Daniel Palmer - Helpless

“Image A is already logged in the CVIP,” Carter had once explained to help Rainy grasp the concept. “Let’s say it’s a picture of a teenaged girl with a fifty-year-old man. The CVIP assigns Image A a hash value. Done. Later we feed Image B into the CVIP. Image B is the exact same picture as Image A, only someone cropped out the old man. The CVIP will catalog Image B by its own hash value. It doesn’t know the old man has been removed. The CVIP will think Image B is a new image, and we’ll have ourselves a no hit to investigate.”

Rainy’s job was tough to stomach, but a CVIP analyst had it worse. The CVIP team further classified images into series—images of the same person, setting, or type that should be grouped together. They had to visually inspect every image without a hash value match to see if they could match it on their own. CVIP analysts knew, just based on their vast experience, that certain bathtubs or wallpaper patterns, for instance, came from images they’d seen before. These images could be assigned to a known series even though the hash values didn’t match.

“So far we’ve got all matching hash values and known image series here,” Rainy said to Carter, flipping through the pages of the CVIP report she had printed from her e-mail.

Many of the images taken off Mann’s computer had victim impact statements on file, too. Those statements would need to be read aloud by either the victim or a witness coordinator at Mann’s sentencing if he got convicted.

When he gets convicted, Rainy assured herself.

Some of the images in Mann’s collection had been in circulation a long time, even dating as far back as the early 1980s.

“Rainy, I’ve got some more lovelies to send your way if you want to go through them,” Carter said. “Sorry.”

Perhaps Carter had apologized because he saw the look in Rainy’s eye that said she really didn’t want to look anymore.

“That’s okay, Cart. I’ll check them out.”

Carter electronically transferred a batch of encrypted files to the password-protected external hard drive, where Rainy conducted her forensic categorization.

She settled back into her workstation chair and opened one picture after another. She categorized each image for the USAO’s report. She captured the image properties they’d need for trial. She verified the images with the CVIP. So far, every image sent to the CVIP came back with a hit.

Very good news indeed.

“A little over three hundred left to go,” Rainy said to Carter.

Rainy opened the next image in the batch. During her five years on the squad, she thought she’d seen it all. Every vile and disgusting act she could imagine. Compared to those images, the one she opened next wasn’t graphic at all. It wasn’t very sexually explicit, either. It was just a picture of a girl, a teenager perhaps, lying partially undressed on a bed. She didn’t think much of it as she opened the next bunch of images in the batch that Carter had sent.

She kept looking. What seemed only a curious departure from Mann’s more explicit image collection suddenly became a lot more interesting.

“Carter,” Rainy said, her voice breathy from a pulse of adrenaline. “Stay close by. I may need you. Just want to check these out with the CVIP first.”

Rainy sent the images over to the CVIP for processing. It would take some time for the CVIP results to return, but Rainy had seen enough images to have a gut feeling about the report she’d receive back.

Of the 325 images Rainy sent to the CVIP, there wouldn’t be a single hit in the batch.

Not a one.

Carter inched his chair over to where he could see Rainy’s computer screen better. Rainy had lined up a twelve-picture display, each a shot of a different girl. “Tell me what you notice about these,” she said.

Carter leaned forward to get an even closer look.

“Young girls,” he said.

“How young?” Rainy asked.

“Between fourteen and eighteen, I’m thinking.”

“Most of Mann’s other shots were of girls younger than that. What else do you notice?”

“Well, it looks like they’re in their bedrooms.”

“Exactly. These weren’t taken in some low-rent studio, dingy basement, or roadside motel.”

The rooms were remarkably similar. Colorful bedspreads. Lots of clothes in various heaps on the floor and on dressers. Closet doors mostly concealed by an array of hanging clothes. Posters of current pop stars and cultural icons adorning the walls. Small desks with vanity mirrors. Bright colors throughout.

“Look here.” Rainy pointed to a picture of a girl kneeling on the floor, wearing only her underwear. Her back was arched. Her arm folded across her ample chest concealed her breasts. Her plump lips were puckered and inviting. “These posters on the wall behind her, a corkboard with a bunch of photos tacked to it, the floral-patterned bedspread, this is a girl’s bedroom. Her bedroom, I’m betting.” Rainy tapped her finger against the girl’s digital face.

“I get it. And he has a bunch of these pictures?”

“Three hundred twenty-five, by my count. Forty different girls. Each girl is in a different bedroom setting. There is no way these were staged. These pictures are personal. Not forced or faked. Taken willingly by the girls themselves.”

“You think these girls took the shots themselves with their cell phones or something?”

Rainy nodded her head. “Yup. Look at the angles of the shots, too. In each one, the girls have one hand just outside the frame. The hand not visible is the one holding their cell phone, I’m willing to bet.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, I see what you’re talking about. The quality too. Some are really pixelated.”

“Suggesting a low-quality camera. Some phones are better than others at taking pictures. And there’s another thing troubling me. Look at their eyes.” Rainy opened up several similar crime-image pictures. “These girls have a proud look to them, Carter. It’s as if they’re bragging about their bodies.”

“You think they’re being flirtatious?”

“That’s exactly what I think. Girls that age are almost begging for attention. And these pictures scream, ‘Look at me and how sexy I am.’ They don’t say, ‘Help me.’ They don’t say, ‘Get me out of here.’ These girls wanted to be seen.”

“By James Mann?”

“Oh, I doubt any of them thought a creep like James Mann would be looking at their naked selves. I’m betting they sent these pictures to their boyfriends or someone they trusted. Maybe they texted the images to them. A sext, you know? And somehow, Mann got hold of them.”

Rainy studied the crop of images with rapt focus. Some of the girls were partially dressed, but what they wore fit tight, like an extra layer of skin. They were posed. Backs arched. Legs raised. Hips swiveled. Eyes playful—taking (it seemed) much delight in showing the undersides of their thighs. Hands touching their fawnlike bodies in all the wrong places for James Mann to see.

“Well, I’m hoping our forensic analysis will show us how he got the pictures.”

“Sure. But even if you manage to do that, we’re still going to need to get the subpoenas. And that’s going to take a long time.”

“Hail to the Queen of Paperwork!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Rainy sighed. “But I’m thinking, what if we could work from a source?”

“What, like one of the girls themselves? I checked, and there’s no GeoTagging or other metadata information on any of these images. We have no way of knowing who they are,” Carter said. “How do you figure on finding that out?”

Rainy didn’t need to think about her answer. Identifying girls from a bunch of poorly focused digital snapshots required an expert in imaging technology. Somebody who understood everything to do with image verification, enhancement, facial recognition, and analysis.