Freedman and McLaren turned back to the dead man.
‘Blood’s dry,’ Freedman remarked. ‘Didn’t happen on our watch.’
‘Which means he was in here when we checked the cabin earlier.’
Freedman’s big head went up and down solemnly. ‘Worse yet.’
Magozzi and Espinoza were now hunched in front of his computer screen, looking equally baffled.
‘It’s unbelievable,’ Tommy was saying. ‘I’ve never seen firewalls like this before in my life.’
‘You can’t dig up anything on them?’
‘For the past ten years, I can get you anything you want. Tax returns, medical records, financial statements, hell, I can just about tell you when any one of ’em took a crap. But before that, nada.’ Tommy flopped back in his chair. ‘No employment records, no school records, not even birth records. For all practical purposes, none of these people existed until ten years ago.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Apparently not. At first blush, I’d say these people erased themselves.’
‘You can do that?’
Tommy shrugged, grabbed a potato chip from the open bag on his desk, stuffed it in his mouth, and talked around it. ‘Theoretically, sure. Almost everything’s computerized now. And if it’s on a computer, it can be deleted. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Your average hacker can’t just sit down with his laptop and a six-pack and erase his history. You’d have to be friggin’ brilliant to break through some of the firewalls, especially the ones the Feds set up, like for the IRS and the SSA. I’m telling you, this is unreal.’
Magozzi grunted. ‘Witness Protection?’
‘No way. The Feebs aren’t this good. Their trails I can follow in my sleep. If this is Monkeewrench work, Witness Protection should be hiring them.’
Magozzi scratched at the day’s worth of stubble on his chin, mulling over this new wrinkle. ‘So they changed their names and got themselves new identities.’
Tommy shoved another potato chip into his mouth. ‘Makes sense. Where else do you get names like Harley Davidson and Roadrunner? So the hundred-dollar question is, why would five ordinary people go to the trouble of totally obliterating their pasts?’
Magozzi didn’t even have to think about it. ‘Criminal activity.’
‘That’s what I was thinking. Maybe they’re better suspects than you thought.’
Magozzi reached for a potato chip. The fat pill was in his mouth before he realized what he was doing. God, it tasted good. ‘A team of five serial killers acting together? Man, we should be so lucky. We could buy Japan with the movie rights.’
‘Yeah. They were probably just bank robbers, or international terrorists. Ten years ago they saw the computer revolution coming and decided there was more money in software.’
‘There you go.’ Magozzi rubbed his eyes, trying to push away the headache that was blossoming behind them. ‘Are we at a dead end here?’
‘Not necessarily.’ Tommy rolled his neck to release the kinks. ‘I’ve still got some things I want to try, and even if I come up dry, computerization isn’t total yet; not by a long sight. We’ve still got a lot of paper trails lying around if you’re old enough to remember where to look. It just takes a really long time, doing it the old-fashioned way. You want me to keep at it?’
‘With all my heart.’ Magozzi turned his back on the evil potato chip bag and headed for the door. ‘By the way, how are they fixed financially? Are they going to go under if this game doesn’t make it to market?’
Tommy looked at him as if he were crazy. ‘Are you kidding? The company did over ten million last year, and it wasn’t the first time. Lowest net worth on any of the partners’ – he pulled a single sheet out from under the potato chip bag and glanced at it – ‘is four million. That’s Annie Belinsky. Woman’s got a clothes budget you wouldn’t believe.’
Magozzi stared at him. ‘They’re rich?’
‘Well, yeah . . .’ A cell phone chirped and Tommy started pawing through the mess of printouts on his desk. ‘Damnit, where’d I’d put that thing?’
‘It’s mine,’ Magozzi said, pulling his cell phone out of his coat pocket. ‘Get me hard copies on whatever you find, will you, Tommy? And while you’re at it, see what you can dig up on Grace MacBride’s permit to carry.’ He flipped open his phone. ‘Magozzi.’
Tommy watched as Magozzi listened to the voice on the other end. The blood suddenly seemed to drain from his face and in the next second, he was running out the door.
20
The town of Calumet, Wisconsin, hadn’t received this much media attention since Elton Gerber’s six-hundred-fifty-seven-pound pumpkin had fallen off the back of his truck on the way to the Great Pumpkin Contest in 1993. But even then, they’d missed the real story.
The TV news had covered it tongue-in-cheek, since the pumpkin had been the only casualty, and not one reporter ever connected that shattered pumpkin with the bullet Elton put in the roof of his mouth two weeks later. The grand prize that year had been $15,000, just enough to cover the balloon payment due on Elton’s farm, and there was no doubt he would have won it. His closest competitor weighed in at a paltry five-hundred-thirty pounds.
Not a tongue-in-cheek story, Sheriff Mike Halloran thought. More like an American tragedy, and the media missed the point. And they were missing it this time, too.
The thump of rotors from somewhere outside barely penetrated his consciousness. He was used to the news helicopters now; used to the vans with their satellite-dish hats cruising the streets of his town, stopping anyone who looked mournful enough or frightened enough to deliver a titillating sound bite; used to the clamor of reporters from the front steps of the building whenever a deputy tried to get outside to his car.
According to the autopsy report, John and Mary Kleinfeldt had died between midnight and one A.M. Monday morning. Less than eight hours later it was a lead story on every channel in Wisconsin, as interchangeable anchor people reported the small-town tragedy of ‘ . . . a God-fearing elderly couple savagely murdered while at their prayers in church.’
There was no mention of the bloody crosses carved into their chests – so far Halloran had managed to keep that little gruesome detail under wraps – but even without it, the story was irresistible to reporters, and mesmerizing to the public. The idea of someone shooting the elderly was bad enough; stage the crime in the supposed sanctuary of a church and you added outrage to the horror, and maybe a little fear. Bad news, great ratings.
Later that morning Deputy Danny Peltier’s death hit the airwaves as a bulletin, less than half an hour after it happened, while Halloran was still standing over the ruin of his body, looking for the poor kid’s freckles, weeping like a girl. By sunset Monday print reporters and TV news crews had increased the population of Calumet by at least a hundred, and now, a full day later, they were all still here.
But they were missing the story, every one of them; missing the tragedy beneath the tragedy, the crime beneath the crime. None of them knew that Danny Peltier, freckled and fresh and heartbreakingly innocent, had died because Sheriff Michael Halloran had forgotten the key to the Kleinfeldts’ front door.
‘Mike?’
Before he looked up, he cleared his face of whatever expression had been there, and raised dispassionate eyes to where Bonar stood in the doorway.
‘Hey, Bonar.’
His old friend walked closer and scowled at him, looking like an angry Jonathan Winters. ‘You look like shit, buddy.’
‘Thanks.’ Halloran set aside one of the tilting towers of paperwork on his desk, pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up.