Outfoxed: An Andy Carpenter Mystery (21 page)

Sam nods and points. “Okay, that means that the computer is being used; there’s a program running.”

“So?”

“So I’m not using it. They are. My downloading the program has allowed them inside my computer. They now have complete access, and I’ll bet they have the same access to Westman and everybody else they deal with. Most people wouldn’t be able to detect it; they wouldn’t even have reason to look.”

He pauses to let all of this sink in. “They know everything about everyone they deal with. There are no secrets.”

Laurie and I ask a lot more questions, and Sam tries to make it all clear. I get the gist of it, without understanding all the technical aspects, and I certainly know enough to know that it can have a tremendous impact on our case.

But I’ll have to put it on the mental shelf and think about it later, because Hatchet would be unlikely to grant me a continuance for a “thought” day. And Trell is planning to start trotting out his key witnesses today.

First up is Sarah Maurer, Gerry Wright’s neighbor. She is probably Trell’s key witness, because she can place Brian at the scene.

Trell asks her where she lives, and establishes that she was Gerry’s closest neighbor, though the houses are far apart. “Were you and Mr. Wright friends?” he asks.

“Yes, definitely.”

“And do you know the defendant, Brian Atkins?”

“Yes, I do.”

“How did you come to know him?”

“I spent time with him at Gerry’s house on quite a few occasions. Parties, barbecues … that kind of thing. Gerry was a very sociable guy; he threw a lot of parties.”

“And Mr. Atkins was often there?”

“Sure. They were partners and best friends.”

“Was Denise Atkins often there as well?” Trell asks.

“Almost always. The three of them seemed inseparable.”

“Please describe what happened on the day of the murders.”

She talks about how she had gone for her three-mile walk, a mile and a half in one direction and then the same distance back. “I saw a car go by me, but I didn’t recognize it.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Maybe a little. Ours is a very quiet street with only a few houses on it, and it is very lightly traveled.”

“What happened as you approached Gerald Wright’s house?”

“Well, for one thing, I saw that car sitting in the driveway, down near the street. And I was surprised to see a dog in the backseat.”

“Is this the dog?” Trell introduces a picture of Boomer into evidence. It’s not a great picture; Boomer is much cuter than that.

“Certainly looks like it,” she says, immediately annoying me by referring to Boomer as an “it.”

“Then what happened?” he asks.

“Then Brian … Mr. Atkins … came out the front door. He saw me and stopped, and he looked at me … I can’t explain it; it’s like he looked through me.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“I think I just said his name.”

“But he didn’t answer?” Trell asks.

“No, he just walked by me and got into the car. Then he pulled away. He went down the street, and came back toward me, so that he left the way he came in.”

“Did he say anything else to you?”

“Yes. He slowed down almost to a stop, and said, ‘Call the police.’ Then he drove off.”

“And did you call the police?” Trell asks.

“Not right away. Brian had left the door open behind him, so I walked toward it. I was scared, but I just wanted to make sure everything was all right. I didn’t even know what Brian wanted me to tell the police.”

“So you went in the front door?”

“Yes, I called out and nobody answered. I took a few steps in, and then I saw what was on the floor. I knew it was blood, so I ran out. I probably screamed, but I don’t remember. Then I ran home and called the police.”

Trell takes her through the horror of it again, and then it’s my turn to cross-examine. “Ms. Maurer, you were on the way back from your walk when you saw the car?”

“That’s correct.”

“How long does the three-mile walk generally take you?”

“Forty-five minutes. Every time.”

“And you walk at the same pace all the way?”

“Yes.”

Hike hands me a large Styrofoam board that I introduce into evidence. It’s an aerial map of the neighborhood. I show it to her and ask her to point to where she was when she saw the car. She does so.

“That is about a tenth of a mile from Mr. Wright’s house,” I say. “Based on the pace you were going, that would take you about a minute and a half to walk. Does that seem about right?”

“I think so. Yes.”

“You testified that you didn’t recognize the car, but you didn’t mention anything about it speeding. Was it going at a normal pace? The speed limit on that street is thirty miles per hour.”

She nods. “That seems about right.”

“Ms. Maurer, the prosecution’s contention is that Mr. Atkins drove that distance, parked, entered the house, and murdered two people. Based on what we’ve just talked about, he would have had to accomplish that in the minute and a half it took you to make that walk. Does that seem possible?”

Trell objects that the witness cannot possibly be expected to make such a judgment, and Hatchet sustains. Doesn’t matter to me either way; I got my point across, so I move on.

“When you saw Mr. Atkins in front of the house, did you think anything violent had happened?”

“No … I mean, I didn’t think about it. I just thought he was acting a little strange, like he didn’t know me. And I was surprised to see him; I thought he was still in jail.”

“There was no blood on him?” I ask.

“Not that I could see.”

“No knife or weapon that you could see?”

“No.”

“So you weren’t afraid of him?” I ask.

“No.”

“When he told you to call the police, you thought something was wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Did you think he had done something violent?”

“I didn’t think about it.”

“Had you ever known him to be violent? Ever heard from others that he was?”

“No.”

“He would have known you could identify him, is that correct?”

“I’m sure he would have. He would know that I know him. I even called him by name.”

“But he made no attempt to hurt you, or worse?”

“No.”

“Thank you.”

During the lunch break, I meet with Brian in an anteroom. I tell him about the things Sam discovered, without getting into the specifics of it being Westman’s computer, etc. I focus more on the capability of the cybercriminals to essentially hide out in the open without fear of discovery, as well as their being able to inhabit their clients’ computers undetected.

“Wow,” he says, using a word perfectly suited to the occasion.

“Could Starlight be behind this? Would they have the capability?”

“Well, let’s separate this out. The inhabiting of the computers is not that difficult to accomplish. When people accessed the Web site, they were also downloading a program without realizing it. That program starts running on their computer, and allows the people who created it to see everything on it.”

“And antivirus systems don’t detect it?” I ask.

“No, because it’s not a virus; it’s a program. The computer doesn’t recognize it as an enemy invader; it thinks it belongs there.”

“What about the other thing, the Web sites that are just an illusion?”

“That’s pretty stunning. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Would Gerry Wright have been capable of doing it?” I ask.

“With the understanding that I didn’t know anyone could do it, Gerry would be right up there among the possibilities. He was a genius; I was good, but he was head and shoulders above me. Actually, so was Denise. That’s why I gravitated toward the business end of things.”

“What about Jason Mathers? How good is he?”

“Very good, but more my level.”

“Could this have been going on without Mathers realizing it?”

“Absolutely. Andy, you shouldn’t be looking at this as a Starlight operation. It doesn’t have to have been that at all. This could have just been Gerry; he would have had the money to finance it separate from Starlight.”

I nod. “That wouldn’t even matter; if Petrone were backing him, financing wouldn’t be a problem.”

I send Brian back to get lunch, which gives me a little more time to think about the developments. If Petrone is behind this, then he’s operating an illegal gambling site and selling drugs and who knows what else online, freezing out the traditional local vendors. That’s why he’s moving in on everyone’s territory. He’s doing to them what online retailing has done to the department stores, times ten.

He could control the markets and pay whatever is necessary to get the personnel required to make it run. That might be members of the existing crime organization or newcomers. Their functions would be simple: pickups and deliveries.

The other thing that comes to mind is something that could be even more lucrative, the potential for blackmail. My guess is that Westman was being blackmailed, that Petrone or whoever controlled his computer found out about his predilection for child pornography.

Faced with a ruined business and personal life, and possible jail if his secret got out, he kept paying. Maybe it became obvious that the blackmailer would never stop, and Westman couldn’t handle it, taking his own life. He probably never even knew whom he was dealing with, or how they found out his secret.

How many others are possibly being blackmailed? It is almost limitless.

The ability to inhabit these computers may also explain the death of Daniel Bowie. He could well have e-mailed someone about talking to me, and Petrone’s people watched him do it. He wound up paying for our conversation with his life.

So I think we’re making some progress toward establishing what Petrone is doing in the big picture, how he has dramatically recast his empire from a traditional crime family to one that is capitalizing big-time on technology. It is audacious and remarkable, but probably inevitable that someone would seize the opportunity.

But what is not increasing is our ability to tie it all into our case. Our investigative efforts would be bearing fruit if I were Dominic Petrone’s prosecutor. Unfortunately, I’m Brian Atkins’s defense attorney, and at this point I’m not close to getting any of what we’ve learned in front of this jury.

With Trell nearly at the end of his witness list, and the weekend coming up, I only have four or five days before starting the defense case. And since at this point the defense does not actually have a case, that’s not much time.

Trell’s next witness is Devin Maclin, the warden of the prison that Brian broke out of. It’s a throw-in witness, designed to drive another nail in a coffin that Trell already believes is shut.

I objected to the witness; I didn’t think he should be allowed to testify, since we’ve already stipulated that Brian escaped. Hatchet had instructed the jury to accept it as fact. But Trell argued that it was necessary to show that the timing of it allowed Brian to be at the scene when the murder took place. Hatchet agreed with Trell and has allowed Maclin to testify.

“When was it reported that the defendant had escaped?” Trell asked.

“I became aware that he was missing at 3:00
P.M
.”

“What did you do?”

“I put the facility into lockdown and ordered an immediate search of the entire complex. I also notified the police, and asked them to put out an alert.”

“What did your search uncover?”

“A man named Fred Cummings had been accosted and locked in a small supply room. His clothes had been taken as well.”

“Who is Fred Cummings?”

“He is a dog trainer,” Maclin says. “Part of a program we were running where dogs were brought in for the prisoners to train.”

“And he told you what happened to him.”

“Yes, and that convinced me that Mr. Atkins had escaped. From that point on it was up to the police on the outside.”

Trell turns him over to me, and my first question to Maclin is, “Yours is a minimum-security prison, is it not?”

“It is.”

“Are all prisoners treated the same in terms of the freedoms they are granted within the prison? Or are some watched more carefully than others, and have greater restrictions?”

“The latter, based on our assessment of their history, their actions within the prison population, as well as the underlying reason for them being there.”

“And Mr. Atkins was in the group granted the most freedom?” I ask.

“That is correct.”

“Had he ever caused any trouble? Ever shown any violent behavior?”

“No.”

“Thank you … no further questions.”

Trell’s last witness for the day is Fred Cummings, and he takes him through the frightening experience he had in the prison that day. He doesn’t take very long to question him, since Fred obviously can only speak about his experience, and has no knowledge of what happened after being locked in the supply room.

As Fred describes it, Brian led him into a secluded area of the prison on a pretense. Once there, he came up behind him and pushed something into his back, claiming that it was a gun. Cummings was immediately compliant and gave Brian his shirt, pants, and shoes, as asked. He also did not resist being put in the supply room. Brian tied his hands and feet together with electrical cords in the room and put duct tape on his mouth.

“Were you afraid for your life?” Trell asked.

“I wasn’t sure,” Fred says. “But it was very frightening.”

On cross-examination I ask if Fred had, at any point, seen the weapon that Brian claimed to have.

“I didn’t,” he said. “I felt something in my back, so I took his word for it.”

“Did he hurt you in any way?”

He shakes his head. “No. Not at all.”

“Did he say anything to you that Mr. Trell didn’t ask you about?”

“Yes. At one point he said, ‘I’m sorry about this, Fred. But I don’t have any choice.’ Then when he was leaving me there, he said he was sorry again.”

“Did you have a lot of dealings with Mr. Atkins in the months before this happened?”

Fred nods. “I saw him twice a week.”

“Did you like him?”

“I did.” Then, after a few seconds, “It’s weird, but I still do.”