DM for Murder

by Matt Bendoris

  ‘No, cap’n. It appears they are using a borrowed proxy router,’ Haye replied.

  ‘Does nobody speak goddamn English around here anymore? Just pretend, for one minute, that I know nothing of proxy thingamajiggies and explain it to me as though I were a child,’ Sorrell said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Okay, so this person is tweeting crime scene pictures. The first one was tweeted soon after the murder. Any good detective would reason that this person would have been at the crime scene in order to take and post that first photo, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Sorrel replied cautiously.

  ‘Not necessarily, cap’n. Someone needed to be there to take the photo all right, but that doesn’t mean the picture was posted online from there. We’ve now pulled all the records from the cell phone towers and no one tweeted from a mobile device in the area at the time the photo hit the net.’

  ‘This is like being back to school.’ Sorrell sighed heavily.

  ‘Right, so someone took that pic in that hotel room then, I’m figuring, emailed it to someone else. But they didn’t do it on their cell phone. Or rather, they probably did use their cell phone but didn’t use the cell network to send it.’

  ‘Haye, you are stretching my patience to limits. Cell phone, no cell phones. Just get to the goddamn point,’ Sorrell demanded.

  ‘He’d have switched his cell phone’s carrier service off and sent the photo over the net. Virtually untraceable, cap’n. There’s a McDonald’s with free Wi-Fi a few blocks away. But their CCTV has come up with nothing.’

  ‘Pull all the street CCTV, then?’ Sorrell replied.

  ‘We are doing so, cap’n. But all the person needed to do was walk past the shop window to get the connection and email the picture. And if they didn’t use McDonald’s, they could have done it from a Starbucks or any number of places with free Wi-Fi. I think we’re gonna have to let them have that one on us. But once we figure out how they’re sending the tweets anonymously from Horrigan’s account then we’ll close right in on them,’ Haye said with a confidence not fully reflected in his tone.

  ‘What about finding all the trolls that threatened Horrigan? Can you trace someone on Twitter if they don’t use their real name?’ Sorrell asked.

  ‘Simple answer is, you can’t. We can track the IP addresses to find out where the tweets were sent from or where the profile was set up. But if the tweets are sent from a pay-as-you-go phone, that’s a tough nut to crack. Although we can get an approximate location from the nearest cell tower. Most trolls aren’t too smart though; they normally use their own contract cell phone, then boom, we’ve got their address. No contract without an address. If the troll used a McDonald’s Wi-Fi or whatever, we can track the source. Then you time match. Pain in the ass job, but very doable. You take the time the tweet was sent then scour the McDonald’s or coffee shop CCTV and try to ID your troll from there. Even better if they’ve used a card to pay for their goods or Internet usage.’

  ‘This is gonna be some operation,’ Sorrell sighed.

  ‘It will be, cap’n, but you’ll be surprised how quickly we can mop up. Many will ’fess up when they receive a tweet from the police asking them to identify themselves. Others will come forward once we start getting some publicity out that we’re rounding up Horrigan’s haters. Sending abuse is one thing, but they won’t wanna be linked with any homicide. We can also try to get it trending. Once the message gets out we’re chasing down the trolls, it will spread like wildfire.’

  ‘Sounds like we’re giving ourselves more work. Throwing the net even wider,’ Sorrell said dubiously.

  ‘Easy enough to sort the wheat from the chaff. If all they’ve done is sent “Bryce is a cocksucker”, we can put them in the wasters’ pile. With just about every state’s law enforcement involved we’ll soon work out the real persons of interest from the keyboard warriors. We’ll find his killer,’ Haye said cockily.

  The captain looked anything but confident as his lieutenant drafted up a tweet:

  Baltimore Police @BaltimorePolice

  We are investigating the homicide of @BryceTripleB, whose life you once threatened. Contact us ASAP to help with our inquiries.

  ‘That should put the fear of God into them. These trolls are like schoolyard bullies. Hit them back and they crap themselves. Let’s get working through the list. With five or six of us, it shouldn’t take us more than a day to fire this out to all of Horrigan’s trolls. This is going to be fun.’ Haye beamed.

  ‘Homicides have just gotten a lot more complicated. But as far as I’m concerned, new tech or not, murders are all the same. Someone had a motive to kill this guy. Find that out and we’ve got our killer,’ Sorrell replied wryly.

  14 #WhoseBillIsItAnyway?

  Patricia Tolan @PastyGirl70

  My deepest sympathies and condolences to the friends and family of @BryceTripleB. I feel your pain.

  There was no doubt Patricia ‘Pasty’ Tolan had been expecting a call.

  ‘I suppose you’ll want to know how I feel about Bryce,’ she said, coolly adding, ‘Well, that depends if you plan to snatch me or allow me to supply my own photos.’

  It was a strange opening gambit from someone whose ex-fiancé had just been shot, execution-style. But, being in PR, she figured image always came first.

  ‘Your own pictures will be fine and I wouldn’t pull a fast one like that on you, anyway,’ April said, having fully intended to have a photographer ‘snatch’ Patricia leaving work or while they met for coffee. ‘Do you have any of you both together?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘You mean the ones I didn’t destroy? Sure, I’ll email them over before we meet,’ Patricia replied in her Edinburgh accent, which sounded more English than Scottish.

  Patricia ‘Pasty’ Tolan looked little like the picture she’d emailed of herself, glass of champagne in hand, laughing at an unheard joke at some function or another, beside a suited and booted Bryce Horrigan. There was a hint of faded glory emanating from the still slim figure of Tolan as she smoked a cigarette from behind oversized sunglasses, sitting cross-legged outside a coffee shop on Glasgow’s Royal Exchange Square and enjoying the late September sunshine. She had spotted the reporter long before she had seen her as April waddled past, with her hips swinging from side to side, towards the front door.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t bring a sneaky photographer as we agreed,’ Patricia announced, peering over the top of her shades.

  ‘Oh, there you are. What am I like? Trained observer, eh? And here I am walking straight past you,’ April replied in her usual cheery manner before they embraced briefly.

  April took her seat, using the empty chair for her overflowing handbag and assortment of jackets and layers. ‘Connor says I’m like a bag lady wherever I go,’ April chuckled.

  ‘I forgot Elvis had pitched up here again. Bryce had been so disappointed when he quit London. He said together they could really go places. That it was a retrograde step. Career suicide,’ Patricia said, blowing a plume of cigarette smoke out the corner of her thin lips.

  ‘I’d call it a wise decision. Connor’s still here and Bryce is dead.’ The words were out before April could stop herself.

  The first mention of the murder seemed to visibly jolt Patricia Tolan before she regained her cool, taking a long draw of her cigarette. She eventually replied, ‘Well, ain’t that the truth.’

  April announced they should ‘get down to business’, as she fished around in her bulging bag for her digital recorder – that she could barely work – and her notepad and pen.

  ‘I’d like to start with some basics if you don’t mind.’ April whizzed through the usual: name, age and where Patricia was from, before she got down to her relationship with Bryce.

  They had met at Fettes College in Edinburgh, where they were both destined for a life as lawyers until Bryce broke ranks and headed to the world of newspapers. Patricia
followed him and soon moved into PR, which she found time-consuming but incredibly easy. When Bryce relocated to London, she followed again, opening up her own PR agency with some very big corporate clients who were prepared to pay top dollar for someone with the ear of a national newspaper editor. But she admitted London had put their relationship under immense strain.

  April paused a moment before asking, ‘Because of other women?’

  It was a loaded question. Connor had told April about the time when he and Bryce had arrived at the Sunday Courier offices and an attractive, leggy, blonde reporter from New Zealand completely ignored Connor’s offer of a handshake, walking straight past him to Bryce, basically to swoon all over him. That night, the Kiwi, who had been in a long-term relationship with a photographer from the paper, stayed behind late then pounced as Bryce was leaving at 10pm, asking if he wanted a drink. She had joined Bryce, Connor and the other execs in a bar after work, where she never left his side. Connor became convinced Bryce wouldn’t be able to go to the toilet without her.

  From that moment on, Connor knew Bryce’s head had been well and truly turned. Horrigan had never been a ladies’ man and had been an item with Patricia for as long as Connor had known him. But suddenly he found himself completely irresistible to the opposite sex – and he was loving every minute of it.

  Surprisingly, Patricia was now defending her ex to April. ‘It was understandable, I guess. In his first week in the job, the fucking Prime Minister had us over for tea at Number 10. And if it wasn’t the politicians throwing themselves at his feet, it was women. I could keep my eye on him if we attended functions together; other nights he would be working late, but not late enough to explain the hours he came rolling in at. At first I went crazy, shouting and screaming and throwing things around. But I soon realised that’d get me nowhere – he’d just stay out even later the next night or wouldn’t come home at all. So I learned to bite my tongue and turn a blind eye.’

  Patricia paused to take another long draw of her cigarette, before adding, ‘Of course, none of that’s for publication. As far as quotes are concerned then I am of course shocked, shattered and appalled that his life should end so tragically. I’m also there for his family if they should need me. Although we split up, you can’t spend as long as I did with Bryce without still having feelings for him.’

  ‘When did you split up, incidentally?’ April asked.

  Patricia took another long draw on her ciggie, which was nearly done now. April was beginning to spot the routine, for whenever she needed to think before replying she would take a puff to gather her thoughts. This was one cool customer.

  ‘That,’ Patricia said, taking her time, ‘is complicated. I moved to New York with him when he became this big TV star. But within a month he decided I should stay in my own apartment, for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Obvious reasons?’ April asked. ‘As in, he was seeing someone new?’

  ‘Again, this part is not for publication, but yes, he was seeing someone else,’ Patricia admitted.

  April sensed a lead and probed deeper. ‘But this wasn’t just another starlet, was it? This was someone he cared about. Someone who was going to move in with him. Take your place?’

  Patricia did the whole cigarette routine again, before tilting her head to the side and letting out a long stream of smoke. ‘You’re very astute, aren’t you?’

  April chuckled. ‘I guess looks can be deceiving,’ she said whilst eyeing Patricia’s packet of cigarettes enviously, trying to resist asking for one after all her promises to her daughter Jayne.

  Patricia spotted the direction of her interrogator’s gaze and laughed loudly. ‘Trying to quit – or not start again? Here have one. I’m having another.’

  As April leaned forwards for a light, she couldn’t help noticing some scarring on Patricia’s alabaster white chest. It had only become visible when her blouse fell open as she lit April’s cigarette. It looked like an old injury, but was still red and angry. April chose not to mention it.

  ‘Yes, he had a new woman and he wanted me out of the way. I got set up in a tiny flat a few blocks from his penthouse. He even paid for it… at first.’

  ‘Were you working in New York?’ April continued, enjoying her cigarette almost too much.

  ‘That was the problem. I’d come on a tourist visa so couldn’t really work. I would have to go back home to apply. I asked Bryce if he’d help, but in truth he saw it as a perfect way to get shot of me. On the day my visa expired, I came home on a one-way ticket with no job to go to and no fiancé. Not a good day,’ Patricia said grimly.

  ‘Men, huh?’ April said sympathetically.

  ‘No. Bryce was unique. I knew he’d become huge in America. His pro-abortion stance was a perfect cause célèbre. It took the debate to the next level. It got him noticed.’

  ‘It certainly did. Do you think it cost him his life?’ April asked while stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray.

  ‘It’s America, isn’t it?’ she shrugged. ‘They shoot their own presidents, don’t they? So a television host would be no problem.’

  ‘Did it ever bother you, being called Pasty?’ April said out of personal curiosity more than anything else.

  Tolan threw her head back and laughed. ‘With this milk bottle skin? There wasn’t a lot I could about it do even if I did. Bryce always called me Pasty no matter how much I protested.’

  Patricia’s phone rang. She was immediately all business, promising the caller she’d phone back as soon as she finished a meeting. ‘Got to go,’ she said to April. ‘I need to speak to a potentially big customer. Let me pay though. I insist.’

  Before April could protest, Patricia had disappeared inside to settle the bill. She returned and gave April another of her cigarettes. ‘For later. You look like you need them as much as I do. Just do me one favour. Don’t make me sound like a needy psycho. And please don’t mention my nickname’s Pasty. I really do hate it. It’s not my fault I don’t take a tan.’

  April examined Patricia Tolan from top to bottom as the PR gathered her belongings and left. The reporter then asked for a light from a neighbouring table to smoke her gifted cigarette. She was just finishing it off when the waiter came out with the bill. ‘For your coffees, madam.’

  ‘But my friend paid?’ April protested.

  ‘No, madam,’ the waiter said, most insistently. ‘She came in to use the bathroom. She didn’t pay.’

  April settled up. She needed to get back to work and didn’t have time to argue.

  ***

  ‘Did she sing like a canary?’ Connor asked when April arrived back in their broom cupboard office.

  ‘Yes, sort of. I’ve got what we wanted but it was all very strange,’ she replied.

  ‘Strange how?’

  ‘She didn’t ask much about the investigation. You know, “Have they found anyone yet?” All the usual stuff you’d expect to ask if your ex had just been shot. She’s been through the mill with Bryce, all right. Treated her like crap. But I didn’t feel much sympathy for her. She’s the one who clung on to his shirt tails, ignoring his affairs and all the rest of it. And she had some weird scarring on her chest.’

  ‘How weird?’ Connor asked.

  ‘Like a burn. Or a scratch, or bite, or something. Whatever it was, it was deep and bloody sore looking.’

  ‘Recent?’

  ‘No. Healed. But not ancient.’

  ‘Unlike yourself,’ Connor said, now shifting his interest to his screen as he continued writing an updated report into Bryce’s death.

  ‘She also forgot to pay for the bill. Or maybe we paid twice. It was just very strange,’ April said, trailing off as she too got busy typing.

  15 #Room1410

  ABT News @ABTNews

  Police say motive unclear in @BryceTripleB homicide but are not ruling out pro-life fanatics.

  Captain Sorrell
looked harassed. Colonel Cowan was demanding results immediately and the whole police department felt like it was under siege.

  ‘So, we have a murder in a hotel room that was vacant,’ Sorrell said to Haye. ‘No one had booked it out. Horrigan’s killer got in with an all-access swipe card – which means a maid took a kickback, right?’

  ‘Don’t forget hookers too, cap’n,’ Haye replied. ‘Some of the high class ones strike a deal with hotel security. They get an empty room for a few hours or the whole night. Depends how much back work they’ve got going. Of course, there has to be more than just the security man in on the scam. You’re right, though, they also need a maid to clean up all the mess afterwards.’

  ‘That’s a lot of witnesses,’ Sorrell replied, doubting Haye’s hooker theory.

  ‘Not so, boss. The killer gets a call girl to book it out. Gets to the room. Pays her off. Maybe fucks her first to get his money’s worth. I know I would,’ Haye smiled.

  ‘Yeah, I know you would. But this killer isn’t a dumb-ass like you.’

  The captain looked at his computer screen, sighed with relief. ‘Finally,’ he said, ‘the CCTV footage.’

  A large media file had been emailed to him after the IT department had spliced together the timeline he’d requested. Sorrell intensely studied the black and white footage, which had been taken from the security cameras from the Baltimore City Hotel. It showed a man in a long coat, with a trilby hat that perfectly obscured his face from the ceiling-mounted cameras. He entered the lobby, striding purposefully past the front desk, like he knew exactly where he was going, and took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. The suspect kept his face pointing almost directly at the ground, meaning you couldn’t even tell his skin colour from the angle of the elevator’s cameras. The next shot showed the suspect leaving the elevator and walking towards room 1410, keeping as close to the left wall as possible, which wasn’t as well lit as the middle of the corridor. Sorrell thought it was no coincidence that the room was situated at the furthest point between the corridor’s cameras. Minutes later, a well-dressed black female left the room. In the elevator she indiscreetly thumbed through a wad of notes before putting them in her purse.