Darby McCormick: Fear The Dark Part 11

The man who had photographed her last night had sent copies of the pictures to every Red Hill cop. Ray Williams had signed out a squad car and gone to meet the four men who were out on patrol this morning, to make sure they deleted the pictures from their cell phones. Deputy Sheriff Lancaster had received copies as well.

Coop had tried to call her on her cell, but the signal had dropped. She'd phoned back from a land-line but had been connected straight to voicemail. She'd left a message explaining what had happened.

Robinson was saying something to her.

'Sorry, could you repeat that?'

'I said I'd appreciate it if you didn't share anything with Teddy Lancaster until these cases are pulled from us.'

'Is Lancaster a part of the investigation now?'

'Right now, I'd say he's more like an overseer, you know, making sure our people do their jobs. But it's only a matter of time until the powers that be yank this from us. Thing is, and it pains me to admit this, Teddy's got the manpower. We don't.'

Robinson leaned back in his seat and folded his hands across his stomach. 'Ray told me about your little run-in with Teddy last night. Nelson's version is that Teddy bullied his way into the house. Told him to keep his yap shut. Nelson said he went along with it because he didn't want to be out of a job. When the incorporation goes through, Teddy's gonna have the power to hire and fire.'

's.h.i.+t always rises to the top.'

Robinson laughed softly. Then his face turned serious. 'Nelson's suspended for two weeks, without pay. After that, he goes in front of a conduct review board comprised of Brewster cops. Want to guess which way that's gonna turn out?'

There was no anger in the police chief's voice, just a matter-of-fact weariness. He turned to Hoder and said, 'We've got a website like everyone else on the planet. Our office emails and phone numbers are listed on it, but not our cells, so I have no idea how this guy got access to those. What about you? You advertise?'

'I'm not listed on the Bureau's website,' Hoder said.

'Miss McCormick?'

'I don't have a website and I'm not on Facebook, Twitter or any of those things,' she said. 'He got our phone numbers some other way.'

Robinson scratched his chin thoughtfully, his fingernails sc.r.a.ping across his whiskers. 'Here's what I don't get,' he said. 'The Ripper hasn't made contact with anyone a.s.sociated with the case before. Then you arrive and he decides to come out of the woodwork. Why?'

'Calling me last night and sending out those pictures within the s.p.a.ce of twelve hours the whole thing smacks of desperation. He's afraid we'll find out something.'

'Not we. You. Why'd he call you and not Hoder? He's got the higher profile.'

'Hoder's not a woman,' Darby said. 'Our guy's thinking he can rattle my cage. That I'm going to, I dunno, break down and cry, pack my bags and skedaddle.

'I think he made a mistake at the Downes house that clean-up job in the corner of the bedroom. Now he's trying to scare me off with the pictures. Were you told that I was coming here to a.s.sist Agents Hoder and Cooper?'

Robinson nodded. 'They both told me. And Williams.'

'What about the rest of your men? Was some sort of email sent out? Announcement made?'

'No and no. Why?'

'Agent Hoder told me this morning that a reporter tried to interview him for a piece that ran in yesterday's paper. After the meeting, I used the computer in Williams's office to read the story. My name wasn't mentioned anywhere in the article. I arrive yesterday to find that another family has been killed. Then it's like you just said within the s.p.a.ce of twelve hours I receive a phone call and then skin pics of me are sent out. What's that say to you?'

Robinson looked like he had swallowed a jar of thumbtacks. 'You're suggesting the Red Hill Ripper might be a cop?'

'I'm saying someone has access to restricted information in this case, all the cell numbers of your people. Could be a cop or it could be a civilian who works for you or in another department. Your people's contact info is stored on a computer database, right?'

'Sure. All your details are in here. I added them myself.'

'What about the place where I'm staying? Is that listed?'

'Everyone in town knows where you're staying. It's the only hotel left in town.'

'But how did he know which room to watch?'

Robinson didn't answer. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. 'Miss McCormick, I'm not trying to cause you any further embarra.s.sment, but I'd like to be frank, get my thoughts '

'Ask your questions.'

'It's fair to say the Ripper gets his rocks off strangling women. We know for a fact that someone watched you undressing in your hotel room last night, called and threatened you, and then sent out the pictures.'

'You're wondering if he's targeted me as a potential victim?'

'I'm inclined to take this threat seriously. Aren't you?'

'Has he contacted any of his previous victims?'

'Nothing we've found indicates he did.'

'Then why would he suddenly break the pattern with me? Why bother putting himself on our radar screen? If he really views me as a potential victim, he wouldn't announce himself that way. He'd stay in the shadows and wait. The only reason for calling me and sending out those pictures was to embarra.s.s me. To get me to leave.'

Robinson looked to Hoder either for confirmation of her words or for a second opinion.

'It's a valid point,' Hoder said.

'Still,' Robinson said, his gaze sliding back to Darby, 'I'd sleep a bit better knowing someone was keeping a close eye on you.'

'I'm staying in a hotel packed with federal agents. What safer place is there?'

'What I meant was I'd feel better if you didn't travel anywhere alone.'

'You want someone from the swinging-d.i.c.ks club by my side.'

'I'm not sure I follow.'

'I'm a woman, so I can't handle myself. Because I don't have a swizzle stick and a big pair of peaches between my legs, I need a man by my side. If I did, you'd tell me to be careful out there and watch my back.'

'I genuinely meant no disrespect, Miss McCormick.'

Darby could see that this was true. She sucked in air through her nose, pushed herself off the filing cabinet and let out a long breath. 'Sorry,' she said. 'I'm operating on only a couple of hours of sleep. It doesn't help my disposition.'

Her phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. Another text message had been delivered.

24.

Darby took out her phone and read the message displayed on the screen.

'It's Coop,' she said. 'He wants me to call him from a land-line. May I borrow your phone, Chief?'

Darby stood while she dialled the number Coop had included in the message. The line on the other end rang once.

'Cooper.'

'It's me. I tried calling you earlier.'

'I had my phone turned off. The computer guys at RCFL make you turn it off when you go into this particular section of the building, something to do with the cell signals s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up some of their equipment.'

'You got my message?'

'About the pictures? Yeah, I got it.'

'I take it you received copies as well.'

'Two of them, texted to my phone.'

Darby heard the sorrow in his voice and some pity too. The latter cut more deeply.

'If it's any consolation, you've got nothing to be ashamed of,' he said.

'That's it? No smarta.s.s comment?'

'I always wondered if the carpet matched the drapes, and now I know.'

'That's better,' Darby said. As embarra.s.sing as the situation was, she needed him to be normal. She didn't want him to be tiptoeing around her like every other man here. 'Have you been productive this morning, or have you squandered your time leering at my nude shots?'

'Since I'm a professional FBI agent first and foremost, I managed to put aside my horn-dog tendencies and get some actual work done. Is Hoder with you?'

'I'm standing next to him. We're in Chief Robinson's office.'

'Any way to put me on speakerphone?'

'Hold on.'

Darby relayed the request to the police chief. Robinson reached into his desk drawer and his liver-spotted hand came back with a small peach-coloured speakerphone unit that looked like it had been invented around the time of the rotary phone. It took him a couple of minutes of fumbling with the wires and appropriate k.n.o.bs and b.u.t.tons before Coop's tinny voice could be heard over the speaker.

'Can everyone hear me? Good. Okay, let's start with the iPad found on the nightstand in the Downes bedroom. Darby's theory about the killer recording what he did to the family is correct.'

Hoder's eyebrows arched in surprise and admiration. The police chief gaped openly at her from the other side of the desk. Darby wrote in her notebook.

'The Nerd Herd that's what these guys call themselves found an app called iSeeu installed on the iPad,' Coop said. 'Software's free, can be downloaded to iPads and iPods and iPhones, Android smartphones, Macs and PCs, you name it. It's designed so you can spy on your significant other to see if he or she is cheating on you. Or maybe you want to monitor your teenage son, make sure he isn't cruising around the internet looking for free p.o.r.n. You can set up the software to send copies of texts, emails and your browsing history to your computer. Software runs invisibly in the background without the user knowing. Here's the best part: you can set it up to record without alerting the user.'

'Meaning?' Darby asked.

'Let's say I suspect you're cheating on me. I go off to work and because you're a MILF, which stands for a Mother I'd Like To '

'We know what it stands for.'

'Just wanted to be sure, as we have some older gentlemen in the room. Now, this app, if I've got it installed on my iPad and if I have its camera pointed at the bed when you're going at it with your 22-year-old boy toy, enables me to watch you live and in stereo, or I can record you on my computer to enjoy at a later date. The iPad screen doesn't have to be on. You don't know you're being watched and recorded, but I suddenly find out the reason why you've been walking around bowlegged three mornings a week.'

'What about sound?'

'Included. So in our scenario, let's say the iPad's camera isn't pointed at your bed. I'll still have audio of you initiating this innocent young man into the ways of the Karma Sutra. Again, the screen doesn't need to be on.'

'And the user really doesn't have any idea that this software is running, turning the iPad, computer or phone into a spy device?'

'Not a clue. The software is invisible. Runs in the background after you install it. The software does, however, do a number on the battery, since the electrical device is constantly on even when it appears to be in sleep mode. I suspect the Red Hill Ripper knows that, as we found the iPad plugged into the charger.'

'Can you find out when this app was installed?'

'Already did,' Coop said. 'It was downloaded and installed this past Tuesday, at 12.38 a.m.'

'That would fit with the estimated time of death.'

'The Ripper enters the house, and after he gets the family tied up he downloads the software and starts the show.'

'Any technical expertise needed to install this software?'

'No. It pretty much self-installs. The only thing you need to know is where to find it when you want to change the settings. The instructions, the how-to guide, whatever you want to call it, are posted online. It's so simple a kid could do it.

'Guys here said the app started running started streaming audio and video over the home's Wi-Fi at 12.48 a.m. It was still streaming when we removed it from the Downes house last night.'

'Meaning there's a strong possibility he was watching us inside the bedroom yesterday.'

'Watching and listening,' Coop said. 'The software was set to do both. That's my guess on how he found out you were here, saw you moving around the bedroom yesterday.'

Maybe, Darby thought. Maybe he did find out that way. If the Silver Moon Inn is the only hotel in town, maybe he a.s.sumed I was staying there. But how did he know which room to watch?

Darby thought of the girl working the front counter last night. Laurie. Did he talk to her earlier in the day and find out my room number?

'As for where the streaming data packets were sent the Nerd Herd don't know,' Coop said. 'The app uses something called the Advanced Encryption Standard, which is ' The sound of pages being flipped echoed over the speakerphone. 'Here it is. AES is a symmetric-key algorithm that runs on a subst.i.tution-permutation network, rather than the Feistel network, which is geek-speak for the kind of encryption that won't allow them to trace to where the data packets were sent.'

'And there's no way to hack it?' Darby asked.

'No. That's why governments, including our own, are so fond of it. The encryption takes place at both ends when it's sent, and when it's delivered. At the point they started to talk about keys, they lost me. The bottom line is that, while we know the family was recorded, tracing the data packets through a bunch of networks is a dead end. That's all I've got right now. Questions?'

'The pictures we all received,' Darby said. 'Is there any way they can be traced back to their original source?'

'I gave my phone to the Nerd Herd, who are examining them right now that's all I know.'