Daniel Palmer - Helpless

He had called the sender’s number, only to get a messaging service provider called TxtyChat.com. According to the TxtyChat Web site, the service was used to send text and images to mobile phones from a dedicated bank of phone numbers. Untraceable—that was one of TxtyChat’s featured selling points, as documented on the Web site.

Untraceable.

Tom had spent some of the previous day researching the legal and ethical issues around his thorny situation. He knew that what he’d received was a sext—digitally transmitted, sexually suggestive, nude or nearly nude photos. What he didn’t know was whether he could be charged with any crime for simply receiving an unsolicited image.

The blog posts had already cast suspicion on him. Complicating matters, the legal landscape of digital laws was in a near molten stage, changing and reforming as new precedents and cases cropped up. He concluded only that his receipt was unsolicited and therefore didn’t violate any sexual harassment or child pornography laws.

But the question still remained: what should he do about it?

The first thing Tom did was to delete the pictures from his phone. A girls’ soccer coach’s possessing naked pictures of a female minor was like walking around with a stick of dynamite in his pocket. Bringing it to the attention of any of the school staff would launch a formal inquiry. Lots of questions would get asked. The blog posts might not seem like a prank anymore. The additional attention wouldn’t do his already struggling daughter any good, either.

Tom decided to leave it alone.

He hadn’t received any more pictures. Perhaps the pictures and the blog post were unrelated coincidences. Maybe this mystery teenage girl had intended those pictures to be seen by somebody else. Maybe that person’s phone number was close to his own. If so, with luck she had realized her mistake and wouldn’t make it again.

Tom contemplated calling Marvin for legal advice.

Not yet, he decided.

Marvin might insist Tom make his concerns public. Document them in an official statement. There’d be a formal inquiry for sure if he went that route. And Jill would be caught in the middle.

No, for now, the best thing for Tom to do was wait and see.

Coincidence or attack?

Prank or something else?

He’d find out for certain before deciding his next move.

Another question still bothered Tom. Was Jill doing the same thing as the girl who texted him?

Tom couldn’t get his thoughts around that one. He’d gone from being the occasional father of a distant and disinterested daughter, to a full-time parent of a beautiful teenage girl with a stew of cooking hormones. How could he keep an eye on what she was doing without her feeling that he was intruding on her privacy?

Kelly had allowed Jill to keep a computer in her bedroom. Tom knew that wasn’t a wise decision. It made it harder to keep her safe from online predators. He hadn’t planned on battling Jill to establish new and far stricter limits. She had enough on her plate to deal with. But after seeing those images, Tom’s concerns intensified.

How could he know what his daughter was doing behind closed doors?

Tom blew his whistle to signal practice was over. The girls, as usual, dashed for their gym bags stacked on the sidelines. They didn’t go for water bottles or snacks; they went for the first thing they always went for when practice ended.

They took out their cell phones.

Tom was gathering his belongings when he heard a loud shriek. He looked and saw some of the girls huddled together, talking anxiously. He saw more girls being drawn toward the huddle. They were all looking at Lauren Grass’s cell phone.

He saw them pass her phone around. The chatter become more fevered. The girls made a sudden break, collected their bags, and took off for the locker room. Jill came over to Tom, panic on her face.

“Dad, what is going on?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know what that was all about?”

“No,” Tom said. “But I assume you’re going to tell me.”

Jill tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. Tom could tell she was trying to keep from crying. “Lauren said she friended somebody she didn’t know last night,” Jill said, her voice shaky.

“Friended, as in school?”

“No, friended as in Facebook.”

“Oh.”

Jill continued, “The friend request said, ‘Do you want to know a secret?’ She was curious. Normally, she doesn’t accept friend requests from people she doesn’t know.”

“And what was this secret?”

“They posted it on her wall during practice.”

“Wall?”

“Her Facebook wall,” Jill said with exasperation.

“Oh? And what did they post?”

Now the tears came. “That they know for a fact you’re sleeping with somebody on the team,” Jill sobbed. “And they know who it is, too.”

“Do you want to know a secret?”

That was the message delivered in a mysterious friend request from somebody who called themselves Fidelius Charm.

Rebecca was good friends with Ellen Grass, Lauren’s mother. Lauren’s sister, Julie, and their father, David, were at home when Tom and Jill came over to get a look at the Facebook posts that had ignited a firestorm of controversy. Judging by the way David Grass glared at Tom upon opening the door to his house, he thought it doubtful the Grasses would have been so accommodating without Rebecca having smoothed the way. In contrast to David, Ellen Grass, dark haired, slim, and pretty, gave Tom a strained smile and a compassionate look more befitting a wake. The Grass family represented a microcosm of the opinions about Tom spreading around town.

“What kind of name is Fidelius Charm?” Tom asked Rebecca.

Rebecca did a quick Google search.

“Fidelius Charm,” Rebecca said, reading from Wikipedia, “is a spell from the Harry Potter books. It’s a charm used to keep secret information hidden. This information stays hidden until the Secret-Keeper chooses to reveal it.”

“Great,” Tom said with an exasperated sigh. “So we’re looking for someone who’s a Harry Potter fan. That should narrow down our list of suspects.”

“How many people do you think have seen the posts?” Rebecca asked Lauren.

Lauren took the mouse from Rebecca and, leaning over her shoulder, opened up her Facebook page.

“Fidelius Charm sent a friend request to every girl on the varsity soccer team with a Facebook account,” Lauren said. “Ten of my friends are also friends with Fidelius.”

“So how many saw the wall post?” asked Tom.

“The privacy setting on the content was set to ‘Friends of Friends,’ ” Lauren explained. “So any of my friends who aren’t friends with Fidelius Charm can see it.”

“How many friends do you have?” Rebecca asked.

“Eight hundred and fifty-five,” Lauren said.

“That’s pretty normal,” Jill said.

“Who has eight hundred and fifty-five friends?” Tom asked Jill.

Jill and Lauren looked at each other and shrugged.

“Tom, some of these kids are Facebook friends with their teachers.”

“As if the blog post wasn’t bad enough,” Tom said.

“There’s no easy way for us to know how many people saw the wall post,” Rebecca said.

In a small town like Shilo, a few could mean a lot.

Looking over Rebecca’s shoulder, Tom reread the wall post on Lauren’s Facebook page, doing his best to temper his anger and frustration.

Coach Hawkins is sleeping with a player. And I know who it is.

“Can I see Fidelius Charm’s Facebook page?” Tom asked.

Lauren pulled it up. The page contained only the default Facebook settings, no pictures, nothing personalized, no way to know who had created the profile.