by Brian Haig
I introduced myself and she immediately complained, “I got a little boy bein’ watched by my mama and don’t want to be doin’ this all night.”
“If you’re good, you won’t.”
“I’m good.” She sized me up and asked, “So . . . what you wanta see?”
I explained that Lisa Morrow’s active files had been wiped clean, and I needed to see if there was a record of her messages magnetically lingering in the wiry bowels of the server.
“ ’Course there is,” she informed me, and we then worked our way through the cube maze and eventually squeezed ourselves into her office carrel.
Cheryl fell into her chair, typed a few commands into her computer, then pointed at a chair and ordered, “Sit. And keep your mouth shut. I don’t like being bothered when I’m workin’.”
Fine by me. I moved a stack of manuals off the chair, laid them on the floor, and sat. Cheryl was already typing commands and long lines of incomprehensible code were flashing incessantly across the screen. She was really grumpy.
She asked, “What you say her name was?”
“Morrow . . . Lisa Morrow.”
She nodded. “She the blond chick from the Army used to work upstairs?”
“Yup.”
“Heard she died.”
“She was murdered, actually.”
“Uh-huh. I heard she was good folk.” She studied her screen and said, “What you wanta look at?”
“Lisa’s e-mail going back, say, three months.”
She continued typing. “Everything’s kept going back two years.”
I watched what she was doing. In a way, I envy people who understand how the byzantine machine works, and in a larger way I don’t. Most programmers are weird. When I was a kid we were told not to sit too close to the TV, or hair would grow on our palms—but maybe I’ve got my warnings confused. It strikes me today’s mommies should warn their kids that too much time on your computer turns you into a dimwit.
She finally said, “Shit, shit, shit. Would ya look at this.”
“What?”
“A firewall ’round her file.” I suppose I looked a bit clueless, because she added, “Code protection. Single-layered, but it’s a good one, very complex.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That somebody don’t want us lookin’.”
I studied the screen. “No way to get past it?”
“Hack past it.”
“Yeah? How do we do that?”
“We don’t.” She spun around in her chair and faced me. “The server administrator can fix it . . . tomorrow.”
Some voice in the back of my brain made me ask, “And that would be who?”
“Mr. Merriweather.”
Wasn’t that a surprise? Actually, it wasn’t; so I took a gamble and asked, “He a pal of yours?”
“That fatassed moron? He got no friends on this floor.”
That news was no surprise either. I said, “Cheryl, it’s very possible something in that database will embarrass Merriweather, maybe even get him fired. But tomorrow morning, he’ll know from the server printouts that we tried to enter Lisa’s file, and he might find a way to block us forever.”
“That’s your problem. Wanta hear my problem? I got a kid with my mama.”
“I’ll buy your kid a shiny new bike, a baseball glove, whatever.”
She stared into her computer screen for a long while. She finally said, “A BB gun. That’s what he wants.”
“Deal.”
I took the stairwell upstairs, tried to fix us espressos, was foiled by the machine again, settled for two cups of regular coffee, and then returned to settle in and observe Cheryl in action. A stream of curses poured out her throat every ten minutes or so. I did not regard this as a hopeful sign.
She had started at ten, and at eleven I thought I detected a faint trace of a smile. It was nearly midnight when she mumbled, “Oh, baby,” leaned back in her chair, ran her fingers through her hair, and announced, “Shit, I’m good.”
I observed a long column of e-mails on the screen.
“Could I?” I asked. She climbed out of her chair, saying, “I gotta go pee. Don’t you break nothin’.”
I began with Lisa’s oldest e-mails and worked forward. I checked incoming mail for the two files, and outgoing for any references to the Boston cases. Modern young executives, like Lisa, transact a lot of business electronically. I’m more old-fashioned, aka, a technological idiot. But even if my mastery were to extend beyond punching off and on, I prefer face-to-face and phone interaction, where a facial tic or a verbal nuance allows you to detect what’s not being said, which often is more revealing than what is. Lisa had sent or received up to a hundred messages a day.
I felt unnerved, and actually a bit sad, rummaging through the messages of a dear but dead friend. Pieces of her—Lisa’s intelligence, warmth, efficiency, and wit—jumped off the screen. I found myself stifling a sob or two.
Half her messages went to other firm members and concerned firm business, from her caseload to mundane administrative matters. I knew barely a handful of the firm’s lawyers. Most of the names were just names.
Twenty or more times a day, Lisa e-mailed friends, associates, clients outside the firm, and I recognized the names of several JAG officers. She was popular and made a point to stay in contact with her chums, passing on jokes and anecdotes, but more often just brief, cheery notes, the high-tech version of a blown kiss. Cheryl returned from the ladies’ room with two cups of espresso, and we sipped and chatted as I opened more e-mails, trying to detect anything curious or suspicious. A number had enclosures I made sure to open on the chance the legal files had been smuggled into Lisa’s file in that manner.
I noticed several e-mails to Janet, and of course I opened those, too. Nothing too personal, though from the jovial, intimate tone you could tell that Lisa and Janet shared more than just sisterhood. Lisa updating Janet on her day, Janet updating Lisa about the family, about some mutual friends, and in one of her last e-mails from Lisa a promise that a package would arrive for her any day. I checked the date, about two weeks before Lisa’s murder, and made a note to ask Janet about that package.
After another thirty minutes of this, the Jacks and Harrys and Barbaras and Marys of Lisa’s life started running together into a big friendly blur. Once or twice I read an e-mail and something funny went off in the back of my head. But nothing went off in the front of my head.
By one-thirty, Cheryl was curled up in her chair and snoring. I was on an e-mail sent by Lisa to ANCAR@SEC. GOV that read, “Dear A. , Meet at Starbucks at 7:00 tomorrow AM for package. Friends Always, Lisa.”
Next was a message to DCOULTER@AOL. COM, something about providing an affidavit, when a bell went off inside my head.
I returned to the previous message and wondered what it was. I pondered this . . . and pondered this, and . . . nothing.
I moved on, and 122 messages later was one sent to JCUTH@JOHNSMATH. ORG that read, “Dear J. , Appreciate your views and expertise greatly. I’ll deliver package to your apartment tomorrow night. Friends Always, Lisa.”
Ding, ding, ding. What? I studied it again. In every other e-mail Lisa referred to the recipient by their full name, not an initial. Actually, there had been another initial—A. So I went back to A. , then back to J. , and back and forth a few more times, and bingo!
I slapped my forehead hard enough that Cheryl suddenly shot up in her chair.
I had no idea what Lisa’s messages to them were about, and in fact, didn’t really care about the messages—the connection was the only thing that mattered.
J. —well, J. was Julia Cuthburt of Johnson and Smathers. And A. —that was Anne Carrol of the SEC.
Put the two together, and I was staring at the second and fourth victims of the L. A. Killer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
IT WAS NEARLY TWO IN THE MORNING, JANET WAS NOT ANSWERING HER cell phone, and I sat at Cheryl’s desk and wondered, with monumental annoyance, why n
ot. So I tried again, got three rings again, and then her throaty recorded voice again saying, “Janet Morrow. Please leave a message and I’ll return your call.”
I said, “Hey, it’s me. I found the connection. Listen . . . Julia, Anne, and Lisa . . . they knew one another. This is big, right? Call me. Right now.”
But I wasn’t satisfied. Where could a beautiful twenty-nine-year-old single woman be at this hour, other than in her bed? Well, one just could not ignore the very revolting possibility that she and George the Jerk had completely mended fences, and her cell phone was turned off to avoid coitus interruptus. That suspicion, for some reason, really annoyed me.
So I dug out the Yellow Pages, looked up the Four Seasons Hotel, called the desk, and asked the operator to connect me to Janet Morrow.
In that flat impersonal tone affected by backroom help, she replied, “I’m sorry, that party checked out.”
“What?”
“Sir . . . I said she checked out.”
“But she . . . when?”
“Today.”
“Why?”
“I’m sure I don’t have that information, sir.”
“What time today?”
“I’m sure I don’t have that information either.”
“But . . .”
“I’ll put you through to the desk.”
So she did, and the guy at the desk was both more human and more helpful, informing me that Janet had checked out at six o’clock.
Odd.
No—more than odd. She had never informed me she was leaving. And of course, I distinctly heard FBI-boy make a date with her for dinner.
“It’s real late,” Cheryl sleepily informed me. “I gotta get home and get some sleep.”
“Sure. And Cheryl . . . thanks.”
“Good. Okay. You got what you need?”
I stood up and pecked her cheek. “More. Much more.” I whipped out my wallet and handed her a hundred-dollar bill. “Buy your son that BB gun.”
“Don’t cost that much,” she informed me.
“Right. Get one for his mother, too. You can shoot at each other.”
She smiled. “You a good man.” She lifted up her purse and wandered out.
I remained at Cheryl’s desk for five more minutes and tried to piece this thing together. There was a connection between Lisa, Julia Cuthburt, and Anne Carrol. The nature of their connection I didn’t know, but the three women knew one another, and the fact that they were all three murdered strongly suggested they weren’t picked randomly by a serial killer. It didn’t eliminate a serial killer, but implied—no, not implied, it established that the killer chose them because of that connection.
So—where was Janet?
I rushed downstairs to the parking garage. My briefcase was in the Jag’s trunk and I retrieved it. I dug around till I found the survivor assistance package that contained the phone number to Mr. Morrow, which I then dialed on the carphone.
Her father and I had spoken several times about various matters since our first encounter, so I knew it was a good number. It rang fifteen or twenty times, and I recalled that on my previous calls, after about six rings, a message machine answered. I tried again. Okay, yes, it was late, and Mr. Morrow was old and possibly his ears weren’t what they used to be, but his youngest daughter, Elizabeth, lived with him, and geez . . . you’d think one of them would hear the damned phone.
Things were getting weirder. I mean, Janet is suddenly out of the loop and her father and little sister aren’t in bed when, or where, they are supposed to be.
Coincidental? Possibly.
Maybe not.
I called the Boston operator, gave her Mr. Morrow’s address, and told her I needed the number for the nearest police station. She connected me to a switchboard person.
The switchboard person said, “Officer Dianne Marino, how can I help you?”
“Major Sean Drummond, D. C. office of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division.” Regarding this harmless little white lie, cops tend only to take other cops seriously, and I needed her to be responsive and helpful. I informed her, “We’re working on the L. A. Killer murders down here. Perhaps you’ve heard about it, Officer Marino?”
“Are you kidding? I watched the Nightline special on it the other night. Gosh, that guy’s some rotten bastard, isn’t he?”
“Ad infinitum. Thing is, we have an emergency and need your help.”
“Boston’s Finest is here to serve, Major.” You have to love that, right?
“A victim’s parent might be in possession of critical knowledge. Problem is, we can’t seem to reach him.”
“Well, it’s two-thirty in the morning. Other than us idiots on the night shift, that’s bedtime.”
“Officer Marino, the L. A. Killer knows no time.”
“Uh. . . yes, right. Sorry.”
“Let’s keep our heads in the game here, shall we?”
“Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”
I might’ve been less officious and curt, but people have a certain impression about how military people have their lids screwed a little too tight and you have to validate that impression or they might think you’re a phony.
I gave her Mr. Morrow’s address and asked if she could have a patrol car run by the house, wake him up, and get him standing by the phone.
Can do, she replied, clearly on my wavelength now, and I told her I’d wait until she got confirmation from the patrol car. She put me on hold. Ten minutes passed, during which I tried to figure out all the buttons and controls in my fancy new Jag, even as I tried to mentally sort through the possible connections between Lisa and the other victims. It struck me that what I had not seen were e-mails to, from, or about the most famous victim, Carolyn Fiorio. Yet three of four murdered women knew one another, corresponded with some regularity, and Lisa signed off her e-mails, “Friends Always.” Empty sentiments weren’t Lisa’s style and it seemed fair to presume the relationships were more than passing.
“Major, we . . . well, we have a problem,” Officer Marino interrupted.
“Tell me about it.”
“An incident.”
“Go on.”
“Mr. Morrow’s house burned down yesterday evening.”
While I tried to comprehend this, not to mention her dazzling gift for understatement, she added, “Sorry I didn’t recognize it when you gave me the address. My shift didn’t start till midnight. The fire happened earlier.”
“How much earlier?”
“Just a sec . . . let me pull it up on my screen.” After a few moments, she said, “A neighbor reported the fire shortly after five. Two alarmer. Those old houses up on Beacon Hill, they’re ritzy, but firetraps. Wood-framed, none of the modern fire retardant materials. It’s a—”
“Was anybody hurt?”
“Hold on.” She read from the report, “One known vic, John Morrow, was severely burned. He was on the upper floor, and had to be pulled out by a fireman, and—”
“What about a young woman? Elizabeth Morrow?”
“Not listed.” She then informed me, “But the inspectors haven’t entered the premises to look for corpses inside. It has to cool down. Tomorrow, after—”
“Do you know the cause?”
“No . . . not yet. We’ll of course dispatch an arson specialist with the inspectors in the morning. Do you think it’s—”
“Thanks.” I hung up.
The fire started around five, and Janet checked out of her hotel around six. What was going on here?
I started the Jag and left the parking garage without any particular idea where I was going, just sure I should be going somewhere.
The cold fresh air must have cleared my mind a bit, because I suddenly found myself wondering about that firewall around Lisa’s file. I probably should’ve asked Cheryl if that was standard procedure for all departed attorneys. Law firms are more protective of privacy rights than most employers, and it would make sense to seal the files of departed attorneys. But say it wasn�
�t. Answer: Somebody in the firm knew there was evidence in the server that showed a connection between the three deceased women, evidence that was technically impossible to eradicate, so the next best solution was to hide it and slap a firewall around it. Ergo: Somebody in the firm had to be involved in the murders.
Which triggered another revelation. Lisa had referred to packages in her e-mails to both Julia and Anne, and one message to Janet also referred to a package. Janet was sure she had never met and had no acquaintance with Anne or Julia. But all three had gotten packages from Lisa. Was that the connection?
Boston—I needed to go to Beantown pronto. Drive? Too long. And Reagan National Airport didn’t spit out its first morning flight till six.
I was pondering my other options, and driving past the White House, when it hit me. I pulled over to the curb, dug through my briefcase, and withdrew a business card. I dialed the number and three rings later a groggy voice replied, “Spinelli.”
“It’s Drummond. Wake up.”
“I’m on the fuckin’ phone, ain’t I?”
I would say he was being grumpy, but Spinelli’s mood seemed inalterable. I said, “I’m offering you the chance to be a hero.”
“Ah shit.”
“So here’s the deal. What if I told you Lisa Morrow, Julia Cuthburt, and Anne Carrol knew one another?
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.” I added, “And Janet Morrow might know why.”
“No shit.”
“But she’s gone.”
“Yeah?”
“The other shoe—her father’s house burned down last night. He might be dead. She checked out an hour later, and we should assume she flew home.”
He pondered this a moment, then suggested, “Then call her on her cell phone.”
“Well, shit. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Not answering, huh?”
“And I don’t want to think of why. Capisce? Now you earn your brass balls.”
“What are you talking about?”
