Dark Web (26 page)
“Detective Swift. You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”
The man standing in the receiving area at the Essex County Jail in Lewis offered Swift a wide smile. He was Brad Escher, county undersheriff. He stuck out his hand. Swift took it and gave it a brief pump. They stood looking at one another for a moment.
“I’m serious about that coffee. You want one?”
“I’d like to get right to the tough stuff.” Swift looked over the undersheriff’s shoulder and through the bullet-proofed glass into the jail.
“Absolutely,” said Escher, his smile fading. “Right this way.”
Escher led Swift through an entryway of piston doors and down a long corridor to an interrogation room. The room was much larger than the one at the substation. Here, Swift knew, the rest of the law enforcement team wasn’t watching on the other side of a one-way mirror, but on monitors in another room a few doors down. Mathis and Tuggey were there, along with Sheriff Dunleavy.
Everything was being digitally recorded, and archived instantly to a hard drive. Swift found himself thinking that the reason why his own substation didn’t have the budget to take on a homicide investigation like this one was because all the money went into the jail’s technology. Even the chairs were cozier than the hard-backs in the substation.
Robert Darring was rotating back and forth in a swivel chair. Now booked into the jail, he wore the black and white striped jumpsuit over a grey hooded sweatshirt. He smiled politely as Swift entered the room and sat down across from him, setting out a file folder on the table between them. Darring’s homely face and mud-colored eyes were open and guileless as his gaze dropped to the file.
“Frank Duso,” Swift said.
Darring looked up from the file. “I’m sorry?”
Swift paused, letting the moment linger. He folded his hands together.
“Did I ever tell you about my father? No. I never told you. I told your pal, Hideo Miko, from Philadelphia. You know . . . Just before he broke down and cried.”
“You can’t take kids anywhere these days.”
“My father was a state police detective, like me. So was my great grandfather. It skipped a generation, though; my grandfather was a farmer. But I bet you already knew that. That’s just how smart you are. A foster kid, you’ve said. Spent a lot of time reading books, maybe, like what’s-his-face in that movie.
Good Will Hunting.
What’s that like, being a foster kid?”
“I don’t have anything to compare it to. I wouldn’t know.”
Swift smiled. “Good point. Bet you felt alone at times though, yeah? Maybe . . . a little unwanted?”
Darring looked away, and Swift felt a momentary thrill that he might be getting under the kid’s skin at last.
“You feel right at home here in this place. In an institution.”
“Oh yeah, I love it,” Darring said, flashing his teeth in an ironic smile.
“You feel comfortable. You open up to people. People like Frank Duso.”
Darring’s smile faded.
“You told him things. You talked to Frank. But, see, Frank’s got a big mouth.”
Darring glared, saying nothing.
“You didn’t know that Frank and I had business, did you? See because he turned right around and got this big idea to call me up. Tell me he had something for me. In Frank’s mind, he was setting a trap, trying to get back at me for some old business. So he called me up, invited me out for a drink, and told me all about you, about how you seemed like you needed someone to listen to your rap. How clever you are to work with others behind the scenes, throw off the cops, be in more than one place at a time.
“I’d like to see a lawyer please.”
Swift hurried on. “Know what I think? You’re Billy Sweet Tea.”
Darring looked paler than usual. “Oh yeah?”
Swift pulled out his notebook and pen and set them on the table. He nodded. “You have other people, friends — I’m thinking Hideo Miko, Sasha Bellstein, maybe others — people in your little club, who play the same account, and that’s your online persona in the game
The Don
.”
“My persona?”
“Your character. What do they call it? An avatar? I played the game.”
“You did? What did you think?” He was acting nonchalant again.
“Ah, you know, I’m an old guy. But I saw some interesting artwork. You know those pictures they show after you’ve waged war with somebody? A mean-looking thug walking away from a burning building? Or the one where there’s a casket with flowers on it and mourners gathered around. Really great artwork. But this one’s the best.”
He leaned forward and slid a photograph from his file, the one he’d printed earlier. He spun it around so that Darring could look at it, while Swift watched his face.
“As you can see here, this is the image they use for their downtime, for maintenance. Or maybe fixing some security breach, who knows. But this one shows them digging a hole to dump a body in. The car lights shine so they can see to dig. And you can see the body there — see it? It’s tied up behind the car, tied around the neck and the wrist. The way it’s tied like that, it kind of cinches itself when someone pulls on it. A version of the garrote. Pretty gruesome stuff.”
“Yeah, they really get into the brutality of it,” Darring agreed.
“Did you get into the brutality of it?”
Darring looked up, his expression inscrutable. “It’s just a game.”
“You believe that the game continues on outside, in the real world, don’t you? Or, at least, that what goes on in the real world is sort of inconsequential. Here’s what you said the last time we met.” Swift picked up his notebook and quoted. “‘We’re going to all live completely online someday.’”
“It’s true.”
“And this: ‘I’m extremely interested in the techniques and technologies we use to essentially hack subjectivity.’” Swift looked up. “Do you consider yourself a hacker?”
“I asked for a lawyer.”
“‘The subjective experience,’ you said. You know, you use a lot of big words. Like I said, you’re a real smart guy. But I’m a little bit smart, too. Just a little. I think that what it means is, you mess with someone’s perception of reality.”
“You think so?”
Swift put the notebook down.
He leaned across the table and tapped a finger on the wood. “Remember couple days ago, when I admitted I was acting as-if? Well, now I’m not.”
Janine Poehler worked her way past security at the front of the county jail, and through the heavy doors. The guards smiled at her as she checked in, turning over her ID, her belongings and her jewelry. Unadorned, she continued to the room where four men sat watching Detective John Swift interviewing the suspect in the Braxton Simpkins case.
The men all turned and looked at her as she stepped into the room. She was wearing a crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled up past the elbows, Sateen slim cargo pants and a pair of classic platform pumps on her feet. Four sets of eyes scanned her up and down, and then returned their attention to the monitor in front of Captain Tuggey. None of them asked why the forensic pathologist was here. They were too engrossed with the interview, for one. The whole town was waiting to know who killed the boy in the middle of the night, and she would be no different.
Janine made her way a little further into the room, stopping beside Undersheriff Escher, a lumberjack of a man who’d been in the armed forces before joining the Sheriff’s.
She turned her attention to the screen.
* * *
“So tell me,” Swift said to Darring, “how much manipulation are we talking about? Two kids, Miko and Bellstein, they’re out there playing
The Don
on your behalf. You’ve hacked game servers, emails . . . bank accounts. What else?”
Swift’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Brittney Silas. He couldn’t take the call right now. He stared across the table at Darring, who looked smug.
“Let’s try this. When I looked at the timeline, what always perplexed me was why you and your friends didn’t hightail it out of there sooner. Why’d you wait around for nearly an hour and then come back? That left just enough time for you to do something. Like drive up to Tori McAfferty’s house, plant evidence, and then head back south. And, theoretically, because you’re not familiar with the layout up here, you backtracked instead of hopping on the interstate right from South Plattsburgh. You got picked up at the same exit you got off the highway on.”
Darring scowled. “You’re not giving me much credit.”
“Then I thought, maybe you wanted to get caught. You drove right back through New Brighton and out the other end because you hoped you’d get picked up.”
“Makes no sense to return to the scene of the crime.”
“Sure it does,” said Swift. “If you forgot something.”
For just a moment, Swift thought he saw fear pass over Darring’s features.
“In your story,” Swift went on, “you never got out of the car. You never had contact with Braxton Simpkins. You were on your
way
to see him. Just arriving, just pulling in when you mistakenly drove past his house in the dark, you overshot, and then you saw this man in the road, plow-truck driver, standing over a dead body, and you turned, and you ran away, scared. But I think you were coming back.”
There was an interruption, and Captain Tuggey’s voice came over the intercom.
“Detective, we have to cease the interview. Darring’s public defender is here.”
Swift looked up towards the ceiling, then into the camera in the corner of the room, then down at Darring, whose look of resignation had lightened into a smug smile.
“Better stop,” Darring said. “I think your job is already in danger, isn’t it?”
Swift sighed and sat back. “Yeah.”
“You’ve come along further than others might have.”
“Oh yeah?” Swift raised an eyebrow. He wondered what the other cops thought of that one.
“Yeah.” Darring maintained eye contact, gazing across the table at Swift. “I hope you realize something, Detective.”
“What’s that?”
“That you, and all the men and women, classics that you are — what a vintage, really. God bless you. Your fuck-ups weren’t directly your fault. In the 70s and 80s you Baby Boomers had no idea what to do. And the Generation Xers, they just inherited a mess, which they’ve been whining about and trying in vain to fix. Neither of these two generations can be expected to know, to be able to do, what my generation can.”
Swift leaned forward and put his hands, knuckled down into fists, on the table in front of him. “Is that what this whole thing is, Robert? You trying to prove something to the world about your generation? That the Millennials aren’t really lazy, spoiled brats? Instead they’re murderers?”
Darring almost flinched, and then smirked. “Oh that was tacky.”
“So’s your speech, Mussolini.” Swift said.
Darring laughed out loud. “That’s good. What I’m saying is that I’m a digital native, Detective. I may know more than most, but my whole generation is more fluent than yours’ll ever be. So I’m just trying to concede that the playing field isn’t really level, and I’m sorry for that. It seems capitalism once again favors those with early, unfair advantages.”
“The playing field has never been level,” Swift said. “That hasn’t ever stopped me.”
The intercom interrupted again. “Swift . . .”
Swift stood up, walked to the door and turned the lock. Interrogation rooms weren’t supposed to have locks — but Sheriff Dunleavy had permitted it. Swift silently praised the man. He was too close now, goddammit. He had the kid right on the ropes.
“Swift!” Tuggey’s voice roared over the speakers. There was a pounding on the other side of the door.
Swift was nonplussed. He and Darring stared at each other. “You created a whole web of lies to confuse and distract Braxton, and everyone else he knew. You created what you thought was a perfect screen for you to hide behind. Nothing in your little apartment in Queens, nothing on your so-called personal computer. Because you got those two other kids shilling for you.”
Swift watched Darring closely. The young man’s face had taken on that dreamy expression he’d gotten before. Like he was a radio signal fading out.
Suddenly, Swift flew across the room. In a few giant strides he was back at the table, and he slammed his hands down. He yelled in Darring’s face. “What did you do to those kids to get them to do what you wanted? Why did you kill Braxton Simpkins?”
“Swift! Stop it, Swift!” Swift thought he heard the jangling of keys. Escher was opening up. The seconds were melting away.
Darring barely flinched at Swift’s outburst. He looked up at the detective.
Swift gnashed his teeth. “Come clean, Robert! You know I’m going to find out anyway. You got people working for you; I got people working for me. Tell me! What are you doing?”
The door flew open.
“Let’s go get this motherfucker,” said Bull Camoine, setting down a black bag. He stood in Mike’s living room, snow melting off his combat boots forming a puddle at his feet. Here in this place, Bull seemed larger than life. Living up to his name. He stood over six feet, and was at least two-hundred and twenty pounds of muscle and fat.
Mike, on the other hand, felt vaporously thin. A ghost. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d eaten. Had they eaten breakfast this morning, he and the girls, before he took them to the airport? His head was swimming with the four vodkas he’d pounded, and a fifth glass was held in his hand. Nearby was a cup filled with spent cigarettes. He hadn’t been drunk in months. Maybe a year. It was hitting him hard.
Bull clapped his hands and rubbed the palms together. “Tell me where he is.”
“He’s here in town,” Mike said.
“He’s
here
? What the hell are you talking about?” Bull’s eyes were bulging with excitement.
“I got directions from him. He’s right fucking here in town, man.”
Mike felt dizzy and needed to sit down. He walked to the couch and dropped so fast it felt like the cushions jumped up and hit him in the ass. His drink sloshed in his grip.
“Whoa, whoa, hey Mikey,” Bull said. He strode across the floor, his dripping boots tracking more slush and water. Mike stared at the melting trail on the floor. Bull grabbed the drink out of Mike’s limp grip. “You’ve had
tee many martoonies
or what?” Then Bull lifted the glass to his mouth and drained it. He smacked his lips and said, “Ahh.”
“I feel like shit.”
“Fucking nuts. This guy is just something else.” Bull strode away, presumably to get more drinks. Mike looked into the empty hand that had held his drink, still curled in a grip around a non-existent glass. When Bull came back a moment later with two fresh vodkas, he wore a thoughtful expression.
“So how did he get to your money?”
“I don’t know. But, it’s gone.”
Bull slurped his drink and looked down with a quizzical expression. “Aren’t you the only one who can make a withdrawal?”
“I’m the account owner, yeah. But the one putting the money in is my old man.”
Bull shook his head, drank until the ice cubes bumped against his lips. “Uh-huh.”
Mike felt like he was floating, attached to his body by a string.
“Your old man,” Bull repeated.
“There’s got to be something else going on.”
“You call them?”
“Callie? No. I couldn’t. I can’t.”
“You able to see who made the withdrawal?”
“I am.”
“Your old man?”
“There was one more email,” Mike said, starting to shake. It seemed to come from inside of him, his whole being rattling like an engine. The laptop was on the couch beside him. He tapped the mouse pad and the screen came to life. The last email was there. Bull, standing with his drink like a man at an art gallery opening, casually bent and squinted at the text. He read it out loud.
“Don’t call the cops. Or the girls will get hurt.”
Bull stood back up. He didn’t look at Mike. He finished the vodka and stared off for a moment, thinking. Then he turned and walked across the room where he bent down to the black bag he’d placed near the front door. He reached in and pulled out a handgun. He came back towards Mike holding it out in his palm.
“This is a Glock 19, Mike.”
He held it up. It was small, all black. Mike shifted the vodka between his hands, reached up and took the weapon by the grip.
“That’s a Modular Back Strap design,” Bull said. “Dual recoil spring assembly inside.”
The grip was gritty in Mike’s palm. He turned the gun back and forth in the air. He slipped his finger into the trigger. It had been years since he’d held a gun. The last time was when he was in his teens. He’d pointed it at his father.
“That texture you’re feeling is called Gen4. And that’s a reversible enlarged magazine catch. You can change that in seconds. I’ve got nine-by-nineteen safe action ammo for you. You’ll have ten rounds in the magazine. But all you need to know, Mike, all you need to worry about, is that’s your trigger, right there.”
Mike imagined standing as he had stood decades ago. Holding a gun. Pointing it. Only this time, squeezing the trigger. Jack Simpkins’ face became Tori McAfferty’s. It all came crashing together — along with vodka on an empty stomach — and Mike got up and stumbled into the bathroom.
He dimly heard Bull calling after him, “Get it up, Mikey. Get it outta ya. We got business.” And then he heard the slap of a steel magazine as Bull loaded the gun.
