Angel Killer (18 page)

When I was ten I watched another child sweet-talk her father into buying her something in a store. I tried the same thing with a video game a few days later with my father. He just looked at me and asked, “When did you become a baby-talking moron?”

Sharp, to the point and brutally honest. He wasn’t as cruel as Grandfather could be, but his words could cut just as deep.

I hope I have better luck with the hacker.

L
IAM REYNOLDS IS SQUISHED
into a booth at TGI Fridays in suburban Austin, leaving almost no space between his gut and the table. When I approach the booth, he’s looking out the window into the parking lot, through a pair of aviator-style glasses. He takes them off in dramatic fashion as I sit down. I can only guess he’s trying to make some kind of impression. But it’s not the one he intended.

Close to three hundred pounds, he’s wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey that hangs over his body like a collapsed tent. Short, with almost blond hair that’s spiky, he has a face too pasty for Texas and a roll under his chin probably related to the basket of onion rings he devoured while waiting for me to get there.

“Mr. Reynolds? I’m Agent Blackwood.”

He gives me a suspicious nod. I shake his soft and clammy hand. I’m not bothered by heavy people. The big guys I’ve gone out with were the type that learned to compensate for their genetics with a quick sense of humor and a likable smile. But Reynolds possesses none of these qualities. He’s turned whatever rejection he’s received throughout his life into a layer of smugness. He knows he’s smart, so it’s the thing he tries to hold over people. I can see right away why Jennifer may have been the wrong person to send.

“Thank you for agreeing to help me. I know someone had some technical questions for you before. I’m here to ask if you can help me build out the profile.” I take a folder from my bag. It contains one of the questionnaires Chisholm helped behavioral analysis create. I figure the best way to get at Reynolds is through his vanity.

It’s an old interview technique taught to me by a police captain. We all want to demonstrate competence, even to our enemies. While Reynolds isn’t an enemy, he’s shown us hostility. His sense of righteousness overwhelms any urge he has to directly cooperate by granting access to the server. But if I ask him theoretical questions, he might soften his stance.

The way to work on smart yet insecure people is to challenge their intelligence in a nonthreatening way. We can’t walk away from an unanswered question. Especially one that relates to us. Like my friends in college, and sometimes me, who couldn’t pass up a women’s magazine with a sex quiz or an article on cheating, these insecurities rule us: “How well do you score in bed? Is your man cheating on you? Five ways to tell . . .”

On the phone from the plane, I’d told Reynolds I wanted to talk about building up a profile of a programmer who might do what the Warlock did. I imagine Reynolds might see him as a kind of equal. With the right prodding, he might even see helping us take him down as a worthy task.

“You took an FBI jet here?” Reynolds says this almost as if it’s not a question.

“Yes.” Ailes was insistent that I have some backup, and had a field agent meet me at the airport and drive me here. An older agent, Mark Ross, with a polite Texas gentleman twang, he offered to wait in the car and do some paperwork while I talked to Reynolds.

Reynolds shoves a cheese stick into his mouth. “I tracked an IP address on your e-mail that came from an FBI router. The ping time took a little long. I figured you guys have some fast fiber, so it must have come from a satellite, which meant an airplane.”

“Interesting. I didn’t think about that.”

“You can tell a lot from data.” He says it like it’s a profound statement.

He seems to want to flaunt the fact that he has access to such information. I resist the urge to take the bait. “I don’t know much about computers. Figuring out how people work is enough for me.”

“So you’re not going to ask me about my server?” he asks.

“Not really.” I notice that he has a hard time looking me in the face, even when he’s not staring at my breasts. I’m wearing my normal office attire, a suit and a blouse that’s not very revealing. That might be what’s tantalizing him, figuring out what I look like under it all. “We can talk about the server if you want. But I think you made your case pretty clear to Agent Valdez.” I flip to a page in the questionnaire. “Do you think someone else could copy what you’ve done with Faceplaced?”

He smirks. “Not my code. It’s locked down. There are other systems out there, but I think mine is the best. Part of the strength of the program is that it looks for images that aren’t just straight-on shots. It’ll take profile shots and make data points for that as well. That’s how you get better nose and cheekbone maps. I got the idea working on a face scanner for a security company. They just wanted something that worked head-on. I tried to explain that if the image only works like that, then you can fool it with a photograph. It’s like the face recognition they put into phones. You can trick it with an image of the person you took on your own phone. Stupid. Absolutely stupid.” Reynolds wipes his greasy fingers on his shirt and shakes his head.

“That does sound stupid. So your system is the only one that does this?” I’m not trying to play dumb, just overemphasize what I’m not clear on to keep him talking.

“That I know of. I’m sure the NSA, CIA and probably you guys have something like it. But not for the public. Probably not as clean code. Definitely not made by one person. Most of the face-matching sites are designed to be intentionally sloppy and skew toward better-looking matches. People upload their photos for fun to see what celebrity they look like. The more famous and attractive, the better. If they were accurate, nobody would ever use them.”

Reynolds takes a lot of pride in his work. He’s the type of person who has to denigrate what everyone else has done to feel better about his own accomplishments. That being said, he’s definitely intelligent. While he may be socially awkward, I don’t want to underestimate his analytical skills.

I drop a compliment. “I guess that’s why yours is the best.”

He rolls his eyes. “Uh, yeah. So what’s it like being famous?”

“Pardon me?”

Reynolds glances at me, then quickly looks away. “I pulled up your image from the newspaper and found some photos and videos of you online. Your real name is Blackstar? Right?”

So Reynolds decided to research me? I shouldn’t be surprised. I Google everyone I meet as well, especially guys I meet. To Reynolds, it’s his way of trying to get the upper hand.

“Actually, it’s Blackwood. My grandfather changed it to ‘star’ to sound famous. He also wanted to show up Harry Blackstone, I guess.”

“I watched a torrent of a Japanese television special. You looked young then.”

He has no idea how to talk to a woman. “I was seventeen.”

“The tiger thing was kind of cool. I figured out how you did it, though.”

So could a ten-year-old. “Yeah, analytical people can see through magic.”

“Why did you stop?” he asks.

“Because I wanted to help people. Magic wasn’t my thing. I had enough as a child.”

Reynolds nods. “Do you miss dressing like that?”

L
IAM REYNOLDS
is deliberately provoking me. He’s obviously watched television shows where the detectives try to corner the suspects, only to have the tables turned on them. He thinks this is what smart people do. They show the dumb cops how brilliant they are. He probably pissed himself with delight when he made the connection between me and my past life. It’s a little piece of information he wants to hold over me.

I can think of a thousand unkind things to say, but none of them will get me what I want. “Yeah, I didn’t care for the outfits myself.”

“I didn’t say they looked bad . . .” He’s trying to be flirty but only knows how to be creepier.

“It paid for college.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I bet. Those Japanese guys loved you.”

So much so, they even made a pornographic manga comic featuring a girl who looked just like me. Jesse Magicstar. Reynolds is the last type of guy I’d want finding out about that. I look for another question to ask him. “You ever come across anybody who’s acted suspiciously? Maybe asked you for the code?”

“Lots of people. I get asked for it all the time.”

“Could you provide us with some names and contact information?”

“Isn’t that your job?” he says snarkily.

“What?” I ask.

“Finding this guy?”

“Mr. Reynolds, this is how we find people. We ask people like you to help us.”

He waves a hand in the air. “And if we don’t, you violate our rights and throw us away in some hole.”

I don’t know if there’s a hole big enough for this jerk. I reply calmly, “Has anyone from the FBI made a threat to you about that? If they did, I’ll report them. Short of a court order, your cooperation is voluntary and nobody should be coercing you.”

Reynolds scoffs. “I get it. You’re the good cop. That other . . . woman was the bad one. This is how it works.”

He’s a sad little man who wants to play an important role in all of this. He thinks he’s another Edward Snowden, standing up to the man, when all he’s doing is stopping us from getting a killer. It’s a game for him.

I set the questionnaire aside and pull a photo from my bag and drop it on the table. It’s a crime scene photo of Chloe. “We’re all good cops. We want to get the guy that killed her and the other man and stop him from doing it again.”

Reynolds ignores the photo. “What makes you so sure anybody was murdered? I’m not convinced that this guy has done anything wrong.”

His eyes are fierce, as if he’s being personally challenged. He’s much more obsessed with this case than I think we realized.

“Mr. Reynolds, do you really think he can raise the dead or make an airplane travel through time?”

“Anything is possible. There’s already a discussion thread on Reddit explaining a quantum universe theory for this. Wormhole bubbles. Maybe that’s what this Warlock is. A scientist who’s showing us what he’s capable of.”

So Reynolds sees his idealized self in this monster—an unrecognized genius who has to show the world how brilliant he is. “Seriously? You believe this?” I can’t hide my surprise. Reynolds should be smarter than this.

“I’ve seen a lot of crazy things. Not everything is a trick, Miss Blackstar. But maybe you can’t see that.” His voice is condescending, like a frat boy who just came down from a hit of LSD and thinks he’s seen the secrets of the universe.

“Maybe. But we’ve got two dead bodies and your website is the only connection. And you’re stopping us from finding out who may be involved.”

Reynolds holds up his hands again. “I’m just protecting my users’ rights. Don’t get all high-and-mighty on me. They have an expectation of privacy. Have you read the Constitution?”

To Reynolds, anyone with a badge is chomping at the bit to violate his civil rights. “Yes. Several times. I even swore an oath on it. That’s how you become an FBI agent.”

He sneers. “Maybe you should read it again. The part about unreasonable search and seizures.”

“Nobody is trying to seize anything from you. All we’ve asked for is information.”

He sits back and folds his arms. “Private information that belongs to my users.”

“Your website doesn’t have a privacy policy that covers this. Our lawyers checked.”

“That’s how it starts. A little here. A little there. And the next thing you know I can’t even fly in an airport without the gestapo stopping me. Of course you wouldn’t know about that on your private jet.”

We do step over bounds, and people are right to be suspicious. Our country is supposed to be a free democracy and not a police state. I’m a bit of an anti-authoritarian myself, but I understand the idea of law and order.

This conversation is not going where I wanted it to. “I fly commercial all the time. I have to put up with the same inconvenience. I may not agree with it. But it’s the law. I answer to the Constitution and the people you elect to make the laws and interpret it. My job is not to pick and choose which laws I’m going to enforce based upon what I agree with. Congress, elected by the people, gives us directives telling me what to do according to the Constitution.”

“They’re a bunch of crooks bought out by the corporations,” replies Reynolds.

“Maybe so. The FBI has put a number of politicians in jail. Between you and me, it’s a source of pride for us.” I pick up Chloe’s photograph and bring it to his eye level. “Political arguments aren’t going to help us get her killer.”

“Neither does being a good little Nazi who only says she’s following orders.” The words come out of his mouth too neatly, like something he’s rehearsed over and over in his head.

It’s such a sophomoric conversation. The kind of thing I went through in college when guys with Che Guevara shirts found out I was a criminal justice major. To them, anybody who was in authority who wasn’t them or on their narrow bandwidth of political thought was a thug.

I pause, then speak as calmly as I can. “I have a pretty clear idea of what right and wrong is even when things are gray. Do you?”

“Yes. Giving in to you guys would be wrong. I don’t care how many photos of dead girls you try to scare me with. Maybe you’ll start calling the Warlock a terrorist next. Then you’ll get to do anything you want. That’s why people have to stand up to you.” His cheeks are flushed. For him, this is his moment. I’ll bet anything he’s recording our conversation to share triumphantly with the Internet later.

“Recording me without my permission is against the law,” I tell him.

His face goes white as he stumbles, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Would you mind showing me your phone?” I ask.

“I don’t have to,” he replies.

“No, you don’t. I was just making a point.”

“What’s that?” His eyes flicker to his pocket. A clear tell that he’s been recording this all along.

I decide to let the recording drop for now. He knows that I know. Confronting him on that won’t get us what we need. “We’re not asking you to do anything wrong. Sometimes you have to make judgments. If I walk by your door and hear you screaming for help, I have to decide whether to kick it in or not. I don’t know if some killer has a knife to your throat or your girlfriend has you tied up in bed and you’re playing a game. I have to make a choice.”