Revenge of Innocents (29 page)

“I’ve already talked to Ricky,” Hank said. “Snodgrass’s computer has bios passwords, whatever that means, as well as Windows passwords. Ricky said if they don’t get lucky, they’ll have to reinstall Windows and they might lose some of the data. Even if we get into the damn thing, he says people who set bios passwords generally encrypt their files.”

Carolyn asked, “Did you check out his cars?”

“There was nothing to indicate they’d been involved in an accident.”

“Any child pornography in the house?”

“Shit, no,” Hank said, spitting a toothpick into the trash can. “I hate technology. No one keeps real pictures lying around these days. They scan it all into their computers. Remember that child porn ring the feds cracked last year? They never got into their computers. The assholes had it set up so the data was wiped automatically if you entered the wrong password more than three times.”

“Maybe there’s something on the girls’ machines,” Mary suggested. “At least we might be able to find out what was going on in Haley’s life before she was killed.” Her face brightened. “I’ve got an idea. Marcus is a programmer. He’s got to be top shelf if he has contracts with the military. Right, Carolyn? If Ricky or one of the other guys can’t get into Snodgrass’s computers, do you think he’d be willing to help us?”

“Why wait?” Carolyn said, pulling out her cell. “Now that Snodgrass knows we suspect him, he could skip out on us. I’ll call Marcus now. He was on his way to Snodgrass’s house to drop off Annie Marie.”

“Wait,” Mary said. “The warrant gives us permission to remove the computers from the premises. You don’t want Marcus trying to get into the computers at the house. Snodgrass is a CPA. He probably has confidential information on his clients stored in that machine. We can’t give a civilian access. It could invalidate the warrant. Then if we find anything, we can’t use it.”

“You’re right,” Carolyn said. “I wasn’t thinking. I’ll have Marcus come here instead.” She started to make the call, then stopped. “You’ll still be giving him access to Snodgrass’s computers.”

Hank turned to Mary. “Are you in or out?”

“How are you going to handle it?”

“I’ll have Ricky take the computers to Marcus’s office instead of bringing them here. They can work on them together.”

Mary was a by-the-books cop. They’d already been bending the rules, and she was afraid it could backfire on them. She was willing to place her career on the line to catch a killer, but she was concerned they might compromise the case and not be able to convict him. All Ventura needed right now was another Robert Abernathy. “Can we trust Ricky?”

“Yeah,” Hank told her. “I caught him gambling on the Internet one time when he was supposed to be working. I didn’t report him, so he owes me.”

“I’m in,” Mary said. “Call Marcus, Carolyn. We also need the address to his office. You take care of Snodgrass, Hank, and tell Ricky to meet me there with the computers. Stall as long as you can. If we find anything, I’ll call you.”

Marcus took Anne Marie home, then dropped Rebecca at a friend’s house before he headed to Los Angeles. Carolyn wanted to stay at the PD and work.

“Snodgrass hired a pit bull,” Hank told her, taking a seat at the long table in the conference room. “I wanted to hold him until we found out what was inside his computer, but Beth Levy pitched a fit. I had to cut him loose, or I think she would have plucked my eyes out.”

“Beth’s a good attorney,” Carolyn said. “I wish she hadn’t left the DA’s office and gone into private practice.”

“I assigned Gabriel Martinez to tail Snodgrass for now. Tomorrow, I’ll borrow some people from narcotics.”

When none of the members of the task force were present, they had to collect everything they’d found at the various crime scenes and lock it up in the evidence room, then take it out the next morning. Carolyn looked through the boxes, seeing several new ones labeled
DREW CAMPBELL
, but she didn’t see any marked
SNODGRASS
. “Where’s the stuff from Snodgrass’s house?”

Hank sighed. “All we got were the computers. The search warrant was restricted to anything that was related to child pornography. I don’t know what to think. The guy’s an oddball, but he may not be involved in anything illegal. He evidently didn’t know his daughter was buried alive. When I told him, he used up a whole box of Kleenex bawling.”

“He probably
is
devastated,” Carolyn answered. “Pedophiles love their victims. They don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. Since Haley was his daughter, he would be even more emotionally involved. If he’s guilty, I doubt if he wanted to kill her. He was either terrified of going to prison or someone forced his hand.”

“You mean Drew, right?”

“Maybe,” she said, using her cell to call the hospital to check on Jude. When she disconnected, she told him, “They say she’s doing well. Barring any complications, she should be conscious sometime tomorrow. Let’s hope she can give us some answers. She’s been through a terrible ordeal, so I’m not sure we’re going to get much out of her right away.”

“Will she be able to use her arm?”

“The doctors aren’t sure what her limitations will be,” Carolyn explained. “The wound has to heal before they can start physical therapy. She could still lose it if something goes wrong.”

Thinking Jude might lose her arm now that the doctors had reattached it made Carolyn feel like screaming. To occupy her mind, she rifled through the boxes marked
JUDE CAMPBELL
. There was a stack of school books, several spiral notebooks, as well as a large canvas backpack. It wasn’t the type school kids carried, more like something hikers used when they went on overnight treks. She glanced in another box and saw a blanket, gloves, and several heavy sweaters, assuming another officer had removed them when he went through the backpack. It was sad, she thought. Jude must have lived out of this bag during the times when she stayed away from home. She wondered why she hadn’t taken it the night Drew threw her out of the house. Instead, she’d put her things in a plastic garbage bag. The girl was probably shaken up over the confrontation they’d had in the bathroom, and merely wanted to get out of the house as soon as possible.

“Gary Conrad went through those things already,” Hank told her. “You’re wasting your time. If you want, I can drive you home. Marcus may be tied up all night.”

Carolyn ignored him. She turned the backpack on its side, brushing out what looked like pieces of gum wrappers and a sprinkling of white powder. She put some on her tongue to make certain it wasn’t cocaine or speed.

“It’s aspirin,” Hank told her. “We had it tested.”

“There’s something in here. These things have so many compartments.” Carolyn unzipped all the pockets and shoved her hands inside, feeling around with her fingers. Deciding what she felt was a piece of cardboard that served as the bottom of the pack, she tossed it down on the table. A flap fell open, revealing another compartment. She unzipped it and pulled out a small book with a sunflower on the cover. It looked as if some of the pages had been ripped out. She jerked her head up. “My God, Hank, this is Jude’s diary. No one said anything about finding a diary.”

“Gary’s an idiot,” Hank said, frowning. “What does it say?”

“I’ll have to read it.” The book was about to fall apart. Carolyn carefully opened it and was instantly riveted. Jude’s handwriting was small and cramped. The pages weren’t dated, so there was no way to tell when they were written. She wrote about how much she loved Reggie, how she would die for him, and her fear that her father would find out she was dating a guy who was black. She mentioned that she was afraid for her sister, that she’d seen her father touching her, and vowed to do whatever it took to keep him away from her. Toward the end, all she wrote about was her weight. She went days without food, drinking only coffee and water. Then she allotted herself one orange per day, which she cut into three pieces. It was obvious that Jude was unraveling, as her handwriting became sloppier and the entries dwindled down to a few fragmented sentences. “Breasts almost gone. Felt dizzy today. Can’t pass out, or they’ll put me in a hospital and tube-feed me. Won’t be long now. He’s been giving me that look all week.”

Carolyn stood and handed the book to Hank. “Everything Jude told us about Drew was true. She was trying to starve herself so her body would look like it did before she went through puberty. I wish we had the missing pages.”

“Jude is skinny,” Hank said. “But the Snodgrass girl didn’t even weigh eighty pounds. Charley said she was anorexic. Don’t tell me they were both anorexic?”

“A shrink might classify this as anorexia since Jude fits the profile,” Carolyn explained. “She was starving herself for a purpose, though, to keep Drew from going after Stacy.”

“Does she say anything about Haley and her father? I still think these two men were involved in some type of pedophilia ring. I was going over the FBI’s Crime Classification Manual this morning. They call more than one pedophile working together a Cottage Collector. They use pornography as a means to communicate with other pedophiles.”

“I just can’t see either Don or Drew whipping out pornographic pictures of their daughters one day over the barbecue,” Carolyn told him. “Don knew Veronica was a probation officer. Approaching Drew would have been far too risky.”

“Okay,” Hank said. “What if Drew was the one who started it? They could have met each other in a chat room, then realized they knew each other. Shit happens, you know.”

Carolyn was more interested in the diary. “From what I can tell, Jude wrote some of these pages in the days leading up to Veronica’s murder.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” she said, fighting back tears. “I need to go outside and get some air.”

Hank came over and put his arm around her. “Drew’s dead, Carolyn. He can’t hurt Jude or anyone else. Isn’t that some consolation?”

“Not really,” Carolyn said, rushing out of the conference room.

Tuesday, October 18
—
2:15
P
.
M
.

M
arcus’s office was located in an office building in Century City. He waited in the parking lot until Mary and the police department’s computer expert arrived, then took them up in a private elevator that could only be operated with a key. His offices encompassed the entire floor.

The name of his company was not on the door. All the sign said was
PRIVATE
. Ricky Walters was carrying Don Snodgrass’s computer. A hyperactive man in his late twenties, he had dark, unruly hair, and a tall, wiry frame. Mary followed the men into a small reception room. The only furniture was four industrial-type chairs.

“This is basically for show,” Marcus explained. “We don’t allow visitors.”

“Why all the cloak-and-dagger?” Ricky asked, looking around the small room. “What exactly do you do? I thought you were a computer programmer.”

“I am,” Marcus said. “My work is classified. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait out here.” He started to take the computer, but Mary stopped him.

“This computer is evidence in a homicide. I can’t let it out of my sight. Surely you understand our position. What if I’m asked to testify as to who had access to it? Snodgrass’s attorney could claim we planted any information we might find. Why should I take a chance like that when I’m not certain you can help us?”

“Oh, I can help you,” Marcus said, a confident expression on his face. “I just can’t allow you inside my lab.”

“We’re police officers, for God’s sake,” Mary said, raising her voice. “Are you telling me we drove all the way down here for nothing? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“You solicited me, remember?” Marcus shot back. “If you’ll calm down and let me take the machine, I can solve your problem within minutes.” When Mary just glared at him, he added, “Okay, fine, but I need time to set up.”

He walked over to an intercom, depressing the button to talk. “It’s me, Jim. Stash any classified material we have lying around, and turn off all the monitors except for the teraflop. You and the rest of the guys go grab a coffee at Starbucks. Leave out the back door.”

“What’s going on, boss?”

“I’ve been asked to take care of a problem that doesn’t involve you and the others. I’ll call you as soon as I’m finished.”

“Sure thing,” the voice said. “I’m all for Starbucks.”

“Can they bring me a double espresso?” Ricky asked.

“Are you crazy?” Mary said, placing a hand on one hip. “You’re already jumping out of your skin. Just being around you makes me nervous.” Once Marcus turned around, she added, “I really appreciate this. I’m sorry I got carried away. We’re desperate to solve these murders. What we need might be inside this stupid box.”

Ricky Walters’s eyes were enormous. “You have a teraflop? You must make more money than God to afford a teraflop. Shit, I’d love to work for you. I could go to the car and get my notebook. My resume is on it.”

“What’s a teraflop?” Mary asked, having heard the word but not entirely certain what it meant.

“A supercomputer,” Ricky said. “A teraflop means a trillion floating point operations per second. A baby like that’s worth a minimum of twenty million. IBM made one called the Blue Gene/L that does 280.6 teraflops. They don’t have to do nuclear testing anymore. A computer like this can simulate it.”

“I don’t own the teraflop,” Marcus said. “It belongs to one of my clients.”

“Who made it?”

Marcus’s apprehension disappeared. Ricky’s excitement was contagious. “Hewlett Packard. It’s got a Linux operating system, and Intel’s Itanium 2 processor. Before I opened my own consulting firm, I worked for Intel. I was one of the people who designed Itanium 2. When it started acting up, I spent six months on-site trying to fix it. Finally, they agreed to ship the thing to me, so my entire team could work on it.” He used the intercom again, and no one answered. “What we’re interested in at the moment is TOTS, teraflops off the shelf. You can put together a cluster that works at teraflop speeds for under a million.”

Marcus placed his palm on a pad and the door swung open. Behind it was a steel wall with a code pad. He turned his back so Mary and Ricky couldn’t see, and punched in the numbers. Once the steel door clanked open, he spun around and faced them. “You’ve never been in this room, understand? This room doesn’t exist. The only reason I agreed to let you in is we’re moving to a smaller location next week once we get rid of the monster.”

Even though the lab was enormous, the rows of computer terminals made it seem cramped. There were eight workstations. All the monitors were blank except one. Marcus took Snodgrass’s Dell computer and disappeared behind a row of glass to connect it to the Hewlett Packard teraflop. Then he dropped down in one of the chairs, booted up the Dell, and went to the bios setup utility. “I was hoping he hadn’t set an administrator password, but he did.” He typed a string of code on the adjacent computer, then leaned back in his chair as data flashed on the screen so fast it was nothing more than a blur. “It’s running every possible eight-character letter and number combination.” Before he could say anything else, the password appeared. “He used upper-and lowercase, which made it slightly more difficult. My guess is SwTaNgEl means sweet angel.” He smiled at Mary. “I try to figure out personalized license plates when I’m stuck in traffic.”

“So you’re in?”

“Not yet,” Ricky told her. “Now he’s got to crack the Windows password. I tried to find a password recovery disk in Snodgrass’s desk, but he must have it locked in a safe somewhere. We can reinstall Windows, but like I told you before, it’s risky.”

As soon as the teraflop cranked out the Windows password, which turned out to be a random combination of letters and numbers, the main screen opened. “What precisely are we looking for now?” Marcus asked.

“Child pornography, or any type of pictures that appear even slightly erotic.”

Marcus searched through the gallery section, finding photographs of naked little girls among the normal shots of dogs, families, birthday parties, Christmas, and other holidays. The girls were taking baths, playing in a rubber swimming pool, getting dressed, or chasing each other through the sprinklers. None of the poses looked even slightly suggestive, let alone erotic. “Is this what you were looking for?”

“Not exactly,” Mary said, disappointment heavy in her voice. “The two girls resemble each other, so they’re probably his daughters. I guess it’s normal to snap these kinds of photos when kids are that young. That doesn’t mean Snodgrass didn’t get turned on by them, though. We need something more recent.”

Marcus checked the photo imaging program used by Snodgrass’s Canon digital camera. The two girls were older, and most of the shots looked like the others he’d found in the gallery. “Whoa,” he said, “is this the kind of thing you’re talking about?”

Mary nudged him out of his seat. Haley appeared to be around eleven or twelve. She was wearing a bikini bathing suit bottom with no top and smiling for the camera. She must have been about to enter puberty, as her nipples were slightly swollen. “This is
exactly
what we’re looking for,” Mary said, peering up at Marcus.

The room fell silent as Mary went through the rest of the pictures, hoping to find more similar shots. She came to one with a teenage girl lying on her stomach in a bed, nude except for a pair of white cotton panties. Her head was turned to the side, and her eyes were closed as if she was sleeping. She knew it was Haley as she recognized her profile. “What does this picture tell you?”

Ricky spoke up. “That her perverted father was sneaking into her room and taking pictures of her while she was sleeping.”

“It’s more than that,” Mary said, zooming in on the image. “Just because her eyes are closed doesn’t mean she’s asleep. Look closely at her face. Wait,” she said, wanting to get a closer look at the area around her eyes and cheek. “See that right there? I’m almost certain those are tears, and look at her expression. If she was asleep, she was having one hell of a nightmare.” She rotated the image, seeing an object protruding from underneath the girl’s hips. “I’m fairly certain that’s a pillow. It’s pink like the sheets. She was posed, don’t you see? He must have put a pillow under her to lift up her hips so they would stand out more. He could have also wanted her on her stomach because she was older and had developed breasts by then. I think Snodgrass snapped this either before or after he had sex with her.”

“Jesus,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “I’m not sure I want to see this, Mary. Why don’t you take the computer back to the police station now that you have all the passwords? In fact, I can remove them. That way, you won’t have to mess with them.”

“You can’t do that,” Mary said sharply. “The prosecutor might want to use the passwords to show Snodgrass had something to hide. See the exposed skin on her neck? The rest of her body is tan. Why aren’t there any tan lines on her back?”

Marcus said, “A lot of teenage girls undo their bathing suit tops when they’re lying on their stomach. I recall my daughter doing it. I used to get on to her. She’d forget, sit up, and expose herself.”

“Haley’s not wearing bikini underwear. You can tell because the fabric is bunched up at the bottom. You can see her crack. Did your daughter pull her bathing suit down that low?”

“No, but today, you can see girls exposed like that just about everywhere.”

“The lowrider pants are a fairly new fashion trend,” Mary continued. “Look at the date. This picture was taken five years ago. Haley was thirteen then. The point I was trying to make is her whole body is tan. She’s been sunbathing nude. Her parents don’t have a pool. They may have another house or cabin somewhere, though, a place Snodgrass could have taken her where he could watch her run around naked. Can you tell when he created that password?”

“Which one?”

“Sweet angel, if that’s what it means.”

“Doubtful,” Marcus said. “Once a bios password is changed, it’s changed. You’ve got to understand, this is about a seven-hundred-dollar machine. Do you think sweet angel means something sinister? It sounds pretty innocent to me.”

Mary stood, giving him back his seat. “If he created it after his daughter was murdered, it might be touching, almost like a prayer or remembrance. Before, well, this could refer to an incestuous relationship. Pedophiles think that way. They believe the sweet young child they’re having sex with was sent to them to fulfill their special needs. They don’t believe they’re harming anyone. Many times they convince themselves the victim actually seduced them.”

“I’ll check the sites he visited on the Internet,” Marcus told her, opening the drop-down box on the browser. Most of the sites appeared harmless. The majority of them were bank and credit card sites. Some were for news and entertainment. Others were commercial sites such as Amazon and eBay, along with a variety of online stores, most of them selling clothes for women. Marcus then searched through the document files. “None of the files appear to be encrypted,” he told them. “Didn’t you say he was an accountant? I don’t see any client lists or spreadsheets. He must keep anything related to his business on his office machine. That, in itself, is unusual, since so many people work both at home and at an office.” He opened Microsoft Outlook, and read through some of the e-mails. “This is mostly Chatty Kathy stuff.”

“What are you talking about?” Mary said, never having heard that expression before.

“Girl talk,” Marcus told her. “I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t think this is the father’s computer. It looks like it belongs to the wife. Even all the purchase receipts are for the kind of things a woman would buy. I mean, every guy likes gadgets of one kind or the other. Whoever uses this machine bought a stand for a blow-dryer, wooden hangers, nightgowns at Victoria’s Secret, pillow shams, four Sassybax bras, which reduces invisible bra line, whatever that means.”

“Enough,” Mary said, giving Ricky a look that would drop an elephant. “I told you to bring the computer that was in the spare bedroom. What did you do, mix them up and bring me one of the girls’ machines?”

“Of course not,” Ricky said, defensive. “The girls’ computers weren’t password protected. They also weren’t Dells. What’s the problem? The guy still took those racy pictures of his daughter.”

Mary took several deep breaths to keep from exploding. Every time they seemed to be making progress, they hit a brick wall. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Ricky. If a mother takes a picture of her daughter scantily dressed, it’s hard to classify it as child pornography. Female pedophiles aren’t common, and those that exist generally work in concert with a male. It’s doubtful if the Snodgrasses are that type of people, although it’s not completely implausible. Husband and wife teams usually sell child pornography as their main source of income, or they’re involved in child prostitution rings.”

Marcus spun his chair around. “Didn’t Hank think this was a pedophilia ring at one time?”

“Yes,” Mary said. “Now that Drew is dead, and from what Jude has told Carolyn about Stockton, we’ve been focusing primarily on Snodgrass. Even if the father did take the pictures, the fact that the computer was used primarily by the mother won’t help us get a warrant to arrest her husband.”

Marcus tore off a piece of paper with the passwords on it, and handed it to Mary. “If you have any more problems, give me a call. I have a great program for cracking codes I can give you, but on an ordinary machine it would take forever to run.”