CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness (31 page)

: u there?

: max, u there? need 2 talk.

: laz sez he maybe has an idea who sent the file, and why. need 2

: im not going 2 b here, back

: don’t know when.

: liat had episode. bad. in hosp. st mikes.

: u ever want 2 talk in person, that’s where ill b.

: (User max_hdb has disconnected)

: (User sor16muse has disconnected)

8/23/08 1937HRS

TRANSCRIPT SUSPECT INTERVIEW 51 DIVISION

CASEFILE #332

PRESIDING OFFICERS D. SUSAN CORREA 156232, D. ERIC VALENS 324820

SUBJECT MAXIM HOLBORN

D.VALENS: So who was that guy? In the film?

HOLBORN: No idea. It’s not like he—

D.CORREA: And what’s it got to do with Tess Jacopo?

HOLBORN: Nothing, directly. But it’s like Internet memes, man; Laszlo understood that. Stuff gets around. Maybe this guy heard about the thing with the photo, and thought: Oh hey, wonder how that’d work with a moving picture. Maybe he just stumbled across the concept all on his lonesome, or by accident: I don’t know. But . . . he did it.

D.VALENS: Did what, Holborn?

HOLBORN: He put himself in there. Made himself an asphyx.

D.CORREA: So he could live forever.

HOLBORN: Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe just . . . so he could . . . not die. Maybe—

(TEN SECOND PAUSE)

HOLBORN: Maybe he was sick. Like, really sick. Or sick in the head. Or both. Maybe it just seemed like a good idea, given the alternative. At the time.

D.CORREA: So what did happen to the Wall of Love mainframe, Max?

HOLBORN: I crashed it. (BEAT) I mean—I told people there was a big Avid crash and the whole server got wiped . . . actually, I used a magnet. Like Dean Winchester in that “Ghostfacers!” ‘Supernatural’ episode.

D.VALENS: What?

HOLBORN: Doesn’t matter. Ask me why.

D.CORREA: . . . why?

HOLBORN: Because I thought maybe I could trap him there, like he must have trapped himself inside that loop. Because he probably didn’t think about that, right? When he was doing it. How it wasn’t likely anybody was really going to watch that sort of shit, once they figured out what it was, let alone show it in public. How probably it would just end up left in the can, passed from collector to collector, never really watched at all, except by one person at a time. One . . . very disturbed . . . other person.

I thought I could stop him from going any further, so I crashed my own mainframe, without telling Soraya. But . . .

D.VALENS: . . . it didn’t work.

HOLBORN: Well. Would I even be here, if it did?

CYBER-CRIME OFFICE,

TORONTO POLICE SERVICE 51 DIVISION

EXCERPTED REPORT

DETECTIVE LEWIS McMASTER (CYBERCRIME) SUPERVISING

DETECTIVES ERIC VALENS, SUSAN CORREA (HOMICIDE) CONTRIBUTING

Casefile #332: Notes

INITIAL CONTACT:

Aug 14 2008 – CyberCrime received anonymous email sent from Hotmail account created that morning, with copy of “suicide guy” .mpg attached. Flagged as “harmful matter”. Email noted .mpg was sent to kerato-oblation.org as experimental film clip submission; identified source of original message, webmail address [email protected].

[Hotmail account eventually traced through Internet café to Laszlo Hurt, known member of local Toronto “collector” circuit; Hurt now missing, presumed deceased based on evidence found in subject’s apartment. —EV, SC]

INVESTIGATION:

August 15 – Flagged file screened and sent for forensic analysis, results inconclusive. Source of original submission email traced to Google-owned server in Newark, New Jersey, United States of America.

August 16 – Established contact with Detective Herschel Gohan of Newark CyberCrime Unit, who persuaded server admins to cooperate with investigation; message back-tracked and triangulated to establish physical location and address of originator machine. Address is confirmed as unit #B325 of E-Z-SHELF storage locker facility, 1400 South Woodward Lane, Newark. Facility manager, Mr. Silvio Galbi, provides name of renter (“John Smith”), confirms unit prepaid for six months with cash. Mr. Galbi refuses to cooperate with search request without a warrant.

August 18 – Warrant issued for search and seizure operation at 1400 South Woodward, Unit #B325, by Judge Harriet Lindstrom. Operation executed under supervision of Detective Gohan. Contents of unit as follows:

1. Unclothed body of unidentified male, Caucasian, est. premortem age mid-20s, seated on floor in pool of waste.

2. One (1) empty film canister.

3. One (1) 35mm film projector, set up to project upon unit interior wall.

4. One (1) 35mm film reel mounted in projector, est. 15 minutes in length, confirmed on-site to be original of transmitted .mpg file.

5. One (1) white cotton sheet at base of same interior wall; tape on corners indicates sheet was hung on wall.

6. One (1) SONY video camera, with tripod, set up focused on same interior wall.

7. One (1) TV monitor, with built-in VCR and DVD player.

8. One (1) DELL laptop computer, with built-in wi-fi modem.

9. One (1) Coleman oil lantern, fuel supply depleted.

10. Pile of empty water bottles.

11. One (1) Black & Decker emergency brand power generator.

12. Fifty (50) gallon gasoline containers, empty.

13. Two (2) six-socket power bar outlets.

14. One (1) tube-gun of industrial caulking sealant.

15. One (1) journal with handwritten notes.

Galbi confirms he accepted illegal payment to lock unit on “Smith’s” written instructions without confirming contents, in violation of state safety and insurance regulations. Galbi arrested and cited.

FORENSICS:

Examination of laptop hard drive reveals series of webcam captures which suggest basic chronology of events as follows:

1. Unidentified male (UM) arrives in unit roughly two weeks before email sent to kerato-oblation.org.

2. UM uses video camera to record digital copy of original film reel from wall projection (distortion visible in .mpg file caused by loose fabric in sheet).

3. UM uses laptop to program recorded file into continuous video loop on DVD.

4. UM arranges laptop and webcam to face DVD monitor, setting DVD on continuous play and webcam on indefinite record.

5. UM remains seated in front of monitor for majority of remaining time, urinating and defecating in place. Time-signatures confirm he created .mpg file, wrote submission email, then waited until death was imminent to send it, on date above.

6. Final action of UM on morning of death was to use sealant gun to caulk up door, rendering unit virtually airtight. This prevented odors from escaping unit, and retarded decomposition by hindering evaporation of fluids from the body.

AUTOPSY:

Body shows no sign of struggle or restraint. Autopsy reveals primary cause of death as oxygen deprivation, aggravated by starvation and dehydration. Probable date of death on or around June 25 2008 (date on which .mpg file was sent to kerato-oblation.org). Corneas of victim preserved by airtight environment, and found to be deformed on both exterior and interior surfaces, damage suggesting both physical and heat trauma to tissue. Computer reconstruction of deformation suggests artificial origin, as pattern appears to portray a fixed image: the face of suicide victim in original film, in close-up still frame. Pathologists unable to establish cause or method of corneal deformation.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Unidentified male’s selection of Holborn/Mousch as recipients suggests foreknowledge, possible contact. Recommend either Holborn or Mousch be brought in for further questioning.

From: Det. Herschel Gohan <
[email protected]
>

Date: Thursday, August 21, 7:20 AM

To: Det. Lewis McMaster <
[email protected]
>

Subject: Notification: Evidence compromise

Lewis —

Bad news. We had a fire in our station evidence locker last night; looks like some meth really past its sell-by date may have spontaneously cooked off. Nobody hurt, but we lost some critical evidence on a number of cases, including, sorry to say, your film-nut-in-the-storage-unit material. The film reel’s melted, the laptop motherboard is gone, and most of the other equipment’s unusable now. I’ve attached .jpgs to document the losses; I’m hoping this’ll be enough for your dept. to maintain provenance on your own stuff.

Sorry again; call me if you need to know anything not covered by the pictures.

— Herschel

8/23/08 1928HRS

TRANSCRIPT SUSPECT INTERVIEW 51 DIVISION

CASEFILE #332

PRESIDING OFFICERS D. SUSAN CORREA 156232, D. ERIC VALENS 324820

SUBJECT MAXIM HOLBORN

HOLBORN: So I went home after crashing the mainframe, and I didn’t go upstairs, because I thought my wife was asleep. And I wanted to let her sleep, because . . . she’d been in pretty bad shape, you know? She’d only just finished her chemo, she hadn’t gotten a lot of . . . sleep . . .

But then I turned on TCM, to relax, and they were playing Richard Burton’s adaptation of ‘Dr. Faustus,’ which was made the year before I was born, and—in the scene in the Vatican? Where Faustus is throwing pies at the Pope? I saw him. That guy.

Stuck around, kept watching; the next film was from 1944, and he was in it too. In the background, until—it was like—he notices me watching him. Turns and smiles at me, raises his eyebrow, starts—coming closer.

I swear to God, I jumped back. If Cagney hadn’t been in the way—

And then it was Silent Sunday, some all-night Chaplin retrospective, and . . . yeah. There, too.

Everywhere.

So . . .

D.VALENS: Obviously not.

HOLBORN: Obviously.

[TEN SECOND PAUSE]

HOLBORN: My wife wasn’t asleep, either, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.

D.VALENS: Aw, what the fuck—

D.CORREA: Shut up, Eric. [To HOLBORN] Look, you can’t be serious, that’s all. Are we supposed to believe—

HOLBORN: I don’t give a fuck what you believe. Seriously.

D.CORREA: Okay. So what about the disappearance of Laszlo Hurt?

[FIFTEEN SECOND PAUSE]

HOLBORN: I don’t know anything about that.

D.VALENS: And again: We should believe you on this . . . why?

[FIFTEEN SECOND PAUSE]

D.CORREA: Mister Holborn?

HOLBORN: . . . you know, I don’t know if you guys know this or not, but . . . my wife? Just died. So, in the immortal words of every ‘Law And Order’ episode ever filmed—charge me with something, or let me go. Or fuck the fuck off.

Date: Saturday, August 16, 9:45 PM

To: Soraya Mousch <
[email protected]
>

Subject: RE: LASZLO ANSWER ME

Hi. This is the administrator at
[email protected]
(00:15:32:A3) 

Delivery of your message to {
[email protected]
} failed after <15> attempts. Address not recognized by system.

This is a permanent error; I’ve given up.

>Laszlo, it’s Soraya, would you CALL ME PLEASE? I’ve left

>about twenty messages on your voicemail, Max and I have a big

>problem and we need your HELP! Where the fuck are you?

>Call me!

>S.

From: <
[email protected]
>

Date: Monday, August 18, 8:55 AM

To: Soraya Mousch <
[email protected]
>

Subject: RE: Account Tracking Request

Dear Ms. Mousch,

Sorry it took us so long to get back to you; we get a lot of backlog on weekends. I’m afraid I have to admit we’re stumped on this one. I personally went through our server records day by day over the registration period you specified, and as far as I can tell, we have no record whatsoever of a “Laszlo Hurt” on our roster. I’ve checked under the “lazhurt”, “laszloslabyrinth”, and “hurtmedia” addresses and their variants, as well as with our billing department, and there’s just no indication that this Mr. Hurt was ever a Geocities user.

I realize this may be an unwelcome explanation, but it sounds to me like you may have been a victim of an attempted phishing scam using dummy-mask addresses. I’d get your computer checked for viruses and malware right away.

Again, I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help.

Best regards,

Jamil Chandrasekhar

Geocities.com Tech Support

From: Soraya Mousch <
[email protected]
>

Date: Saturday, August 23, 11:01 PM

To: Max Holborn <
[email protected]
>

Subject: Blank

Max, I’m just so sorry.

– S.

With sorrow we announce the passing of Liat Allyson Meester-Holborn on August 23, 2008, beloved daughter of Aaron and Rachel Meester and wife of Maxim Holborn.

Funeral service to be held at
St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Catholic Church,
8 Elizabeth Avenue, Port Credit, Mississauga
Tuesday August 26, 11:00 A.M.

Commemorative reception
to be held at the Meester residence,
1132 Walden Road #744, 3:00 P.M.

Confirmations only

From: Max Holborn <
[email protected]
>

Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2:31 AM

To: Soraya Mousch <
[email protected]
>

Subject: look closer

s.–

hospital released the file on liat to me today. was going over it. couldn’t sleep. found something.

the attached .jpg’s a scan of the last x-ray they took, just before she crashed out. look at the upper right quarter, just up and right of where ribs meet breastbone. then do a b-w negative reverse on the image in your photoshop, and look again.

it’s not a glitch. it’s not me fucking with you. look at it. call me.

– m.

SURVEILLANCE TRANSCRIPT 14952, CASEFILE #332

9/19/08 2259H-2302H 416-[REDACTED] TO 416-[REDACTED]