by Tripp Ellis
"Or what?" The burly man scowled at him.
Bryce tensed. “Look, I'll buy you another drink."
"What if I'd rather have your girlfriend blow me?"
Bryce grew red in the face, and the veins in his neck bulged. His hands balled into fists.
I could tell this was gonna end badly. The barrel-chested man had gone to the dark side. He was ready to rumble.
I launched from the table and dashed across the bar, flashing my badge as I approached. "Deputy Sheriff! Everybody just calm down. I'm sure the lady would be more than happy to buy you another drink, won’t you?"
My eyes blazed into Jordyn.
Jordyn sighed. "Fine. I'll buy the fat fuck a drink."
The burly man clenched his jaw.
"Bro, have another one on the house," the bartender said.
He’d been watching the whole thing and was trying to avert disaster. He mixed another cocktail and slid it across the bar to the big man.
The thick tension seemed to settle.
"Is everybody cool now?" I asked.
The burly man was silent for a long moment. "Yeah. We're cool.” He paused for a moment. It was the calm before the storm. “I still want her to suck my—"
He didn't even get to finish his thought. Bryce swung a hard right. His fist careened through the air, over Jordyn's head, connecting with the burly man's cheek.
I grumbled to myself knowing I was about to get in the middle of it.
21
Bryce’s knuckles connected with the burly man's cheek. The smack echoed throughout the bar. Bryce had swung with all his might. Still, it barely budged the big guy.
Bryce's eyes widened, realizing what he had gotten himself into.
The burly man squared his jaw, reared his fist back, and clocked Bryce. The punch knocked him out cold. He fell to the concrete like a rock—nothing to break his fall except his face.
Jordyn shrieked in terror.
"Easy there, big guy,” I said.
He glared at me, his eyes still filled with rage. In the blink of an eye, his fist careened toward me.
Shit!
I ducked and side-stepped.
His massive fist whooshed overhead.
I backed away as we squared off against each other again. "I don't think you want to do this. Assaulting an officer has serious—"
He charged and swung hard.
I sidestepped again, blocked and grabbed his forearm, punched him in the rib cage, then twisted his arm around behind his back. I took him to the ground in an arm-bar takedown and planted my foot against his spine as I wrenched his arm in a painful direction, bending his wrist. Soft tissue popped and crackled. Another fraction of an inch and something would dislocate.
He groaned in agony.
By that time JD had arrived. He still had his drink in his hand. "Looks like you’ve got everything under control."
Jack called the Sheriff's Office, and they sent two patrol cars to take Bryce and the burly man away.
I couldn't arrest Jordyn for being an idiot, but I wanted to.
"Did you have to arrest my boyfriend?" she complained.
"He threw the first punch," I said. "That's assault. Maybe you should think before you go mouthing off when you're drunk?"
"You're an asshole," she slurred.
Denise must have gotten wind of the situation, because she showed up in time to take her friend home before Jordyn did something else stupid.
"I don't know what you see in this guy," Jordyn said to Denise. "He's a total loser."
"Come on," Denise said. "I think it's time we get you home."
"I don't want to go home!"
"It's either home, or the county jail."
"Seriously?" Jordyn said. "So, now you're turning on me?"
"Nobody's turning on you, JJ. You’ve just had a little too much to drink, and things have gotten out of hand."
Denise told me she'd call me later. The sloppy blonde bitched and cursed at me as Denise escorted her out of the bar.
The bar returned to normal, and JD and I returned to our table.
"Never a dull moment in Coconut Key," Haley muttered.
"Did you grow up here?" I asked.
Haley nodded. "Pappy raised me. My father left when I was young. My mother had a substance abuse problem and OD’d. I think I was eight when I went to live with him."
"That's a lot to go through as a kid," I said.
"You gotta take what life gives you." Haley shrugged.
There was a moment of silence.
“Well, I better get home,” she said. “I enjoyed it, boys. Thanks for the distraction.”
Haley motioned to the waitress for the check.
Jack tried to take the leather folio when it arrived, but Haley insisted. "It's the least I can do. You're risking your life to find Pappy’s killer. A few beers is a small price to pay.”
Haley stuck a wad of cash in the folio and gave us both a hug before she left.
“She’s a sweetheart,” Jack said. "I hate to see bad shit happen to good people."
"Well, let's do what we can to make this right."
Jack and I finished our beer, then he drove me back to the marina.
In the morning, Daniels called with another situation. "I need you to get over to the Seven Seas and investigate this Peeping Tom thing."
"Does this have anything to do with Warren Russell?" I said, yawning.
"No. But I need somebody who's tech savvy, and right now you fit the bill."
I hung up the phone and pulled myself out of bed. The morning sun blasted the suite. I called JD and told him I'd meet him at the hotel in 15 minutes. I pulled on some clothes, grabbed my helmet and gloves, and strolled down the dock to my sport bike. The two-wheeled demon was just one step short of a Moto XP racing bike. It was like straddling a rocket. Twisting the throttle would launch you into another dimension. I cranked up the X6 and revved the engine. The musical exhaust note echoed through the cool morning air. I let out the clutch and raced across town.
Jack's lime-green Porsche was in the hotel parking lot when I arrived. I parked next to him, peeled off my helmet, and strolled into the lobby. JD was already having a discussion with the manager, and an irate woman who'd been victimized. Her husband stood beside her, letting her do all the work.
She was blonde, in her mid-30s, and had a rock on her finger the size of a small asteroid. "This is absolutely outrageous. I'm going to sue this hotel into bankruptcy!"
"She found this attached to the smoke detector above the bed," JD said, handing me a small black wireless camera that made a dime look large.
I examined the device.
"I want to know who has that footage,” the blonde demanded. “And I want it destroyed, immediately." She had a horrific thought. "Oh, my God! What if that footage is already on the Internet?"
"Mrs. Hebert, we will do everything in our power to discover the source of the problem and minimize the damages," the manager said.
"The damage has been done. My husband and I were in the middle of an intimate act. This is highly illegal. My privacy has been violated!"
"Yes ma'am, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."
"Inconvenience?" Mrs. Hebert looked like her head was about to explode. She growled at the man.
"This is a consumer grade camera," I said. "The range can't be very far. Where is your IT guy? It's likely this device was connected to your network. If there's one device, there could be others."
The manager went pale. "Others?"
"I need a list of everyone who had access to that room," I said. "The housecleaning staff, maintenance, front desk workers, security personnel..."
The manager thought about it for a moment. "We don't know if that camera was planted by a hotel employee. That could have been placed by a previous guest."
It was clear he was trying to create some wiggle room to avoid liability.
He picked up the phone, dialed an extension, and said, "I need you to
get to the front desk. Now!"
A few moments later, the IT guy strolled to the desk. Sean was a skinny guy, with shaggy hair, glasses, and looked in his early 20s. The manager explained the situation to him.
He shrugged. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"I want you to figure out if these devices are connected to our network, and who may have done this?"
"Well, it wasn't me, if that's what you're thinking."
"You have the know-how and the access," I said.
"I can show you the network, and every device connected to it." Sean said.
JD stayed with Mrs. Hebert, and I followed Sean to the server room. It was a climate controlled area with a tall tower that managed the hotel’s network and access points. Cooling fans within the server hummed.
"Who has access to this room?" I asked.
"Me. The manager. Security personnel." He closed and locked the door, then led me to his office. It was just down the hall. "This is where I work. I have access to the network, and I can manage all the wireless access points."
Sean sat behind the desk and pulled up a network monitoring app. He clicked a few tabs then scrolled through a list. "This is every device connected to the network. We have several different access points throughout the hotel. Here you can see each device connected to the individual access points. There was a long list of personal computers, cell phones, tablets—each had a unique name and ID number. The list was constantly changing as new devices logged on and off the network.
"Each guest needs a unique password to access the device. Usually the room number plus their last name." He scrolled through the long list. "It's going to be tough to identify a specific device. There are so many, and some of them are just listed by an ID number."
Sean kept scanning the list. "Hang on. SHDcam-2279-a. SHDcam-3126-j. SHDcam-8139-x. Those look like cameras to me."
Sean found a dozen more listed like that in the connected devices.
"Is there any way to tell which rooms these are in?" I asked.
"Manual inspection."
"How would someone go about connecting these devices to the network?"
"The setup process on most of these devices is fairly simple. They would just log onto the network, enter the passcode, and connect the device. Whoever was using these cameras probably did so through an app on a cell phone or tablet."
"How would they get the network passcode?"
"Well, a guest probably couldn't do it. Their passcode only allows them access to web browsing and email. The main server’s passcode is on a sticker on the server. Makes it easier in case people forget."
"So anybody with access to that server room could have done this?"
"Sure."
"Do you have any idea who that might be?”
He raised his hands innocently. "Like I said, it wasn't me."
"Are there any other IT personnel?” I asked. “Who covers the night shift?"
22
It was an IT emergency.
Too much for Sean to handle.
That's what I told the manager to tell Zeke—the night shift nerd in charge of the hotel's computer network. The request would appeal to his ego. The ruse was a lot easier than going to him. Zeke was one of the few people that had access to the server room and knew the master passcode to the network.
We hung out in the lobby of the Seven Seas, waiting for Zeke to arrive.
Tony Scarpetti strolled through the doors, and a grin curled on his face when he saw us. “Well, if it isn’t my two favorite cops.”
We shook hands.
Big Tony was a former gangster who had turned legit. He ran an ongoing, high-stakes poker game in a suite at the Seven Seas. It was a classy operation, and I had pulled my fair share of winnings from the regular event. Jack and I had helped Tony out of a tight spot a while back, and we had become friends—in an odd sort of way. Tony was adamant that he was now a legitimate businessman, but I knew he still had deep Mafia connections.
“What gives?” Tony said. “You get rich and famous and you stop coming around my game?”
I shrugged, apologetically. “It’s been kind of crazy lately. I swear, I’ll stop by soon and you can deal me in.”
“You two need anything, let me know. I mean it. Anything.”
Tony didn’t make that kind of offer lightly. He was a good guy to have on your side. He could also be a nightmare of an enemy. His Mafia connections were just a phone call away.
“Thanks, Tony,” I said.
We shook hands again, and he patted me on the shoulder before strolling toward the bar.
Zeke staggered into the lobby 30 minutes later, looking sleep deprived. He was 6” tall, brown matted hair, round belly, and a thin mustache that looked like something a high school kid would grow, even though Zeke was in his early 30s.
"What's the major malfunction that Sean couldn't handle?" Zeke said as he strutted into the lobby.
I flashed my badge. "Deputy Sheriff. We’d like to talk to you for a minute."
“Sure, no problem,” he said, maintaining his cool. Then he spun around and darted into the parking lot.
I chased after him.
It wasn't going to be much of a chase.
When I caught up to him, I slammed his face into the hood of a car and ratcheted a pair of cuffs around his wrists. The sheet metal reverberated, and Zeke groaned from the impact.
"What's going on?"
"You're under arrest for illegal videography."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, as I yanked him from the car and marched him toward the lobby.
"Really? You’re going to play dumb?" I asked.
“I’m smart enough to know better than to talk to you."
"How many cameras have you placed throughout the hotel?"
"What part of I'm not talking to you do you not understand?"
"You do realize the penalties for recording someone in an area where they have an expectation of privacy?"
Zeke said nothing.
“I’d start cooperating if I were you,” I said. “You don't look like the kind of guy who would do well in jail. A guy like you is gonna be on his knees most of the time."
The color drained from Zeke's face, and sweat misted on his skin.
Jack called Sheriff Daniels, and within moments, a patrol car arrived and escorted Zeke to the County Jail.
I was pretty sure that Zeke was responsible for the whole thing, but I couldn't rule out the possibility that he acted with an accomplice. Perhaps Sean? I needed to get the computer forensics team down here and analyze the server and make a backup copy of the drives if necessary. Perhaps even confiscate the device?
"You want to do what?" the manager exclaimed when I told him of my plan.
"We don't know if there is any footage stored on the server,” I said. “We need to be able to analyze the hard drives and determine exactly how many cameras were placed, when, and if possible, by whom.”
"We know who," the manager said.
"The more evidence I have, the more solid a case we can make. You wouldn't want to be seen as uncooperative, would you?"
"That server houses our entire reservation system. All the Wi-Fi, and entertainment services to the rooms."
I shrugged, then snidely added. "Maybe you should vet your employees a little better?”
The manager frowned, nervously. "I'll need to call my superior.”
"Do what you need to do. But nobody touches that server until our forensics team has taken a look. In the meantime, we need to do a sweep of every room on the premises, looking for surveillance devices."
Sweat sprouted from his forehead. "If word of this gets out, this hotel could be ruined."
"I'm willing to keep my mouth shut, for a price," Mrs. Hebert said with an arched eyebrow.
The manager swallowed hard. "I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement. I will have to speak with my superior.”
The manager made his phone call.
We didn't specifical
ly have a computer crimes unit, but Daniels sent our own nerd herd from the information systems department. They were responsible for running the network for the Sheriff’s Department and knew their way around this type of thing better than I did.
Matthew and Aiden took a look at the server. Matthew was shorter with brown hair and brown eyes, Aiden was tall and skinny with shaggy blonde hair. Both were in their early 20s. After taking a cursory glance at the system, Aiden said, “The easiest thing to do would be to clone the drive, then we can sift through the data at our leisure. That would minimize disruption of hotel operations."
"Whatever minimizes disruption of operations, I'm in favor of," the manager said. Then he added, “Do you need a warrant for this?"
I glared at him. "Do you want to make us jump through hoops? Or do you want this resolved before the media gets hold of it?"
"Quick and quiet," the manager said.
"They've only got 10 TB of data storage." Aiden said. "We can clone that pretty easily."
"I'll leave the task in your capable hands," I said. "Let me know what you find.”
Aiden gave me a mock salute.
I left the two computer gurus in the server room and strolled back to the lobby with the hotel manager.
JD had begun searching the hotel rooms for additional surveillance devices with the hotel security staff. I caught up with him, and after several hours of searching for devices, we found cameras positioned in bed rooms and bathrooms of multiple units.
The hotel manager looked like he was going to be sick. “This is going to ruin us. There's no telling how many people were videotaped, doing God knows what."
"I hope you have a good public relations firm," JD said.
“I need to call my supervisor again,” the manager said.
He hustled out of the room.
Once we had searched all the rooms, we headed back to the Sheriff's Office and logged the cameras as evidence. I was sure the crime lab would be able to pull a fingerprint from one of the devices. We had a good case against Zeke.
JD and I filled out paperwork in the conference room. With that incident wrapped up, it was time to get back to work on Warren's case. The middle school would be letting out soon, and I wanted to take another gander around campus.
