Dark Web (8 page)
Mike’s hands moved over the keys of Braxton’s laptop. The girls were sitting in the other room, eating snacks and watching cartoons on the TV.
He opened a new tab in the internet browser and went to Yahoo mail. His gaze swept the screen, registering what was there.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Braxton had not kept his email account open with the password stored in memory. Mike clicked on “Sign in” and then sat back for a second, trying to think what Braxton’s password could be.
Are you serious? You’re looking to hack into your son’s email right now in the middle of everything that’s going on? Are you crazy
?
Still, he had to try. They were going to go through this laptop, of that Mike had no doubt. A laptop was a modern person’s journal, photo album, record of business transactions — a whole psychological profile, a veritable window on their soul. Braxton had been lying out there in the middle of the road covered in the snow. Some unknown kids had fled the scene. The cops would pounce on this laptop and Braxton’s Kindle, too — anything that connected him to the outside world.
Mike tried something he thought might work. A couple of years ago Braxton had played
Minecraft
obsessively on the Kindle. There was a spooky character in
Minecraft
that just showed up at random, stealing your possessions and destroying whatever you had built. This character looked just like you, but had white, glowing eyes, an expressionless face. It was called “Herobrine.”
Mike typed in the name and hit Enter. Red text appeared on the screen indicating that the password was incorrect. He tried another one, a character with long spindly legs and arms taken from a terrifying internet meme about a tall man who took children into the woods. Slenderman. But this didn’t work either.
Okay, made sense. It was a long shot anyway — Braxton had stopped being into
Minecraft
a while ago. What was he into now? He’d been given the laptop when he turned thirteen, four months before. So something that was important to him since his birthday.
Mike looked around the room. His gaze fell on the bookshelves, the top of the dresser, the closet. Any moment Hannah would start balking at something, or finish her snack and want more, or the episode of
Curious George
would end. He stood up so fast the swivel chair spun around. He hunted through Braxton’s things. He looked at the two posters on the wall — both of them from
The Hobbit
. He knew Braxton identified with the Hobbits to some extent. Unlike himself, Braxton was small. He tried to remember the names of the characters.
He returned to the desk and tried some different possibilities. Every one of them came up incorrect. He could feel the panic starting to creep up his neck, his heart beating faster. He needed to go be with his daughters. Hell, he needed to go collect his wife. Callie was beside herself, out of her mind with shock and grief. He thought about Callie. She was strong, but her strength had a darker side — she was passionate, a gifted teacher because of her energetic style and her unconventional approach to learning — but this was the mother of all tragedies, the worst thing that could happen to a person, to lose their child, to outlive the love of their lives. He felt despicable and guilty over what he was trying to do.
What else? What else did Braxton like? What was special to him? What was secret?
He loved to skateboard and had gotten around Florida on those four little wheels for years. Mike had noticed that the skateboard had been left at home more frequently in the months before their departure.
Desperate, Mike tried a few brand names. Volcom, and Burton — though he thought Burton only made snowboards. He tried RUCA and Billabong. The red text kept flashing. Then the website prompted him to continue by entering a string of odd letters and numbers. It was attempting to protect itself from hackers.
Frustrated, sweating now despite the cool temperature of the room, Mike bent closer to the screen and squinted at the code, pecking it in with his index finger. Then he was again at the log-in field the idiot cursor blinking at him, teasing him to enter the correct phrase.
Or numbers
, he thought. Or a combination of text and numbers. He could be here all day.
But he didn’t think Braxton would’ve used numbers. It was just a hunch, but he felt like his son was more inclined to use a word with special meaning to him. The kid was into reading and writing, not math. What else was he into?
Braxton was fiercely dedicated to environmentalism and had some wild ideas about a whole new type of economy, what he called, on the few occasions they discussed it, a resource-based economy. This concern for the environment and the economy, coupled with his lack of debating skills, had caused some trouble between them on more than one occasion.
Mike felt a sudden light illuminate the back of his mind. An innovator Braxton had once expressed his admiration for. He had been watching some documentary about a man named Jacques Fresco who had created
The Venus Project
, an elaborate design for a utopian world, one that, to some people, would seem like pure communist fantasy, but that placed resources at the center of the world economy instead of the commodification and competition of capitalism.
Mike typed J-a-c-q-u-e-s and F-r-e-s-c-o and then both together.
No dice.
He tried V-e-n-u-s-p-r-o-j-e-c-t
He hit enter. Foiled.
He sat back for a second and rubbed his face. He leaned forward again and stared. He tapped the delete button until the word “project” was erased and then he stopped. He was grasping at straws here. There was just as much of chance that Braxton would be coy and have a password like “Password.” Anyone who wanted to get anywhere they weren’t supposed to go on the web didn’t bother trying to crack existing passwords.
Mike was preparing to try a whole new angle when he hit enter on “Venus,” just for the hell of it and, a second later, Braxton’s email account opened up in front of him.
Mike’s eyes widened and his scalp tingled. He was in. He started flipping through the emails. He kept his eyes on the dates to the right of the email chain.
“Dad?”
It was Reno calling from the other room.
“I’ll be there in a minute. Just put on another episode, okay honey?”
“Dad?”
“I said I’ll be right there.”
He heard a thumping.
“Dad there’s someone at the door.”
He froze. He had yet to locate the email. He peered at the screen and scrolled further down. There were not many messages. Mostly there were repeats from something called “Kapow.” He quickly flicked the cursor over to the trash folder and opened it. He scrolled toward the bottom, and heard the knocking again at the front door.
Jesus, he needed to get out there. He strained his eyes, rolling up and down, scanning the screen. Nothing. Braxton had already deleted the email Mike was hunting for. It was long gone.
He pulled his face away from the screen and quickly closed down the browser window, collapsing both of the open tabs.
He got up out of the chair and turned to see that the screen was now illumined, whereas it had been dark in sleep-mode. The original browser window was now closed. He’d tampered with evidence, for God’s sake.
He left the room, his pulse rate uncomfortably high. No one would notice anything, he reasoned. To check his son’s laptop was a natural reaction that anyone could understand.
He entered the living room, turned and saw two shapes behind the window of the front door. They were here.
Swift pressed ‘record’ on the video camera, though he wasn’t obliged to do so in this case. Robert Darring was an adult and it was only minors who had to be videotaped during interrogation. For adults the audio record was sufficient. But since it was already there, having the video on certainly couldn’t hurt. Swift didn’t have the benefit of a partner, not yet. He’d spoken with Kim Yom, who would be arriving shortly from BCI headquarters in Albany to head up computer forensics, but he didn’t want to waste any time. His name suited him — as people all too often said. Justice should be timely. The kids were here now, and before the lawyers got to them, he wanted to hear their stories. He couldn’t force them to say anything they didn’t wish to, and he wouldn’t. He would do it by the book. They had a right to counsel, but they could talk too. Maybe they even wanted to. The truth set people free.
Of course, it could also send them to jail
Robert Darring looked at him across the table. Now that he was in closer proximity, Darring didn’t look his age. From afar, at a glance, yeah, he’d looked twenty three. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, the kind of outfit worn by college kids; only the sweatshirt displayed no collegiate logo. It read, simply, “OBEY.” Swift had seen the word before, something to do with street art. It was usually accompanied by a creepy face, a rendering of the late Andre the Giant.
There were some faint lines around the boy’s mouth and eyes, and pouches beneath eyes that were dark, so brown they were almost black. He wore his sable-colored hair close-cropped. He looked Italian or Hispanic, or a mixture of both, though his surname suggested Irish or Gaelic descent. Perhaps he was mixed-race with a white father.
“Could you please state your full name and age?”
“Robert Matthew Darring, aged twenty-three.”
“And where are you from?”
“Originally or now, sir?”
“How about both.”
“Originally from Queens, New York. Currently from Queens, New York.”
Kid was trying to be smart. But Darring’s face was blank. He looked like someone standing in line in a cafeteria or at a post office. The initial hard-ass impression was easing slightly. Or, he was playing it cool.
“And why were you on Route 9N tonight around 3 a.m.?”
Darring opened his mouth and proceeded to relate exactly the same story as Hideo Miko. They had come to visit Braxton. They saw a man standing over a body in the middle of the road and they freaked and turned around and got the hell out of there.
“Okay,” Swift said, folding his arms. “Here’s my problem with that story. One, it’s the middle of the night — or very, very early morning. Two, you were
beyond
Braxton Simpkins’ house. If you were coming from I-87 and turned off at exit 30, you would have been coming from the east. The crime scene is further
west
along the road.”
Darring nodded soberly. “I understand, sir. It was the middle of the night for a couple of reasons. One thing, none of us have ever come up here before. We got a little lost. And I screwed up — I had the directions in my phone, but then I forgot my phone at home. So we had Sasha’s phone and used GPS. I guess you could check all that on his phone, or whatever. But then as we got about to — oh, I don’t know, I think exit 24 or so, not far north of Albany? The snow really started coming, and that slowed us way down. And that’s why we went right by his house, too. This area is really small, like, really off the map.”
“Oh don’t I know it,” smiled Swift. The kid was talking a nice little streak. Seemed happy to volunteer details about what and where.
“The GPS went wonky,” Darring went on. “It couldn’t tell us which house was his. Technology, right? I don’t know, maybe we had the address not exactly right. He’d only just moved, so . . . but then we saw the guy in the road and it really scared us. If you say we were beyond Braxton’s house at that point, I guess we were. But we had no idea.”
“His parents were going to let you come visit in the middle of the night? Even if the snow hadn’t slowed you down, or you hadn’t gotten off track, you still would have arrived very late at night.”
Darring lowered his head. “No, sir. His parents didn’t know. It was stupid. The whole thing was . . . I don’t know . . . We just thought it would be cool to take a road trip.”
Swift took a breath and leaned back slightly. After a moment he said, “You know, when I asked Hideo Miko these questions, he had different things to say.”
Darring looked up. For just a second Swift thought he saw something almost feral in the young man’s eyes, something menacing. “He did? I don’t know what. I mean, he was asleep for most of the drive. What we saw in the road really scared him. He’s . . . he’s different, sir. He has some problems, you know? I think he may have wet his pants, but don’t tell him I told you that.”
“Your secret is safe. But that’s not what I mean. Hideo was afraid to tell me at first, but then he opened up. And his story does not match yours. So, let’s cut through the guff and just talk straight. Alright? Here’s what I’ve got.” He leaned forward and counted off on his fingers: “I’ve got you at the scene of the crime. It’s the middle of the night. I’ve got a witness see you speed away.”
“Right. Which goes with what I’m telling you, sir.”
“Uh-huh. Well, we have this kid’s body on a slab right now, and within moments, we’re going to have cause of death. And it’s all going to add up to what you and your friends were really doing there tonight. It’s just a matter of time.”
Swift leaned back. For a moment he fixed the kid with a look that was fatherly, compassionate.
Then he leaned forward.
“Look Mr. Darring. I just need something to take to the DA. This is going to be an open and shut case. I don’t even need anything from you; I’ve already got it. If we take this case to the DA right now, you’re going to do time. Not easy time like your two minor friends, and not cozy county jail either. Prison time, Mr. Darring. I’m here to give you an opportunity to explain what happened. That’s all. There's always two sides to a story, and if the DA hears your side, you'll get credit for it, and it can really help you out. You’re going to need friends, okay?”
Darring’s face remained inscrutable. He seemed neither alarmed nor angered by any of this. Instead, he too leaned forward.
“Sir. If this was really such an air-tight case? You wouldn’t need to interrogate me. You would just go ahead and take it to the District Attorney for potential charges.” Darring’s dark eyes were lit with red pinpoints reflecting the record light on the video camera. His voice was even and light. “After I give you my ‘explanation,’ and it corroborates whatever evidence the state
does
possess? Then you go about trying to prove that I, the defendant, grossly understated my actual involvement.”
Darring sat upright, his expression still blank.
Dammit
, thought Swift. Okay, so the kid was too clever for the usual routine. That was fine; Swift had other cards to play.
As if on cue, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Swift pulled it out and looked at the incoming number. What perfect timing.
“It’s my forensic pathologist.” He stood up and walked briskly to the door, glancing back at Darring. “Let’s see what she has to say.”
He left the room.