Double Trouble

by Scott Wittenburg

  “Would you like anything else, Ron?” Natalie asked her boss.

  “No, thanks. This is fine.”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” she said before leaving.

  Fleming took a sip of coffee and entered a few keystrokes on the computer. The screen came to life with a display of numbers that looked like URLs, the myriad of web addresses spanning three columns. He scrolled down a few pages, stopped and clicked on one of the site addresses. Alan was as shocked as he was repulsed by what he saw. At the top of the page were several thumbnail images of children engaged in various acts of sex—children with adults, children with other children and combinations of both. A few of these kids were only toddlers, boys and girls alike. The oldest kids appeared to be in their early teens. In bold pink letters below the images was the name of the site: Kiddies Por Vous!

  “This is just one of hundreds if not thousands of similar sites currently accessible on the internet. Pedophiles go here in search of kiddie porn to add to their collection. As you can see, there isn’t any discrimination between ages or genders of the victims.”

  “How easy is it for somebody to access these sites? How are they able to stay in existence for that matter?”

  “It’s actually very difficult to access these sites. And unless you have been cleared by the assholes who host them and paid them a lot of money in advance, they are virtually impossible to access.”

  “So how—”

  “How am I able to access them?” Fleming interjected. “By way of a software program I’ve been developing for the past five years. I’ve managed to write a program that works in tandem with other programs and search engines that allows me to locate deep websites like this. But simply getting on the site homepage isn’t enough—not by any stretch.”

  Fleming scrolled down the page to a link that read, “Members Only.” He clicked on the link and landed on a page stating that he had accessed a page that was unavailable without a valid username and password; and that cookies must be enabled.

  “As you can see, the homepage is a dead-end street. So what we have is an index page that is accessible but not navigable or traceable. Law enforcement agencies are able to find these sites as well, but not nearly as many as I can in a single sitting, or as quickly. But finding out who’s hosting these sites and pandering the porn is more often than not a major stumbling block. A stumbling block that I have been able to remove with considerable success.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  He closed the page, quit the program he was running and launched another one from his desktop. In the URL window that appeared he typed in several characters and landed on a blank page containing nothing but a single login field. He entered several keystrokes and there was a brief pause before another window appeared. The window simply read, “Welcome to Gracie.”

  “Her namesake—I wrote this software in Gracie’s honor,” he explained before clicking on the text. A huge number three appeared in the middle of the page, followed by a two and then a one.

  “We’re in,” he said, his face set in satisfaction. “Now I’ll show you what this baby can do.”

  He picked up a notebook and began typing furiously, his eyes never leaving the numbers he had scrawled down. He finally stopped, paused a moment and then hit the return button with a note of finality. The screen stalled for a few moments, blinked a couple of times and then suddenly the entire screen was filled with what appeared to be the computer’s desktop.

  “Did it crash?” Alan asked.

  Fleming shook his head. “Watch this.”

  He brought the cursor down to the dock and opened the mail program. Alan realized that the desktop was that of a Macintosh computer and Fleming was using a PC. All of a sudden everything looked very familiar—

  This was his own computer!

  He stared at his email messages in utter disbelief, realizing that they were older ones, perhaps from a couple of days before.

  “How are you able to get into my iMac?” he asked.

  “The same way I can get into anybody else’s computer: by hacking.”

  “But how can you do that? I mean, I’ve heard of hacking into databases and servers—stuff like that. But to be able to get into my personal computer? I don’t get it.”

  “I’m going to level with you. There are plenty of other hackers out there that can do what I’ve done to your computer. Ordinary folks have no idea just how far hacking has come in the last few years. With the advent of GPS and the ability to track everybody’s everyday moves, where they go while internet surfing through a myriad of worms, viruses, and the like, I’m surprised things haven’t gotten more out of hand than they have.

  “But finding out what Alan Swansea has been up to is nothing compared to finding out what the people running these kiddie porn sites are up to. That’s because they have been designed to remain anonymous and unsearchable through a thick cloak of firewalls and security precautions. That my friend, is what Gracie is able to accomplish: to cut through the security and expose the goods.”

  “So are you saying that you can control my computer from this computer? Right now?”

  “Not exactly. What you’re looking at is the state of your iMac three days ago—the day I invaded your hard drive. I planted a little bug that basically duplicated your entire hard disk in a matter of minutes and then transmitted the results back to me. Unfortunately my program can’t hack into a computer that is powered off. The good news is that everything you had on your computer then has probably changed very little in such a short time, so I have plenty of data to search through at will. For example, let’s take a look at your photos.”

  He closed the Mail program, located Alan’s Aperture program and opened it up. Like lightening, a small portion of his photo library showed up on the screen in tiny thumbnails. On the left was the directory for every album he had ever created, a vault of no less than a couple of thousand images he’d taken over the years. Photos uploaded from investigations, vacation pix, before and after shots of his house during remodeling, images of him and Julie goofing around.

  All of it at this stranger’s fingertips.

  “So you do have total control of my computer,” he declared.

  “Bascially, yes. Scary, isn’t it? To think that I can sit here at my leisure and examine your life, professionally and personally, at will just by making a few keystrokes.”

  Fleming had made his point. Alan was no stranger to computer hacking and he had in fact used the skills of Charlie Ling several times to help him gather info on his cases. But he had never fathomed what it would be like for his own computer to actually be hacked and his life to become an open book for somebody to peruse. He had to admit, he felt very vulnerable right now.

  “So this is obviously how you knew I was working a case in Milldale.”

  “Correct. You keep a very organized, detailed calendar of your appointments. It’s a virtual journal, I daresay—it didn’t take much effort to find out what you’ve been up to with Ms. Linville. I know you’re not thrilled that I’ve been eavesdropping on your life, and for that I apologize. I only did it to illustrate the potential Gracie has. And to be quite frank, to help win you over and take the case.”

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed, or that I’m not fascinated with your potential to thwart crime. But what can I possibly do to help you? How do I fit in, other than being a PI who happens to live in Columbus as you have already pointed out.”

  “There are a number of reasons why I want you on this case. For one, you obviously have a passion for what you do. I’ve studied in depth your investigation of Yuri Popov and his gang of traffickers. I know that you originally took the case because of your friendship with Beth Lindsay—pro bono, no less—because you were intrigued by what you had discovered about the lost girls. And that once you learned how insidious and widespread human sex trafficking has become abroad and in this country as well, you suddenly became a m
an with a mission. And as a result of your sleuthing skills and passion, you were able to bust one of the biggest Russian kingpins in the human trafficking industry. And rescue those young girls from being subjected to the same fate as Gracie was.

  “I have tried without success to find out who was responsible for kidnapping and exploiting Gracie. Because it happened several years ago, the landscape of sex trafficking in the Boston area has changed. Like rival gangs, the cretins who control trafficking often have turf wars and there is a totally new regime controlling Boston now from what I’ve discovered. It’s not been easy admitting that I may never be able to find out who was responsible for trafficking Gracie, I can tell you that. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other fish out there to fry.

  “So I’ve homed in on Miami. I chose to focus on this particular operation after finding out that their victims are exclusively young children and it’s a pretty well established operation there. Now that I’ve learned that Columbus is a key destination for some of these children and my investigator is out of action, you are the perfect man to take over. I want to snuff out this operation, Alan. Not just for Gracie, but for the children that are being exploited right now as we speak, in your very own home town!”

  The man delivered a convincing argument, Alan had to admit. Fleming also knew how to tug at the heartstrings by zeroing in on the fact that this atrocity was happening on his own turf. Alan knew he was sold, but unsure of the logistics. He was on a case already and letting Amanda take it over would not only be unprofessional but foolhardy. Things in Milldale could get very dicey with the likes of Sheriff Foley being a player in the case and possibly even the perpetrator.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t like he would be leaving the country by taking Fleming’s case. He would only be a couple hours away from Amanda. Would that be enough to warrant letting her take over, if only for a couple of days until he got a feel for what he was getting himself into in Columbus?

  “What more can you tell me about this operation?”

  Fleming smiled, sensing he had all but won him over.

  CHAPTER 12

  Amanda held her breath and inserted the SD card Alan had found in the trunk of Jodi Wilburn’s VW into the card reader. She prayed there was something on it that would be useful to the case. The image of the card popped up on the computer screen and she double-clicked it.

  It was blank. The card was totally empty.

  So much for that, she thought.

  She removed the card and set it aside, still staring blankly at her uncle’s laptop screen. What in the hell had made her think she could take over this case while Alan was gone in the first place? She wasn’t a sleuth—she was in marketing with a business major. And here she was playing private eye, pretending she knew what she was doing.

  She suddenly recalled what Alan had once told her—how he often had doubts about what he was doing while on a case and how his private investigation classes had been utterly useless. That the truth of it was, having an overwhelming desire to unveil the unknown was the only credential he really needed to do this job.

  Well, she certainly had that. She wanted nothing more right now than to find out who murdered Jodi Wilburn and get Nick off the hook.

  She sighed and felt a little better. She could do this.

  Blaine Evans. That was her next order of business. She needed to find out where he was on the day Jodi was murdered. He’d said he had a lawn maintenance business and she assumed he worked from his home. How could she find out if he really was on the job the morning of May thirtieth?

  She had no idea. If he did in fact work out of his home there would be no way to check his records or appointments for that day without breaking and entering. She was not about to do that. So what else could she do?

  She snapped her fingers. Facebook! She recalled that Blaine was a habitual social media user—one of those people who posts everything like when they shit last, as if anybody gave a damn. She hadn’t even considered checking to see if he had posted anything on the day of Jodi’s murder—she had only visited his Facebook page to find out what he looked like. She opened the web browser, logged into her Facebook account and typed Blaine Evans into the search field. After his page loaded, she scrolled slowly down through his postings, grateful that his privacy setting was set so that anybody who landed on his page could peruse it without having to friend him.

  She clicked on the link for older posts at the bottom of the page, searched his May entries and located the thirtieth. Blaine had made five posts that day, beginning at 8:14 AM:

  Must have overdone it last night, feel hungover as shit! Gotta cut some old lady’s grass in fifteen minutes or she’s gonna fire my ass. Would rather stay in bed than have to work at this ungodly hour but what the fuck?

  His next entry was at 10:17 AM:

  Finished Goldman’s yard and heading to my next one. At least I’m starting to feel half alive.

  The next post was at 12:04:

  Worked up a sweat so i’m throwing down a cold one at Jack’s. One more job and I’m done for the day. Damn this Bud’s going down good!

  His finals posts involved his final lawn job, with Blaine whining about how worn out he was and how he couldn’t wait to get blasted after dinner at McDonalds and a shower.

  Unless he had only made up this boring blow-by-blow account of his humdrum life to establish an alibi, Blaine Evans couldn’t have killed Jodi. And since the guy was such a dullard, Amanda seriously doubted he had the foresight to cover his ass in this way.

  So now what?

  Alan had specifically told her not to investigate Sheriff Foley and she had no intention of defying him. But he had been referring to her tailing him and potentially putting herself in harm’s way. What could be wrong with taking another approach, a safer one?

  She hadn’t trusted the fat slob from the very moment she laid eyes on him at Jodi’s house. She couldn’t help but notice the way he had looked her over—the same way middle-aged horny bastards gape at women with their tongues hanging out. As disgusting as the mere thought of it was, she would be willing to bet the good sheriff would let his guard down a little if some chick started flirting with him. Even some chick he wasn’t particularly fond of.

  That chick being herself.

  Amanda hadn’t told Alan that she had already done a little snooping around after he’d made it clear she didn’t want him to investigate Foley. She figured if she had told him, he might have gotten pissed at her or overly paranoid. But she couldn’t undo what was already done, so what the hell? She had been able to find out among other things where the sheriff lived and that he hung out at the Holiday Inn lounge during his off time on a fairly regular basis. He was divorced, probably lonely and from what she’d heard, quite a womanizer after a few drinks. Why any woman would ever consider shacking up with the overweight redneck was beyond her comprehension, but she knew from experience that anything was possible in this one-horse town.

  Her mind made up, she would drop by the Holiday Inn tonight on the off chance that Foley would be there. She had a feeling that without Alan at her side, the creep just might loosen up enough to give her what she wanted from him.

  She and Uncle Ken went to dinner at Milldale’s only Mexican restaurant and spent most of the time talking about old times, her job at UrbanGroup and her life in Columbus. There had been little to discuss regarding the case other than what she had learned about Blaine Evans. She sensed that her uncle was disappointed that Alan had left so abruptly despite his insistence that he was fine with it. This had made her want to break the case all that much more and she now found herself anxious to encounter the sheriff.

  After brushing her hair and putting on more makeup than usual, Amanda looked herself over in the mirror. She had decided to wear a low cut blouse and designer jeans that accentuated her body curves just for the sheriff. She told her uncle she was going to look up some old friends and told him not to wait up for her.

  It was almost ten o’clock when s
he pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn. She looked for Foley’s gray Suburban but didn’t see it. The place was already crowded judging by the packed lot. She finally found a space, parked and headed for the entrance.

  The pulsating bass of a live band was the first thing to greet her ears as she made her way into the lounge. Throngs of people were standing around and all of the tables were filled as she fought her way over to the bar. She ordered a Margarita and surveyed the scene while waiting nearly five minutes to get her drink. The band was playing a cover version of Sweet Home Alabama, reminding her of how incredibly backward Milldale was. The song was a moldy oldie back when she had lived here and now seemed like an overly covered relic—a symbol of how nothing ever changed here.

  Taking a sip, she decided to get away from the packed bar and move toward the rear of the place. For a town that was economically challenged, the Holiday Inn was an ironic anomaly. It wasn’t even midnight and the place was hopping with half the customers already shit-faced or well on their way.

  Amanda headed toward a less congested area in the corner and thought she saw somebody familiar sitting at one of the tables. As she drew closer, she realized that it was Jodi’s old friend, Summer Moore sitting with a couple of other girls.

  “Hi Summer,” she greeted.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned—it’s the detective! How the hell are ya?”

  “Fine. Small world, isn’t it?”

  “You can say that again—hey, have a seat.”

  “Thanks.”

  “This is Amanda, she’s in town looking into Jodi’s murder.”

  “Hi, I’m Carly,” one girl said.

  “Nice to meet you,” Amanda said.

  “Christine,” said the other. “So where do you live, Amanda?”

  “Columbus. I used to live here a long time ago. I was good friends with Nick.”

  “Her uncle is Ken Barker, the lawyer,” Summer explained. “He’s Nick’s attorney.”

  “Oh, I get it. You think Nick’s innocent and you’re trying to prove it,” Carly said.