The Scarecrow (24 page)

“Give these to Declan when he’s free,” he said. “But no hurry.”

He turned to leave the suite, hoping the motion of his pivot move had drawn the attention of McGinnis through the doorway. But he got all the way to the main door without being called.

He put his hand on the knob.

“Wesley?”

It was McGinnis, calling from his office. Carver turned around and glanced back. McGinnis was behind his desk, waving him into the office.

Carver entered. He nodded to the two men and completely ignored Chavez, whom he considered a worthless diversity hire. There was no place for Carver to sit but that was all right. Being the only one standing would give him a command presence.

“Wesley Carver, meet Agents Bantam and Richmond from the FBI’s Phoenix office. I was just about to call down to the bunker for you.”

Carver shook hands with the men and repeated his name politely each time.

“Wesley wears a number of hats around here,” McGinnis said. “He’s our chief technology officer and the one who designed most of this place. He’s also our chief threat officer. What I like to call our—”

“Do we have a problem?” Carver cut in.

“We may,” McGinnis said. “The agents have been telling me that we’re hosting a website here that is of interest to them and they’ve got a warrant that allows them to see all documentation and records pertaining to its setup and operation.”

“Terrorism?”

“They say they can’t tell us.”

“Should I go get Danny?”

“No, they don’t want to talk to anybody in design and hosting just yet.”

Carver put his hands into the pockets of his white lab coat because he knew it gave him the posture of a deep-thinking man. He then addressed the agents.

“Danny O’Connor is our chief of design and hosting,” he said. “He should be brought in on this. You’re not thinking he’s a terrorist or something, are you?”

He smiled at the absurdity of what he had just suggested. Agent Bantam, the larger of the two agents, responded.

“No, we’re not thinking that at all. We’re on a fishing expedition here, and the fewer people brought into it, the better. Especially from the hosting side of your business.”

Carver nodded and his eyes flicked momentarily in the direction of Chavez. But the agents didn’t pick up on it. She remained in the meeting.

“What is the website?” Carver asked.

“Trunk murder dot com,” McGinnis answered. “I just checked and it’s part of a larger bundle. An account out of Seattle.”

Carver nodded and kept a calm demeanor. He had a plan for this. He was better than them because he always had a plan.

He pointed to the screen on McGinnis’s desk.

“Can we take a look at it or would that comp—”

“We would prefer not to at this point,” Bantam said. “We think it could tip off the target. It is not a developed site. There’s nothing to see. But it’s a capture site, we believe.”

“And we don’t want to be captured,” Carver said.

“Exactly.”

“May I see the warrant?”

“Sure.”

The document had been returned to Bantam while Carver was coming up from the bunker. The agent took it out again and handed it to Carver, who unfolded it and scanned it, hoping he was not giving anything away with his face. He checked himself to make sure he wasn’t humming.

The search warrant was notable for what information it did not contain rather than for what it did. The bureau had a very cooperative federal judge in their corner, that seemed for sure. In very general terms the warrant described an investigation of an unknown subject using the Internet and crossing state lines to conduct a criminal conspiracy involving data theft and fraud. The word
murder
was nowhere in the warrant. The warrant sought complete access to the website and all information and records relating to its origin, operation and financing.

Carver knew the bureau would be unhappily surprised by what they got. He nodded as he scanned it.

“Well, we can get you all of this,” he said. “What is the account in Seattle?”

“See Jane Run,” Chavez said.

Carver turned to look at her, as if noticing her for the first time. She picked up on his vibe.

“Mr. McGinnis just asked me to check it,” she explained. “That’s the name of the company.”

Well, he thought, at least she was good for something besides giving tours of the plant while the boss was away. He turned to the agents, making sure his back was to her and physically cutting her out of the discussion.

“Okay, we’ll get this done,” he said.

“How long are we talking about?” Bantam asked.

“Why don’t you go to our wonderful cafeteria and get yourselves a cup of coffee. I’ll be back with you before it’s cool enough to drink.”

McGinnis chuckled.

“He means that we don’t have a cafeteria. We have machines that overheat the coffee.”

“Well,” Bantam said, “we appreciate the offer but we need to witness the execution of the warrant.”

Carver nodded.

“Then stick with me and we’ll go get the information you need. But there is still going to be an issue.”

“What issue?” Bantam asked.

“You want all information pertaining to this website but you don’t want to involve D and H. That’s not going to work. I can vouch for Danny O’Connor. He’s not a terrorist. I think we need to bring him in if we want to be thorough and get you everything you need.”

Bantam nodded and took the suggestion under advisement.

“Let’s move one step at a time. We’ll bring Mr. O’Connor in when we need to.”

Carver was silent as he acted like he was expecting more, then he nodded.

“Suit yourself, Agent Bantam.”

“Thank you.”

“Should we head down to the bunker, then?”

“Absolutely.”

The two agents stood up, as did Chavez.

“Good luck, gentlemen,” McGinnis offered. “I hope you catch the bad guys. We’re willing to help in any way we can.”

“Thank you, sir,” Agent Richmond said.

As they left administration, Carver noticed that Chavez was tagging along behind the agents. Carver was holding the door but when it was her turn to go through, he cut her off.

“We’ll take it from here, thank you,” he said.

He stepped through the doorway in front of her and pulled the door closed behind him.

EIGHT: Home Sweet Home

O
n Saturday morning I was in my room at the Kyoto reading Larry Bernard’s front-page story about the release of Alonzo Winslow from juvenile custody when one of the detectives from Hollywood Division called me. Her name was Bynum. She told me my house had been cleared as a crime scene and returned to my custody.

“I can just go back?”

“That’s right. You can go home now.”

“Does that mean the investigation is complete? I mean, pending the arrest of the guy, of course.”

“No, we still have a few loose ends we’re trying to figure out.”

“Loose ends?”

“I can’t discuss the case with you.”

“Well, can I ask you about Angela?”

“What about her?”

“I was wondering if she had been… you know, tortured or anything.”

There was a pause while the detective decided how much to tell me.

“I’m sorry but the answer is yes. There was evidence of rape with a foreign object and the same pattern of slow suffocation as in the other cases. Multiple ligature marks on the neck. He repeatedly choked her out and revived her. Whether this was a means of getting her to talk about the story you two were working on, or just his way of getting off, is unclear at this time. I guess we will have to ask the man himself when we get him.”

I was silent as I thought about the horror Angela had faced.

“Anything else, Jack? It’s Saturday. I’m hoping to salvage half a day off with my daughter.”

“Uh, no, sorry.”

“Well, you can go home now. Have a nice day.”

Bynum hung up and I sat there, thinking. Calling it “home” seemed wrong. I wasn’t sure I wanted the house back, because I wasn’t sure it was home any longer. My sleep—what little there was of it—had been invaded the last two nights by images of Angela Cook’s face in the darkness under the bed and the muffled coughing sound so expertly implanted in my mind by her killer. Only in my dream, everything was underwater. Her wrists were not bound and she reached up to me as she sank. Her last cry for help came out in a bubble and when it broke with the sound the Unsub had made, I came awake.

To now live and try to sleep in the same place seemed impossible to me. I spread the curtains and looked out the single window of my small room. I had a view of the civic center. The beautiful and ageless City Hall rose in front of me. Next to it was the criminal courts building, as ugly as the prison most of its customers were headed to. The sidewalks and green lawns were empty. It was Saturday and nobody came downtown on the weekend. I pulled the curtains closed.

I decided I would keep the room as long as the paper was paying. I would go to the house but only to get fresh clothes and other things I needed. In the afternoon I would call a Realtor and see about getting rid of the place. If I could. For Sale: Nicely kept and restored Hollywood bungalow where serial killer struck. Bring all offers.

My cell phone rang, jarring me out of the reverie. My real cell phone. I had finally gotten it turned back on with full function the day before. The caller ID said private number and I had learned not to let those go unanswered.

It was Rachel.

“Hey,” I said.

“You sound down. What’s wrong?”

What a profiler. She had read me with one word. I decided not to bring up what Detective Bynum had said about Angela’s torturous end.

“Nothing. I’m just… nothing. What’s going on with you? Are you working?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to take a break and get some coffee or something? I’m downtown.”

“No, I can’t.”

I had not seen her since we had been split apart by the detectives after we’d found and reported Angela’s body. As with everything else, the separation, though only forty-eight hours, was not going well for me. I stood up and started pacing in the small confines of the room.

“Well, when will I get to see you?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Jack. Have some patience with me. I’m under the gun here.”

I felt embarrassed and changed the subject.

“Speaking of under the gun, I could use an armed escort.”

“For what?”

“The LAPD says I have access to my house again. They said I could go home but I don’t think I can stay there. I just want to get some clothes but it’s going to be sort of creepy being in there by myself.”

“I’m sorry, Jack, I can’t take you. If you are truly worried, though, I can make a call.”

I was beginning to get the picture. This had happened to me with her once before. I had to resign myself to the fact that Rachel was like a feral cat. She was intrigued by what could be and hovered close to the touch of another, but ultimately she jumped back and away from it. If you pushed it, her claws came out.

“Never mind, Rachel, I was just trying to get you to come out.”

“I am really sorry, Jack, but I can’t do it.”

“Why did you call?”

There was a silence before she answered.

“To check in and to update you on a few things. If you wanted to hear them.”

“Down to business. Sure, go ahead.”

I sat back down on the bed and opened a notebook to write in.

“Yesterday they confirmed that the trunk murder website Angela visited was indeed the trip wire she stepped on,” Rachel said. “But so far it’s a dead end.”

“A dead end? I thought everything can be traced on the Internet.”

“The physical location of the site is a web-hosting facility in Mesa, Arizona, called
Western Data Consultants
. Agents went there with a warrant and were able to pull the details about the site setup and operation. It was registered through a company in Seattle called See Jane Run, which registers, designs and maintains numerous sites through Western Data. It’s kind of a go-between company. It doesn’t have the physical plant where websites are hosted on servers. That’s what Western Data does. See Jane Run builds and maintains websites for clients and pays a company like Western Data to host them. Kind of a middle man.”

“So did they go to Seattle?”

“Agents from the Seattle field office are handling it.”

“And?”

“The trunk murder site was set up and paid for entirely over the Internet. No one at See Jane Run ever met the man who paid for it. The physical address given two years ago when the sites were set up was a mail drop near SeaTac that is no longer valid. We’re trying to trace that but that will be a dead end, too. This guy is good.”

“You just said ‘sites’—plural. Were there more than one?”

“You noticed that. Yes, two sites.
Trunk murder dot com
was the first site and the second is called
Denslow Data
. That was the name he used in setting these up. Bill Denslow. Both sites are on a five-year plan that he paid for in advance. He used a money order—untraceable except back to the point of purchase. Another dead end.”

I took a couple moments to write some notes down.

“Okay,” I finally said. “So is Denslow the Unsub?”

“The man posing as Denslow is the Unsub but we’re not dumb enough to think he would put his real name on a website.”

“Then what does it mean? D-E-N-slow. Is it like half an acronym or something?”

“It could be. We’re working on it. So far we haven’t found the connection. We’re working on the possible acronym and the name itself. But we haven’t come up with a Bill Denslow with any sort of criminal record that would approach this.”

“Maybe it’s just a guy the Unsub hated, growing up. Like a neighbor or a teacher.”

“Could be.”

“So why the two websites?”

“One was the capture site and one was the OP site.”

“OP?”

“Observation point.”

“You’re completely losing me.”

“Okay, the trunk murder site was set up to collect the IP—the computer address—of anybody who visited the site. This is what happened with Angela. You understand?”