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Charles gave him a shallow bow of respect, one dominant wolf to another.Better. Not fixed, not anywhere near normal, but he couldnt find it in him to care one way or the other, because now he could find A
Islington, Dedham, Westwood. Milton, maybe. I know my way around here by road, not as the crow flies. Well have to consult a map to be sure and how certain are you of the ten miles?
Its close to that, Charles said. He considered just getting into a car and following his link, but it would probably be faster if he knew where he was going. As the crow flies directions had some serious issues in a day of fences and roads. Especially when he was pretty sure that he could figure out exactly where she was before they left the condo. He hadnt wasted his time today. Why dont you let the rest of them back in and join me at my computer?
He needed the moment it would take Isaac to assemble the others. Charles was shaking, and dominant enough not to want anyone to see. She was alive. It would be enough for the moment.
He sat down at the table and found that his computer had finished the task hed set for it. He heard them file in but he didnt turn around. He didnt want to risk meeting anyones eye unexpectedly until he had A
A
We looked, Goldstein said. There was no sign of anything.
His script had done its job and he was in through the firewalls it always was good to have friends on the inside. He could talk and hack at the same time, and maybe it would keep the feds from figuring out where he was. It would probably help that none of them had worked for the IRS and that the back door hed gotten in through was low on graphics andhigh on code.
I decided that maybe the initial killer, the old one, maybe he wasnt that kind of psycho. But the new guy might be the mysterious third man. So I went back ten years. And I ran a list of the names of everyone involved in the case for all those years. There were two people who showed up more than three times.
I assure you, I am not a serial killer, said Goldstein dryly.
I was pretty sure it wasnt you, Charles agreed. You want to catch him so badly I can smell it. So I took a look at the other guy first.
Goldstein drew in a sharp breath.You cant be serious.
Goldstein had been involved in a number of the investigations, and he would know who else had been there with him.
Someone was present for six of the last ten years, Charles continued. Giving an interview to the newspaper or the TV news. Helping out at the call center. Assigned as liaison to someone and once I lucked out and found his photo on the front page paper of where one of the bodies turned up. I was able to confirm that he has been in the right town at the right time for nine of the last ten years in a job that usually moves people around. The other year, when he was assigned halfway across the country, he was on a mysterious vacation at the time of the killings. So I went looking into his background. Called in a few favors. Hacked a few databases. Called a couple of police officers and a retired minister.
Who is it? asked Beauclaire, an eager bite to his voice.
Charles hit a button and a photo of Cantrips poster boy came up on half his screen, leaving him to file through records on the other. According to a former na
Heuter. Goldstein spoke with the barest shadow of Brother Wolfs desire to destroy the killer in his voice.
A senators son. This is going to be a nightmare of political pressures, Leslie said. My boss is going to love it.
Charles couldnt tell if she was being sarcastic or not probably because she didnt know, either.
And the nail on the coffin is this Travis and Senator Dwight Heuter had a younger sister, Helena. In 1981, when she was sixteen, she turned up pregnant raped, she claimed. She moved in with her big brother and then committed suicide a couple of years later, leaving Travis in charge of her half-blood boy. A retired teacher I talked to told me that the boy was different, not precisely slow or autistic, but definitely odd, with a tendency toward violence. His name is Benedict Heuter and he finds menial jobs, according to the IRS this had been the last little bit hed needed to tie it all up in a bow and for the last five years hes been doing janitorial work or maintenance, moving every year or so.
Charles backed out of the IRS database and closed his doorway. Then he slid into a chunk of Darknet a separate little space of the Internet unseen by search engines and mostly engineered by hackers whod abandoned the Internet for most of their more questionable pursuits and pulled up a list of properties from Travis Heuters tax records, something hed copied over during an earlierexcursion into the IRS database.
I dont think youre supposed to be able to get at that information, said Leslie.
Dont look, said Goldstein, peering over Charless shoulder. We dont know anything about illegal hacking. He whistled cheerily. Travis Heuter owns half the world.
Charles searched for Massachusetts and found an address.
Not that one, murmured Isaac. Thats downtown. You want ten miles southwest of here. Not that one thats way up north. There. Dedham. One of my college girlfriends kept a horse out there and thats about the right direction and distance.
Charles didnt want to be wrong, so he committed that address to memory, but kept going through the records until his search jumped back to the begi
Weighing time lost investigating versus lost time, Charles took a moment to look up the address on another Darknet site that specialized in property records official and unofficial the Darknet was a rather tedious mix of conspiracy theorists, brilliant black hats, and OCD record keepers. Travis Heuters Dedham property was a largish two-story farmhouse with a barn on four-point-two acres that had sold five years ago for close to a million dollars. Charles printed the house plans and the county record of the last survey of the land, folded them, and shoved them into his pocket.
One of my pack has a van waiting for us outside, Isaac said. Shall we go?
Focused on A
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A