Hidden in the Shadows (5 page)

Wyatt rubbed his jaw. “I’ll head outside, see if he’ll talk to me, and I’ll send someone in to take your statement, okay?”

Back outside, he headed for Ethan, who stood at Wes’s car, talking to a dejected Tony West. Ethan started in his direction and met Wyatt halfway.

“What’s Tony say about this?” Wyatt asked.

The detective made a face. “Says he was set up, and keeps calling Tara all kinds of nasty names. But he won’t tell me
how
he was set up. Maybe once he sobers up, he’ll be more cooperative. How’s Tara?”

Before Wyatt could respond, his phone rang. He answered and shot a look at Ethan. “No, we’ll be right there.”

“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked as Wyatt put the phone back in its holder.

“We have another domestic on the other side of town. You’re with me. Wes, take care of things here,” Wyatt called out as he hurried toward his vehicle.

As they pulled out of Tara’s driveway, Ethan following behind in his own car, Wyatt radioed in and got the information from dispatch.

“And we have another call that just came in on top of the one you’re going on, Sheriff,” Carrie said.

“What is it, a full moon?” Wyatt asked. Though Olman County had its share of crime, it wasn’t normal for the calls to come in such quick succession. Whatever was going on, Wyatt hoped the disturbances were just a fluke.

Chapter Seven

Maria was considering taking a break Tuesday afternoon when Ethan tapped on the frame of her office door to get her attention.

 “Hey, come on in. And close the door, please. I hear you had an exciting morning,” she commented as he took a seat in front of her desk.

Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You could say that. Were you able to find anything?”

“Yes and no. I actually found quite a bit more than I expected to, but the information has raised more questions than it’s answered. I don’t know where to start.”

“The beginning’s usually a good spot.”

She rubbed her forehead. “Usually. But I’m not sure where that is. You know I looked at all this as a favor to you, did it on my own time, and I didn’t use department resources, right?”

Ethan frowned. “Right. And I wouldn’t ask you to use official channels.”

“Well, unfortunately, I think I may have stumbled across some elements which are going to take us toward an official investigation.” She blew out a breath. “Let me ask you something. By any chance, have you noticed that we’ve had to handle a lot more fights, a lot more calls about… domestic disputes, I guess, lately? This morning was the perfect example.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess there have been more calls. I attributed the increase to the upcoming holidays. Why?”

She scowled. “Because I think someone deliberately set up this forum with the sole intent of using it to cause trouble here in Olman County.” She turned her computer monitor around so he could see it. “Look at this. After you called me, I spent a few hours lurking around the site, just getting a feel for the place. When word came down about this morning, I remembered this thread. It caught my attention last night, but its significance didn’t hit me until I heard what happened with Tony West.” She clicked on the link.

When a picture of Tara and Tony, dressed in wedding finery, came up, Ethan frowned and sat back in his chair. The first post, entitled “
Did you miss me?
” was dated three weeks prior.

He cursed and rubbed his neck, as though warding off a tension headache. “Tony swore that she’d set him up, but he wouldn’t tell us why he thought that. You think this post is where his idea came from?”

Maria answered, trying to keep the tension from her voice. “I think so. If you read these posts, they’re pretty inflammatory. To someone like Tony? They’d be like a message from God.”

“But why would someone want to start rumors like that? I know, I know. People are twisted. But what possible goal could they have? And was there a posting for the second situation we dealt with this morning?”

“Yes. There was. As to the whys, you’re the detective. But I do have something more. I did some recon and dug deeper. I got hold of the IP addresses of the people who started this post, as well as the one about Beth and a few others. Don’t ask how, by the way. All the user names are different, but all the IPs originate from the same place—Norway.” She could tell the information had shocked Ethan.

“Norway? Really? Okay, what am I missing?” he asked.

Tapping her pen on her blotter, she explained, “A person doesn’t have to be a registered user of this forum to start a topic or post on a thread. The company who runs the website that the forum is attached to did that deliberately. It’s part of the appeal of these types of forums. Some of the sites they host are harmless, but a lot are armpits of humanity. That being said, most people don’t realize that when they make a post on these threads, even if they do it anonymously, they’re still leaving tracks. Okay?”

“Sure. I do know that much. But what does that mean with regards to what’s happening here?”

“You know we have the Olman County Chatter here, right? The locally owned forum that’s heavily moderated? Local happenings, politics, sports, community stuff. It’s actually a decent little forum, a little gossipy, but for the most part, a place where people in the community can come to discuss current events or whatever.” When he nodded, she continued. “This other forum? It’s the complete antithesis of the Chatter. Delving into its readership and posts is like wading into a pit of angry vipers. Some of the same user names you’ll see on the Chatter also appear on this forum. Keep in mind, though, that since you don’t have to be a registered user on the second forum, anyone can use those names. The same people posting on this toxic forum might or might not be the same people on the Chatter.” She paused, taking a long drink from the mug on her desk.

Ethan took advantage of the break to ask a question. “So the person or persons who set up this ‘toxic’ forum, they’re using it to manipulate the goings-on here in Olman County? Wouldn’t that take a lot of time and effort, not to mention people?”

“Have you ever heard of sock puppets?”

He quirked a brow. “Um, yes. I was a kid once. Why do I get the feeling you aren’t talking about those kinds of puppets, though?”

She smiled. “Because I’m not. In internet forums, sock puppets are fake identities created by people with the intention of subverting the truth one way or another, fake customer reviews of products or services, to say something publicly as someone else that you couldn’t say as yourself, that sort of thing. They’re also used to cause trouble, like what’s going on here.”

“So people who create weird user names, like
Beatlesfan99
, are they considered sock puppets?”

Maria shook her head. “Not really. It’s like, well… like my username on social networking sites. I don’t want just anyone to be able to look me up, so I go by
SDITchick
. I’m still on there as me, and my friends and family know who I am, but not the general public. I didn’t create the name with the purpose of deceiving anyone in mind, but to protect myself from strangers.”

“Okay, makes sense.” He stretched out his legs. “So you think someone has created sock puppets and is posting inflammatory topics about people here in Olman County. Again, why? What’s the motive?”

“To cause trouble, is my best guess. And from what I can tell, it’s working like gangbusters. Aside from these two examples, I was able to find four more instances that go back as far as mid-August, that correlate to incidents the department was called out on. All the IP addresses of the OP—that’s Original Poster—came from Europe.”

“So it’s likely the same person?”

“Yes. And it means that whoever is doing this is masking their IP address, which means they’re familiar with the tactics we’d use to find them.” She watched as the implications of that sank in.

“Does that mean you can’t trace this back to whoever created those posts or threads or whatever?”

“No, but it’s going to be incredibly difficult to do and cost more man-hours than I think you’re going to want me to put into this. That’s not to say I won’t be digging deeper. There are some avenues I can explore that might lead us in the right direction. However, I think your best bet is going to be to pursue it from this end, the real-world aspect.”

Ethan was obviously flummoxed. “I wasn’t expecting this. When was the forum set up?”

“Early May. Also anonymously, but that might be a little easier to trace.”

He gave a decisive nod. “Good. Here’s what I’d like to do. Do you have the time available right now to follow this? To see how many more cases might be related to this forum?”

She pulled up her schedule on the screen. “I can, but I’m going to have to shuffle some things around. That might lead to some overtime for the lab crew.”

He stood. “Then start shuffling. I’ll get the approval for the OT. My gut’s telling me this is important. And here I thought this was just some nasty rumor-monger who wanted to hurt me and Beth.”

Maria got up and came around her desk to open the door. “I certainly wasn’t expecting this either, and my gut’s screaming at me, too. I’ll talk to the minions, move some things around, and start looking into this officially. I’m assuming this is ‘eyes-only’ for now?”

“Yeah. Until we know what we’re dealing with.”

They walked together toward the stairs, and once they reached the doors that led to the restrooms, Maria reached out a hand and stopped him. “How’s Beth doing, by the way?”

He shrugged. “She’s upset. More because of the way my parents acted than because of the picture. Shoot, she thought that was almost funny. Mom was just livid, though. I’ve never seen her like that. You know she and Beth have always been close. It broke Beth’s heart, the way she talked last night.”

 “I know it had to. I can’t imagine it, really. That’s not like Stella at all. I know you said the other night that she’d been acting odd. Is something going on with her that might be influencing her somehow?”

His laugh was bitter. “At this point? Hell if I know.” He patted her arm and headed down the hall. “I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for doing this.”

As he descended the stairs, Maria continued into the restroom, her heart heavy with concern for her friends. Something was definitely going on with Ethan’s mother. She’d try to stop by the library in the next few days to speak to Stella, see if she could figure out what the problem was. With everything Ethan and Beth had been through in the past year, the last thing they needed was family trouble.

Chapter Eight

Wednesday afternoon, Maria and her best friend, Detective Stacy Kirchner, grabbed a late lunch at the Lighthouse, taking advantage of the restaurant’s endless soup and salad deal. A cold front was moving through, leaving southern Indiana wet and miserable. The weather suited Maria’s mood perfectly.

“So you had a late-night date with Wyatt. Hallelujah! Gimme details, girl.” Stacy’s eyes sparkled as she waited for Maria’s response.

“It wasn’t a date. It was waffles and scrambled eggs, and it only happened because we were working on the Sterling case. You’re reading way more into this than what it was, Stace.” Maria scowled. “Way more.”

 “Seriously? You’ve had a crush on him since I first met you. You finally got him to yourself for the evening. I can’t believe you didn’t take advantage of that.”

She stirred her soup, not meeting Stacy’s gaze. “It wasn’t like that.”

The detective laughed softly. “Are you, or are you not, the same woman who boldly made a date for me with a man in the middle of a crowded deli as he served our meals?”

“That was different. You and Andre didn’t have all the obstacles I would have in a relationship with Wyatt. Like I told Ethan, he’s my boss.”

Stacy’s eyes grew wide. “You talked to Ethan about this?”

“More like Ethan talked to me.”

Stacy made a motion with her hand, urging her to continue. “And? What’d he say?”

Maria shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the discussion. “Nothing really, just… he was encouraging. Can we leave it at that?”

Stacy tilted her head. “Is your reluctance to pursue this because of Wyatt being your boss, or is it because of something else? The age difference, maybe?”

“No, it’s not the age difference. He’s the most virile man I know, and working with a department full of alpha males, that’s saying something. But he
is
my boss, and aside from that, you know I don’t do casual relationships. I don’t see the point in wasting time and emotions on a relationship that can’t possibly go anywhere.”

Her friend laughed. “You mean like wasting time on blind dates that your sister set up for you? And who says it wouldn’t go anywhere?”

From the depths of her purse, Maria’s phone trilled, signaling an incoming text message. As she dug the phone out of the bag, she answered Stacy’s question with a droll tone. “
I
say it wouldn’t go anywhere. I can just see the election headlines now.
‘Sheriff dating employee half his age.’
” Pulling out the phone, she read the text. “I have to go. I’m needed at the office.”