Drained (18 page)

“A virus, worm, bug, whatever you want to call it,” O’Neil said. “I found this running in the background on the computer. It’s odd, not a normal computer virus.”

“What’s it do?”

“Well, as far as I can tell, it’s designed to be a virus for a cell phone. The commands look like the virus erases a bunch of information and then it gets into the power settings—my guess would be to overload the main board and memory—essentially frying the phone. Apparently, it works on tablets as well. I opened the tablet up, and the damage looks consistent with the damage inside of the cell phone we have.”

“Okay, so how do we find out where it came from or who sent it?” I asked.

“Well, that’s significantly more difficult. If it’s targeted to phones, I’d have to think it would be an attachment to an e-mail or a text message. I guess it could have also came from an app or something else downloaded to the device.”

“So we’ve found something that we can’t do anything with?”

“I’m still looking into it,” O’Neil said. “I’m going to go through every piece of code on the virus that I can and see if maybe I can see exactly what it is targeting or how it is being installed on the devices. That, and I’m going to make some calls to see if anyone else may have some insight into it.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I looked at Agent Toms and Skip. “You guys just want to let me know if there’s a development with this?”

“Sure,” Toms said.

I looked back at O’Neil. “There’s no way you can get the tablet back up and running?”

“Even if I did, the memory is cooked. It’s a paperweight,” he said.

“Do what you can with the virus and computer. I should be bringing you another computer tomorrow. I have a meeting set up with a family member, and she’s going to give us her daughter’s, a victim’s, laptop.”

“Sure. I’ll be watching for it.”

“Thanks,” I said.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen, which showed a text message from Beth, saying:
Back at the FBI building.

I looked at Agent Toms and Skip. “Should be all I need, I guess. My partner is back in the building. I need to find her and get going on getting a subpoena ready.”

“I’ll walk with you back over there,” Agent Toms said.

“Skip, let me give you my direct number in case you get something and I’m out chasing around,” I said.

“Sure,” he said.

I wrote my number down on my notepad and tore off the page for him.

Brett sat at his desk in a fog. He had a meeting in twenty minutes with a couple representatives of a local charity looking to finalize a donation. He needed sleep.

Brett thumbed the button on his desk phone to ring Carrie.

“Need something, sir?” she asked over the speaker phone.

“A coffee. And cancel everything after these charity people. I’m not feeling well and am going to head home.”

“Okay, did you want me to reschedule the appointments from this afternoon to next week?”

“Whenever you can fit them in is fine.”

“Okay, you said no calls, but Tom has called up from legal twice. It sounded important.”

“What did he want?”

“He didn’t say. But like I said, he’s called up here twice looking for you in the last twenty minutes or so.”

“Okay, I’ll call down to him. Thanks, Carrie.”

“Sure, I’ll have your coffee in a minute,” she said.

Brett clicked off, picked up the phone’s receiver, and rested it on his shoulder. He called the legal department.

“Legal,” a woman answered.

“Hi, it’s Mr. Bailor. I’m looking for Tom.”

“One moment, sir.”

The phone clicked and rang again in Brett’s ear.

“Mr. Bailor?” a man asked.

“Yeah, Tom. What’s going on?”

“Well, we have a federal agent here with a subpoena. Just wanted to let you know.”

“Okay. What is the subpoena requesting?” Brett asked.

“Records for all communication through the site on a woman. Um, name is Rebecca Wright.”

“Okay. Is everything being put together to satisfy the subpoena?”

“Yeah, I made a call to the development department, and they are putting it together as we speak.”

“Sure. Just make sure the agent has everything he needs,” Brett said.

“Yeah, okay. Um, one second, Mr. Bailor.”

Brett could hear him speaking with someone in the background.

Tom came back on the phone. “Sorry about that. Michelle just came in. It looks like we have another two agents here now with another subpoena.”

“For?” Brett asked.

“I haven’t looked at it yet.”

“I’ll come down. See you in a second.” Brett hung up and stood from his desk. As he walked toward his office door, he heard a knock, and the door opened.

Carrie, his secretary, stood in the doorway with his cup of coffee. She held it out toward him. “Mr. White and one of his colleagues are here.”

Brett gave her a confused look as he took the coffee.

“From the charity, your twelve o’clock,” Carrie said.

“Can you reschedule them? It sounds like there is something going on down in legal that needs my attention.”

“They’re sitting in the waiting area, sir,” Carrie said.

He let out a puff of air and slid past her in the doorway. Brett walked to the waiting area, where the visitors had taken seats.

“I’m Brett Bailor,” he said. “I just wanted to come and personally apologize. We’re going to need to reschedule the meeting we had set for today. There’s something urgent that requires my attention.”

An older man with short white hair and a mustache sat with one leg on top of his other knee. A portfolio folder rested on his lap. “Oh, um, well we needed to get this taken care of before the fundraiser this weekend,” Mr. White said.

“Again, I apologize. Maybe my secretary can reschedule something for tomorrow.”

Brett stared at the man and the woman beside him, hoping they would accept the rescheduling and leave.

The woman stood. She appeared to be in her sixties and annoyed. She had short blond—obviously dyed—hair and wore a tan pantsuit. “We drove three hours. This should only take a minute.” Her tone of voice had a ring of authority, as if she was used to getting her way.

“Sorry. Again, I apologize,” Brett said.

“Mostly, we just need your signature on this pledge,” she said. “I guess we could work out the rest by phone.” She tried handing Brett the portfolio that she’d taken from Mr. White. She flipped the cover open and pointed to where he should sign.

“I’d want to look over the paperwork. I just don’t have time at the moment,” he said.

“For a signature?” she asked. “Are you serious? You’ve already seen the paperwork.”

Brett clenched his jaw. The woman was trying to strongarm him. That was something he wouldn’t stand for—not in his place of business. He tried to remain professional though his mind was envisioning beating her to death where she stood.

Brett cracked his neck from side to side. “Ma’am, what came up requires my immediate attention. I’d like to reschedule. If we can’t, I guess we’ll just have to decline. Now, you can see Carrie for an appointment if you’d like, but I must be going.”

He left for the elevator—he had more important things to worry about at that moment. Brett rounded the corner and thumbed the elevator button to take him downstairs. He boarded the elevator and stepped out on the forty-sixth floor—legal. He walked down the hall and entered the office.

Brett noticed people he assumed to be the federal agents, two men and a woman, sitting in the waiting area. He continued past to Tom’s office, rapped his knuckles on the door, and entered.

“Are those the feds in the waiting room?” he asked.

“Hard to miss,” Tom said.

“And the second subpoena?” Brett asked.

“It’s for the same thing but on a different woman. A Jasmine Thomas.”

Brett nodded.

“One of the feds that just showed asked if he could speak with someone in the website-development department as well. I figured I’d let you field that.”

“Sure. Get together everything they’ve requested. I’ll go and speak with them regarding the site.”

“Okay. These names on the subpoenas—they are homicide victims. I recognize the one name from the news coverage,” Tom said.

Brett put on his best look of confusion. “I haven’t been watching local coverage in a bit.”

“Yeah, big news. Serial killer.”

“Serial killer, huh? Well, let’s get these agents everything they need.”

“Sure. The guys should have all the transcripts for them shortly.”

Brett nodded and left the office. He walked to the waiting room and stood before the seated agents, quickly taking them in. The two men wore suits and looked the part of federal agents, and the woman who sat between them was dressed for business and attractive. Brett clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m Brett Bailor, founder of Classified OD. My guys are working on getting everything you requested now. It should just be a bit. I was informed that one of you had a couple of questions regarding website development?”

The fed seated on the left stood. He appeared a few inches over six foot and wore a black suit with a white dress shirt and a navy-blue tie. His hair was short and dark, and his face had a bit of black-and-gray stubble.

“Agent Hank Rawlings,” the man said. “These are Agents Harper and Andrews. I did have a few questions regarding how profiles for your users are handled.”

“Sure, I should be able to answer those questions for you,” Brett said. “I’m also the lead website engineer.”

“Founder and engineer?” the other male fed asked.

Brett nodded. “I built the site and the company from the ground up. I don’t want someone else tinkering with my pride and joy.” Brett looked at the agents, but none of them responded. His eyes came to rest on the brunette female agent. “Why don’t you guys come with me to the conference lounge down the hall—a little more comfortable. I’ll have someone from legal bring everything to us as soon as it’s set. It will be a little more private to talk as well if you have some questions.”

Agent Rawlings nodded and motioned for Brett to lead the way, so he did. Brett walked the group down the hall and into a large office filled with executive chairs surrounding a circular table. After sitting the agents down, he asked, “Water, coffee, soda? I can have whatever you’d like brought.”

All three agents declined.

“Did you speak with another agent on the telephone the other day?” asked the fed named Rawlings.

Brett gave Agent Rawlings his attention. “I did. The agent I spoke with the other day, he didn’t really give me the specifics of what information he was requesting.” He paused. “The man who heads up the legal office said that he recognized the names on the subpoenas as two murder victims that have been all over the news. Was this the information that the other agent was referring to?”

“It was,” Agent Rawlings said.

“I wish I would have known that. Forget subpoenas and the legal department. I sure as hell won’t let my website be a place to facilitate things of that nature. What can I do to help?”

“Release all the documents you may have for each victim,” the woman agent said.

“Absolutely. That goes without question, whatever you need. Do you know for certain that they were all users?”

“We have a good idea that they were,” she said.

“Sure. Why don’t you give me the names, and I’ll have someone get you everything you need. As far as the profiles, what were your questions there?” Brett looked at the agent named Rawlings and waited for a response.

Andrews, Beth, and I entered a small conference room back at the Chicago FBI office. Mr. Bailor, at Classified OD, had searched each woman’s name for us and provided us with everything they had. He informed us that once users deleted their profiles, they were gone for good. Aside from holding past users personal information becoming a privacy-related issue, he explained that the company simply couldn’t retain every user’s information after they quit using the site—doing so would take up too much space on their servers, costing the company excess money. We wouldn’t be able to get anything on Jasmine Thomas even though we had evidence on her computer that she had had an account, at one time, on the site. Mr. Bailor also let us know that the company didn’t keep records of account termination dates.

We took seats around the table, where Andrews dropped the file box Mr. Bailor had given us. He opened the top and pulled the smaller files from within.

“So we just got Monica Whickham, our latest victim, and Rebecca Wright?” I asked.

“That’s it,” Andrews said. “Nothing on the others, unfortunately. Looks like there are a fair number of transcripts in here, though.”

“Well, let’s dig in. See if we can find a smoking gun somewhere,” Beth said.

“How do we want to do it?” Andrews asked.

“Write down all the user names Monica and Rebecca were in contact with. If we find a match between the two, well, that’s our lead,” I said.

“Are we just digging through these and trying to find messages that are from the personals section?” Andrews asked. “It looks like each of these pages have what segment of the website they came from listed at the top.”

I motioned for him to hand me some of the transcripts. “Everything. Personals and everything else.”

“Sure,” Andrews said. He divvied up the transcripts, handing Beth and me each a stack and then taking a pile for himself.

I looked down at the sheets of paper—they belonged to Monica Whickham.

Beth leaned over, tucked her brown hair behind her ear, and looked to see which woman I was working on. “I have her too.”

“Have who?” Andrews asked.

“Monica Whickham,” Beth said.

“Oh. Yeah, looks like it’s about fifty-fifty on transcripts between the two women. I have transcripts from her as well,” he said. “We’ll get her done and then move on to Rebecca Wright.”

Beth nodded but said nothing.

My eyes went back to the sheet in front of me. The date on the top corner of the first message was from two weeks prior. The information on the page was oriented with outgoing messages on the left and incoming messages on the right. I pulled out my notepad and jotted down the user name of the person she was exchanging messages with—the conversation topic was an inquiry about a sale of a vehicle, which matched with the segment of the site that the message had come through. She appeared to be looking to buy a used car, due to the fact that the next few pages of messages were of a similar topic—her inquiring about the vehicles and trying to arrange times she’d be able to view them. The responses included a few addresses and first names. I wrote them down.