Helpless (37 page)

“Did he rape you, Jill?”

Jill shook her head. “No. I think maybe he might have if you hadn’t come. I don’t know.”

Tom bit his lip. The furious impulse to inflict permanent damage to Mitchell Boyd had returned. “Okay. Is that everything? Are you sure you’re telling me everything, Jill? No more secrets.”

Jill nodded emphatically. “That’s everything. I swear.”

Chapter 56

R
ainy was back at work in Boston. She was getting ready to leave for the day. Her report on the James Mann investigation for the USAO was nearly complete. It was detailed and heinous, a report on the darkest of hearts. She would be glad to be done with it. But she had more reports like this to write, and more investigations to conclude.

This was the job in the cyber crimes squad. It never got easier.

Rainy’s work in Shilo was basically over. She’d interviewed all ten girls from Shilo High School whose pictures were found on computers belonging to James Mann and Tom Hawkins. The four new girls she’d interviewed lied to her as well. They’d sent their pictures to somebody, but Rainy couldn’t prove it. From the subpoenaed phone records all Rainy could ascertain was that they didn’t text or call Tom Hawkins. Several had texted and called Tanner Farnsworth, as they had lots of different boys from Shilo High School.

Rainy even got three of the girls to agree to consent to searches of their phones. But she found nothing useful. The sent messages were mostly texts. The pictures attached were of friends and parties. Nothing lewd. Nothing lascivious.

Nothing illegal.

The girls had probably deleted those images long ago. Rainy had already put in preservation requests with their cell phone carriers. A search of those servers was a dead end, too. The girls had sent thousands of text messages since her request went into effect. They’d sent hundreds of pictures as well, but the only alarms in those images were underage drinking, some pot smoking, and lots of cigarettes. It was the business of their parents, not the FBI.

Tanner Farnsworth remained uncooperative throughout her investigation. Meanwhile, Tom Hawkins and James Mann were both going to be found guilty of crimes by a jury of their peers.

A small failed battery was enough to convince both Rainy and Carter that Hawkins was probably innocent. They’d brought their finding to the D.A. and Shilo PD, who had thanked them for the information. Rainy could tell they weren’t going to drop the charges against Hawkins. But at least Marvin Pressman had some new ammunition to use for Hawkins’s defense.

Rainy wished she could stop thinking about Tom Hawkins, but he’d wormed his way into her consciousness, where he seemed destined to remain.

“Any plans tonight, Miles?” Carter asked.

“Does attempting to revive my spider plants count as a plan?”

“A certain-to-fail one, but yes, it counts.”

Rainy’s desk phone rang. She answered it. “Hello. This is Agent Miles. How can I help you?”

“Rainy Miles, my name is James Mann. I believe you arrested me.”

Rainy cupped the phone’s receiver and mouthed the words “James Mann” to Carter. Carter naturally took interest.

Were your ears ringing?
she thought.

“Mr. Mann,” Rainy said. “I can’t speak with you unless I have permission from your defense counsel. I’m afraid we have to end this communication immediately until that permission is granted.”

Rainy hung up the phone after Mann gave her a number where he could be reached. In State court, prosecuting attorneys were barred from speaking with a defendent without prior approval. The McDade Act subjected Rainy to the same professional standards.

Hours later, Rainy called James Mann.

“We’re able to speak freely,” Rainy said, having procured the necessary permissions. “So tell me, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like you to come over to my apartment,” Mann said.

“Why would you like me to do that?” asked Rainy.

“I have something I want to show you.”

“And what would that be?” Rainy asked.

“Evidence that’s going to prove I’m not guilty of any crimes.”

Chapter 57

R
ainy made Carter go with her to Mann’s apartment. She carried a firearm and knew how to use it, but she wasn’t stupid, either. She’d be happy to look at the evidence James Mann claimed to have, but only with armed backup at her side.

Mann’s new residence was a far cry from his former home. Rainy knew that Mann and his wife had separated, and that Mann had spent a week or so at a Motel 6 after he posted bail. Other than that, she didn’t know much about his life after his arrest. She didn’t know he had found this place to live. Mann’s apartment building was in deplorable condition and was located in a rather sketchy section of Brighton, a neighborhood of Boston.

Rainy pushed her finger against the apartment’s grimy buzzer. The door unlocked, and they entered a dark foyer. They climbed two flights of paint-chipped wooden stairs.

James Mann opened his apartment door when they reached the second landing. Mann looked tired. His skin color looked gray; his eyes were sunken and marred by dark rings. Rainy gave Mann and his rail-thin body three months to survive in prison. Four at the outside.

The floor to Mann’s dingy apartment was littered with file folders stuffed with papers. She saw pictures of his wife and kids scattered about the room, in dull or dusty frames. It looked like a haphazard attempt to restore order to a disordered life.

Furniture in the poorly lit studio apartment was bleak at best. Mann had laid a mattress askew on the varnished wood floor. A patchwork fabric couch and orange velvet armchair took up one corner of the room. The armchair had enough holes to make it look spotted. The whole apartment smelled like an animal.

“Thanks for coming over,” Mann said. He gestured over to the couch, inviting Rainy and Carter to sit.

“We’re fine to stand,” Rainy said. “Let’s get to the point. What evidence did you want to show us?”

Mann walked over to his laptop computer and took out a flash drive. He handed the storage key to Rainy.

“I used to be a real person,” Mann said. “With a wife I loved. Children I cherished. A job I was a passionate about—”

“You were arrested for a crime against children, Mr. Mann,” said Carter.

“Let me finish,” Mann said. “I have a rather extensive network of people I’ve met along the way. People from my career who still believe in me. Who believe, despite my current situation.”

“And what’s your point?” Carter asked.

“I’ve spent every minute since I posted bail trying to figure out how I can prove to you that I didn’t do this.”

Carter just scoffed. “And ...”

“I’ve got a lot of enemies. I climbed the ladder. I’m sure I stepped on plenty of toes along the way. A friend of mine, somebody I’d rather not name, encouraged me to take a different approach.”

“What approach would that be?” Rainy asked. She had to admit that he’d managed to get her interest. She could hear the conviction in his voice. She understood now that his apparent disregard for himself was the result of an intense and focused effort. This was a man who was possessed with getting to the truth. A man who reminded her, in some ways, of Tom Hawkins.

“He told me to try to clear my name the same way you were going to try and prove my guilt. I took his advice to heart. I learned all about your methods. I know about the Child Victim Identification Program. The clearinghouse, if you will, for child pornography cases, like mine.”

“Okay. Good for you.” Carter looked and sounded frustrated. Rainy touched his arm to urge him to stay patient.

“CVIP analysts use the Child Recognition and Identification System to help them identify children and then coordinate a response. Rescue efforts. Evidence for trials.”

“You’ve done your homework,” Rainy said.

“I know that the software generates a digital fingerprint for each image—a hash value, I believe it’s called. It’s that identifier which helps to match images to a known series, or if there is no digital fingerprint match, then it is used to designate a new one.”

“Where is this going?” asked Rainy. “What’s on the flash drive?”

“My friend gave me some names to look up. Girls whose images I supposedly bought from someone. The plan was simple. By figuring out where I could buy the real images, I’d be able to find the real source. Hopefully, I’d be able to get us both out of trouble.”

“You did what?” Rainy said.

“Yeah, I have no idea how to procure that type of garbage. But I took the money I could have used for a nicer apartment and paid a computer professional to help me figure it out.”

“What did you reel in?” asked Carter.

“A lot of pictures.”

“So you re-created our case against you? And you’re confessing to another crime in the process. Do you know that?” said Rainy.

“I was in a learning mode,” Mann said. “I wanted to know who distributes these images. Who buys them. Who sells them. How they do it. How they keep from getting caught.”

“So?” Now it was Rainy’s turn to sound frustrated.

“When I say I wanted to learn about it, I mean I treated it like a job. I found out how these predators hide in a web of virtual servers. I learned the questions they ask to get the police to reveal themselves. I know how money gets secretly exchanged. My computer guy made me a database of everything he found and where he found it.”

“You want to give us a bunch of new sources of child pornography in exchange for our dropping the case against you?” Rainy asked.

“No. I’ll give you that, anyway,” said Mann. “But in the process we found something unusual that I thought you should know about.”

“And that would be?” Rainy inquired.

“My own Lisbeth Salander generated digital fingerprints, those hash values, for all the images he found, just like you guys do. He did it to keep all the images organized. We could tell by looking at the digital fingerprint of each image how many different sources were distributing the identical image.”

“We’re not hiring, if that’s what you’re after,” Carter said.

Mann returned a weak smile. “There are images on this flash drive, dozens of them, that look to be the exact same to me. Same composition. Same background. Same subject. But these here are not like the other duplicates we found,” Mann said.

“And why is that?” asked Rainy.

“Even though these images appear to be exact duplicates of one another, their digital fingerprints, the hash values each image generated, were all different. All the other duplicates my guy sourced generated identical hash values. These didn’t.”

“That’s your proof?” Rainy wondered.

“These pictures appear to be identical in every way. So, logically, they should produce an identical fingerprint.”

“Like I said, that’s your proof of innocence?” said Rainy.

Mann’s expression revealed an infinite sorrow. “My friend told me not to ignore any outliers.”

Rainy felt the flesh on the back of her neck begin to rise.

That sounds like something Tom’s lawyer would have said.

“I don’t know if this will in fact prove my innocence. I needed something to lure you into coming over here and taking a look. But I do know that these images are outliers. They’re the only duplicates that don’t generate the same hash values. I need to understand why. No stone left uncovered. This is my life on the line, Agent Miles.”

“Okay, we’ll do that for you,” said Rainy. “But you and this jock of yours are going to turn over all the evidence you’ve gathered.”

“I’ve got it ready to send to you,” Mann said. “But first you’ll have to promise that there will be no charges against him, or new ones against me.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Rainy said.

“And there’s one other thing,” Mann said. “The images with the hash values that don’t match but should—they look similar to me.”

“Yeah? In what way?” asked Carter.

“They all look like they were taken with a cell phone camera.”

Chapter 58

P
rospect Park was once a weed-infested lot of broken bottles, crumpled beer cans, and cigarette butts. It was just down the road from Lindsey’s house, but all the years she could have played there (before it became uncool to play), the park was essentially unusable. Apart from all the litter, the playground itself was in shambles. The swings were broken. The slide could cut your leg if you hugged too close to the right going down. There were relics of a zip line, which the town selectmen had ordered taken down after some kid broke his arm. The only apparatus that wasn’t broken, rusted, or falling apart was the tire bridge, and that was never much fun to play on.

Some years earlier, a group of concerned parents, Lindsey’s mother among them, had rallied the town for funds to clean up Prospect Park. Bake sales were followed by a town appropriations vote, and the park had been reborn.

The park’s renaissance, however, came too late for Lindsey to enjoy the benefits fully. Yet even though she was well beyond the monkey-bar years, she still liked coming here. Her quick jaunts to Prospect Park began around the time of her parents’ divorce.

She sat awhile on the wide hard-plastic swing just to think. Over time, what had been an occasional desire had turned into something of a habit. She’d come to the park whenever she needed an escape, which, sadly, was more and more often. That was why she came here mostly at night—when the little kids were all in bed, and her mother was passed out on the sofa with half a bottle of Chardonnay. At least her mother’s drinking problem made it easy for Lindsey to sneak unnoticed out of the house.

Normal parents would know if their kid had walked out the front door at midnight. But getting her mother’s attention would require Lindsey to scream in the poor woman’s ear. Come morning, Lindsey doubted her mother would even remember the conversation. When Lindsey slipped on her light blue cotton jacket and slipped out the front door minutes before the grandfather clock chimed twelve, she did so without leaving a note as to her whereabouts. She’d be home in an hour.