Chat - Archer Mayor [84]
“You interview the ex?” Joe asked.
“Yup. She didn’t live far away. She knew all about it, or him. That’s why they broke up. He had a good job—prospects, as she called them—but got hooked on the Internet and went off the deep end. That’s her take, by the way. I’m not playing shrink here. Anyhow, lost her, lost his job. All this wasn’t long ago, which explains why his clothes were good but worn when we found him, and probably why he checked into the cheaper motel.”
Once more Joe thought back to Hillstrom’s comment about Rocky’s—now Metz’s—middle-class toenails. She’d been right—again.
Joe leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers against his chin, thinking over what they’d reported. “You check into Metz’s background?”
Lester nodded, scanning his notes. “Not lily white like Nashman. He was busted in a prostitution raid, had a couple of minor drug possession charges. There was at least one propositioning-a-minor case that was dropped. There’s probably more, since he didn’t come from Ardmore originally—moved there only about ten years ago from further west. I’ve got a request in for a total records check.”
Joe was shaking his head slightly. “If Metz was going down the tubes and his place was such a mess, with porno all over the walls, why did he use the Internet café? He had an online computer at home. What’re we missing here?”
After a moment’s contemplative silence on all parts, Sam suggested, “Maybe he was asked to.”
Joe stared at the far wall as he spoke slowly. “I like that. All right, let’s recap a bit. So far, in a nutshell, we have two possibly minor league perverts with an interest in Internet porn involving underage kids.” He paused before asking, “Boys or girls mostly?”
“Girls,” they both said.
“Okay—another overlap,” Joe commented, holding up a fist and raising one finger at a time. “Child predators interested in girls; under instructions on how and why to come here; living relatively nearby to us.” He let a second lapse before adding, “And dead under suspicious circumstances.”
“In Brattleboro,” Sam added.
“And as for Metz using the café,” Joe continued, “maybe Sam’s right. Nashman was secretive. That probably came through in his communications. Metz could’ve been told to use a neutral computer so nothing could be traced back to him.”
Lester raised his hand as if answering a question in class. “I can confirm that Nashman was careful. After I got the subpoenas to go after Freddy’s IP address, John Leppman told me that Freddy used what they call a shadow address, meaning that if we hadn’t found Nashman’s car and backtracked it to Waterbury, we’d still be clueless about him and Freddy being one and the same.”
“Looks like we’re after a homicidal avenger—a father?” Sam mused.
“Possibly,” Joe agreed. “At least someone with a specific grudge fitting both victims. Both of you got their computers, right? The hard drives?”
They nodded in unison.
“Process them like you did the garage computer, then. Use Leppman if he’s amenable, or the state police, if they have anybody, or anyone else who’s credible and trained in this. Do it by the book, keep the prosecutor on board, and let’s see if we can figure out who or what is the common denominator between Nashman and Metz. We do that, maybe we find out whoever got them traveling here in the first place.”
He got up from his desk to look out onto the darkened streets of Brattleboro, or what little he could see of them. “Also, let’s throw out a net for angry parental types across the state who’ve voiced any outrage against Internet predators. Not letters-to-the-editor types,” he added, “although we may get there. But violence-prone ones—people who’ve been arrested or detained for acting out. Mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles—the works.”
He reached up and wiped away where his breath had fogged the windowpane. “Somebody is seriously pissed off out there, and I have a sneaking suspicion they may not be through.”
It was long past two in the morning by the time Joe drove by Silva’s, knowing it was well after hours. Still, his spirits