Chat - Archer Mayor [78]
Glenda Cavallaro shook her head. “Nope. And I checked every database we have. Nothing. Just for kicks, I also looked up N. Rockwell. There’re more than a few with that name, but nothing for any cyber crime or sex stuff. That’s what you’re looking for, right? Child predator shit?”
“We think so,” Spinney answered cautiously, looking out the side window as they pulled into traffic and headed west along Lancaster Avenue.
He watched the buildings slide by, mostly brick clad and older, few above a couple of stories tall. Soon, on the left, the view opened up, and a large, deep expanse of cold-bitten lawn appeared, with a frozen pool in the middle and a row of imposing buildings skirting its borders.
“Haverford College,” Cavallaro explained. “Pretty good place.”
He’d noticed it earlier, having come this way to reach the police department from the interstate. He’d also gone by both Villanova University and the village of Bryn Mawr, home to that college, where he’d also noticed dealerships for Ferrari, Hummer, and Maserati. Despite the main drag’s almost pedestrian, weathered brick appearance, there was obviously serious money lurking just beyond sight, here and there.
Cavallaro snapped him from his reverie. “The café is up ahead.” She pulled into a shopping area parking lot and killed the engine, pointing through the windshield. “Over there.”
They got out and crossed the asphalt to the place she’d indicated, its windows fogged by moist heat and the presence of a sizable crowd. Spinney suddenly realized that coming at this time of the early evening was probably not a good idea. His companion, however, didn’t seem fazed.
She walked up to the counter and asked to see the manager, showing just a glimpse of her shield. As they waited, Les took in their surroundings—a sprinkling of small tables, each adorned with a computer, catered to by a counter stuffed with coffee choices and sweet comestibles. Adrenaline times three, he thought, watching the largely young crowd, the majority of them men, quietly hunched over their keyboards. The room was filled with the tinny clatter of fingertips stuttering across plastic keys.
“May I help you?” a smooth voice said from behind him. “I’m the manager, Bruce Fellini.”
Cavallaro was already staring at the short, goateed man in a black turtleneck who’d appeared from the back room. She displayed her shield again, along with a folded piece of paper. “I’m Detective Cavallaro of the Lower Merion PD. This is Agent Spinney of the VBI, and this”—she waved the document—“is a subpoena for the contents of one of your computers. We have reason to believe that one of your customers was using your place to sexually pursue underage girls.”
She placed the subpoena in front of him. Fellini looked down at it, otherwise not moving.
“How’s this work?” he finally asked. “I’ve never been involved in something like this before.”
Both cops looked at him carefully, their instincts immediately sharpened by the line.
Spinney removed another piece of paper from his pocket before slipping out of his coat. It was hot to stifling for him in here, although he noticed that Cavallaro hadn’t even unbuttoned hers yet. Cultural differences, once more.
He laid the sheet beside the subpoena and placed his finger on the line that John Leppman had highlighted in yellow, back in Vermont. “This is the computer’s address, along with the time and date it was being used.”
Fellini studied the line of type briefly. “Officers, I’d be happy to help. I’ll show you the computer and do whatever else you’d like me to, but I gotta warn you: You’re not going to find anything. Our computers get used all the time, by dozens of people a day, and that’s day after day. You might get a time-date stamp somewhere from the guy you’re after—I’m not saying that.” He tapped the sheet of paper with his finger. “But you got that already. Otherwise, that computer’s going to be blank, or covered with gibberish. We set the temp files to be overwritten immediately, and I also happen to know that the settings on that particular instant-messaging program are