The Venus Fix

Sixty-Two

With Alan Leightman in jail, Jordain and Perez spent the morning catching up on paperwork. At lunchtime, Perez kept a long-overdue dentist appointment while Jordain stayed at his desk, and that’s where he was when Ken Fisher, one of the computer geeks, stopped by to tell him he finally had some new information.

“All the e-mail the women received from bob205 originated from a computer at NYU,” Fisher said.

“Makes sense. Leightman teaches at NYU. So now we know why there was nothing on his home computer.”

“Listen, Noah, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but there are some things that don’t match up now.”

“Tell me.”

“Okay, but you are not going to like it. Remember we said that at the same time the letter was sent to Debra Kamel, there was e-mail sent from Leightman’s computer that definitely went out through his own DSL line?”

“Humor me and explain what that means.”

“It means that if Alan Leightman was at NYU sending that mail, then he couldn’t also have been at home sending mail. I’m sorry, boss.”

“Don’t be. Not yet. Maybe his wife was using his computer at home and sending mail from her husband’s e-mail account. Isn’t that possible?”

“Sure.”

“So then it’s also possible that he was home and someone else-say, his wife-was at NYU using his e-mail account.”

Fisher nodded.

“Can you find out which computer at NYU the e-mail came from?”

“Sure, we can do that. Let me get back to you.” He turned and almost walked into Perez.

“Butler just grabbed me in the hall. It’s all over the news- Kira Rushkoff was just taken to Bellevue. Sounds like a nervous breakdown.”