Helpless

Chapter 24

“Do you want to know a secret?”

That was the message delivered in a mysterious friend request from somebody who called themselves Fidelius Charm.

Rebecca was good friends with Ellen Grass, Lauren’s mother. Lauren’s sister, Julie, and their father, David, were at home when Tom and Jill came over to get a look at the Facebook posts that had ignited a firestorm of controversy. Judging by the way David Grass glared at Tom upon opening the door to his house, he thought it doubtful the Grasses would have been so accommodating without Rebecca having smoothed the way. In contrast to David, Ellen Grass, dark haired, slim, and pretty, gave Tom a strained smile and a compassionate look more befitting a wake. The Grass family represented a microcosm of the opinions about Tom spreading around town.

“What kind of name is Fidelius Charm?” Tom asked Rebecca.

Rebecca did a quick Google search.

“Fidelius Charm,” Rebecca said, reading from Wikipedia, “is a spell from the Harry Potter books. It’s a charm used to keep secret information hidden. This information stays hidden until the Secret-Keeper chooses to reveal it.”

“Great,” Tom said with an exasperated sigh. “So we’re looking for someone who’s a Harry Potter fan. That should narrow down our list of suspects.”

“How many people do you think have seen the posts?” Rebecca asked Lauren.

Lauren took the mouse from Rebecca and, leaning over her shoulder, opened up her Facebook page.

“Fidelius Charm sent a friend request to every girl on the varsity soccer team with a Facebook account,” Lauren said. “Ten of my friends are also friends with Fidelius.”

“So how many saw the wall post?” asked Tom.

“The privacy setting on the content was set to ‘Friends of Friends,’ ” Lauren explained. “So any of my friends who aren’t friends with Fidelius Charm can see it.”

“How many friends do you have?” Rebecca asked.

“Eight hundred and fifty-five,” Lauren said.

“That’s pretty normal,” Jill said.

“Who has eight hundred and fifty-five friends?” Tom asked Jill.

Jill and Lauren looked at each other and shrugged.

“Tom, some of these kids are Facebook friends with their teachers.”

“As if the blog post wasn’t bad enough,” Tom said.

“There’s no easy way for us to know how many people saw the wall post,” Rebecca said.

In a small town like Shilo, a few could mean a lot.

Looking over Rebecca’s shoulder, Tom reread the wall post on Lauren’s Facebook page, doing his best to temper his anger and frustration.

Coach Hawkins is sleeping with a player. And I know who it is.

“Can I see Fidelius Charm’s Facebook page?” Tom asked.

Lauren pulled it up. The page contained only the default Facebook settings, no pictures, nothing personalized, no way to know who had created the profile.

“Kids make bogus online profiles all the time,” Lauren said. “They bully other kids with them all the time. They’ve gotten pretty good at not getting caught, but don’t ask me how they do it.”

Jill looked at Tom with wide, panic-filled eyes. “Dad, what are you going to do?”

Tom thought. “I’m going to call Angie Didomenico right now,” he said. “And then I’m going to call the police.”

Angie scheduled an emergency meeting at her office for the next morning. Attending that meeting were Angie, Tom, Craig Powers, Principal Lester Osborne, and Officer Richard Fox. Tom was glad the Shilo police captain had granted his request to have any officer other than Sergeant Murphy assigned to investigate. Tom had expressed concern that Murphy would be biased, given his ongoing involvement with Kelly’s homicide investigation.

Tom started the meeting with a confession. He told the gathering about the text messages he had received the night before.

“And do you have pictures of this mystery girl?” Fox asked after hearing Tom’s account.

“No. I deleted them,” Tom said. “I would have saved them if I’d known about this next wave of attacks.”

“Mind if we check out your phone?”

“Of course not,” Tom said. “Mind if I get my work computer back?”

“It’s still with the state computer forensic guys.”

“Great. What about my home computer?”

“It’s with them as well.”

“No reason you shouldn’t have my phone, too,” Tom said, making no effort to conceal his displeasure.

“Thanks,” Fox said.

“I haven’t made any solicitation attempts,” Tom said. “It’s not like I’ve been chatting online with a teenage girl who’s really a cop. Guys, somebody is trying to destroy my reputation. That’s what’s going on here.”

“We’re doing everything we can to sort this out,” Fox said. “Just stay patient. We’ve already made some progress.”

That got Tom’s attention. “Such as?”

“We know that the Facebook profile was made at a Panera Bread in Millis. They have free Wi-Fi. The friend requests and wall postings were sent from there as well. Facebook helped us with the IPs.”

“Surveillance tape?” Tom asked.

Fox shook his head. “Nothing for us to match the time the profile was created to any customers in the store. And it was a busy day, too. Lots of customers. Lots of laptops. Lots of lattes. We asked.”

“Tom, there’s no hard evidence that you’ve done anything wrong,” Angie said. “And kids texting inappropriate pictures of themselves is an epidemic in this country. We have a problem with that very same thing here in Shilo.”

“We do?” said Tom.

“Yes, and we’re investigating,” Angie added, with an end-of-discussion finality.

“You haven’t tried to download any illegal images,” Fox chimed in, “or, like you said, tried to meet up with an underage girl.”

“Right now, we’re treating these incidents as just rumors,” Angie said. “Vicious and very damaging rumors.”

“And the pictures? What about those?” Tom asked.

“A coincidence,” Powers suggested.

Shrugs and blank stares from around the table suggested that nobody could come up with a better explanation. Tom’s concern only intensified.

He couldn’t come up with a better explanation, either.