“But our victims have a common link—this chat room. Identify the users, identify the killer…or the next victims.”
“But again,” Phil reminded D.D., “we only have copies of a chat, not access to the chat room itself. While the transcripts show a couple dozen posters, that’s probably only the tip of the iceberg. Most members ‘lurk’ in these kinds of forums. Meaning there’s probably hundreds if not thousands of other users who don’t actively post, meaning they remain invisible to us. We’ll work on tracing the user names we can identify from the transcripts, but bear in mind, it’s probably a needle-in-the-haystack kind of exercise.”
“You said we can’t access the real chat room,” D.D. spoke up. “That it’s encrypted eighty ways to Sunday, invitation only. So how can we get an invite?”
“Don’t know,” O said. “Probably friend of a friend kind of thing. Meet in other forums, perhaps swapping porn, and once enough trust is gained, eventually a member of the chat room will extend an invitation.”
“But they must get new members, these teenagers, like you said.”
“Sure, and one possibility is that we could go ‘undercover’ as a teenage boy. Build a virtual identity that surfs the right places on the net, engages in the kind of Internet searches that might catch a fellow pedophile’s eyes. There are ‘undercover’ operators on the Internet, you know. But that kind of thing can take months to fully execute. Given our shooter’s time line, we have more like weeks.”
“We need a hacker,” D.D. said bluntly.
“Agreed.”
“Or…” D.D. thought a moment. “Do they know two of their users are dead? What if we claimed their user names and passwords? Could we log on as Stephen Laurent and/or Douglas Antiholde?”
“We’d have to identify their user names and passwords,” Phil said.
“Which our fine computer forensic experts should be able to do, right? Mine it out of the hard drive of the victims’ computers?”
Slowly, Phil nodded. O, as well.
“Yeah,” Phil considered. “Might take them a couple of days, but the computer pros should be able to do that.”
“All right, so forget building an undercover identity. We’ll simply steal Stephen Laurent’s user name, log on, and recon. We’ll listen, we’ll learn, and with any luck, we’ll find our man…or woman as the case might be.”
“Woman?” O asked.
D.D. hadn’t mentioned her conversation with the forensic handwriting expert before. She figured it was probably time. “The notes left at both scenes: Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave. Based on penmanship, our note writer is most likely female. Tightly wound, probably private school–educated, and prone to wearing plaid. Which is another question, I suppose: How much ‘personality’ can you tell from chat room logs? Any of the users come across as a type A female? Or can you even distinguish male users from female users?”
Phil shook his head. O, too. Both detectives were thinking, however. D.D. had that feeling between her shoulder blades, the one that as a detective she liked to get. They were on to something. Finally gaining ground.
Case would crack. Soon. Suddenly.
They would get their man…or woman.
“Anything else I need to know?” she asked.
Her case team shook their tired heads. “O,” D.D. said, “how about you meet with Neil, take over photos?”
O nodded. Neil looked embarrassed to surrender his assignment but didn’t argue.
“Neil,” D.D. continued, “in my office at ten. Phil, you’re off duty at noon. Go home, get some rest. O, you can finish today, but I don’t want to see you tomorrow before noon. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Phil looked at her strangely. “You never send us home.”
“Are you complaining?”
He shut up.
D.D. adjourned the meeting, returning to her office, where she picked up a second crime scene report and prepared for her second major case of the day: the soon-to-be murder of Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant.
D.D. lifted the phone and dialed.
Chapter 19