Injustice for all

52

Anita White walked quickly through the front door of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s forensic laboratory in Knoxville. The same day Tommy Miller was arrested, Dillard had left her a message on her cell phone saying he’d talked to the night clerk at the convenience store. The clerk had identified Tommy. He also said Tommy slept off a drunk in the parking lot that night and didn’t leave until after five in the morning. The next day, Anita learned that the DNA sample they obtained from Tommy Miller didn’t match the DNA the lab technicians had taken from the cigarette butts found near Judge Green’s body. With each passing hour, Anita’s belief that they’d arrested the wrong person intensified.

She’d been hurt and angry following her conversation with Dillard at the restaurant, but after hearing his message, reading the DNA report, and spending a sleepless night deep in thought, she realized Dillard was right. She should have voiced her concerns over Harmon’s tactics during the interrogation. She should have helped the boy. But as she told Dillard, what was done was done. She couldn’t undo the confession, but she could keep on working, keep on digging. If someone else killed the judge, Anita intended to find him.

She walked into a small office on the third floor. The office was occupied by Harold Teller, a forensic computer analyst. Teller had called Anita early that morning to say he was finished with his analysis of Judge Green’s computer and would be mailing a hard copy of his report. When Anita asked him whether there was anything interesting in the report, his reply was, “Several things,” so Anita asked Teller if she could meet with him later in the day. She’d driven the ninety miles to Knoxville in just over an hour.

“Agent White, I presume,” Teller said from behind a stack of reports on his desk.

Teller was in his late twenties, much younger than he sounded over the phone. His light brown hair was cut neatly and parted on the side, his eyes were the clearest blue Anita had ever seen, and he wore a pleasant smile on his angular face.

“Have a seat,” Teller said as he rolled in his chair to the corner, picked up a bound stack of papers, and rolled back to his desk. “Why are you so interested in the report? Don’t you already have a confession in this case?”

“Let’s just say I’m not totally convinced by the confession and leave it at that,” Anita said.

“Ah, you suspect a false confession. How intriguing.”

Teller’s eyes were gleaming mischievously, and Anita smiled. She’d been expecting a geek, a nerd with acne and thick glasses, someone so smart he would have difficulty talking to a mere mortal. But this was a good-looking young man who apparently had a sense of humor-a nice surprise.

Teller slid the report across the table, and Anita picked it up.

“There are some pretty disturbing images in there,” Teller said. “The judge had eclectic tastes in pornography. He favored prepubescent boys and adult gay sadomasochism.”

Anita set the report back on the desk. She had no desire to view lurid images of pornography.

“You said you found several interesting things on the computer,” Anita said. “What kind of things?”

“He visited a lot of pornographic Web sites, and there were some bizarre e-mails,” Teller said. “But the thing you’re probably most interested in, especially since you’re still on the hunt, is that someone hacked into his computer five days before he was killed. Someone who knew what he was doing. He used four different proxies.”

“What are proxies?” Anita said.

“It’s complicated,” Teller said, “but basically, a proxy is what hackers use to hide their identities. Every PC on the Internet has an identification number, called an IP, which stands for Internet Protocol number. Each one is unique, like a fingerprint. Typically, a hacker sends a virus or tries to find an IP address. Then he finds a way to exploit the computer’s security program. Once he does that, he’s got full control. Now he’ll use that computer to hack into another by doing the same thing. They call them proxies.”

“So what you’re telling me is that this person hacked into four different computers before he got to the judge?”

“Right. He was pretty good.”

“So it had to be somebody who knew the judge, or at least someone he corresponded with by e mail?”

“Normally, yes. But the county maintains a Web site that has e-mail addresses for all of the judges. The judge checked that e-mail address regularly from his home computer. That’s how the hacker got in.”

“And once he got in, what did he do?”

“Nothing, which is strange. He didn’t download any viruses. He didn’t copy or destroy any files. He didn’t use the computer as a proxy. It appears that he just looked around and left.”

“I still want to talk to him,” Anita said. “Do you know who he is?”

“Assuming it’s a he, I know where his computer is,” Teller said. “I didn’t bother to track down the owner of the address since I knew you’d already made an arrest.”

Teller opened the report, found the page he was looking for, and set it down in front of Anita. “Here it is,” he said, pointing.

Anita felt the familiar surge of adrenaline that occurred whenever she got a break in a case.

“Thank you,” Anita said as she stood and picked up the report.

“What? You’re leaving?” Teller said. “Just like that? We were getting along so well.”

“Gotta go. I have work to do.”