Crush - Alan Jacobson [141]
“You can cleanse the document, but you have to know this metadata exists in the first place, and then you have to know what to do to get rid of it. Your killer used Office 2007, which has a built-in feature called Document Inspector that scrubs away just about all PII. But it’s something you have to actively apply, and lucky for us, your guy didn’t use it. That’s why I think his level of sophistication is good, but not high. Anyway, I used some custom cracking tools—including my favorite, the Palmer Plunger—and a couple other security tools from our Honey Monkey project.” He looked at the camera and winked. “Silly sounding stuff, I know. But if it works, the embedded PII becomes the bread-crumb trail your killer left behind for us.”
He flicked a document aside and spread his fingers to enlarge a printout that looked like rudimentary computer text.
“So here’s the info we’ve got.” He moved his finger toward the top of the screen and the long document scrolled top to bottom. “You want the name of the guy who created this document?”
Brix sat forward in his chair. “You got the killer’s name?”
Tomás moved the page a bit and zoomed in on lines of text. “I’ve got the name of the computer user who registered the software on this particular PC. If it’s a real name or an alias, I have no way of knowing.”
“And?” Brix asked. “What’s the name?”
Tomás looked away from the camera, said something to someone off screen, then turned back to Lugo. “I’ve got it right here.” Tomás zoomed again and a name filled the screen. “John Mayfield.”
Brix’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. We’ve really got a name?” He reached for the phone.
“Hold it,” Tomás said. “Before you make any calls. There’s another name embedded, so I asked the licensing team to check the database used for binding the registered user to the software. Just to try to verify if that name is real or not.”
“And?” Agbayani asked.
“And the software was registered to a John Mayfield. So Mayfield appears to check out. But I don’t know what to make of this other name. The document’s author. Both names could be real, or they could be fake, I’ve no way of telling.”
“What’s the other name?” Brix yelled.
“Right here.” Tomás flicked the screen and it scrolled down. Tapped it again and it stopped. Zoomed. “There. The document’s author.”
FIFTY-ONE
There she was. Naked. Hair clipped back. Dixon looked up—surprise—
“George—what the hell are you doing in here?”
Panda smiled disarmingly and stepped forward, then grabbed Dixon beneath her armpits and threw her across the room, into the opposing wall. A flat tile wall, perfect for his needs.
Dixon slipped on the wet tile and went down hard. Panda turned and grabbed her. She shook her head, fighting through the momentary daze. He lifted her off the ground and pounded her against the wall. Clamped his left hand across her mouth. Grabbed her left bicep and squeezed. “Very good, Roxxann. Very nice.”
Dixon yelled and kicked, her right foot slipping on the moist floor—and landed a knee to his groin. But it didn’t matter because he was wearing a cup. It landed impotently against the hard plastic.
That didn’t stop her. She kicked again, in the thigh, and then again. The last one knocked him back a bit—she had powerful legs. He’d have bruises for sure, but again, it was nothing he couldn’t handle.
He brought his right forearm out in front of him and grinned, then bent his elbow and slammed his arm into her throat. Her body rebounded against the tile, but his forearm bounced back. Her neck muscles had prevented the crushing blow.