Deviations Read online

  Nick was easing back into his chair. “Why’d you go at her?”

  “Since our interview with Willson Fredericks had raised a number of questions about whether he was being candid with us, and since we’d seen these other things about the Montana Patriot Front that had us thinking they might be involved, we thought it might be worthwhile to talk with Cynthia Brandt to see if she would authorize us to look at his email.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She treated us like we were kinda stupid. She didn’t seem curious about what case we were working on, which was unusual. As soon as she heard we were following up some leads related to Fredericks and the Montana Patriot Front, she tells us she can explain that: see, he writes about them, so no problem. Like we hadn’t figured out that he’s a professor so maybe he writes stuff, like we hadn’t done any research, hadn’t interviewed Fredericks. Nothing. Like we were just two dipshit detectives who pulled our heads out of our asses just to make it easier to walk over to her office and waste her precious time.”

  Ryan said, “She gave us a song-and-dance about how we couldn’t see his email because it’s his property and there wouldn’t be anything incriminating on it anyway because he’d erase any emails.”

  “That’s absurd,” Nick said. “Any attorney representing a university knows exactly who owns what. She knows that the university—actually, the state of Montana—has access to his work products. He has no reasonable expectation of privacy. Plus, she knows that any service provider, from two kids in a basement right up to Comcast, authorizes reasonable searches by law enforcement.”

  “What do you make of her saying that there wouldn’t be anything incriminating on the server?” Ryan said.

  “That’s a little bit on the ignorant side of the bell curve, but I’ve seen smart people say that before.”

  I said, “Nick, her message was clear: ‘How can I not help you?’ When we tell her we need to look at Fredericks’ email, she tells us she’s gonna bring our request to some board next week, which I guess means they’re gonna chew it over for a month or so. Bottom line: it’s not gonna happen. Which pisses me off.”

  Nick said, “You see it the same way, Ryan?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay,” Nick said. “Let me talk with the chief. If we agree we want to see Willson Fredericks’ email, we’ll set it in play. You want to look at anyone else on campus?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Ryan, does Fredericks work with any other faculty here on campus when he writes about the Montana patriots?”

  “Not unless this guy Benjamin Connors is really another faculty member.”

  “We might want to go at Willson Fredericks one more time,” I said, “to see if he’ll tell us what’s going on there. But we’ll wait to hear from you about the emails.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said, standing up. “If it was just up to me, I’d go for the court order in a heartbeat. But I’m here more as a consultant. I’m not here to take over your case. Besides, it’s smarter if we don’t telegraph to these guys that the feds are involved.”

  “Because federal penalties are higher?”

  “That’s right. We can get better intel if we don’t stir things up. They get frightened, they pull back. But it’s also a matter of inter-agency cooperation. If the feds ride into town and start throwing our weight around, it pisses you off, and next time you won’t be so willing to call us. That’s a lose-lose. We want to work through your chief. He’s an experienced cop. He knows a big part of his job is community outreach. In a small city like this, where everyone is connected with everyone else, he has to be careful about how the department is perceived. When the chief goes up before the City Council or whatever it is each year with a budget request, he doesn’t want it to be payback time.”

  “You think we’d get the authorization, I mean, if the chief is on board?”

  “That’s my guess. The chief might want to talk with the university president first. Maybe the guy doesn’t want a court order at all. Or he might be fine with a limited court order to look at only this one professor’s emails, which I think would be easy to get. We take a quick look at Fredericks’ email, the president knows whether he’s a serious scholar or a time-bomb that could blow up at any moment. There’s no down side for the university: the professor is clean, nobody even knows about the search. He’s dirty, the university takes credit for discovering a domestic terrorist on its payroll. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Got it,” I said. It was good to be working with this guy. He can think through the politics of this stuff at a much higher level than I can.

  Chapter 11

  We spent the rest of the day at headquarters. We never did hear from Cynthia Brandt, the university attorney, but I didn’t really expect to. Corelli and the chief were working out the email access. The lawyer had probably already forgotten me and Ryan.

  I left for home at five, spent an hour making dinner. I can’t cook and never took any interest in it. But I’m trying to make a point of actually cooking, rather than, say, nuking a frozen dinner. Or drinking. I need to force myself to be more aware of what I’m doing, and cooking seems to be as good a way as any. So I’d bought some real food: a potato, some asparagus, and a couple of lamb chops. Good thing about cooking is it’s kind of complicated. You have to prepare the food: wash the vegetables, trim the fat off the meat, that kind of thing. And, apparently, there are also seasonings or sauces or things you can prepare and put on the food before you cook it so you don’t have to shovel on the salt and pepper afterwards to keep it from tasting like shoe. You have to use separate pots and pans, figure out how long to cook each thing, and calculate when to start them. All of this makes it less convenient to lie on the couch, the bottle of JD on the coffee table, while you balance the glass on your stomach, watching the contours of the ice shift around in the glass and pondering how shitty your life has become. And if you don’t get buzzed, you’re much less likely to pass out by nine or head over to Callahan’s to get nailed by a stranger. Yes, I’m getting into cooking.

  * * * *

  “Talk to me after you read these. –Nick” was the note on top of the paper-clipped pages in the two identical manila envelopes that Ryan and I found on our desks the next morning.

  The first page was a printout, in old-style computer font, of the traffic on Willson Fredericks’ account at Central Montana State University for the last two months. There were 19 messages in his New Mail folder, 1,429 in Trash, and 235 in Sent.

  Most of the emails looked routine: questions from students about homework assignments, requests to set up appointments to meet with him, invitations to propose papers for professional conferences, corrections to some article of his that was going to be published later that year.

  But someone had used a yellow highlighter on about a dozen emails from a handful of patriot groups, some of which I recognized. There were newsletters, announcements of rallies, and press releases for members appearing on local talk radio or new YouTube videos.

  “Okay, these emails highlighted in yellow,” I said to Ryan, “I guess they make sense.”

  “You mean that these groups are spamming Fredericks because he’s on their mailing list?”

  “Yeah. He writes about them. This is his research. But what’s with these highlighted in red?”

  “The red ones don’t have any subject lines,” Ryan said. “And they’re all to or from the same account: [email protected].”

  “They’re printed out in the stack,” I said. We started to read through the thin set of emails between Willson Fredericks and BC98956. The first one was this:

  To: Willson Fredericks

  From:

  Subject:

  The party will proceed as scheduled. No gatecrashers are anticipated. Would appreciate three helpers from your neighborhood to assist with preparations and cleanup.

  The second one was sent to Fredericks nine days later. This one, too, had no
subject line, no greeting, and no name of the sender:

  Many thanks for your assistance with preparations. Party was a big success, covered in local paper and TV.

  The third one was this:

  To:

  From: Willson Fredericks

  Subject:

  Glad to help. I’ve got at least six people who are ready and eager to do additional work, including one team that specializes in cleaning up spills after particularly lively parties.

  I did read the article online about the party. Excellent job. Property damage might have been minor, but it keeps the message out there.

  I’ll phone tonight to discuss details of the next party.

  Ernst

  There were a half-dozen more, all using kid code to refer to operations that Willson Fredericks had participated in or offered to help with. I dropped the stack of printouts onto my desk and looked up at Ryan. He had already finished reading. He stood up, his expression grim.

  “Where’re you going?” I said.

  “Nick’s note says see me after you read these.”

  “Sit down, Ryan. I want to talk to you first.”

  “Okay.” He sat down at his desk.

  “I just want to make sure I understand what’s going on here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do we know from the emails in red?”

  “What I’m seeing,” Ryan said, “is that Fredericks is writing back and forth with this BC person about operations.”

  “Yeah, I got that. I mean, what exactly are we seeing here? Why aren’t these guys using disposable phones?”

  “There’s no completely secure medium,” Ryan said. “With a throw-away phone the feds can’t trace your name and address, but they can intercept the transmissions out of the air. If they were listening for anti-terrorism and just happened to pick up some domestic chatter, they could find you and grab you. Besides, a lot of people mistakenly think that email is secure. Every year a bunch of corporate execs get in trouble because they write stuff they shouldn’t write on their own company’s email system. A lot of people think Delete deletes it.”

  “What do you make of the fact there’s no subject line on the emails?”

  “That means nothing. Lot of people don’t bother with it. Maybe these two guys think things written in the subject line get more attention, so it’s one fewer piece of data that can be flagged.”

  “And the cheesy code words? What is it,” I said, looking down at the emails, “‘party preparations’ and shit like that?”

  “Drawing on my months of experience as a detective,” Ryan said, “I would conclude that these two are okay with using cheesy code words.”

  “Thanks, Sherlock,” I said. “And Fredericks signing off as Ernst? Who’s that supposed to be?”

  “I would guess Ernst Röehm,” Ryan said. “Remember, the gay Nazi leader who Hitler had killed in the Night of the Long Knives?”

  “You see Fredericks identifying himself as a Nazi?”

  “No, but I could see him using Ernst as a code name when he’s talking to one of the patriots. It’s an in-joke to him, since he’s gay, and it’s Nazi enough for the patriots because it sounds German.”

  “What do you see in the username [email protected]?”

  Ryan said, “Only that he’s smart enough to use email and sign up for a free Google account.”

  “But he didn’t have to give Google accurate identifying information, did he?”

  “That’s right, he didn’t.”

  “The string of numbers mean anything?”

  “That almost ninety-nine thousand people who wanted to use the initials BC got there first.”

  “And one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We might be getting a little closer to Benjamin Connors,” I said.

  “Maybe. Or he likes the cartoon strip BC. Or he thinks he’s the precursor to Jesus Christ.”

  “So there’s nothing you can get from these printouts that can help us track him—I mean, without going through Fredericks?”

  “Not that I can see. If we were online, not just looking at the printouts, we might be able to get something from the routing information, which would tell us who his Internet service provider is, which would point us to him.”

  “What do you mean ‘might be able to see’? You mean he might be outside of the U.S.?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Ryan said, “but that’s true. What I meant was there could be a number of reasons we couldn’t identify him. He could be using a public computer, like one in a library. Or he could have an anonymous remail program, headquartered in Europe or someplace, that scrubs off the routing information. Or his service provider could use dynamic IP addresses instead of static ones.”

  “English?”

  “A static address would identify your computer. Only one computer in the world has that address. A dynamic address is one that’s available at that moment. It’s like taking a number at the deli counter. One time you’re number fourteen. Another time you’re number three. It doesn’t identify you.”

  “So with the information we have here we can’t identify BC, right?”

  “Right. And even if we were online on Fredericks’ email, we probably wouldn’t be able to identify BC.”

  “But maybe the professor would be willing to help us in our investigation,” I said.

  “I think maybe that’s what Nick Corelli would like to discuss with us.”

  * * * *

  “Come in.” Nick’s face was somber as me and Ryan maneuvered into our little chairs in his tiny office. “You got those printouts. Good,” he said. “What do you think?”

  I looked at Ryan.

  He gestured for me to speak.

  “Looks like Willson Fredericks is corresponding with at least one guy we ought to be looking at for the Dolores Weston case.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows as if to invite me to say more, but I didn’t.

  “Okay, there’s at least that. Ryan, what do you see?”

  “What Karen says. Fredericks is on the mailing list for a number of these patriot organizations, and he’s got some emails back and forth with someone named BC. They seem to be talking about operations, although there aren’t any details for us to figure out who BC is or what those operations are.”

  Nick said, “So you two are seeing that Fredericks is in a little deeper with these patriot groups than he let on, but we’re not sure exactly what his role is. And we’re interested in this guy BC. You’re thinking BC might be this guy Benjamin Connors you mentioned, Ryan? The one whose name shows up in Willson Fredericks’ articles but you couldn’t identify?”

  Ryan said, “Yes, we think that’s a real possibility.”

  “Okay,” Nick said, “how do you want to go forward?”

  “Seems to me,” I said, “we want to try to track down BC, if possible without tipping Fredericks that’s what we’re doing. If we can’t get to BC on our own, we lean on Fredericks. That sound right to you, Ryan?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, nodding.

  “That seem okay to you?” I said to Nick.

  “Sure,” he said. “How do you want to try to find BC?”

  “First thing,” I said, “do we have access to Fredericks’ emails?”

  Nick looked confused. “I printed out the ones I highlighted in yellow and red. Aren’t they in the packet I gave you?”

  Ryan said, “Yes, we got the printouts, but do we have access to his account online? Do we have administrative rights to log on now?”

  Nick shook his head. “No, we just went in on campus, printed the log and downloaded the ones I gave you. What else did you need?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” Ryan said, “but it might be possible to see something from the routing information that would identify BC’s service provider. But if he knew what he was doing, he would’ve been able to cover his tracks.”

  “So we don’t have
access right now, Nick?” I said.

  “I could try to arrange it, if you think it’s promising.”

  “I was kinda surprised when we got the envelopes from you. I was expecting to hear that you and the chief had talked it over with the university, then you’d gotten the court order, then we’d go on over there and start looking around on their system.” I just left it like that.

  After a few moments, Nick said, “I talked it over with the chief, he phoned the university president, explained that we wanted to get in and get out, very quiet, and be out of his hair.”

  “And the president said okay to that?” I said.

  “The chief promised we’d be less than an hour, and we were able to do it during the day so we didn’t need to bring in a university IT guy after hours, which might arouse suspicion.”

  “You did the search yourself?” I said.

  “No.” He smiled, then the smile disappeared instantly. “I’m not a techie. I brought help.”

  “Just so we don’t spend time tracking down stuff you’ve already tried, did you get a chance to look for matches between crimes and those operations mentioned in the emails between Fredericks and BC?”

  “I thought about that and did a little searching, but I didn’t come up with anything.”

  “How’d you do that?” I said.

  “I reached out to a couple of FBI contacts who keep track of hate crimes. I focused on Montana and this whole region since Fredericks mentioned that he might have some people, so it’s probably not a thousand miles away. Problem is it can take a while for the police or the feds to determine whether an incident is a hate crime and for it to be entered into a government database as such.”

  “So, bottom line,” I said, “you didn’t have any luck linking up the operations mentioned in the email with reported events.

  “That’s right,” Nick said. “I think you’re going to have to lean on Fredericks a little more.”

  “You said the university president okayed us looking at his email, so you didn’t have to get a court order?”