Chat - Archer Mayor [72]
Leppman typed in a search inquiry with that name and hit “Enter.” Instantly it reappeared on the screen, floating clearly among the garbled letters.
“Well, he’s here, all right,” Leppman murmured, still working the cursor. “Let’s see if he’s chatting with anyone in particular.”
He was. Just below his name, they noticed Mandi144, which Leppman copied down on a pad by his hand. Searching for Rockwell a second time, Mandi was once more right beside him. This trend continued several more times.
“So,” Leppman announced, “we’ve got an ongoing conversation. That’s good—means a relationship is building. You already know about Rockwell, right?”
Spinney was caught by surprise. “What? No, I mean, we think he’s a dead man we found in Brattleboro, but that’s about it. That’s why we’re doing this.”
Leppman took his eyes off the screen to look at him. “Not Mandi? She’s probably the one in trouble here.”
Lester’s brow furrowed. He felt he was missing something. “In trouble? How?”
Leppman looked incredulous. “Child predation. Rockwell’s going after her.”
“Why do you say that?” Lester asked. “I mean, I know it’s all over the place, so I’m not saying you’re wrong. But what did you see?”
Leppman hesitated, blinked a couple of times, and returned to studying the screen before admitting in an abashed tone, “Nothing. I guess you’re right. Just jumping to conclusions. Let’s dig around some more.” He stopped again abruptly to ask, “You do have a way to secure subpoenas as we go, right?”
Spinney nodded. “By phone and fax.” He pointed to a fax machine in one corner of the large office, adding, “If that’s all right.”
Leppman nodded enthusiastically. “No, no. That’s great. Done it before with other agencies. I just wanted to make sure. Don’t want any loopholes.”
Spinney glanced at him covertly, wondering if this civilian’s enthusiasm wasn’t maybe getting a little too much stoking by association. He made a note to ask Joe later. It was a common enough sight to see consultants become more aggressive bloodhounds than the actual hunters—and pay a psychological price as a result.
Leppman had returned to the hunt. “We’ve got snippets of exchange here and there—usual introductory chitchat. Bingo,” he finally said, straightening. “What did I tell you?” He tapped the screen with his fingertip. “Right there. She says, ‘14. U?’ See that?”
Spinney was already reading the next line. “And Rocky says, ‘19.’ There’s a crock.”
Leppman was shaking his head, continuing to scroll the lines before them. “I knew it. There’s so much of this out there—guys preying on children.” He fixed Lester with a determined look. “That’s one of the biggest reasons I do this work.”
Lester nodded, figuring the man needed some kind of response.
But Leppman wasn’t watching. “These are tricky cases to prosecute—you ever done one before?”
“Nope,” Spinney acknowledged.
“The bad guys—or their lawyers, at least—hide behind all sorts of excuses. And they’re getting better and better as they get more knowledgeable about this high-tech world. They can make the claim that what the police find on their clients’ computers was put there by a cookie or a virus or Christ knows what else, and then they convince the jury of it. I mean, who hasn’t gotten spam in their e-mail? Or all those pop-up ads—where do those come from? Juries absolutely believe that complete strangers can put whatever they want onto your computer, no problem. Blame TV for that—there’s no technical wizardry that can’t be done if you know how to do it, right? Mostly baloney, of course, but these are paranoid times.”
He added a few more notes to his pad. “Okay, I got the date and time stamp for this chat. That’ll come in handy when you figure out what Rocky was doing when and where. The biggest catch here, though—since you seem a little vague on everyone’s identity—will be the chat room profiles of both Mandi and Rockwell. From there, we should be able to get their IP addresses,