The Watcher in the Wall, page 15
“He going to have dinner waiting?” Windermere asked.
Schwartz led them through the parking garage to his ride, a black GMC Yukon. “Doubtful,” he said. “Abrams had KFC tonight, one of those party buckets. I guess you could ask if he has any leftovers.”
He climbed into the truck, and Stevens and Windermere followed. Buckled themselves in as Schwartz drove away from the airport.
“Got a tactical team on standby, as you requested,” Schwartz told them. “This guy Abrams doesn’t appear dangerous, no criminal record, but they’ll be there if you need them.”
“Whether we need them or not,” Windermere said, “this guy’s posting snuff videos online, teenagers killing themselves. He could be an actual, real-life Care Bear. I still want his door busted down and his ass dragged out in cuffs.”
“What my partner is saying,” Stevens told Schwartz, “is that we want to take every precaution on this one.”
Schwartz kept driving, a sly smile on his face. “Well, all right then,” he said, reaching for his radio. “I’ll tell the tactical guys to be ready.”
• • •
The visit played out as per Windermere’s instructions. Frank Abrams had a little one-story house, Southwestern style, adobe and red tile and cacti in the front yard, a quiet little street in either direction. Stevens and Windermere hung back in Schwartz’s Yukon as the tactical guys swarmed the place, assault rifles and battering rams and a bullhorn to wake up the neighborhood.
Lights came on up and down the block. Shadows appeared in doorways, living room windows, watching and listening as the tactical guys broke down Abrams’s door. Stevens and Windermere followed them in, found the tactical team in the living room, rifles pointed at the floor, where Frank Abrams lay facedown in handcuffs and boxer shorts, struggling against the boot at his back. On the TV, a guy with frosted spiky hair was eating what looked like deep-fried Jell-O.
Abrams was shouting something about his constitutional rights, how he wanted a lawyer. Windermere hunkered down in front of him, showed him her badge.
“You’ll get your lawyer,” she told him. “Get your trial, too. Judge, jury, the whole bit. And I promise you, that all will go a hell of a lot smoother for you if you decide to cooperate.”
Abrams stopped shouting, panted his breath back. Regarded her from the rug. “What’s this all about?” he asked her. “I never did anything. What are you trying to pull here?”
Windermere nodded. Pursed her lips. “You never did anything,” she said. “Okay. You ever hear of somebody named . . . what was it, partner?”
“SevenBot,” Stevens told her.
“SevenBot,” Windermere repeated. “That name sound familiar?”
Abrams’s eyes went wide. “Never heard it before in my life,” he said. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about, but I want a lawyer right now.”
“Fine,” Windermere said, standing. “Could be you’re right, and this is all just a misunderstanding.” She gestured across the living room to the doorway, where Schwartz was supervising the tactical guys as they carried out a desktop computer, a few external hard drives, some serious computing power. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Abrams went limp, dropped his head to the rug. Watched as the tactical agents walked out with his gear. “Aw,” he said. “Aw, shoot.”
“‘Aw, shoot’ sounds good,” Windermere said. “So how about you pick yourself up off the floor and we have ourselves a conversation?”
< 65 >
They brought Abrams to an interview room in the FBI building on the north side of Phoenix. Found him a T-shirt, told him if he played nice, they might be able to dig up some pants.
“We’re not here for you in particular,” Windermere told him, settling down across the table. “I mean, we don’t like you, or your creepy-ass hobby, but we have bigger targets in mind.”
“Basically, help us catch our subject, and we’ll make sure the ADA who pulls your case knows you were cooperative,” Stevens said. “Might not be enough to keep you out of jail, but you never know, right?”
Abrams stared down at the table, the fight all but gone. He’d stopped screaming for a lawyer about the time the FBI agents had pulled him out of his house in plain view of the neighbors, had spent the ride to the FBI office in silence. He looked defeated now, and scared, and Windermere knew he would tell them whatever he knew if he thought it would save his own ass.
Sure enough, he seemed to gather himself. “So, okay,” he said. “What can I do?”
“Two weeks ago, you posted a video online of a teenage boy hanging himself,” Windermere said. “Do you know the file I’m talking about?”
Abrams looked away. “Yeah, I do.”
“Did you create the footage?”
“No,” Abrams said. “Hell, no. I just, you know, acquired it. I posted it for interested parties. I don’t actually make the stuff.”
“Sure,” Stevens said. “Because making it would be sick and twisted. So where did you get it?”
Abrams didn’t answer for a moment. “It’s him, isn’t it?” he said. “That’s your target, the guy who’s making this stuff. That’s who you’re after, right?”
“You know him?” Windermere said. “You give us something workable, it’ll go a long way toward getting you back home to that bucket of extra crispy.”
Abrams sighed. It was not the sigh of someone who’d just been shown a way out of his predicament.
“I don’t know him,” he said. “I mean, nobody knows him, not that I can tell. We’re kind of a small community on there, and he—he’s kind of a ghost.” He shook his head. “If you’re hoping I’ll draw you a map to this guy, believe me, I wish I could, but I got nothing.”
“That’s a lie,” Stevens said. “You have something. You got hold of the video somehow. That’s a start.”
“I only know the guy through a dummy email account,” Abrams said. “Swear to God, that’s it.”
Windermere pulled out a notebook. “The email account,” she said. “Write it down.”
Abrams did as he was told. Slid the notebook back across the table, and seemed to anticipate the next question coming. “The guy just chose me,” he said. “It’s not like I went searching for him. But you guys have been on the forum. You’ve seen my profile. I’m kind of a big deal. Any snuff you’re trying to buy or sell, I’m the guy.”
“Congratulations,” Windermere said. “I bet that looks real good on your résumé.”
“What was I going to do, turn him in? Call the police and tell them a guy on my snuff forum is taping kids killing themselves?” He shook his head again. “Anyway, I looked it up. It’s not illegal, what he’s doing.”
“That’s up for debate,” Stevens said, “but it’s still a shitty thing to do.”
Abrams gave him a look like he’d been out of class the day they were teaching morality. Kind of shrugged, his face blank.
“So he found you,” Windermere said. “And then?”
“And then he asked if I wanted to help him sell a video of a kid killing himself,” Abrams said. “Clear footage, perfect angle—he was pretty proud of his work. And rightfully so, I guess. I mean, you have to realize, this guy’s stuff is golden. It’s top-notch, the way he gets these kids to do it. He’s an artist, for sure. I was happy to buy the first clip, and the ones that came after. They’ve made us both a ton of money.”
“How do you pay him?”
“Western Union, money transfer,” Abrams said. “Through that same dummy email address. I send it to someone named Earl Ashley, but if you’re talking to me, you probably already know that’s a fake name.”
“His stepfather’s name was Earl. His stepsister’s middle name was Ashley,” Stevens said. “She died twenty years ago. Hanged herself while he watched.”
“Unfortunately, there’s no footage,” Windermere said.
Abrams made a face. “Funny,” he said. “I see what you did there.”
“So, this last file you posted,” Windermere said. “Kid named Adrian Miller, a high school student in Minnesota. Killed himself because kids were bullying him at school.”
Abrams stared at her, like he knew this was supposed to make him feel contrite, and he just wasn’t feeling it. Windermere inhaled a long breath, willed herself to stay calm, to resist the urge to reach across and smash this guy’s head into the table.
“Anyway,” she said, exhaling. “Adrian Miller. That the last time you heard from this Ashley guy?”
She was hoping she knew the answer, hoping Adrian Miller was the last of Gruber’s victims. It had only been two weeks after all, and they’d had Gruber distracted for some of it. But that didn’t mean squat.
“That’s the last time he sent me any footage,” Abrams said, “but it sounds like he’s gearing up. He tried to hit me up for an advance a couple days ago, said he had something big in the works. Two more kids—prospects, he calls them. Sounded like a couple mint scores.”
Windermere twisted in her seat, met Stevens’s eyes. “Two more prospects, partner,” she said. “I knew he’d keep going.”
“Clock is ticking,” Stevens said. “But where is he operating? He hasn’t been back on Death Wish since we made him.”
“Oh, he has more accounts,” Abrams said. “This guy’s everywhere. Like a dragnet for hopeless cases. Sweeps them up, grooms them, tells them how to end it all.” He paused. “And films it, hopefully.”
“These new prospects he’s grooming,” Windermere said. “Where did he find them? Which of these forums is he working now?”
Abrams shifted in his seat, didn’t answer. Avoided eye contact.
“If you know something, share it with the class,” Windermere told him. “Otherwise, not only will I make sure you’re prosecuted to the full extent for this shit, but I’ll see to it that everybody on your little forum knows you’re the guy who got them all arrested, locked up, and publicly outed, to boot. Get it?”
“Shoot.” Abrams looked up, a shade paler. “Okay, yeah, I get it,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t really know much. But I think he’s grooming his next, you know, prospect on a site called The End.”
< 66 >
“Why so glum, homey?”
Madison spun, found Paul standing a few feet from her locker, leaning against the wall and looking smug. She tucked her phone into her backpack, picked up her history textbook. Slammed her locker closed.
“You don’t have to follow me,” she told him. “We have class together. You’ll be right beside me for the next, like, hour and a half.”
“Figured I could maybe walk you to class,” Paul said. “Like, we could walk and tell jokes and, I dunno, gossip. Like, you know, friends.”
“We’re not friends,” Madison said, before she could stop herself. Paul laughed, smiled wider.
“Well, not with that attitude,” he said. “Anyway, come on. The bell’s about to ring.”
He turned and started down the hall, stopped after a few steps and waited for her to catch up. Madison hesitated. Sighed and walked after him.
“So how come you’re so miserable?” Paul asked her. “This have something to do with that Internet boyfriend of yours?”
“That’s none of your business,” Madison said. “But yes, it kind of does.”
“Ooh. Well, go on. What did lover boy have to say? Did he flunk a test? Pollute a river? What terrible stories did this guy have to tell you?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Madison said. “Don’t worry about it, dude. It wasn’t anything, really.”
But it was; it was everything. She’d been thinking about Brandon all day, about that phone call, how miserable he’d sounded, defeated. Like he was ready to find a cliff and drive off it without her, like he didn’t even care that he’d already changed her life.
She didn’t want to die. She knew this. She didn’t want Brandon to die, either. She wanted to meet up with Brandon and drive off somewhere—Los Angeles, maybe, if that wasn’t too cliché, or Mexico—and live badass lives together and be the envy of everyone and never miss anything about their homes or their old towns or their crummy families. Madison would take that. She could accept it. She didn’t need to die.
“So he told you he was sad,” Paul said. “And you’ve been worrying about him ever since. How cute.”
“He’s not just sad, moron,” Madison told him. “He’s really depressed. Like, he’s talking about wanting to kill himself. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Wow.” Paul dodged an army of jocks coming down the hall in the opposite direction. “This is the guy you’ve never actually met, right? The one who might be, like, a forty-six-year-old sex pervert?”
“He’s not a sex pervert,” Madison said. “We talked on the phone and he’s an amazing guy. We’re going to run away together, and you’ll never see me again.”
“Until they dig up your body.”
“Screw off.” Madison gave him the finger. Pushed ahead of him into Mr. Rhodes’s class. Left Paul standing in her wake, but couldn’t stop thinking about Brandon.
I have to do something, she thought. There has to be a way to save him. If he freaking dies on me, I actually will kill myself.
< 67 >
Windermere put Mathers on the money trail. Gave him the dummy email address Gruber used to communicate with Frank “SevenBot” Abrams, and the payment history through Western Union. Figured it might take a few days, but they could probably count on a lead to Gruber eventually. Meanwhile, she and Stevens went right to The End.
It took a full day to get a warrant to search the suicide forum’s servers. And it wasn’t like the forum’s owner was ready to play ball without one.
“Total invasion of my users’ privacy,” he told Windermere over the phone. He had a high-pitched, obnoxious voice that didn’t blend well with his self-righteous tone. Clearly, he’d been waiting for a phone call like this.
“These people are consenting adults, American citizens,” he continued. “They have a right to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure. If they want to die, who am I to try and stop them?”
“Only, they’re not adults,” Windermere said. “They’re teenagers. Doesn’t that bother you at all?”
But the guy had already hung up in her ear, leaving Windermere talking to an empty line. She put the phone down, told Stevens to start calling judges. Placed her next call to the FBI office in Bangor, Maine, where she’d traced the forum’s servers, had the local field agents put together a team to raid the owner’s house just as soon as the warrant came through.
“Be careful,” Windermere told the Bangor agent. “This guy sounds like he fancies himself a real proponent of personal freedoms. If he’s not deleting his forum records off those servers, he’s probably cleaning his collection of assault rifles. So tread lightly.”
The Bangor agent thanked her, assured her his team would move on the servers as soon as they had a warrant in hand.
Windermere ended the call. Turned to check on Stevens, found him rolling his eyes, explaining to the federal judge why Gruber’s pursuit of those teenage victims should be considered a crime.
“State law says it’s a felony to coerce or counsel someone into committing suicide,” he was saying. “This guy is pretending to be a teenager and luring vulnerable kids to their deaths.” He paused, listened. “Yes, I know it’s a state law. But this guy’s operating over interstate lines. He’s clearly—”
He stopped abruptly. Listened. Caught Windermere’s eye and grimaced. “Okay,” he said. “Sure, I understand. We’ll work on it.”
He made to hang up the phone. Windermere had the handset out of his hands before she really knew what she was doing. Brought the phone to her ear. “Who am I talking to?”
A silence, and she was afraid the judge had hung up. But then: “This is Judge Waite,” a woman said slowly. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Carla Windermere, FBI,” Windermere told the judge. “You want to tell me why you’re playing hardball on this warrant?”
The judge laughed a little, incredulous. “As I explained to your colleague, Agent Windermere, there’s no federal law against encouraging people to commit suicide, even in situations like this. I told your partner I wasn’t even sure why you’re pursuing this case, when by my interpretation of the law, the target of your investigation is within his right to free speech to do what he’s doing. I’m not even sure how you—”
“Oh, don’t come at me with that free-speech bullshit,” Windermere told the judge. “Soliciting someone to commit suicide is a felony in just about every state in the union. This is just another case of the law lagging behind criminals and their technology.”
“Then it’s a state issue,” the judge replied. “I might suggest bringing your case to a judge at the state level.”
“You’re not listening,” Windermere told her. She could see Stevens in the background, waving her off, wide-eyed. Ignored him. “We have a victim in Minnesota. Another in Texas, a third in Delaware. We have servers we need to access in Maine, and a suspect hiding God knows where. In which state, exactly, do you expect us to start?”
“Wherever you think you have the best shot,” the judge replied. “You’re a federal agent, Ms. Windermere. Surely you don’t expect me to simply hand over a warrant without respect to the law.”
“I am a federal agent,” Windermere told her. “And you’re a federal judge, Ms. Waite. These people my suspect is targeting, they’re teenagers. Kids. You really want to go on record as the judge who prevented the FBI from chasing an online predator?”
The judge was silent.
“This isn’t a free-speech situation,” Windermere told her. “This is a case of impressionable young minds being preyed upon. You shut me down here, first place I’m calling is the Minnesota state courts. Second place I’m calling is the New York Times. You feel me?”
