Heart of a Killer (19 page)

Novack had arranged for round-the-clock protection for Karen Harrison at the hospital, and had suggested that her grandmother move in there as well. Terry Aimonetti was fine with that; she hated leaving her granddaughter anyway.

With that accomplished, for the time being there was little Novack could do but wait for the detectives working the case to come up with some leads, something he could dig his teeth into. And that’s what Lieutenant Steve Emerson brought with him when he came into Novack’s office … a lead. Not the case-breaking, earth-shattering kind, but a lead nonetheless.

Emerson was in charge of the Computer Crime Division, a position he had sought even though he readily admitted he knew almost as little about computers as Novack. But it was a career path that included the rank of Lieutenant, so he decided to just surround himself with enough computer geeks to get the job done.

The head geek was Andrew Garrett, who was in charge of the technological end of the division, and who counted as one of his job responsibilities to make Emerson look good. He did that quite effectively, which was why Emerson brought him to meetings like this one with Novack.

“We’ve talked to ninety-one people already, and we’re just scratching the surface,” Emerson said. “All computer hacker types. The nerd population is exploding.” He turned to Garrett. “No offense.”

Garrett smiled. “None taken.”

“It’s the geeks’ world,” Novack said. “We’re just living in it. What did you find out?”

“There are a lot of people who can hack into stuff, change records, steal identities, that kind of stuff,” Garrett said. “Some of them do it to profit from it, but most just to show they can. Like a badge of honor, or something.”

“But they all see themselves, and the other people like them, as basically decent people. They sit in little rooms, peering at their screens, and doing what they do. And they go mostly at businesses, government agencies, that kind of thing. It rarely gets personal, and it never gets physical.”

“You going to get to the point in my lifetime?” Novack asked.

Emerson took over. “Let me take it. One name came up that is interesting. He’s supposed to be sort of a hacker legend. People have crossed him, and he ruined their lives, just ruined them, all with his computer.”

“I hope there’s more,” Novack said.

Emerson nodded. “There is. The informant told a story about a guy named Clemens. The story is that this computer guy ruined Clemens, raided his bank account or something. Anyway, Clemens somehow found the guy and confronted him, threatened him. The story goes that the computer guy killed Clemens, and left his body in the gutter.”

“You checked into it yet?”

“Yeah. Little over a year ago Victor Clemens was found dead in an alley in Passaic. His throat was slit ear to ear. It’s an open case; no leads.”

“This person you talked to … how did you find him?”

Garrett spoke up, concisely so that Novack wouldn’t jump on him again. “The hacking community is small, and fairly close. Everybody knows everybody else. They compete with each other.”

“I want to talk to the informant,” Novack said, now fully interested.

Emerson nodded. “I told him we’d be back. But there’s one thing I had to promise, that we’d keep his name out of it. They’re all scared shitless of this guy.”

“What’s his name?”

“The informant?”

“No. The killer.”

“Nolan Murray.”

“Listen, about what happened the other day, Sheryl … I’m sorry.” I hadn’t seen her since we kissed, and I wanted to clear the air right away, and I was nervous about seeing her. So I said it as soon as I was brought into the room.

She looked surprised. “I thought it was my fault.”

“I think it was mine. So I’m sorry, it was completely unprofessional and can only get in the way.”

“So you’re not going to take me to the fraternity formal?” she asked. “Or the homecoming dance?”

“No, I’m taking one of the rich country club girls.”

“I’m not surprised. But listen, Harvard?”

“Yes?”

“Just do your job and make sure you and I don’t have a future.”

I wanted to argue with her, to plead the case for a future that actually could hold incredible promise, but I didn’t. Nor did I tell her how I felt about her; to do so would have been unfair and counterproductive to her future plans for her daughter.

Instead I smiled and updated her on what I knew, which was not a hell of a lot. She had a ravenous appetite for information about the case, which I could understand completely.

“Novack will be all over this,” I said. “After what happened to his ex-wife, he’ll be relentless.”

“What about Karen?”

“I called the hospital and spoke with your mother. She said she and Karen are fine, and that there are police everywhere. Karen is feeling stronger and is anxious to leave, but your mother understands that it’s safer for them to stay there. She’s a strong lady.”

“You have no idea.”

“It runs in the family.”

She deflected that, and I mentioned that I needed to go see her mother.

“Why?”

“She’s been receiving money from the people who killed Charlie. There might be a way to track that down.”

“So you’re a cop now? I thought you were just a lawyer.”

“Novack asked me to do it; he thought she’d be more likely to talk to me. I guess he also figured that if she hit me, I’d already be in a hospital, so I’d survive.”

“Okay.”

I was surprised; I thought she’d fight me on it, but she didn’t. “Can you call her and tell her it’s okay to talk to me?”

“You won’t have a problem, believe me. She’s been wanting to talk about it for six years. What’s happening with the court case?”

I shrugged. “No word yet, but you shouldn’t read that as positive or negative. They don’t give updates along the way; they’ll issue a ruling when they’re ready. But the higher court recognized the urgency, so they should be quick about it.”

“All right,” she said, with apparent resignation.

“What’s the matter?”

“The waiting is hard, that’s all. The waiting is hard and that’s the only thing that I do.”

“I can only imagine what it’s like,” I said, lamely.

“You probably can’t, and I hope you never have to.”

“Sheryl, if at any point you change your mind about this, or start to have doubts, it’s okay. I’ll understand. Everyone, including Karen, will understand.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said with obvious sarcasm. Then, “I’m not changing my mind.”

I nodded. “Then there’s something else we probably should talk about.”

“You do a lot of talking.”

“I’m a lawyer; that’s what we do. In the unlikely event that we win, or that we get you out of here some other way, have you given any thought as to how you’re going to accomplish your goal?” It was a cowardly way to put it, but at the moment I just couldn’t seem to bring myself to say “kill yourself.”

“Of course.”

“And what have you come up with?”

“I want a doctor to do it, with Karen in a bed in the next room, so there can’t be too much of a delay.”

“No doctor is going to kill you, Sheryl. That’s unrealistic; it’s just not going to happen. The best you can hope for is to have a doctor standing by.”

“You’re full of good news today. Didn’t any of your fraternity brothers go on to med school?”

“Probably half of them, but we’re out of touch. However, there is someone I could talk to.” I had been kicking the idea around in my head, but only in the moment decided to mention it to her.

“Good idea, lawyer. Go talk.”

Things were going fast now for Nolan Murray and his team. Faster than he would like or felt completely comfortable with, yet he was the one putting his foot on the gas pedal. Speed was a necessity; it would not let the opposition have a chance to collect themselves. Besides, the sooner the goal was accomplished, the less time there was for something to go wrong.

The fast pace did not really fit Murray’s style; his preference would have been to relax and enjoy himself as it all slowly unfolded. But he had to adapt himself to the circumstances, and it was a small price to pay for the reward that was coming.

The opposition was coming after him on two fronts, and after the train crash they were coming hard. There was the FBI and Homeland Security, headed by Janssen. Murray had checked him out and knew him to be a formidable adversary; he would handle him, but he wouldn’t underestimate him.

The federal side was where the danger, such as it was, would come from. The other front was the local police, in the person of Novack. Murray had tried to eliminate that concern by hacking into his car computer.

Murray knew that was a mistake, and that it was a failure of his own personality. He could just as easily, even more easily, have had Churchill rig an explosive to go off when the car started. But the fire was more dramatic, and Murray had a weakness for the dramatic.

Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since as it turned out, even a successful explosion would have only killed Novack’s ex-wife. That would have represented insignificant collateral damage, but it wouldn’t have put Novack in the ground, as was the goal.

So Murray had adapted again, and characteristically would take a negative and turn it into a positive. He was aware that Novack was ramping up his efforts, and had officers scouring the hacker community. He also knew that he had been implicated, and that Novack would soon be convinced he had a name to put on his quarry.

It wouldn’t matter at all; in fact, Murray would turn it to his advantage, when he was ready to.

The one surprise so far in the operation was the government’s ability to conceal from the public the terrorist aspect to the two operations. Of course, Murray could break the story whenever he wanted, but there was no hurry. At whatever point the public found out, there would be widespread panic. But this way, if they simultaneously found out that they had been deceived and the truth had been withheld, that panic would be coupled with extreme anger.

That would work to Murray’s benefit.

Everything always worked to Murray’s benefit.

At some point, fairly soon, the landscape would change, and Murray would do the changing. The public would know what was going on, and they would be aware of the pathetic failure of their government to protect them. Novack and the Feds would join together, and they would believe that in tandem they would be able to close in and capture their prey.

They would be very wrong, and it would cost them, big time.

For now, Murray had to decide whether his opponents had learned how serious he was, and how he was not to be trifled with. The question was whether another lesson was necessary, or not.

He decided there was no downside to another lesson, except to the people that would be killed.

Kevin Laufer moaned when Emerson, Novack, and I entered through the back of the room. He caught himself and tried to cover it, but his junior high school students picked up on it and turned around to see the cause of Laufer’s discomfort. He tried to continue with the class, but there was no way he could concentrate. Since the period was five minutes from the end anyway, he let them out early. None of them complained.

Once they had cleared out, we walked toward the front of the room, where Laufer was still standing in front of the blackboard. On it were written a bunch of what I assumed to be computer symbols; if it were written in Martian, I would have understood it just as well.

“Come on, man. I told you I would only talk to you if you kept it quiet. So you come in here while I’m teaching a class?”

“This is Lieutenant Novack,” Emerson said, not bothering to introduce me. Emerson wasn’t pleased that I was there at all, but Novack had promised to include me on some things, and this probably seemed to him like a situation where I’d be unlikely to do much damage.

“I’m supposed to be impressed?”

“What’s the name of this class?”

“Introduction to Computing. What are you doing here?”

“Detective Novack wants to talk to you about Nolan Murray.”

Laufer looked around, as if worried that he would be overheard. “Will you keep it down?” He shook his head. “I never should have said anything.”

“How’d you get this job?” Novack asked. “I mean, you’ve only been out eighteen months, right? They hire ex-cons to teach impressionable kids? Although, a private school like this, maybe they didn’t check that carefully.”

It was obvious to me that Novack was threatening to reveal Laufer’s criminal record to the school administration if he didn’t cooperate, and it turned out not to be too subtle for Laufer, either.

“Don’t hassle me, okay?” Laufer said. “I need this job. And I was in for hacking, not assault or murder. I’m not a danger to anyone.”

Novack nodded. “Tell me about Nolan Murray.”

Laufer pointed to Emerson. “I told him everything I know, which ain’t a hell of a lot.”

“So tell it again.”

Laufer looked at me, as if noticing me for the first time. “Who’s he?” he said, meaning me.

“Your worst nightmare. Now tell it again.”

Laufer started to argue, but finally nodded in resignation. “Okay. How much do you know about hackers?”

“I prefer that we do the questioning, and you do the answering,” Novack said.

“Okay, well, we get a bad rap … hackers, I mean. Most of us are really smart, or we couldn’t do what we do. And we’re curious; we want to see what’s out there, and how much we can test ourselves.”

Novack turned to Emerson and said, “He sounds like Garrett.” Then, to Laufer, “You’re all wonderful people; the world needs more of you. We know the story. You want to get to the point?”

“We break the law sometimes, but that’s not the purpose, is what I’m trying to say. We’re not bad people, and we’re not trying to hurt anybody. We want to see how far we can go, what we can get away with. It’s an ego thing.”

Emerson cut in. “Nolan Murray.”

“Right. Nolan Murray is smarter than any of us; he can get to places I wouldn’t even try to go. But he’s not curious, and he doesn’t want to test himself. And he does want to hurt people. Nolan Murray is a mean son of a bitch.”