Dark Web (30 page)
“Dad? How’s it going?”
Mike had been brought through the booking process by deputies who, when they looked at him at all, acted like they were viewing livestock. One was giving him the stink-eye now as he used the payphone in the men’s pod. Even after lying awake on a narrow bed all night, he could still smell the vodka leaching out of his pores. What a mess he was. What a mess he’d always been. When his mugshot was taken he realized he probably looked like any other goon he’d seen on television, popped for meth, or child neglect, or any other scumbag thing — eyes bloodshot, hair sticking up, skin cheesy. What people never saw when they looked at those mugshots was the fact that all those guys had started out fairly decent; at least with some semblance of health and sanity, before they ended up shipwrecked on the craggy rocks of whatever tragedy their life contained — and everyone had at least one tragedy in their lives.
“Turn to the left,” they’d said.
He’d turned, and the light had flashed, and they took another picture, and then they finger-printed him. He was stripped of his belongings and clothing and processed along with Bull and Linda, who had been arrested unharmed. Lucky for them that in all the dark and snow they’d never hit anything. Still, the two of them were facing stiff charges — fleeing arrest, firing on State Troopers — these things weren’t small matters.
“Dad, you there?”
“I’m here, Mike.”
“Let me talk to Callie and the girls.”
Mike heard his father draw a deep breath and then sigh. “Where are you?”
For a moment, Mike considered lying. But his number would’ve come up blocked on his father’s phone. And there was that distant beeping on the line as the jail recorded the call. Added to the fact that there had already been enough lying and half-truths lately to last a lifetime.
“I’m in jail, pop.”
“Uh-huh,” said his father. “A man can get into trouble when he’s away from his wife and kids, can’t he? It’s like you’re a different person. It’s like you’re your old self.”
“I’m nothing like my old self. Can I talk to them, please?”
“You really think that’s the best idea, Mike?”
“I need to know that they’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t they be okay?”
Mike felt himself sink. He was weak from dehydration along with the adrenaline still buzzing through him twelve hours on; he barely felt able to support his own weight, and he leaned against the pea-green wall. The hallway smelled like bad breath, old food, sweat, the end of dreams.
“Maybe you just need to cool out,” Jack said.
“Put them on, pop. I don’t care.”
“No.”
“No? Why did you take the money? I don’t understand. To pay this guy? To pay McAfferty? I could’ve killed him, pop. I could’ve killed him . . .”
“Now you listen to me,” Jack Simpkins growled. “You listen because this could be the last time we ever talk.”
Mike felt a jolt. The old tapes started replaying in his mind — that father he’d left behind over two decades ago, sounding close enough to be standing right beside him.
“The girls are safe
now
. Safe from you, and your fuck ups, and your anger, and your violence. You know, Mike, you started out a good kid. So you got it in your head to be a filmmaker, cameraman, whatever you call it; you didn’t want to follow in my footsteps and work for the MTA. Fine. But you didn’t know, Mike, you didn’t know what it would be like to raise a family, what it was like, day in and day out. Now you know, Mike. Now you know what it’s like. It can drive you crazy.”
Mike almost gave way to that old familiar rage. He contained it as best as he could, and kept his voice level, his internal gears grinding. “You don’t know anything. You went to work, you came home, ate dinner Mom prepared, then went out to the bar . . .”
“You disrespectful—”
“Then you had your affair. And I found out. And mom never recovered.”
“She never recovered because of YOU. She
knew
, goddammit, she
knew
about it and she let it be, Mike. It was you, you standing there pointing that goddamned gun at me that she never survived, Mike!”
The resurgence of those decades of repressed feelings was making Mike dizzy on his feet. He closed his eyes, leaned harder into the wall, and begged for God’s mercy, something he wasn’t sure he’d ever done in his life. After half a minute of silence, he wondered if Jack had ended the call. Mike spoke in a soft voice.
“Put them on the phone, please.”
“No. You do your time, for whatever mess you caused yourself up there. You do your time and then you can have them back — if they’ll take you. They’ll be fine with me. We have everything we need.”
Mike opened his eyes.
“What about my brother, pop? Huh? Do I have a brother?” Mike waited for an answer. Jack Simpkins said nothing.
“Was that what happened to you? What happened to us? To mom?”
Mike realized he was shaking all over, on the verge of tears. He listened, he waited, needing something desperately from his father. But after a few seconds Mike realized he no longer heard the beeping noise in the background. Jack Simpkins had hung up.
Swift had called a meeting with Tuggey, Mathis, and Kim Yom, who was back in Albany, and going to conference in. The two IA agents had invited themselves along, scrutinizing Swift’s every move.
A few rings, and then a voice emanated from the phone. “Hello?”
“Kim, hi, it’s John Swift.
“Hi John.”
“You’re on speaker. Captain Tuggey is here, Sheriff Dunleavy, ADA Sean Mathis, and two fine folks from Internal Affairs.”
“Sounds like a party,” Yom said in her usual deadpan voice. “What can I do for you, John?”
Swift glanced from the phone at the faces crowded around. Then his gaze dropped.
“You said you had some results for me. What we spoke about yesterday afternoon, before Darring went to court.”
“Ah yes,” said Yom. It sounded like she was clicking some keys on a computer. “I have those results right in front of me; thanks, in part, to our friends in New York and our friends at the Bureau.”
“Kim, I would love it if you could share the information.”
“Absolutely. So, Robert Darring was born in Manhattan as William Simpkins.”
Swift glanced at Mathis, who seemed to have gone pale. Then he asked, “And how did you obtain this information?”
“As you had instructed, John, we did a Bureau search for new birth records coming online in the NYC metropolitan area for the past five years and found a hit for Robert J. Darring, dating two years ago. As you know, New York City police, under Deputy Inspector Jonas, did a search on Darring’s apartment and seized his laptop, which yielded little. But in the apartment a few photos were found. Those pictures were scanned and sent to me. One photo clearly identifies Jack Simpkins, currently residing in St. Augustine, Florida.”
Swift raised his head again for a moment. Everyone was rapt with attention.
Yom went on. “The woman, we didn’t have a comparison for. So I used facial recognition software to cross-reference her image with any image of Darring’s. None were found. I also cross-referenced the image with all of the players involved in the Simpkins’ homicide case, including his grandfather, Jack Simpkins, the one in Florida, and there was a match. There were actually two matches. The woman is Pamela Falcone, and she’s a Facebook user. She had a picture on her account of her and Jack Simpkins; our best guess the shot was taken twenty years ago. The other was on another social media site, not as popular anymore, called Myspace, and it showed Pamela Falcone again with Simpkins in a group photo. The Myspace page was for a bar in lower Manhattan.”
Mathis could no longer restrain himself. “Fascinating,” he said. “And what does it all mean? We’re supposed to believe Robert Darring is Jack Simpkins’ son? His bastard or something? There’s no way the man would sign a paternity statement if he—”
“We found the paternity statement at St. Luke’s Hospital,” Yom interrupted, “and records for child support payments dating back to his birth, but ending when Darring — or, William Simpkins — turned eighteen. Juvenile records are confidential, and I’ve been working on trying to get them open, but from the outside alone it appears that Simpkins was in all sorts of trouble with the law in his youth, went into rehab at sixteen, saw counselors, the whole works.”
“Thank you, Kim,” said Swift.
“You’re welcome, Detective. Good luck.”
Tuggey leaned forward and pressed the button to end the call. Mathis’ expression was still a picture of skepticism. “This is . . .”
“This gives us motive,” Swift said. “Jack Simpkins signed the paternity statement not because he was coerced or blackmailed. He signed because he was going to leave his wife for Pamela Falcone. But then his wife got cancer. And his son, Mike, found out about the affair. As far as William Simpkins a-k-a Robert Darring was concerned, he lost a father, who had probably never spoken to him or acknowledged him beyond the paternity statement. Probably shut the mistress out, too. Sent the payments until William was eighteen. Then, nothing. So, William, with an obviously antisocial personality, oppositional-defiant, like Kim said — ‘the works’ — he harbors this hate, and it festers, and he grows into this astute hacker. And he plans his revenge.”
“Jesus,” said Mathis, all trace of skepticism vanished. “But what about this whole thing with the game —
The Don
? I don’t know everything about these games but I believe it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, just jumping in and expecting to be able to find someone — for Darring to find Braxton Simpkins, who was using an alias, and on any number of servers.”
Swift was ready. “Kapow was hacked into almost three months ago, just before Christmas. It wasn’t as major as some of the other dark web hacks — didn’t register on the top five lists, or anything — but it was enough for Darring to be able to find Braxton Simpkins, push him around a little, toy with him, threaten his family. We’re still waiting for the full disclosure, but I’m sure when we see the rest of Kapow’s data we’re going to find that Braxton was threatened to the point where he believed he had to sacrifice himself, or else his family would be murdered. He had no way of knowing who the aggressor was, only that they had his identity, knew where he lived, and if he told anyone, went to the cops, anything at all, they would be killed. Plus, to his young mind, these types of things might not have seemed extraordinary. These games are violent, they encourage use of threats, as well as cheating and lying; the perfect place for someone like Robert Darring.”
“And we just let him go,” said Tuggey. “Christ, guys, how did this happen? Darring just walked away. I don’t understand.”
Mathis spoke up, and his tone had changed, becoming almost wistful. “Because we arrested and charged him as Robert Darring. A person with what we thought was a valid birth certificate and social security card. He did all of this as William Simpkins, who was kept entirely concealed from us.”
Swift nodded. “We can’t connect Robert Darring to this murder, show motive; we’ve already tried.”
“But as William Simpkins,” Mathis said, “We have a whole new case.”
“We get him as William Simpkins, we show the paper-trail to his alias Darring, and once we have him for motive and opportunity, we get his real computer from him, and Yom takes it apart and shows every spurious email and account transaction, plus we get all the FBI data on the Kapow servers, the hack, the chat threats, all of it.”
“What about the fingerprints on the headlamp?” asked Tuggey.
“That’s even better,” said Swift. “We can match those prints to William Simpkins, but he was a juvenile when he got into trouble. He became Darring when he was eighteen. So we need a judge in New York to unseal those records. Then we’ve got him a hundred percent.”
The atmosphere in the room became suddenly electric. Everyone seemed to recall at the same time that their number one suspect — a different version, but in the same body — was still in town, getting his car out of impound, taking his sweet time.
Billy Sweet Tea
, Swift thought.
William Simpkins
.
“Let’s go,” said Tuggey. He strode out of the room already with his phone at his ear to give his troopers the order to pick up Robert Darring — William Simpkins.
Mathis looked at Swift, chastened. “Better late than never?”
“This is a Federal case now. You’re not going to get your big win.”
Mathis grimaced. “Well aren’t you something,” he said. He lowered his head and looked up at Swift from beneath knitted eyebrows. Swift saw that Mathis was grinning. Just a little.
“You’re out, Simpkins.”
The door slid open and Mike Simpkins was free to go. It had been both the longest and the shortest time he’d ever spent in jail, just over eighteen hours. His only time.
He collected his things in a daze. The past couple of hours he had thought of very little apart from his conversation with his father. A public defender named Ashcroft had come to see him through his release, and had unleashed a volley of information, which failed to penetrate his thoughts about his talk with Jack. Mike had been curious, without a doubt, as to why he’d been released, and the lawyer, who admitted to only having part of the story, had tried to explain. It was possible McAfferty had been set-up by someone, meant to take the fall. A good thing Mike hadn’t pulled any triggers, the lawyer had said quietly and warily.
There was still the possession of an unregistered gun, they told him, and he had a court appearance for that coming up.
He left the jail after calling the single taxi service in the area to come and take him home. He supposed he could take responsibility for all of it, if he wanted to. For his mother, for Braxton, now for Callie and the girls, gone, apparently trapped by his maniac father back in Florida. As he drove through the evening with the sun setting on another day — five had now gone by since Braxton’s death — he knew what he had to do. He knew that nothing else mattered, not his anger, nor his sense of guilt, nothing from his past, not even his father.
All that mattered was his wife and daughters. If his father did have something to do with all of this, with the money, with what happened to Braxton, then they could still be in danger right now. Court appearance be damned, he needed to get to them.
Maybe Jack Simpkins had been right about at least that much. Family was hard. Maybe now Mike was beginning to understand what his father meant.
* * *
At home, he sat in the living room and looked out at the snow-covered front yard, at how the ridges of snow cast small shadows beneath the light of a full moon, the drifts settled in serpentine patterns. He went and built a fire in the woodstove. It was ten minutes to seven p.m.
The seconds slowly dripped into minutes. He was tired, too tired to sleep. He hadn’t slept at all last night. Driving to Florida was going to take everything he had. Along with every last cent. There was nothing left. Credit cards were maxed out. Checking account was empty. He had a little over three hundred in cash — just enough to buy gas for the twenty-four-hour drive. He’d packed the Honda with everything he needed. For a moment he considered cracking into the vodka again and drinking until he passed out. But that wouldn’t do. He’d even thought of getting on the road right now, sucking down energy drinks until his skin cracked, but that wouldn’t do either.
He couldn’t leave without Braxton.
He sat, and tried to calm his mind, think rationally through the things he needed to do. He needed to pick his son up from the funeral home the next day. He needed to start getting his life in order again. Maybe he could even place a few calls and emails in the morning to his contacts in Florida and get some fiber-tech work down there again.
This got him laughing. He laughed until he cried, and then he just sat. The long hand of the clock in the living room dragged around to half past the hour, and his eyes started to grow heavy, and his head lolled on his shoulders. Then a car appeared on the road. It slowed and turned into Mike’s driveway.
Mike stood up, fully alert again. He still had on his boots and jacket. He opened the front door and stepped outside.
He thought he recognized the vehicle.
Mike walked across and came up along the driver’s side. The window came down. John Swift looked up at Mike and smiled.
“You look tired.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Little time in the hooskow will do that to you.” Swift turned his head and looked at the Honda parked in front of him. His headlights beamed into the back of the car where there was a puffy duffel bag standing on end.
“Going somewhere?”
“I can’t. I’ve got charges to stand for.”
Swift nodded, then he winked. “Can we talk before you go?”
Mike stood where he was for a moment, trying to read Swift’s features. The detective looked back, eyes hooded, crinkled with crow’s feet, his hair grey around the temples — to Mike he looked older than he had even just a few days before, but there was something spirited in his eyes.
Mike walked around the car and got in the passenger side.
It was warm, the heat pouring out of the vents. Swift twisted around to see behind him and started backing out of the driveway, on to route 9N.
At the road, he turned and drove up the half mile, passing the Hamiltons’ on the right, and the open field. He slowed the car at the site of Braxton’s death, his bumper slicing a groove into the snowbank on the shoulder.
Mike could feel the emotion rise as he looked out at the dark road. He imagined Braxton lying there as the snow fell down on him.
“You’re probably pretty unhappy with your old man.”
Mike cut a sideways glance at Swift. “He’s got my wife and two girls. For all I know, he’s the one who’s responsible for this whole thing.”
“Did you call the police in St. Augustine?”
Mike looked back out the window at the dark road. “No.”
Swift took a breath and nodded. “Good. Don’t think you need to.”
Mike gave him another sharp look. His fatigue had completely vanished. He felt alert, pellucid, ready. More so than he had in days. “Oh no?”
“You don’t think so either. You and your father may have problems, but you know he wouldn’t hurt them.” Swift turned to look at Mike directly. “We know who murdered Braxton.”
“Yeah? You do? Let me tell you, detective, I wonder two things: I wonder if I care what you know anymore, that’s one. And I wonder why I should believe you anyway. Why didn’t you go after McAfferty right when I told you about the emails? You knew about him, didn’t you?”
Swift was shaking his head. “No, we didn’t. Despite what you might think. Different departments, different troops.”
“Was Tricia Eggleston the one who told you where McAfferty was?”
“Yes. She proffered with the DA, who’s going to put her through some rehab and a lighter sentence.”
“You’re keeping Bull and Linda locked up?”
“They’re quite the characters. They’ve both got outstanding warrants in addition to the new charges. I know they’re your friends, but they’re probably going to be sent back down to New York to deal with some other business after they deal with shooting at cops on my property.”
“They were just here to help me.”
Swift raised his eyebrows. Mike could barely make out his face in the dashboard lights, just a bit of flesh tone, the shape of his head, the glittering points of light in his eyes. “I know.”
“What else do you know?”
“Robert Darring is behind all of it. The fake emails from McAfferty, the manipulation of the funds in the 529 account; he baited McAfferty to set explosives and is responsible for Alan Cohen’s severe injuries — and he tied up and dragged your son behind his car until he died, right there.”
The two men stared out at the spot in the road in silence.
“That’s a lot for one kid,” Mike said after a while.
“He wasn’t alone. He had the other two with him. And I believe there could be even more; compatriots from
The Don
. They have groups of players in a Crew. And I think they switched off and on and played one another’s characters. So other kids played Darring’s character in the game while he was in custody. Sent you emails, too. They even messed with my own personal life, managing to convince my bank to put a hold on my cards. All designed to distract, to throw me off. To throw us all off.”
“It worked.”
“I want to tell you who Robert Darring really is. But I think it’s best you just hear it for yourself. You up for one last ride, Muchacho?”
Mike breathed deeply through his nostrils. “Alright.”
Swift popped the car into Drive and they got moving.
“When did you know?” Mike asked. “About Darring?”
“I never knew. I went step by step. Made some mistakes.”
“That’s got to be tough on your career.”
“That’s the job. You never know anything. But I’m suspended, pending review. Which is a nice way for them to tell me I have to cool my heels while Internal Affairs mounts their case and has me totally canned. Which won’t happen; I’ll resign. It will all be cordial and quiet. I’ve cut a deal to revise my previous statements about the excessive force against Duso. He’ll likely get a settlement now. It all means bye-bye Attorney General’s office.”
Mike wasn’t sure he understood all that the detective was saying, but he offered, “I’m sorry.”
Swift got the car up to speed. “I’m not too worried about it. I got a date with Janine Poehler out of the whole thing. Taking her to dinner as soon as I’m done tonight. Hang on,” he said.
He surprised Mike by stamping on the accelerator and blowing the back end of the car around in a wide arc, tires spinning, snow and ice flying. He handled the wheel deftly, snapping the vehicle right back into the lane and rocketing back towards town.