’s face lit up. “And there he is. Well, well, well. I told you I didn’t send this. I wish Ashley were here. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am innocent! Free at last!”

  “Who wrote it?” Steven demanded.

  “A man named Thornton Rawlings sent the e-mail. He paid for it with a credit card. We hacked into the credit card records and found out where the guy lives—it’s a little town about 25 miles from here, easy enough for him to come over here and try to kill your wife. She announced on national television where she was going to be all day. The rest is simple.”

  Jack sucked in his breath. Morgan was amazing! Steven’s face showed conflicting emotions—relief, then respect, replaced by doubt.

  “What?” Jack asked his father.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Steven said. “None of this proves this guy came over to the park and actually pushed Olivia.”

  “What do you mean? He threatened her!” Morgan pointed to the screen and cried, “It’s there in black and white!”

  “All I’m saying is that the police will need more evidence to place Rawlings physically at the rim.”

  Slamming his fist into his thigh, Morgan complained, “So giving them a name isn’t enough, is that what you’re saying? They’ll still think it could be me!”

  “We’ll give Rawlings’ name to them, of course, but it won’t place him at the scene. It’s not over, Morgan.”

  Morgan raked his fingers across his scalp, leaving dark corn rows of hair. “Great. Well, I’ve done all I can do. My trail ends here.”

  Steven rubbed his chin with his hand and looked off in the distance. Thoughts nagged Jack one after another as he tried to snag the idea that seemed to nibble right at the edges. There was something he was missing. Why couldn’t he see it? Suddenly, he jumped up from the chair so fast he knocked it backwards. “Wait, maybe we can prove he was here,” he cried excitedly. “When the condor landed in the parking lot, it came down right in the middle of a whole bunch of parked cars and trucks and SUVs. The condor kept moving, and I kept running around it so I could take its picture from a lot of different angles. There’s maybe a hundred license plates that will show up on the pictures I took. There’s got to be a way to check those out. If we can show he was there—”

  “Where’s the film?” Steven asked.

  “It’s still in my camera. We can find the nearest one-hour photo place—maybe there’s one here in the park—”

  “I’ll call your mother, you grab your camera,” Steven shouted. “If we’re lucky, we can snag this guy!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  There were dozens of them—four-by-six-inch glossy photos of the condor that had landed in the parking lot. Magnificent as the condor was—and some photos of him were outstanding, especially the ones where he spread his wings—the people who gathered around the table in the ranger operations office weren’t interested in the bird. Or in great photography. Instead, they closely examined the backgrounds of the photos, looking for license plates.

  “Don’t worry about the out-of-state plates, just check the Arizona ones. Thornton Rawlings’ vehicle is registered in this state,” said Mike McGinnis. Mike had led the Search and Rescue Team that raised Olivia from the brink. Peering over the top of his glasses, he told Jack, “Look for the letters CIF, followed by the numbers 1003. Here, I wrote it down.”

  “The more eyes that go over this, the better,” Ted Kenton agreed. “There’s a lot of plates showing up in these photos. If you have even the tail-end of a number or letter, set it aside and let Mike or me take a look. Understand?”

  “Got it,” Jack answered. He felt pretty important being included in this tracking process. It was true that Morgan had found the person who’d sent the e-mail, but now Jack’s photographs might tie the man to the scene of the crime.

  “We’ll give you anything that’s questionable,” Steven said, nodding. Using a strong magnifying glass, he carefully examined each picture. Studied by someone like Steven, who as a professional photographer really knew how to read them, the pictures could reveal a lot.

  “Morgan, would you like to help?” Steven asked him. “You’ve got some good eyes in your head.”

  “Sure, Mr. Landon. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to catch this jerk. We’re checking only the Arizona plates, right?”

  “For starters. Then, if we don’t get a hit, we’ll enter all the plates into the computer and see if we can
find a connection. He could have borrowed a car or rented one—there’re a lot of possibilities,” Mike said. “Let’s hope it’s easy.”

  Jack quickly realized the job was harder than he thought it would be. Many of the plates were out of focus and unreadable, or half-hidden by visitors’ legs or the condor’s wings. Still, Jack had done exactly what his father had told him to—he’d shot a lot of pictures in rapid-fire succession, hoping that at least one of them would be truly great. It was the sheer volume that made the difference. Less than 20 minutes had passed before Mike called out, “I got it—a perfect match! Right here on the black pickup truck. Looks like your friend Thornton Rawlings happened to be in the park when Olivia was pushed over the edge. Or it least his vehicle was in the parking lot. I guess there’s a remote possibility that someone else drove it here.”

  Jack didn’t know how he felt when he heard that news: Relief that this was going to be easier than he’d expected; hatred for Thornton Rawlings; impatience to lock him up so he couldn’t hurt anyone else.

  “Run a check on the guy,” Ted told Mike. “See if he has any criminal history.”

  “Uh….” Mike turned toward Steven and the boys. “I can’t run a check while you three are in here. It’s a matter of protecting the privacy of the names on these police records. If you wait outside, I’ll let you know if we come up with anything.”

  “Sure.” Jack, his dad, and Morgan went into the hall where they found a soft drink machine. It sold 16-ounce bottles for 75 cents each.

  “What a bargain!” Jack exclaimed. Steven put in three one-dollar bills and let the boys punch the buttons for what they wanted. After the change rolled into the coin slot and the drinks rolled down into their waiting hands, the three of them solemnly uncapped the bottles and clinked them together, although the plastic bottles didn’t really “clink.” “Here’s to a great team,” Jack said, raising his ginger ale in a toast. “The mighty crimebusters: Morgan, Jack, and Dad.”

  It wasn’t long before Ted came out of the dispatch office. “Thornton Rawlings has a criminal history, all right, for refusing to pay taxes, for disrupting public meetings, for about a hundred unpaid parking tickets, gun violations, and—most serious—for threatening a police officer with a rifle. Seems this fellow thinks government is his number one enemy.”

  “Wow!” Jack exclaimed. “You know, when Mom was interviewed on CNN, she said she wanted a new law that would make hunters use lead-free ammunition for hunting. Remember? She wanted big fines for anyone who was caught using lead. Do you think that could have set Rawlings off?”

  “Anything’s possible. I will tell you this: In my experience, it doesn’t take very much to beam these conspiracy-types into orbit. Rawlings has been confined to a mental institution on two separate occasions. He suffers from—it says here—” He glanced at a paper in his hand. “From paranoia and delusions of persecution. Your mother’s statements might very well have sent him over the edge.”

  All of them were silent, taking it in. Then Morgan blurted, “So he really is a crazy.”

  “Yeah, but you know….” Thoughtfully, Ted scratched his chin with the edge of the paper. “In spite of all this, all the evidence we have is circumstantial. The twig Rex found was clean, so that didn’t help. None of this will be enough to convict him of trying to kill your mother. Not without an eyewitness, or something else that links him to the crime.”

  Morgan asked, “You mean with all that evidence, they won’t even throw him in jail? That really stinks!”

  Like an alarm going off, Morgan’s words reminded Jack of what Ashley had said the night before. The smell! “Mom said she smelled something when the guy came up behind her. Could that be important?”

  “What kind of smell?”

  “I don’t know….” Jack searched his memory. “Like kerosene! She said before she was hit, she smelled it! If we could tie that to Rawlings….”

  “How?” Morgan asked. “By visiting his house and sniffing him?”

  Ted’s voice was suddenly brisk. “Let me grab Mike and check on something. Wait here.”

  Jack, Morgan, and Steven looked at each other, wondering what Ted would bring back. Moments later, he emerged from an office with Mike, who was holding a printout. “Here’s the report on the leather jacket Olivia Landon was wearing,” Mike announced. “It says there was a partial handprint on the back of it, but it was unreadable.” Mike flipped through the pages. “Looks like the lab technician found gun oil in the handprint.”

  Morgan’s face broke into a slow smile. “Oil? Then, gentlemen, I’d say you’ve got him.”

  Ted gave Morgan a quizzical look. “I don’t follow.”

  “You might not be aware of a new technique called AFIS—Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It allows prints to be lifted off of things like human skin and eyeballs. It works when regular print identification fails. Call your Arizona crime unit—they’ll tell you.”

  “Is that true?” Mike asked Steven.

  Steven shrugged. “All I know is Morgan is a really smart guy. I believe him.”

  “Look, I’m telling you, I’ve read all about it. The oil is dense enough that it will be easy to read with a laser. You just need to send the coat along with Rawlings’ fingerprints. If it’s him, you’ll get a match. And I know it’s him!”

  Ted and Mike exchanged glances. “Let’s call up the crime lab and see what they can do for us. You must read true crime stories, kid.”

  “Me? Only if they’re on the Internet.”

  Steven put his hands on the shoulders of both boys and said, “We’re not needed here anymore. Let’s go get your mother.”

  This time Morgan didn’t answer, “She’s not my mother.” He just said, “Lead the way.”

  When they reached the clinic, they found Olivia waiting, dressed in clean clothes Steven had brought from the lodge. “We have news for you—” Jack began.

  “And we have news for you!” Ashley interrupted. “You should hear what Mom figured out. She’s so smart!”

  Olivia smiled, saying, “Well, I think that knock on the head might have started my brain spinning in a new direction. I’ve got an idea why the condors have different-size lead pellets in their intestinal tracts.”

  “Why, Mom?” Jack asked, amazed that two mysteries could be solved in the same day.

  Olivia stood with her hand on the door frame, as though she still felt a bit unsteady from her injuries. “It was Morgan’s friend Snipe who gave me the answer. I had a hunch, so I asked if I could use the hospital’s computer. I found Snipe’s Web site and e-mailed him, and he e-mailed me right back. Of course, we disagree vehemently about the hunt, but I must say other than that, he really is a very nice young man.”

  Morgan shot Olivia a smile, which she returned. “Snipe explained that the Cash-for-Carcasses hunters usually go after coyotes, since there’s so many of them and they’re a lot easier to kill than the bigger game. The hunters ride in their pickups with a special whistle that calls coyotes. When the poor animals are within range, they blast them with their shotguns.”

  “Wait—don’t the hunters use rifles?” Morgan asked.

  Olivia shook her head no. “Snipe said a rifle bullet can travel more than a mile. If the hunters are shooting from the road, they don’t want to risk hitting humans. Shotgun pellets are accurate only to about 30 yards.”

  “They don’t seem too worried about the coyotes,” Jack snapped.

  “I know. The whole thing is disgusting, but it’s what they do. So the hunters kill the coyotes, then haul the bodies to a Cash-for-Carcasses checkpoint where they get their points tallied. Snipe said there are hundreds of coyote carcasses brought into those places.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Jack told her. “What does that have to do with the condors?”

  “If I’m right, it means everything.” She took a deep breath and said, “Even though the location of these dumping sites is kept pretty quiet, Snipe checked around for me. Guys, there’s a checkpoin
t and dumping site right outside of Tusayan, less than 20 miles from here. There was a hunt three weeks ago. What better place for the condors to congregate than on a huge pile of coyote bodies left out in the woods?”

  “Of course!” Steven exclaimed. “It would explain the single source of the lead all the condors fed on!”

  Olivia nodded. “Not to mention the different-size pellets. There would have been dozens of different hunters using different weapons. And the dumping site is close enough to the park boundaries that the condors’ flight patterns wouldn’t have appeared suspicious to people tracking them.”

  “Which means if you’re right, and if they could find the pile and get rid of the lead source—” Steven said, leading Olivia to the glass doors of the clinic’s exit.

  “Then the condors could be released again!” Ashley finished for him. “And then maybe they could ban the whole stupid hunt altogether!”

  “Wouldn’t that be something!” Olivia asked, eyes bright.

  “I would love to shut down that awful hunt. Imagine, saving the condors and the predators. It couldn’t get much sweeter.”

  The five of them walked through the parking lot to the car, moving slowly for Olivia’s sake. Morgan gingerly helped Olivia settle herself into the front seat. Then, very carefully because her head still hurt, she turned to face the kids in the backseat. “That’s my news. So what’s yours?”

  “Oh,” Jack said casually, “just that we figured out who pushed you over the edge.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As they drove up the rutted, back-country road, Jack noticed how the scenery had muted into autumn browns—dried grasses and dusty junipers ringed by tiny cactus marching into the distance. He watched with satisfaction as his mother carefully stepped out of Shawn’s SUV, with Ashley close behind. Although his mother’s face was still marred with bruises, she seemed to be brimming with energy.

  “I guess this is the end of the line. Now we walk,” Steven told Jack and Morgan. “It’s only been three days since Olivia got out of the clinic. I sure hope she can handle the hike to the release pen.”