M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

I chased the crumbling white pill remnants down with a quick gulp of fresh coffee that wasn’t much better than the hours old brew from earlier. The bitter tang of the medicine combined with the java leeched into the back of my tongue, and I had to bite back a reflexive gag.

“Whoever sent her the threatening e-mail,” I finally explained, setting my cup aside and forcing myself to ignore the throbbing in my temples, “would most likely have an e-mail address or a domain header embedded in it. If we can get that information, we should be able to trace it back to their service provider and get their billing information.”

“Unless the sender spoofed it,” Chuck volunteered.

“Yes, that’s true,” I agreed.

“Spoof?” Ben shot a puzzled look between us.

“Masked or somehow altered the address and domain,” the young detective detailed. “Kind of like electronically filing off a serial number.”

“Simply fuckin’ lovely.” Ben’s right hand went up to smooth back his hair as he muttered the curse.

“Even if it was spoofed, as long as they have the POP-three logs and the original piece of mail, the assigned routing number should at least allow us to track it to the mail server that delivered it originally,” I offered.

Chuck returned an animated nod. “True, but that’s all you’d get. No account info. And if you’re talking AOL or something, that’s a big goddamned ISP. That’s not even taking into account if it was sent through an open relay.”

“So what’s the story? There’s still a way ta’ track ‘im down even if he did this ‘spoofing’ thing, or no?” Ben queried.

“In theory, yes,” I told him. “I have to be honest though, I don’t think this guy is that computer savvy. In fact, we should consider the fact that the threatening e-mail might not have even come from him.”

“Whaddaya mean?” my friend asked.

“This kind of hate crime is not terribly uncommon,” I replied with a shrug. “The idea of taunting or degrading someone from behind the anonymity of the keyboard is terribly appealing to some. Unfortunately, there are a large number of individuals out there who are closed minded and hateful but are just a little too inhibited to step over the line in person. Hide them behind a computer monitor and a phone line and they suddenly change. The inhibitions disappear because they believe no one knows who they are, and they think that they can’t be caught.”

“So you’re sayin’ this kinda shit happens all the time?” Ben appealed.

Chuck had been bobbing his head at strategic points throughout my statement. “It’s rapidly becoming the preferred method of sending anonymous hate mail.”

I shrugged in agreement. “Sure. I’ve been on the receiving end of threatening e-mail myself.”

“What the fuck?” Ben’s eyes grew wide. “Why haven’t ya’ ever told me this before, white man?”

“Why?”

“So maybe I could do somethin’ about it.”

“So you could do what, Ben?” I questioned. “Fly halfway across the country and beat up… oh, I don’t know…” I shrugged and shook my head before continuing, “maybe a beer swilling bigot in his mid-twenties whose biggest thrill in life is denigrating others over the internet just for something to do? People like that aren’t worth your time any more than they are mine.”

My friend stared at the floor for a moment, silently working his fingers on a tense knot at the back of his neck. “Okay,” he finally spoke. “So if I understand what you two are sayin’, this lead may or may not get us any closer to our guy.”

“Right,” Chuck answered.

“Correct,” I agreed. “But there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to go talk to the administrator of Kendra Miller’s ISP and see what kind of information we can get.”

“You know,” Chuck offered, “internet stalking is a federal crime. You might want to get the Feeb’s in on this.”

Still massaging the base of his neck, Ben twisted around and motioned across the room with his free hand. “Hey, Constance, you got a minute?”

We were sitting in a small waiting area in one corner of the homicide division squad room. My auburn-maned wife was planted lethargically in her seat next to me, one leg draped over the other, unmoving. Ever since I had known her, whenever she sat with her legs crossed, she would invariably begin lightly tapping her foot in the air to a rhythm only she could hear. Her now uncharacteristic motionlessness was a sure indicator of her fatigue.

Her upper torso was slightly twisted and tucked neatly into the crook of my shoulder with my arm hooked about her. She cupped a half-full coffee mug in her dainty hands, absently running the tip of a neatly manicured nail around its rim.

I rested my chin lightly atop her head, and since her contaminated jacket was draped across a seat several feet away, all I could smell was the fresh sweetness of juniper wafting from her soft hair. I closed my eyes and relaxed, feeling the fistful of aspirins beginning to force my headache into submission.

“We’ll be leaving in about thirty-minutes or so, I guess,” I told Felicity in a quiet voice. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I wouldn’t expect more than an hour or two.”

“That’s okay,” she answered with an exhausted near whisper. “I called my client before I came up here. They still want to see if we can do the shoot today, so I really need to be getting over there then.”

Between her lingering hangover and coming down from the adrenalin rush, I knew she was fading fast. I also had no doubt that she would muster a second wind and do everything in her power to make her client happy-and she would succeed as usual. This evening, however, one could be certain that she was going to crash and crash hard.

“You look to me like you need a few more hours sleep as opposed to working,” I admonished. “No offense intended. You’re still the prettiest sight I’ve seen all day.”

“Aye, none taken,” her voice lilted as she rested against me. “Surely I feel like I could use it myself. And I suspect you need to have your glasses checked then.”

“Uh-huh. My glasses are fine, sweetheart.”

“Ahh, you’re just besotted then.” My petite wife let out a satiny, musical laugh then stretched cat-like against me and pressed herself deeper into the cradle of my arm. “Oh, and I almost forgot, Austin called shortly after you left this morning. He’d like to take us to dinner tomorrow night if we’re free. I told him I’d check with you.”

“I don’t see why we couldn’t,” I said with a slight shrug. “I can’t say what’s going to happen between now and then, but as far as I know I’ll be available. And I definitely didn’t get to spend much time with him last night. How did all that work out anyway?”

“What’s that? The fight?”

“Yeah,” I said and gave her arm a squeeze. “Best I could get from you last night was that you’d bailed him out.”

She let out a breath and inhaled deeply. I could feel a slight movement of her head against me as she gave a shallow nod. “The charges were dropped. Austin didn’t hurt him that badly, and seems that after Daddy was finished threatening the hotel management with lawsuits, they were apologizing and assuring him they would take disciplinary action against the bartender.”

“Leave it to Shamus,” I muttered with hollowness in my voice. “So some poor stiff is going to lose his job on top of getting pummeled by my brother-in-law, all because he happened to make a joke about me? I can’t live with that.”

“Aye, I’m thinking not, so don’t worry,” she returned. “Daddy told them they should leave it be. Just let men be men and be done with it.”