Take the Fourth (5 page)

“Huh… what… . why am I…”

“I’ll say again do you mind if we search the house?”

His mind raced, the cuffs where tight against his wrist, he wondered if he left anything in plain sight. The officer raised his cuffed hands forcing pain to both his rotator cuffs, much like the pain when being forced to say uncle, only this time it was not meant as a school yard ritual, it was meant to inflict a great deal of deep pain. “I’ll ask one more time, can we search the house?”

“Yesss,” was the painfully response this time. With that the officer knew he had full rights to search the premises, since the suspect had just forgone his rights granted by the fourth amendment. The four officers who were around back were quickly called to the front and permitted to enter and begin their search. The remaining officers went to the detached garage and indeed there was a dark green 1974 Camaro, black vinyl top, and big ass rear tires. The officers did a quick search of the vehicle, popped the trunk lid, and found nothing—in fact the car was pretty much spotless, like it had just been cleaned. Inside the house the officers started with a quick search, each taking s separate room in the house. They searched closets, under beds, the attic, and the basement, and no little girl was to be found. They then brought in two well trained police dogs to help in the search for Ripley. One dog, the biggest German Shepherd anyone has seen, took off immediately for the basement, down the stairs, and around the corner towards a shelving unit. The dog started barking because that’s what he was trained to do when he found what he was looking for… so he barked and waited for his master’s arrival. When his master arrived he barked and scratched behind the shelving unit. The shelving unit was a massive wooden structure consisting of old paint cans, electrical wire, and other household maintenance items that are rarely used. The officer was joined by his partner and both sets of muscles were needed to move the shelf even a faction of a foot. After a minute or two they were able to step behind the monstrosity and they found what the dog was barking at. A reward was justified. Affixed to the back of the wooden shelf was a bag of pot—a little more than an ounce. Besides this, the house looked in normal working order albeit from the dirty kitchen sink filled to the brim with unsoaked dishes from many boiled pasta dinners with canned sauce and those shaky cans of preservative filled parmesan cheese that seemingly never goes bad. And no little girl, no Ripley Newenberg age five was to be found… time was of the essence

This time Detective Charles Lynch was mono a mono in the same brightly lit interrogation room and this time there were people behind the mirror. This time was different; this time there was a suspect in the room, a suspect in his early twenties.

“Empty your pockets please and take off that hat.” He recorded the contents of his pockets in his yellow pad, “What were you doing at this house?” and so the question and answer session began.

“Why am I here, I… . I . . Don’t understand.”

“Answer my questions first,” in his best intimidating voice.

Silence as the young man contemplated his options, then, “I… I’m allowed there… it’s my step dad’s… he’s away, out of town, comes back next week.”

“And your mother?”

“At home… can I call her, don’t, can’t I make a phone call or something?”

“Again I’m asking the questions… do you understand? Where is she?”

“At home.”

“Home? She wasn’t there when we brought you in.”

“I said that’s my step dad’s house, that’s not hers.”

“Can you explain?”

“Explain what? I don’t understand, I’m confused, why am I here?”

“You were staying at your step dad’s and not your mothers?”

“My dad, my real dad I have no idea where he is, if he’s still alive, my step dad is the only father I really know of, he and my mom divorced a few years ago, we had a fight, my mom and I, I still live there but she hates me coming in late, she hates that I have a life outside of hers, so I moved into my step dad’s, for a little while.”

“Does he know you are there?”

Silence again filled the air… . “Well uhh, no… . but but I have a key, he wouldn’t mind… I’ve done this before… call him, he’ll tell ya.”

“Where is he?”

“On vacation in… . in… . fuck I forget.”

Unphased by his abrupt use of the f-word, “does he have a cell phone?’

“Nope, . . . . I . .think… never mind.”

“What?”

“No, nothing, . . . . I was just going to say, he always forgets to pay his phone, sometimes I call and its turned off, he just forgets sometime… he has money to pay, he just forgets sometimes, that’s all… that’s why I live with my mom, at least when I go back home if I turn on a light there will be light… not that way at my dad’s house… step dad’s”

“What do you do?”

“You mean job? Well, I, I, do things for people.”

“Like sell drugs?”

“What, no… no… no, I’m like a handyman, you know fix a screen door for my neighbor, mow the grass, odd jobs, small jobs, I was pretty good in wood shop in high school and work construction during the summer.”

“Why aren’t you working now?”

“We are in between jobs, I work tomorrow, I have to be on the job site six sharp.”

Satisfied with his answer, “Is that your car in the garage?”

“What, the Camaro?,” shaking his head, “no, no way in hell, I couldn’t afford the insurance, that’s my dad’s baby. He’s had that car for like forever, as long as I can remember anyways.”

“Anyway, no s, it’s in your name.”

“I know, someday it may be mine, and as far as my mother is concerned, it is mine… . he placed the car in my name just before things got ugly with the divorce.”

“Do you ever drive it?”

“He’d kill me if I took it out of the garage.”

“You didn’t answer the question?”

Silence again, then a “no” in an all knowing lie.

“Well, your dad’s is on vacation right?”

“Yes,” knowing all too well that he knew the truth and he sunk further into the chair.

“The car, that car, your father’s Camaro was spotted entering your dad’s driveway about two hours ago, if he wasn’t home, then who was driving your dad’s baby?”

Knowing all too well he was caught, “Me.”

“Explain.”

“Explain what, yeah I did take his car out, just for a ride, I went to the mall.”

“Where else did you go?”

“I just rode around, that’s all… . did someone report it stolen or something, it’s my dad’s… . step dad’s I mean, listen it’s in my name right? . . . . yeah this is the first time I took it without permission but… . I know, I know, dad doesn’t even know I’m here this time, and I took his car, his baby without permission… . that’s my trouble isn’t it?”

He seemed to be grabbing for straws as to his predicament, as to why he was sitting in the room down at the police station. Detective Lynch was starting to question himself as well and stopped with the questions for a few moments while he gathered his thoughts. Charles glanced at his yellow pad of paper and his notes from the previous interviews, he flipped a few pages, flipped again… and looked at the table and again at his notes. His notes from the last interview stated a man with a red baseball cap was seen at the playground—on the table in front of the twenty year old, laid a Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap, bright red, with a white “P”. He was ready to start questioning again.

“When you rode around, where else did you go?”

“Just to the mall I said, I wanted to get new sneaks, but didn’t have enough money, they were like eighty dollars. I even parked the car way out of the way as it wouldn’t get scratched or something.”

“How much were the sneakers?”

“Eighty dollars.”

“Wow, that’s a lot for sneakers… Did you drive around the vicinity of Ash and Georgia?”

“I don’t know where that is… I might have… I don’t know.”

“So you just went to the mall and nowhere else, you didn’t stop for a hot dog, or watch kids play at the park, or stop and get gas?”

“No, none of that.”

“What if I were to tell you, that this car was seen at the playground by Ash and Georgia?”

“I said before, it’s possible, I don’t know where that is.”

“Your car was last seen at Ash and Georgia, a playground is nearby, a young child was taken, kidnapped, a five year old.”

He was grabbing for air, he didn’t know how to respond . . “I… I…”

“Have you seen her? Did you take her! Where is she? Where, where is she!,” as Lynch stood up and was pounding on the table, letting his emotions get the better part of him and he knew he just made a grave mistake in the interview process. He let it slipped that the victim was a girl.

“I… I… . don’t, . . . don’t know… what you are talking about,” as his voice started to grow shaky and scared.

“Damn it you, you better come clean, right now, goddamnit, right now!” in a voice that could be heard down the hall.

“I… I… I . .swear to you… I swear,” with the last part barely audible over breathless sobs.

Detective Lynch watched his reaction and eased back into his chair. He was beginning to think he was on a wild goose chase, his gut told him so, and he always listened to his gut… not just because it was the biggest part of him. He glanced over his yellow tablet again and didn’t say a word; he was just about to write the time down on his yellow pad indicating the interview was over when he glanced at the contents of the pockets.

“You said you were at the mall.”

A very quiet “Yes,” was heard.

“You were going to buy sneakers,” more of a statement of facts then a question

“Yes,” shaking his head at the same time.

“You said, they were eighty dollars and you didn’t have enough money.”

“Yes,” again shaking his head at the same time.

“Curious, why didn’t you buy them?”

“I didn’t have enough money, I was short a few bucks.”

“You bad at math?”

“Huh, . . . bad at math . .no, no, not that bad, I measure angles, square footage and stuff like that.”

“Well, on the table you have eighty-seven dollars and some change… that’s clearly enough for your sneaks, expensive as they may be.”

“At the time I was going to buy them I didn’t have enough money.”

“Did you raid your dad’s… I mean step dad’s cookie jar when you got back home?”

“No.”

“Visit an atm machine on your way home?”

“No.”

“Just curious, then where did you get the extra money?”

“Some guy.”

“What do you mean some guy?”

“Some guy came up to me at a stop sign and asked what year my car was, he said seventy-four was the same year as his old one, then he handed me ten bucks and asked if I wouldn’t mind waiting there while he went to go get his camera, he said there was another ten in it for me and he would be no more than five minutes. He wanted a picture of the engine, he seemed nice enough but he never returned, I waited like an extra ten minutes.”

“And then?”

“Nothing, I got tired of waiting… more like pissed, so I punched it a little and squealed my… the tires.”

“Where was this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was there a playground around?”

“I don’t re… . wait a minute… I remember looking in my rearview mirror… seeing if this guy was going to return, I remember seeing a big red sliding board . . But, but that’s all I remember.”

Detective Charles Lynch wrote the ending time of his interview down on his yellow pad.

“Officer Roberts here is going to take you down to see one of our sketch artists.”

And just like that, the detective was out the door… no apologies… he didn’t have time, time was of the essence. In his mind now this was a bonafide kidnapping case and the Levi’s call placed by the GBI was justified.

 . . .

Chapter 5
 

“A
ccess Denied” Strange he thought and tried it again—“Access Denied”. He tried another search, and the same reply was shown on the screen “Access Denied”. He didn’t get a “Server Unavailable” or a hundred other messages implying database backups or system maintenance. It was he himself that was being denied access which was strange in and unto itself for there were only three other people who had access to the machine and knew its purpose and two were at the White House and one them had asked for his help in the research. It was only a matter of time until the phone rang. He tried to circumvent his point of entry to no avail. He tried backdoors and other tricks of the trade and each and every time, “Access Denied.” Someone shut him out but whom? Why? Just as the phrase “son-of-a-bitch” was echoing through his brain, the inescapable ring of his cell phone sounded. It was indeed Scott.

“How did you do?”

“I was able to pull names, dates, times, and locations and was in the midst of creating a solid timeline of events but… .”

“But what?”

“I was locked out!”

“What do you mean locked out?”

“Exactly like I said, I got an access denied message, from what I gather it was placed by someone in house. I’ve tried other venues but they pretty much have them locked as well.”

“Who has access to shut down something like this?”

“I could only speculate that it was from the top in the department either Peter or ummm Mike, and neither of them have a clue and why would they suddenly shut us out, it’s not like they know about the network?”

“Good question. Send over what you have so far, I’ll try to access this as well, if not I’ll call Peter. I’ll be back in touch shortly. Give me fifteen minutes.” Click.

Scott immediately pulled up his virtual private network (VPN) on his laptop, logged in, and scanned his index finger. During the few seconds in which it took to connect, he cursed under his breath. He simply didn’t have time to do his own research; he was the point man to the President, he was the man with the answers, he didn’t dig for data, he didn’t comb through meaningless information, he didn’t analyze the mundane, he had an inside man to do just that, one who used to have access.

“Fuck!”

On the screen “Access Denied”.

He flipped open his cell, punched in a number on speed dial and within a few seconds the direct line to the director rang.

“Hello Scott, make it fast please I’m in the middle of shit storm as you can imagine”

“I know I’m working on the same from my end, I was trying to piece together a timeline but I was shut out of a system I need for completion. The President wants this information yesterday so helping me restore my connection is imperative. I got an access denied message.”

“Understood. You coming in from the vpn?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, during a crisis we always block some sites on the outside, it keeps the traffic down. Do you have an IP?”

“Yes, ends in twelve dot one six eight.”

“Just a second, I’ll put you through to one of my techies… . On second thought it’d be faster if I would do it for you, hold on.” Peter’s fingers raced across the key board as he open the main servicing center command window. Yes, he was the director, the head fromage so to speak but he knew his way around the network, besides it would take even longer to explain things to a peon and he wanted Scott off his back as soon as possible. The last thing he wanted was the President to shuttle even more responsibility to Homeland Security after being deemed uncooperative whenever the “T” word was uttered, “ . . . ummm… . yes, it looks like it was manually blocked. You should be back in business.”

“Thanks Peter.”

“You’re welcom, if you find out any information, keep me in the loop will ya?”

“Absolutely Peter, thanks again.” he was already out of the loop Scott thought.

The call and even more importantly, the IP address, were a fading memory to Peter on this very hectic day. Not so was the case just a few doors down the hall from the director. The truth to the matter, the IP address was not available to the outside network, it resided somewhere on the network at Langley. It was just made to look like an outside address. The reason it was contained inside was that it needed the protection from the very best firewalls the planet has to offer.

 . . .