The Murderers' Club

by P. D. Martin

  “During the paintball challenge, he disarmed me in a couple of seconds. I recalled the moment and rehearsed the move a couple of times in my mind, and then I did it.”

  I nod, encouraging him to continue.

  “I darted to the left and pushed her arm with my left palm. The gun went off, but I was no longer in the bullet’s path and the gun flew across the room. I grabbed her wrist with my right hand and tried to restrain her.” His nose curls up in disgust. “But she still came at me. I punched her, hard. And I kept punching her, over and over again.” He wrings his hands together. “I finally stopped when I realized she was out cold—or dead. I don’t know which. I came to my senses and backed away from her. I don’t know how long I stood there. A while, I guess. Then I started to calm down, to think straight. I stopped looking at her bloodied face and got her handbag. There were some handcuffs in there, so I cuffed her to the railings of the staircase.

  “I checked the phone, but it was dead. I did a quick search of the house, but didn’t find anything except the laptop. I wanted to log on there and then, but I know how important it is for the computer to be in its original condition, not tampered with. I packed up the laptop and ran. I was out of my mind. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to get out of that house and I had to find the cops.”

  “Do you think you could find the house again, if we take you back to the station you came into?”

  He rubs his hand across the laptop. “I was…wild. Panic-stricken. I can’t even remember how long I was running for.”

  I bite my lip. He needs to remember. “We’ll help you.”

  “I’ve got to remember. If someone from the club comes to that house and finds that woman handcuffed to the stairs, Susie and Clair are dead.”

  27

  In the observation room, we discuss our options. One thing’s for sure, it’s time to act, and fast. Somebody, presumably Chester, will be back to pick up the woman and Jonathan’s body. And then the only thing we currently have going for us—the element of surprise—will be gone.

  Harris turns to Gerard. “What do you need?”

  “I’d like to speak to Jonathan, and get that laptop. Then we’ll be able to log on to this site and—”

  “We can pretend to be our female killer,” I suggest.

  Gerard nods. “We need to get a few copies of the hard drive first. The moment we use that laptop, it becomes dubious as evidence.” He pauses, and then elaborates. “We’ll be corrupting the evidence. Any time the computer is fired up, files are changed.”

  “It’s your call.” Harris looks at Gerard and me, handing over official authority. Now that the Internet is involved it’s federal law, under our jurisdiction, rather than state law.

  I take the lead. “Gerard and I will look after Jonathan. Maybe you guys can start looking at locations where this mystery house could be. Hopefully there aren’t that many fancy houses in the Catalina Foothills.”

  Harris, Carter and Stone exchange a look.

  “What?” I ask.

  Darren sighs. “Catalina Foothills is full of fancy houses.”

  “That’d be right,” I say. “It’s the story of this case.” I turn to leave the observation room and Gerard follows me. As we’re leaving, Harris starts divvying out tasks to Carter and Stone.

  In the interview room I introduce the pair. “Jonathan Cantor, this is Special Agent Gerard.”

  Jonathan looks Gerard over and shakes his hand. “So, you’re from the Cyber Crime Division?”

  “That’s me.” Gerard takes out his ID. “I’m sure you’ll want to have a close look at this.” He hands the folder to Jonathan.

  There’s an underlying communication, a knowledge between the pair, but it’s lost on me.

  Gerard turns to me to explain. “Jonathan will want to confirm my identity. Just to make sure he’s not being socially engineered.”

  My cases have never taken me far into the IT world, and I’m still none the wiser.

  Gerard explains. “Lots of hackers and IT experts are into social engineering. That’s how they get into a company’s network, steal your identity or whatever—by pretending to be someone they’re not. Think of a social engineer as a con man who uses IT as his predominant tool.”

  Jonathan examines the ID closely, even taking it out of the cover. Something he didn’t bother to do with mine. “So, you’re the expert, Agent Gerard?” Jonathan still keeps the laptop huddled close to his body.

  Gerard sighs. “I joined the Bureau just over six years ago. Before that I was into hacking. Big-time hacking.”

  “Such as?”

  Jonathan is grilling Gerard, not willing to hand over the laptop until he is satisfied Gerard won’t foul it up. And in Jonathan’s eyes, credentials aren’t about Gerard’s job history, they’re about his life before the Bureau.

  Gerard narrows his eyes slightly. “I think you’ve got more than two years of college experience in computers.”

  Jonathan doesn’t respond.

  Gerard sighs again, resigned to the fact he has to prove himself. “You’re younger than me, so I’ll start with the most recent. Did you hear anything about the alleged breach at Microsoft in 2000?”

  “Yeah.” Jonathan chuckles. “Rumor has it that some wizard took over Bill Gates’s machine for an hour before the IT boffins could shut him down.”

  Gerard translates for me. “Wizard refers to someone very high up in the hacking chain, someone who has advanced skills.” He turns back to Jonathan and gives him a little wink.

  “No!”

  “Yup.”

  “So you’re CommMaster?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “CommMaster?” I ask.

  Gerard turns to me again. “My hacker name.” He clears his throat. “Back in my pre-Bureau days.”

  “I wondered why you disappeared into thin air. Thought you must have been in prison, with one of those no-computers orders.”

  “Well, that was one path. But I decided to steer away from the dark side.”

  I roll my eyes. Typical, a Star Wars reference. “Okay, this is getting way too geeky for me, guys.”

  Gerard smiles. “Point taken.” He turns to Jonathan. “So, did you notice anything unusual about this baby?” Gerard glances at the laptop, but doesn’t try to take possession of it.

  “I’ve gotta admit, man, I just grabbed it. Had a quick look around for any other gadgets but didn’t see anything,” Jonathan replies. “It’s got a cellular modem card, so better security and no need to be tethered to a modem or dial-up connection to get online.”

  “But you haven’t started it?” I ask, still unable to believe Jonathan didn’t fire it up, even for a few minutes.

  “No!” both men reply emphatically.

  I hold my hands up. “Whoa.”

  Gerard looks at me. “It’s possible to install a fail-safe on a computer that wipes the hard drive if you don’t follow certain commands at the start.”

  “Like what?”

  Jonathan responds for Gerard. “You may have to hold the shift key down during the whole start-up process. You don’t do that, and the hard drive is dust. That’s why I resisted the temptation.”

  “I see.”

  Gerard nods in Jonathan’s direction. “You did good. Especially, given…” Gerard motions to the mirror. “Well, I’ve heard everything.” He leaves it at that—no need to remind Jonathan of what he’s been through in the past few weeks, especially the past twelve hours.

  Gerard unzips his bag of goodies and starts taking various gadgets out. Most things I recognize—a few external hard drives, a couple of memory sticks, cables, CDs, floppy disks. But I’d still like more information. As they say, knowledge is power.

  “What’s all that stuff?” I ask.

  “Think of it as the first-aid box for computer forensics.” He grins. “My doctor’s bag. I’ve got sanitized hard drives, a few essential software programs and boot disks like Safeback, EnCase, Forensic Toolkit, Net Threat Analyzer, DataLifter
, The Password Recovery Toolkit—”

  I hold up my hand. “Okay, I get the picture.”

  He shrugs. “I’ve got the tools to get info out of the laptop.”

  I smile. “Now you’re talking my language. I would like to know what you’re doing, though. As you go.”

  “Sure. In fact, you can be my witness, particularly if we end up firing this baby up and finding the Web site. You can testify that I took copies before we logged on to the site.”

  I nod. Like all things in law enforcement, this has to be done the right way. Nothing worse than knowing the perp did it, but them getting off through some legal loophole, like challenging the evidence-collection process.

  Gerard starts work on the laptop. “Okay, the first thing I’m going to do is take a copy of the hard drive, as it is now. I’m removing the hard drive and I’ll hook it up to my system as an external drive and make an exact copy.” His hands work quickly as he talks. “For evidence we’ll need copies of the files precisely as they are on the hard drive, date and time stamped, et cetera.” He rubs his stubble. “It will also protect us if there are any trips or traps installed, like an auto-delete facility.” He moves across to his FBI laptop. “The contents of this hard drive could be crucial to the case,” he says, holding the piece of hardware up.

  He’s got that right.

  “They’ve kept the hard drive pretty clean so it won’t take very long.”

  Jonathan peers over Gerard’s shoulder while I sit down, waiting.

  About ten minutes later, Gerard announces that the copying process is complete. “Okay, let’s fire this baby up using my Windows Evidence Acquisition Boot Disk.” He looks at me, anticipating my question. “It will start the computer up using my copy of the operating system.”

  I nod.

  Gerard inserts the disk and powers up the laptop. “Mmm…” he says.

  “What’s wrong?” I lean forward, worried that our only lead may be toast.

  “The laptop has been set up with a BIOS password.”

  “Not surprising, I guess.” Jonathan is obviously in the know.

  “No,” Gerard agrees.

  “What’s a BIOS password?” I ask.

  “When a computer is turned on, first the CPU is started with an electrical pulse—” Gerard points to the power cable “—next the BIOS or Basic Input and Output System comes into play, to test the fundamental components of the system. It’s before we even get to the boot stage, before I can use my disk.”

  It sounds tricky, but neither Gerard nor Jonathan seems worried. “So it’s a problem?” I ask.

  “No. I just need to check the FBI database for a backdoor password.”

  I nod slowly. “Okay,” I say, feeling too much like a dumb blonde for my liking.

  “It’ll only take a minute or so.” Gerard’s already working quickly on his FBI laptop.

  I stand up but resist the urge to pace. Lucky for my patience, Gerard is good to his word and roughly one minute later the laptop is whirring to life.

  “Excellent,” I say.

  “We’re not home free yet.” Gerard stares at the screen. “There’s probably a Windows password required.”

  A few seconds after he says it, an on-screen message prompts us to log in. Gerard hits Ctrl, Alt, Delete and a log-in box pops up. The username is “bunker” but the password field is blank.

  “Damn,” I say, sinking into the chair.

  “So, what do we do?”

  “We’ve got two options. We can get the password from the charming lady-friend of Jonathan’s, if she’s alive, or we can try to figure out the password ourselves.”

  “What about all those fancy tools you rattled off?”

  “One of them is for passwords, but it takes time.”

  I bite my lip. “Okay, Jonathan and I will work with Detectives Carter and Stone to look for the house and the mystery woman. You can stay here and—” I wave my hand at the computer “—play with your toys.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Gerard smiles but then moves quickly into professional mode, head down. “I want to see what’s on this hard drive, too.”

  “Jonathan, let’s go.”

  Jonathan pauses for a moment, looking at the laptop. I can tell where he’d rather be. “Don’t worry, it’s in good hands,” I say.

  He stays still, but only for a second or two. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  We leave the interview room and I lead the way to the Homicide cubicles. Darren and Stone have already stuck up a massive map on a whiteboard and have circled a few locations.

  Darren notices us coming toward him and looks up. “Any luck?”

  I shrug. “Looks like the computer forensics could take a while.”

  “Whoever set up that laptop knew what they were doing,” Jonathan adds.

  Darren nods, and turns his attention to the map. He points to a red circle. “This is where Jonathan was picked up, on the ten.” Darren’s referring to the highway number. He looks at Jonathan. “You’ve really got no idea how long you were running for?”

  Jonathan looks upset, disturbed.

  “Jonathan, you’ve got a photographic memory,” I say. “I know stress interferes with memory, but try to clear your mind and picture the house.”

  “You’re right, you’re right.” He closes his eyes but his brow stays furrowed. After about a minute he opens his eyes again. “Shit, all I can think about is that woman, and Susie and Clair.” He shudders as he says “that woman.” He’s just come off the back of a major trauma.

  I could tell him that he has to remember this to help Susie and Clair, to get them out of the bunker, but I know that’s part of the problem. Not only was he suffering major anxiety when he escaped from that house, but now he’s also under a huge amount of pressure. Susie’s and Clair’s lives are in his hands, and he knows it.

  “Darren, I might take a moment with Jonathan.”

  “Sure, use meeting room two, down the end of the corridor.” Darren motions to the northeast corner of the floor. “We’ll keep looking at the map.”

  Jonathan stares at the map, reluctant to move. “Shit!” His stress levels are peaking again.

  Darren puts his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We know this area. We’ll find that house. We can do sweeps in a chopper, looking for fountains.” Darren smiles. “Besides, there are only a couple of areas it could be.”

  Jonathan nods and his brow seems to unfurrow ever so slightly.

  But I know from what Darren told me about the area that it’s likely lots of houses up that way have fountains. Again, Jonathan doesn’t need to know this fact, not now.

  I lead Jonathan down the corridor and into the meeting room. Once inside I close the blinds and shut the door.

  “What’s going on?” Jonathan backs into the corner of the room.

  I’ve underestimated his anxiety. I’m closing the blinds to give us some privacy and help him relax, but it has the opposite effect. I twist the Venetians open immediately. “Sorry, I was trying to give us some privacy, that’s all.”

  Jonathan moves away from the wall, but I can tell this one moment has undone some of the trust I’ve built with him. I sit down to reduce any perceived physical threat. I need to rebuild that trust, fast.

  “Jonathan, I know what it feels like, I really do.”

  “Because you’re a profiler,” he says dismissively, like I couldn’t possibly know what it’s like to be in his shoes. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I put myself in the victims’ and the perpetrators’ shoes. I get into their skin.” I pause. “But it’s more than that.”

  He looks confused.

  “I know what it’s like to be targeted. By a serial killer.”

  He studies my face before speaking. “Really?” He sits down, not next to me, but he leaves only one seat between us—a normal distance in terms of personal space when you don’t know someone.

  “There was a case six months ago when things got…personal.” I pa
use. “And others were relying on me, so I know that pressure, too.”

  “Susie and Clair need my help.”

  I nod. “But it’s better to focus on what’s happening here, not on them. It will do your head in.”

  “Did it do your head in?”

  “Almost.” And that is the truth. “But you know what you said before, about evil?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re right. There is evil out there and I believe I can make a difference. And so can you. You’ve already made a difference.”

  He snorts. “How?”

  “Jonathan, you escaped from a serial killer. She may be a woman and physically weaker than you, but don’t underestimate her. She killed Malcolm.”

  “I’m no hero. To be honest, I survived through lack of ego. Malcolm wouldn’t have thought it strange that some woman was coming onto him. I did.”

  “You saw her for what she was—a predator. And you’ve come to us and filled in the blanks on this investigation. My God, Jonathan, do you realize how much you’ve done?”

  He stands up. “It’s not enough. Not if…” He trails off.

  “You’re not done yet. You can help us, one way or another. If you don’t remember the location—” I shrug my shoulders “—so what? We’ve got other tools at our disposal to find her, find the members of this Murderers’ Club and find the bunker and your friends.” I say the words to reassure him, but I know how important timing is. We need to find the house today. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today.

  I continue. “Just take a few minutes to relax. And think back to what happened after you handcuffed the woman.”

  He closes his eyes. “Okay. Okay, I can do this.” He takes a deep breath and gives his arms a couple of shakes, like an athlete about to run a race. “I handcuffed her and then searched the house.” He speaks slowly, emphasizing each action. “On the kitchen table I spotted the laptop. I scooped it up and checked out the upstairs but couldn’t find anything else.” He pauses. “I ran out the door and slammed it shut, then down a gravel path, around the fountain. And then there was a fork.” His brow furrows, as he tries to remember the details. “The path came to a fork. I knew the helipad was to the left, so I went to the right. Eventually I came to a large, white brick wall and iron gates. I ran through the gates and onto a street.”