Daniel Palmer - Helpless

“All I can tell you is that there is a lot of computer evidence to say Tom Hawkins was running a business selling images that appear to be teenage girls sexting, to interested parties all over the Internet. He used Leterg to mask the IP and MAC addresses of his clients. But we’ve got transaction logs that show the dates and times during which illegal images were sent out.”

“And?”

“And we’ve matched those dates to when Mann downloaded images. The image batch Mann acquired equaled the cumulative file size of the entire Shilo text image collection found on Hawkins’s computer. The exact same byte size. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…”

“But we can’t ID any other of Tom’s alleged customers,” Rainy said.

“Oh, it’s ‘alleged’ now? How interesting.”

“He hasn’t been convicted,” Rainy said defensively.

Carter gave a knowing smile, which Rainy didn’t at all appreciate.

“There’s not a direct IP link,” Carter said. “We wouldn’t have been able to link Hawkins to Mann if it wasn’t for your work with Clarence Stern. But the circumstantial evidence is more than enough to prove our case. From log analysis we know that Hawkins is the distributor here. And his text image collection of forty different girls matches what we recovered off James Mann’s machine. The exact same. Down to the image.”

“What about the money trail? Can we trace it back to another buyer?”

Carter shook his head. “Nope. The way he moved money through his network of shell companies makes it impossible for us to get to a source. Hawkins was clever with his use of virtual servers and ghost machines. The way he cleaned his money would make any mobster jealous. He’s that good.”

“But think back to what Tom’s lawyer said. Why would Hawkins be so reckless now if he’s kept a low profile for so long?”

“Maybe he wanted to get caught,” Carter offered. “Maybe he was tired. Maybe sleeping with the girl made him lazy. There are a thousand reasons to explain why he got sloppy. What’s important is that there is enough evidence on this laptop to get the D.A. a conviction. A jury isn’t going to care why he suddenly screwed up and turned reckless.”

“But I care,” Rainy said, more to herself than to Carter.

Carter was right. It didn’t matter that Tom Hawkins got lazy about covering his tracks. What mattered was what the evidence against him said. This evidence screamed that Tom Hawkins was a guilty man, just as it did about James Mann.

“So what now?” Carter asked after he’d run through his final series of tests.

“I want to see that laptop,” Rainy said.

“You like him, don’t you?” Carter said.

“I do not.”

“You do. I can tell.”

“Take it back.”

“Whatever,” Carter said. “I take it back.”

Rainy gave Carter a stern look. He didn’t really mean it. That was fine. She didn’t mean it, either.

Sergeant Brendan Murphy returned to the too-hot, too-small interrogation room, carrying with him the evidence against Tom Hawkins. The laptop was tucked neatly into a clear plastic evidence bag.

“You need to wear gloves,” he said to Rainy.

It was out of the ordinary for any agent to work with the original evidence. Rainy would document her every move very carefully.

After donning a pair of gloves, Rainy powered up the machine. She watched the familiar Windows OS graphic go through its equally familiar boot-up sequence. She logged into the machine using the ID and password that Hawkins had used. She scanned through the folders and files. She saw where he kept the Leterg program. She opened the images of the girls that she’d first seen on James Mann’s machine. She kept looking but wasn’t seeing anything new or helpful.

“Rainy,” Carter said, breaking a long period of silence, “I really want to go home now.”

Rainy nodded slowly. She was closing the laptop screen when she suddenly and quickly pulled it open again.

“Carter,” she said in barely a whisper, “our mirror image re-creates the software and operating system, right?”

“That’s right,” he said.

“But you can’t re-create the hardware. You can’t make the mirror image replicate any hardware defects, can you?”

“No. I can’t do that,” Carter agreed.

“Then what do you make of this?”

Rainy pointed to the computer’s date and time display. Carter’s eyes went wide.

The date on the computer display read January 1, 1970.

“Why is the computer’s date nineteen seventy, Carter?” Rainy asked.

“It’s probably an issue with the CMOS battery,” Carter explained. “The complementary metal-oxide semiconductor battery located on the computer’s motherboard is cheap, but when it goes bad, which they often do, it can bring even the mightiest PC to its knees.”

Rainy recalled something similar happening to her machine. Several months ago her computer simply wouldn’t boot up. She had brought it to Carter for help. As she later learned, the battery that acted as the controller between the computer’s BIOS (Basic Input/ Output System) had failed. That failure prevented the CPU from communicating with the computer’s motherboard. The result was an unsuccessful OS boot-up sequence. She was ready to junk a two-thousand-dollar machine, when all it needed was a cheap battery replacement.

“Carter, according to the logs, how long has Coach Hawkins been in the illegal image distribution business?”

“Two and half years… thereabout,” Carter said.

“But if this battery is dead or dying, and the date of the machine is January first, nineteen seventy, shouldn’t some of his transactions show a date in the nineteen seventies?”

“They should,” Carter replied.

“But they don’t.”

Carter opened a scripting window, typed in some code, and executed the program.

“No. It looks like they don’t,” Carter agreed. “There are lots of files with a nineteen seventy date. I’m guessing the battery went bad almost ten months ago.”

“How can you explain that, Cart?”

“You’d have to run a script to change the dates in the transaction logs to whatever date you wanted them to read.”

“Why would Tom Hawkins run a script that changes the dates of his transaction logs?”

“He wouldn’t,” Carter said.

“Then who would?” Rainy asked. She had been leading him along this thought trail and could see the awareness ignite in his eyes.

“Who would run that script?” Carter repeated the question. “Whoever was trying to frame Tom Hawkins, that’s who.”

Tom ordered another cup of coffee from the bubbly waitress at Johnny Rockets. She poured and smiled. Tom wondered just how friendly she’d be if he took off his hat and sunglasses. Maybe she’d recognize him from the news. Probably wouldn’t be so smiley if she did. The jukebox kept playing fifties-era tunes, none of which Tom recognized. He figured there was a good chance the song now playing was by a Platter or a Coaster or a Lad, but didn’t bother to ask.

Tom checked his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. Lange should have shown up by now. Tom felt a twinge of anxiety, but he had the place scoped out and his escape options planned if needed.

Tom’s seat at the counter wasn’t chosen at random. From his perch atop the shiny chrome stool with its red vinyl covering, Tom could see both to his left and right without any obstruction. He also could see behind him through the reflection of the stainless steel vent mounted to the ceiling and backsplash behind the open grill.

The other customers seemed harmless. He had stopped by a booth with three older gentlemen enjoying a leisurely late-night dinner. They chatted, and Tom didn’t believe they posed any danger. His waitress confirmed that they were regulars. The staff didn’t concern Tom, either. The two cooks and his waitress were young, fresh-faced, and fully focused on cleaning up their respective work areas to lock up for the night. The bathrooms, both for men and women, checked out fine as well. He had inspected the wastebaskets and paper towel dispensers, and lifted the toilet tanks.