Dead Deceiver (17 page)

It was Monday morning and Beth had been working in her office when Lew called to see if there had been any new developments in the spam investigation. On hearing that things were quiet at the moment, Lew told her of the break-in at Dr. Schumacher’s.

“I would like to stop by your office and introduce you to Bruce Peters from the Wausau Crime Lab,” said Lew. “He may need your help with the computer situation. Do you have the time to follow us out to Dr. Schumacher’s place?”

To everyone’s relief, she did. After a quick introduction to Bruce and a discussion of the need for a computer specialist to be involved, Beth had not hesitated to follow them out to Patience’s home.

“What do you mean no need to worry about the hard drive?” asked Lew, astonishment on her face as she closed the door to the den door behind her. “I just told Bruce on the drive out here that we suspect the data thief who has been illegally harvesting emails from the college network may have destroyed the laptop in order to cover his tracks.

“I also told him that the illegal network access must have originated from Patience Schumacher’s laptop since our thief had to have her user name and password to get into the network. Am I wrong about that?”

“Oh, you are quite right, Chief Ferris,” said Beth, her voice matter of fact and unhurried. “But during the telephone conference call late yesterday afternoon with Julie, Dani and I were warned that Dr. Schumacher’s laptop could hold valuable data, so we decided it would be wise to put it in a safe place as soon as possible.

“Right after our meeting, I called Dr. Schumacher and arranged for Dani to drop off a replacement computer. Her laptop is in a locked closet at the college.”

“Excuse me,” said Lew, checking her cellphone, “I have a call from the switchboard. Doc, would you take over please?” She walked into the next room.

“Beth, when exactly was it that you dropped off the new computer?” asked Osborne.

“Maybe three o’clock—right around then.”

“So, Bruce,” said Osborne, “we know Dr. Schumacher went out for an early dinner with friends, which is when we think the break-in occurred.” Bruce jotted the timeframe down in his notebook.

“Okay,” said Bruce, “got it. And then?”

“Since then, Dani—”

“Excuse me,” said Bruce, “but who is Dani?”

“I’m sorry,” said Beth, “I should have explained this earlier. Dani is a student of mine at the college, and a very good little computer tech who knows our system well. She and I have emailed Julie data footprints from the laptop as well copies of the spam messages, which Julie has forwarded to her team of techs.

“Perhaps Chief Ferris has mentioned already that Julie’s crew has been working on similar email fraud investigations. When they saw our data, they immediately picked up on a pattern that confirmed something very, very interesting: our Wheedon College interloper has set up hosting in China with access to as many as twenty-five servers.”

“Whew, that’s amazing,” said Bruce. “That was fast.”

“Well, Dani was good enough to spend most of Sunday emailing all the information that we’ve collected so far.” Beth turned to Lew, “I am not worrying over the hours she works. Does that seem okay to you, Chief Ferris?”

“Beth, whatever works,” said Lew. “If there is a problem with payment, I’ll negotiate that with the college. I know the family responsibilities you have so Dani’s involvement is critical.

“Beth heads up the computer technology department at the college but she also has four children, a husband and the funeral arrangments for a close friend of hers who was murdered last week,” Lew explained to Bruce. “Beth, whatever works for you, please.

“What I cannot stress enough is this: the minute either you or Dani see any sign of the spammer on the college computer network—and if that means they may be on the campus—you must alert me ASAP. Surveillance and apprehension is my duty. I cannot allow either of you to be placed in harm’s way. Is that understood?”

“Yes. And I have made that clear to Dani, Chief Ferris,” said Beth.

“Good,” said Lew. “Sorry to have interrupted, please go on filling us in on the details.”

“Sure,” said Beth with a nod. “Julie explained to us that her tech team knew right away what to look for because it is happening everywhere. Early this morning, I had an email from Julie saying they were able to determine that whoever is doing this has harvested around over a hundred thousand student email addresses from the tech college network across the country—and is currently running thirty or more spam campaigns using at least that many domain names. Did I mention that Julie told us they make money selling the addresses to other spammers? Possibly as much as a million bucks in this case. That’s in addition to the money they make off the fake offers.”

“Wow,” said Bruce, “this is hard to believe.”

“Currently, they’ve been seducing the students with supposed discounts on smartphones,” said Beth. “First thing this morning I made sure that all the colleges affected will have sent out warnings, but that may be a little too late for several thousand kids. Our worry now is that the spammers may use the students’ credit card information to commit identity theft.”

“I have a question,” said Bruce. “Who’s this Julie person?”

“Julie’s an expert on digital forensics,” said Lew. “She’s a colleague of Gina Palmer’s, a friend of Doc’s and mine—a professor of journalism who has a cabin up here. She’s helped our department out in the past with database-driven investigations. Julie has a broader reach when it comes to this type of investigation.

“Currently, she is supervising a team of computer engineers contracted by several major corporations that have experienced fraud involving spam and identity theft. Under the umbrella of ‘digital forensics’ they are designing software that can track illegal use of computers internationally. Pretty impressive and, I assure you, new to me. Does that answer your question?”

Bruce nodded, rapt. “Please, keep talking—you’ve got my attention. I’m thinking of getting into computer forensics myself. This is fascinating, and it’s all happening at a small college in Loon Lake?”

As they spoke, Osborne picked his way through the debris. In one corner, a sketchbook had been torn into tiny strips. Only the cover remained in one piece; on it, Charles had written his name and phone number and the words “in case this is lost, please return to.” Whoa, thought Osborne, looks like Charles’ name alone was enough to set off the intruder.

“Bruce,” said Lew, “the reality is simple: the crime may be occurring via the Internet but the perpetrator is launching it from a computer located somewhere under our noses here on the Wheedon College campus. I have to apprehend that person or people—and soon.” Lew shook her head, “what frustrates me is the fact this is a federal crime and I’m getting no support from the FBI.”

Beth nodded in agreement. “I’m with you, Chief. And besides the fraud, the spammer has installed viruses that have infected the hard drives on a number of our computers. It’s costing us a lot of money.

“But I’ll tell you one thing: after this experience, I’m going to recommend we develop a curriculum on computer forensics.”

“That will put Wheedon College on the map,” said Bruce.

“You better believe it,” said Lew, thinking as she spoke how lucky it was that they had had Gina Palmer to make the connection to the digital forensic experts. Better yet—Wheedon College was equally fortunate to have someone like Beth on staff.

“What if you didn’t have advice from this woman Julie?” asked Bruce. “What then?”

“Chief Ferris and I talked about this,” said Beth with a nod towards Lew, “We—meaning the college—would be at the mercy of the spammer until whoever it is decided they had mined enough money and information from the students and moved on to a new target.”

“How much money are we talking about?” asked Bruce.

“Yes,” asked Osborne, “what is the estimate at this point?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Beth,” said Lew, “but Julie advised us it could run up to a million dollars or more. These poor college kids have given up their credit cards and bank information thinking all these offers are coming from the school. Now that the spam is making its way through this network to all the other tech colleges,” Lew raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness, “who knows how much damage will be done.”

“That much?” Osborne was stunned. “Unbelievable the reach the spammers have once they’re inside an entire network. All that from a single, solitary computer?”

“Right,” said Beth. “We’ve been able to prove that the initial spam was sent under Dr. Schumacher’s name and the data footprint confirms it originated from her laptop. We have to assume that whoever is at the heart of this operation must have—or had—access to this house. Dr. Schumacher has a desktop computer in her office at the college, but the home office laptop was the source of the initial messages.”

“Her husband maybe?” asked Bruce, his eyebrows raised. “Or kids? Does she have teenagers?”

“No children. And, yeah, the husband is a definite suspect, which is why I made sure that Dr. Schumacher would not be here this morning. The woman is overwrought as it is so until I have enough evidence to consider the husband ‘a person of interest’ …” Lew hesitated as she gazed around the room.

“Given what Beth just told us about substituting a computer—one with different settings and no access to the college network—for the original laptop makes it easy to explain what we see here: our spammer was so upset to find the original laptop gone that he went berserk. Threw a homicidal temper tantrum Thank goodness Patience was not home or she may have been assaulted.”

“Wow,” said Bruce, repeating himself and shaking his head. “I guess it’s not surprising if you estimate that the access has been worth over a million bucks—but he has to realize you’re on to him and it’s only a matter of time. But, hey, how does this person access the money?”

“It’s quite easy,” said Beth. “Payments from credit card orders and fees from other spammers are made through a legitimate service like PayPal and that money is forwarded to an account in a bank somewhere. It can be traced but by the time that happens—”

“The account has been emptied,” said Lew.

“Or moved off-shore,” volunteered Osborne.

“Hmm,” Bruce chewed on a knuckle. “Why the hell would he leave semen on the bed? If your person of interest is the expert he appears to be then my guess is he’s committed previous crimes, and if he’s been caught in the past I may well get a DNA match off our criminal databases.”

“Maybe he wants to be caught?” said Lew, turning to face the group. “Maybe this is a sick person? Maybe he’s someone who has
easy
access to the house. Patience said her husband is out of town at a conference but we have no proof of that. Yet.”

“How many people have had access to these two rooms?” asked Bruce.

“Six of us,” said Lew. “Myself and Doc, Patience and her husband Charles, of course.

“Plus Dani and myself,” said Beth. “Dani brought in the new laptop but both of us may have touched the desk, the router, the modem, the cords …”

“Then I would like to fingerprint everyone,” said Bruce. “Makes it easier to isolate any rogue prints that might reinforce any DNA match I may get.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Lew.

“Something else I’d like to mention,” said Beth. “When I was working with Dani at the college yesterday, our vice president of operations pulled me aside to ask about the spamming. When I told him that Dr. Schumacher had nothing to do with the spam that appeared to originate from her, he was quite relieved and said he would notify the board of trustees ASAP.

“Chief, I know you’ve said that Dr. Schumacher is certain she is being stalked here and at the college but I can’t imagine anyone related to the college administration being involved.

“I mean, for heaven’s sake, our annual budget depends on funding generated by the Schumacher family trust and Dr. Schumacher has complete control over that. But we know she is often less confident than she appears. She has been prone to feeling persecuted before. That worries those of us who work with her.”

“Paranoid, in other words?” asked Bruce.

“Could be,” said Lew. “Her husband, Charles, has shared with us that at one time she thought that he was stealing from her.”

Bruce’s eyebrows rose. “Not the case, I take it?”

“Not according to him,” said Lew.

“We’ve got an unusual situation here,” said Osborne. “Patience and her husband met just last year when he was hired by the general contractor remodeling this house to do interior detail work. You know, paint walls, put up molding—that sort of thing. She fell in love with the guy and they got married. Bang, just like that. Now she bankrolls him to do fine art.”

“So we have a very wealthy woman and a guy with no money,” said Bruce.

“Yep,” said Lew. “And we have no history on the guy. He’s not from the area. No family, no other friends that we’re aware of. He’s the elephant in the room.”

“Well, well,” said Bruce. “To start with—what I would like to do is take the damaged laptop with me. Chances are that whoever left his calling card on the bed wasn’t too concerned with leaving a trail of any kind. If he grabbed the laptop and threw it, I could get some good prints. I’ll work both rooms but the laptop exterior could be a mother lode.”

“Beth, anything more before we meet with Patience and, hopefully, Charles?” asked Lew. “After hearing from Patience, Charles decided to leave the art seminar early. He’s due home this morning, Bruce. Anytime now.”

“Just to say that Dani is doing great,” said Beth. “She has been able to pinpoint three different computers where our data thief has plugged into Ethernet connections on campus—two classrooms and one administrative office. The data footprint indicates he operates late in the evenings. What’s curious is he or she or they—we don’t know for sure yet if we’re dealing with one or more people—does not appear to use the college wi-fi.”

A knock at the door of the den prompted Lew to raise a finger to her lips. She said in a low voice, “Let’s keep everything we said here confidential for the moment.”

“This is unbelievable,” said Charles as he walked from the den to the bedroom. “Dearest,” he put an arm across Patience’s broad shoulders, “I wish you had told me how severe the damage was. I would have driven home sooner.”