The Third Victim Part 45

"Case is not closed. The minute we get a mystery person at the scene, case is shot to h.e.l.l. Enter defense lawyer Avery Johnson. See Avery Johnson argue that Danny procured the guns and Danny loaded the guns but that somebody else say, the five-foot-eight man on the gra.s.sy knoll pulled the trigger. Watch jury lap it up like a cat at a creamer. The minute we have a mystery person at the scene, our case, as it were, is officially dead in the water."

Sanders scowled. He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it, then started to speak again, then finally settled for scowling harder. It was obvious he genuinely believed that Danny had done the shooting. But he also couldn't fault Rainie's logic. A mystery person provided

reasonable doubt; they no longer had enough for the DA to make his case.

Sanders turned to Quincy.

"Feel free to step in at any time," the state detective growled.

Quincy shrugged.

"I thought Officer Conner was doing a nice job."

"Well, you're the expert, dammit. Tell us what we're missing."

"Honestly, I believe we're back to investigative basics. It seems to me we have a number of key questions. One, why Melissa Avalon? Her murder bears unique elements, so one theory would be that she's the linchpin behind what happened. We know that she and VanderZanden were probably involved. According to Richard Mann, she had fractured relations with her family, particularly her father. Now, I wonder if her father has access to a computer."

"Luke Hayes is in charge of the victimology reports," Rainie said.

"I can ask him to focus on Melissa Avalon for now and try to have something for us tomorrow."

Quincy nodded.

"Second area of focus: the school computers. We know Danny spent a great deal of time online, possibly talking to someone called No Lava.

Who is this person? And what was his agenda when he contacted a thirteen-year-old boy? Learning what's on the computers should help us with a second possible theory of this case, that the man in black is a stranger who Danny met online."

"Speaking of which," Sanders interjected gloomily. Both Rainie and Quincy turned to stare at him. He focused on Rainie, saying defensively, "I was going to tell you. There just hasn't been time."

"Spit it out, Sanders."

"I got a call from our technicians this morning. They're having problems recovering data from the school computers."

"What kind of problems?"

Sanders smiled tightly.

"You'll like this. As I mentioned before, there were some signs that Danny ' "That someone," Rainie corrected.

"Fine, that someone made an attempt to clean the machines. The history file for the Web browser had been deleted and the cache file had been purged. But that's pretty obvious stuff that most computer-literate people know how to do, so the techies weren't that worried."

"I gather it gets worse."

"In a nutsh.e.l.l. I guess anytime you visit a Web site, the site puts a small piece of information in the computer's 'cookie' file so that the next time the user visits the site, the site can 'remember' information about the user. A good technician can bring up the cookie file from the hard drive and get fairly complete records of every place the user has been. Nope. On all four computers, the cookie files had been deleted as of six p.m. Monday, May fourteenth. The only cookies present are new ones from Tuesday morning, and they're a hodgepodge collection of eToys.com and various Pokemon sites, probably from the kids that morning."

"What about e-mails?" Quincy pressed.

"I know I can go on-line and retrieve old e-mails, even ones I've read and deleted."

"Generally yes. Someone, however, cleaned out the old and the saved e-mails, then compacted the files so they're unrecoverable. Finally, the person accessed the firewall server and deleted all the data logs.

In short, the four computers are wiped clean."

"I want them," Quincy said simply.

"You can have them," Rainie agreed.

"Wait a minute," Sanders protested.

"We have good people ' The FBI has better."

"Dammit, our technicians have already started work ' "Then the FBI's data-recovery agents will be all that much faster at finishing."

"It's true," Quincy told Sanders, who looked ready for a full-blown snit.

"Even after everything you've described, the information is somewhere on the computers. When a file is deleted, the computer generally only deletes the directory reference to the file, not the actual data. So unless our infamous someone thought to use a Department of

Defense-approved deletion program that overwrites the data with zeros, the information is on the machine. We need this information. Whatever Danny was doing on-line with No Lava is highly relevant to what went down Tuesday afternoon. So let our data-recovery agents handle it.

We'll get answers sooner versus later."

"We can get the information too," Sanders insisted curtly.

"I can put a rush order on it. There's no reason for the FBI to get involved."

"Too late," Rainie said.

"Dammit, it's just an excuse to steal jurisdiction' "I don't give a rat's a.s.s!" Rainie yelled back. She slapped her hand against the top of her desk.

"Someone else was in the school. Someone else shot Melissa Avalon. I want to know who, G.o.ddammit, and for the last time, Sanders, it's not your call."

Sanders fell back into steely silence. He crossed his arms over his chest. He muttered, "Man, what I'd give for a hot fudge sundae right now."

Rainie glared at him harder. They all fell silent. The seconds ticked off. After a moment Quincy said, "Third action step."

He looked at them both. Rainie nodded to show she was paying attention. Sanders returned to the conversation more grudgingly.

"We go back to what you were doing this morning, Rainie - a complete list of other possible suspects. VanderZanden, Charlie Kenyon, Richard Mann, Melissa Avalon's father, this computer person, No Lava."

"I'm working on that. I just don't have a lot of manpower."

"Fine," Sanders interjected crossly.

"Let's divvy it up between us. What the h.e.l.l, we can pretend cross-jurisdictional investigations really work. I'll take VanderZanden. The fed can have No Lava, since he's stolen my computers. Luke Hayes has Melissa Avalon's father ' "I'll take Charlie Kenyon and Richard Mann," Rainie volunteered.

"Perfect," Sanders said flatly. His eyes met Rainie's with open challenge.

"That just leaves us with one last suspect: Shep."

"No way! He's the sheriff ' "Whose time at the school is completely unaccounted for! We know he's got problems at home. We know he's an older man, which makes him exactly Melissa Avalon's type. And we know he goes way back with you, Conner, which makes this whole d.a.m.n case even more interesting."