Shades of Simon Gray (23 page)

Roger was rapping his knuckles on her desk. It was nine o’clock on a Friday night and they were still at work. She’d already called home and told Steve to order pizza for him and the girls and to save a few slices for her. Roger, she knew, had a hot date. He’d been talking about it all week. So he was the last person she expected to see sitting
on her desk, looking as if he’d just won the state lottery.

“You want to hear a funny story?” he asked.

Debra figured, what the heck, it had been a long day. She could use a good laugh. “Sure.”

“It looks like that computer teacher, George McCabe, has been visiting porn sites on the school’s time.”

Caught off guard, the lieutenant let out a throaty “Ha!” She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re kidding! So … what? You think he’s filling in his free period with a little entertainment instead of grading papers?”

Roger ran his hand through his dark, neatly trimmed hair and took a swallow of lukewarm coffee. He had deep dimples that made him look boyish. “Actually, I think it’s more complicated than that.”

“Really?” Debra wondered what else Roger had found on the data they had downloaded from the school server two weeks earlier.

“Yeah. I sort of doubt he was able to log on to several sites at one time. I mean, he could, using several computers in the school lab. But what would be the point?”

Debra shifted her gaze away from Roger and stared across the room, thinking. “So you’re saying whoever got hold of his password was using it for more than academic gain?”

Roger was grinning again. “Okay, here’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re talking about the same kids you’ve been questioning. We could be. Or maybe there’s more than one group involved.”

Debra rubbed her forehead as if she had a pounding headache. “You’ve lost me.”

“The log from the server shows McCabe, or someone, was tied in to multiple sites, all porn sites, at the same time. Multiple sites show up dozens of times under his account. It looks like six, seven, sometimes even more people, were accessing different sites all at the same time, and almost always between three and five in the afternoon.” He paused and waited for the lieutenant’s reaction.

She stared back at him, frowning.

“I think maybe McCabe was letting them do it,” he said finally.

“You mean he
gave
some of the students his password?”

“You got it.”

“But why?”

“Who knows? No wonder the man was sweating bullets when we were downloading all this stuff. I figured it was the heat wave, but it looks like he had other reasons.” Roger got up from the desk and headed over to the coffeepot for a refill. “I figured you might want to talk to McCabe before we go any further with this.”

Debra leaned back in her chair. She looked thoughtful. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“Barbara Schroder was the one who wanted to bring us in on the case. George McCabe didn’t seem to know much about it. And yet he’s the one person who’s really in a position to know. You’d think he’d be the first one to figure
out something was going on and blow the whistle on whoever was getting into the system.”

“He probably kept quiet because he had a few things going on himself,” Roger said.

Debra shook her head. “I thought the school had software to filter out those porn sites, Cyber Patrol or something.”

“They do. But McCabe maintains the network, remember? He could easily have set up an account to bypass any firewalls.”

“So do you think it was Simon Gray who was checking out these porn sites?”

Roger shrugged. “I have no idea who’s involved. But like I said, there’s more than one person. Simon Gray could be one of them.”

“This doesn’t sound like the kids I’ve been questioning. All of them are involved in after-school activities. Legit activities,” she added when she saw Roger’s grin.

“Well, McCabe
did
tell us Simon Gray was his best student—a real computer whiz.”

“You know, given this latest information, it’s a little suspicious that McCabe told us what he did.” Debra frowned. “It’s as if he wanted us to check out Gray.”

“Well, sure he did. He knew what the kid was capable of.”

“Okay. But why do you suppose McCabe gave us Simon Gray’s name as a possible suspect and no one else’s? Now you’re saying there’s more than one kid involved. Do you think McCabe did it to throw us off the track?”

“Who knows? But I wouldn’t rule out Gray just yet.”

“I wasn’t planning to. It was just a thought.” She glanced down at her wristwatch. “You’re a little late for that date, aren’t you?”

“I already called her. She said no problem. She’s fixing a late dinner for the two of us.” He grinned, downed the last of his coffee, and headed for the door. “I’d still follow up with McCabe. Just a suggestion. You never know where it might lead.”

But Debra Santino was already one step ahead of him. The minute he was out the door she called Barbara Schroder at home and arranged to meet with her and George McCabe at the school first thing Saturday morning, weekend or no weekend.

S
ATURDAY NIGHT
K
YLE WAS STUCK AT HOME
. H
E HAD
a paper on Thomas Hardy’s
Jude the Obscure
due for AP English on Monday and hadn’t even begun to write it. If he didn’t get an A on the paper, he could jeopardize his A average in the course.

Ordinarily he would have had the paper done before the weekend, but his concentration was all screwed up. He couldn’t get Devin out of his mind. He was angry as hell at her. Angry at her for messing up their last two months of school, for screwing up their plans for the prom and prom weekend at the shore. Why would she break up with him before school was out? It didn’t make sense. Not that he hadn’t been planning to break it off himself before he left for Harvard. He figured they’d probably both want
to be free to see other people once they got to college. But that was months away. They could be having the time of their lives right now. It was their senior year, for god’s sake. He couldn’t believe she’d done this to him after all the years they’d been together. And the worst part was, he still didn’t have a clue what was behind it.

He might have sat at his desk, staring at the blank page on his monitor, all night, if his mother hadn’t suddenly showed up at his bedroom door to announce that Danny was waiting outside for him.

He found Danny parked by the front curb in his Mustang. Kyle leaned his arms on the roof of the car and peered inside the open window on the passenger side. “What’s up?”

Danny stared at Kyle as if he hadn’t heard him right. “Hendershot’s party, man. Remember?”

“Yeah, right. I forgot. I’ve been working on that Hardy paper.” Kyle jerked his thumb toward the house.

“Get in,” Danny said. “We’ll pick up Devin.”

Kyle looked away and didn’t say anything.

“Or not,” Danny added.

“She’s probably at the hospital,” Kyle told him. He’d been dodging Danny’s questions about Devin and him since Wednesday. But he could tell Danny wasn’t buying it.

Danny shrugged and looked down at the steering wheel. “So … is it off between you guys?”

“Like I said, man, she’s been at the hospital a lot.” Kyle drummed his thumbs on the roof of the car. “That’s all. Her grandmother’s sick. Jeez, give her a break.”

“Maybe she’ll be at Hendershot’s party,” Danny said.

Kyle doubted Devin would be at the party, although there was a small chance she’d show up with a few of her friends. In truth, he hoped she wouldn’t be there, because then it would be obvious to everyone they weren’t together anymore. And he wasn’t in the mood to spend the night doling out explanations.

“So are you coming or not?” Danny said.

Kyle thought for a moment about the paper on Hardy, decided he would spend all day Sunday on it, and climbed into the front seat. Devin or no Devin, he had little more than two months left of his senior year, and he was determined to make the most of them.

The sounds of heavy metal reverberated through the night air. Danny could feel the bass as soon as they turned onto Trip Hendershot’s street. Cars lined both sides of the block. The Hendershots’ front yard had been converted into a parking lot. Danny didn’t want to park on the lawn, where the cars were wedged so tight it was almost impossible to get the doors open. He wasn’t about to risk getting his ’Stang messed up. Instead, he dropped Kyle off and drove two blocks away to park by a deserted curb. He made sure the car was out in the open, not parked beneath any crow-laden trees.

When he got to the Hendershots’, he found Kyle standing in the breakfast nook, watching a bunch of kids toss Ping-Pong balls into large Styrofoam cups of beer.

“She here?” Danny asked. They both knew he was talking about Devin.

Kyle shook his head and opened a can of Coke. Danny helped himself to a beer from one of the three ice-filled coolers on the floor by the back door.

“You want me to drive you over to her house?”

A roar of laughter echoed from the group surrounding the table after Trip Hendershot’s Ping-Pong ball missed the cups of beer by a mile. Someone handed him one of the full cups and he chugged it, losing half the contents down the front of his T-shirt.

When Kyle didn’t bother to answer, Danny shrugged and wandered downstairs to the family room. He was pretty sure something had happened between Kyle and Devin, but it wasn’t any of his business. Better to stay out of it.

On one side of the family room, a few jocks from the football team were watching Trip Hendershot’s videotape of November’s homecoming game. The big-screen TV provided the only light in the room. Some of the kids were dancing, although you could hardly hear the music above the football video. Others were making out on the huge U-shaped sectional couch at the other end of the room.

Danny was about to go back upstairs when Alan Caldwell, a senior who played tight end for the Bellehaven Bobcats, came leaping down the stairs, almost knocking Danny off his feet. He tapped two of the other players on the shoulder and signaled them to follow.

There was something about the expression on Alan Caldwell’s face that made Danny curious. He trailed after the three guys, staying at a reasonable distance. They headed outside to the deck. Danny could see them through
the kitchen window above the sink. He didn’t want to be obvious. If he went out on the deck, they would probably stop talking about whatever it was that was going on. Instead, he hoisted himself onto the kitchen counter beside the sink and leaned his head back against the wall. His left ear was only inches from the open window. With the music blasting through the house, it was difficult to hear, but he was able to catch a few words. And the more he listened, the faster his heart beat. Because what he heard Alan Caldwell tell the others was “The game’s up.”

Ten minutes later Danny had brought Kyle to the wooded area at the far end of the Hendershots’ backyard.

“This better be good,” Kyle told him.

“It’s good. It’s good,” Danny reassured him. He kept punching his fist into the palm of his other hand, barely able to contain himself.

Kyle leaned back against a tree and folded his arms across his chest. “So let’s hear it.”

“I just overheard Alan Caldwell telling Joey Campanelli and Scott Turso he got a call from Mr. McCabe right before he left for the party.” The grin widened on Danny’s face. “He said the cops met with McCabe and Principal Schroder this morning. They figured out someone’s been using the school computers to download porn. Caldwell said McCabe caved, told the cops everything. Whatever that means.”

Kyle stared at Danny, his face expressionless. It was obvious he didn’t get the connection. “What’s this got to do with us?”

Danny snickered. “Man, don’t you get it? Caldwell and
some of the other seniors on the football team have been using the school computers to access porn. That means they either hacked into the system, stole McCabe’s password, or McCabe let them use it, which would really be stupid. But, hey, you never know.” He shrugged. “Somehow they bypassed the firewall.”

Kyle studied Danny with interest. “So if there are other students who’ve either been hacking into the system or have access to McCabe’s password, then they could have been downloading other stuff.”