Michael Connelly - The Scarecrow

“It could be. We’re working on it. So far we haven’t found the connection. We’re working on the possible acronym and the name itself. But we haven’t come up with a Bill Denslow with any sort of criminal record that would approach this.”

“Maybe it’s just a guy the Unsub hated, growing up. Like a neighbor or a teacher.”

“Could be.”

“So why the two websites?”

“One was the capture site and one was the OP site.”

“OP?”

“Observation point.”

“You’re completely losing me.”

“Okay, the trunk murder site was set up to collect the IP-the computer address-of anybody who visited the site. This is what happened with Angela. You understand?”

“Right. She did a search and it brought her to the site.”

“Right. The site collected IPs but was built so that those addresses were automatically forwarded to another dot com site. This one was called Denslow Data. This is a common practice. You go to a site and your ID is captured and sent on for marketing use elsewhere. It’s essentially the origin of spam.”

“Okay. So now Denslow Data has Angela’s ID. What happened to it there?”

“Nothing. It stayed there.”

“Then how did-”

“Look, here’s the trick. Denslow Data was built with a function that was completely the opposite of the trunk murder site. It captures no data of visitors. You see what I’m getting at?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, look at it from the Unsub’s point of view. He has set up trunk murder dot com to capture the computer ID of anybody who might be onto him and looking for him. The only problem with that is if he went to the site to check it, then his own ID would be captured. And sure he could use somebody else’s computer to run the check, but it would still help fix location. He could be tracked to a high degree through his own site.”

I nodded as I finally understood the setup.

“I see,” I said. “So he has the captured IP address forwarded to another site where there is no capture mechanism and he can check it without fear of being tracked.”

“Exactly.”

“So after Angela hit on the trunk murder site he went to the Denslow site and got her IP. He traced it back to the Times and figured this might be more than a morbid curiosity about trunk murders. He breaches the Times system and that leads him to me and Angela and our stories. He reads my e-mails and he knows that we are onto something. That I’m onto something and heading to Vegas.”

“That’s right. So he concocted the scheme to take you both out in a murder-suicide.”

I was silent for a moment as I spun it once more. It added up, even though I didn’t like the total.

“It was my e-mail that got her killed.”

“No, Jack. You can’t look at it that way. If anything, her fate was sealed when she checked out trunk murder dot com. You can’t blame yourself for an e-mail you sent to an editor.”

I didn’t respond. I tried to put the question of guilt out of my head for a while and to concentrate on the Unsub.

“Jack, you there?”

“I’m just thinking. So this is all completely untraceable?”

“From this angle. Once we get this guy and grab his computer, we’ll be able to tear it apart and trace his visits to Denslow. That will be solid evidence.”

“You mean if he used his own computer.”

“Yes.”

“Seems unlikely, given the skill he’s already shown.”

“Maybe. It will depend on how often he checked his trap. It appears he was onto Angela less than twenty-four hours after her visit to the trunk murder site. That would indicate a routine, a daily trap check, and that might indicate he was using his own computer or one in close proximity.”

I thought about all of this for a moment and leaned back on the pillow, closing my eyes. What I knew about the world was depressing.

“There’s something else I want to tell you,” Rachel said.

“What?”

I opened my eyes.

“We figured out how he drew Angela to your house.”

“How?”

“You did it.”

“What are you talking about? I was-”

“I know, I know. I am just saying that is how it was meant to look. We found her laptop in her apartment. In her e-mail account is an e-mail from you. It was sent Tuesday night. You said you had picked up some interesting information on the Winslow case. The Unsub, as you, said it was very important and invited her over to show it to her.”

“Jesus!”

“She returned the e-mail, saying she was on her way. She came to your house and he was waiting for her. It was after you’d left for Vegas.”

“He must’ve been watching my house. He watched me leave.”

“You leave, he gets in and uses your home computer to send the message. Then he waits for her. And once he is through with her, he follows you out to Vegas to complete the setup by killing you and making it look like a suicide.”

“But what about my gun? He gets in the house and finds it easily enough. He could then drive it to Vegas to follow me. But it still doesn’t explain how I supposedly got it there. I flew and I didn’t check a bag. That’s a big hole, isn’t it?”

“We think we’ve got that filled in, too.”

I squeezed my eyes shut again.

“Tell me.”

“After he baited Angela he used your computer to print out a GO! cargo shipping form.”

“Go? I’ve never heard of Go.”

“It’s a small competitor to FedEx and the others. G-O with an exclamation mark. Stands for Guaranteed Overnight. It’s airport-to-airport shipping. A growing business now that airlines limit luggage and charge for it. You can download shipping forms off the Internet, and someone did just that on your computer. It was for a package sent first overnight to yourself. It was held for pickup at the cargo facility at McCarran International. No signature required. Just show your copy of the shipping form. You can drop packages off at LAX as late as eleven o’clock.”

I could only shake my head.

“This is how we think he did it,” Rachel said. “He baits Angela and then goes to work on the shipment. Angela shows up and he does his thing with her. He leaves her-whether she is dead or not at this point we don’t know. He then goes to the airport and drops the package with the gun. They don’t X-ray domestic packages at GO! He then either drives to Vegas or flies, quite possibly even on the same plane as you. Either way, once he’s there, he picks up the package and has the gun. He then follows you to Ely to complete the plan.”

“It seems so tight. Are you sure he could have pulled this off?”

“It is tight and we’re not sure, but the scenario works.”

“What about Schifino?”

“He’s been briefed but doesn’t feel he’s in danger now, if he ever was. He declined protection but we’re watching him anyway.”

I wondered if the Las Vegas lawyer would ever realize how close he may have been to being the worst kind of victim. Rachel continued.

“I take it you would have called me by now if there had been any further contact from the Unsub.”

“No, no contact. Besides, you have the phone. Has he tried calling it again?”

“No.”

“What happened with the trace?”

“We traced his call to you to a cell tower at McCarran. The US Airways terminal. Within two hours of the call to you, there were flights from that terminal to twenty-four different American cities. He could have been going just about anywhere with connections from those twenty-four.”

“What about Seattle?”

“It wasn’t a direct flight but he could have flown to a connection city and gone from there. We are executing a search warrant today that will give us the passenger manifests from all the flights. We’ll run the names through the computer and see what we get. This is our guy’s first mistake and, hopefully, we’ll make him pay for it.”