Deadly Sins (16 page)

Jaid looked at Adam and Shepherd after the woman left the room. “Those two were the only clerks the justice received text messages from in the last few weeks?”

Adam nodded. “Mara Sorenson is the only other member of his staff listed on his phone records.” He looked at Shepherd. “You were in the cyber unit. Can you think of any other ways to attach spyware on a phone other than downloading it?”

The agent shook his head. “I’ve been out of that line of work for a while, but I like to think I’m still up on the newest technology. I’d agree with your operative’s assessment. And the cyber unit’s. The spyware has to be downloaded in some manner. There’s probably a shitload of ways to hide it in the phone’s files once it has been, and that self-destruct element is about the slickest I’ve heard of. But the infected link has to be opened by the target.”

There was a knock on the door then, and the judge’s personal assistant stood in the doorway. She was dressed in a simple black suit today, and for a moment Jaid wondered if Reinbeck’s funeral arrangements were imminent. But as far as she knew, his body had not yet been released from autopsy. The woman’s dress likely was a reflection of her mourning.

“Ms. Sorenson.” Adam’s ruined voice was as soft as he could make it. “Thank you for your time. We just have a few more questions.”

“Yes.” Her expression was composed, but her eyes were weary. “About the phones, Krista said?” She approached the table and took the chair Adam pulled out for her. “Did you want to examine the phones in the office?”

“We’re not interested in the landlines, just Byron’s employees’ cell phones.” Adam’s smile didn’t seem to calm the woman’s nerves to a significant degree. “You used yours to communicate with the justice at times, didn’t you?”

“I used the office phone, usually.”

“But you had his cell number.”

“Of course.” She studied each of them in turn. “But there was no reason to use it when I could just contact him in his chambers. Mostly, I’d call and give him his messages if he were out for some reason that day or left before me.” Her smile was fleeting. “That was rare. When he left, he usually demanded that I leave as well.”

“His cell phone records indicated that you had called him seven times since court resumed this year.”

She gave a little shrug. “Probably. I could check my call log if you want to be sure.”

“What we’re most interested in, Ms. Sorenson, is the text message you sent to the justice.” Jaid consulted the records before her. “On October thirteenth.”

Amazingly, the woman laughed a little. “I don’t think so. I’ve never sent a text message in my life. Wouldn’t know how to go about it, to tell you the truth.”

The room abruptly went charged. Seeming to sense it, Sorenson stiffened a little.

“Can we see your phone, please?” She fumbled with her suit pocket a moment before handing it across the table to Shepherd.

“Do you send e-mails from your phone, Ms. Sorenson?”

Adam’s question drew her attention from what the agent was doing with her phone. “Yes, quite often. I take the train home and frequently catch up with my children that way.”

“And Byron? Did you ever send him e-mails after work? Possibly about something you forgot to tell him or something that came up after he left . . .”

The woman was already shaking her head. “No, we had a system. There were few things I would have bothered the judge about after hours. If it was important enough to let him know immediately, then I’d call him and leave a message if he wasn’t answering.”

Shepherd turned to Jaid then and handed the phone to her. Dropping her gaze to the screen, she felt the blood slow in her veins. Despite the woman’s words, there was indeed a text message in her out-box. Addressed to Reinbeck’s cell phone number. With a link embedded in it.

Jaid leaned across the table to give the phone to Adam. He looked from the screen to the woman beside him. “Ma’am, do you know what an out-box is?”

Sorenson looked flustered. “Yes, of course. An e-mail out-box contains your sent mail.”

“Text messaging has in-boxes and out-boxes as well.” He showed her the phone with the message on it. Jaid watched puzzlement chase over the woman’s pleasant features. “Your phone shows a sent text message to Justice Reinbeck over a month ago. Do you see the blue text in it that’s underlined? That’s a link. By clicking on it, the judge would be opening a page on the Internet.”

“But I never sent that message.” Confusion was changing to alarm. Sorenson looked at each of the agents briefly before returning her attention to Adam. “I told you, I have no idea how.”

“You didn’t send him a message taking him to the donation webpage for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?”

“No, of course not.”

But something in her voice had Adam pressing on. “Because that’s not an organization that you’re familiar with? I know Byron has been active in it in the past.”

“No. I mean, yes, he has. We both have. I like to think I got him interested in their work years ago.” She set the phone on the table with a trembling hand. “I don’t understand this. I didn’t send that message.”

“Have you loaned your phone to anyone in the last month?” Jaid asked. Excitement was flickering. They were on to something here at last. “Could someone have used it at work? Or when you had guests over? Have you ever misplaced it for a time?”

The woman was shaking her head in conjunction with each question, until the last. She froze. “There was once a few weeks ago . . .” She broke off, appeared to search her memory. “October fifth,” she said finally. “I was meeting a girlfriend of mine for dinner at the French bistro just around the corner from here. They don’t take reservations, and it’s always crowded. I put my name in and waited.” She shrugged helplessly. “I got jostled and spilled my purse all over the floor. A young man helped me pick things up, but I discovered later that my phone was missing. I called the restaurant, and they had it there. I picked it up the next day.”

“So the phone was out of your possession for twenty-four hours?” Jaid asked.

“About that.”

Adam picked the phone up again. Clicked through her contact log. “Byron’s first name is used to identify his number.”

Looking distressed by now, Mara said unsteadily, “I don’t understand. Are you telling me someone called Byron on my phone when it was lost? Or, no, sent him a text message, you said, with a link. What does that mean? It couldn’t . . . it can’t . . .” Words seemed to escape her. When her lips began to tremble, she clamped them together.

“If you didn’t send the message to Byron, it might have happened while the phone was lost. In fact, you might have been bumped into on purpose so you would drop your purse.” The woman jerked a little at Adam’s words. “The act could have been designed for the express purpose of someone getting access to both yours and the judge’s numbers.”

Jaid refrained from comment. Given the woman’s reaction and her obvious affection for the judge, Jaid was inclined to believe Sorenson wouldn’t have sent that link herself. But it was far too soon to cross her off the list of suspects. The story she was telling would be difficult to check out. She could have orchestrated it herself as a cover.

“Do you happen to recall the person who helped you gather up your things? Or was it more than one person?”

At Jaid’s question, the other woman said, “It was just the one. A quite nice young man. The crowd sort of shoved us together, and he dropped some of his things, too. I remember specifically because he had a pamphlet for a charity run being done for the NCMEC and I commented on it, said I used to work for them. We spoke briefly about their mission before he saw his friend and went to join him in the bar.”

“Did he give his name? Can you recall what he looked like?”

“No name,” she told Shepherd. “He was a nice young man. Mid-to-late twenties, perhaps. Light brown hair. Not short but not as tall as Lawrence, for example.” She frowned. “He was pleasant looking. I know that’s not very helpful, but nothing about him stood out specifically. I think I’d recognize him if I saw him again, though. We did chat for several minutes.”

“We need to keep your phone for a while,” Jaid told her. And watched as the woman reluctantly handed it to Adam. “The cyber unit is going to want to look at it.”

“You’re saying my phone is needed for the investigation.” The woman’s voice was calm. Almost too steady. “That it was used to contact him, and . . . I don’t understand. Please help me understand. Did this message with the link have something to do with his death?”

“We can’t be sure of that. But what you’ve told us is helpful. We’ll follow up.”

But Adam’s noncommittal answer didn’t fool her. “I want to know,” she insisted. Her pale blue eyes were shadowed now. With fear rather than grief. “I couldn’t bear it if something so silly led to . . . I dropped my purse. That’s all. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Byron’s death.”

“You’re likely right.” Shepherd’s smile was reassuring. “You’re going to want to get a loaner phone for a while. I’ll see to it that your cell is returned as quickly as possible.”

Adam rose and helped her from her chair, although the woman didn’t look as though she were ready to leave. “I need to know . . .”

“We’ll keep you posted.” He led her to the door, opened it for her, the gesture managing to look more gallant than dismissive. “Thank you again for your help.” The woman’s mouth opened, but whatever she would have said was lost when he closed the door behind her with a gentle
snick
.

The room was silent save for the rhythmic tick of the antique clock on the mantel. Only when Sorenson’s footsteps could be heard moving away from the room did Jaid speak. “We need to look at her. Hard. It might have happened just as she described it. Or she might be vulnerable in some way, and the killer exploited that. It’d seem like a harmless enough request. Just send a message with a link in it to the judge.”

“I don’t know,” Shepherd mused. He braced his arms behind his head. Stretched. “She seems pretty by-the-book. And protective of the justice’s privacy. She wouldn’t have given up his number willingly. But if someone threatened her with something, who knows? Everyone has a vulnerability.”

“We’ll check her out,” Adam affirmed. He was reading something on his phone. As usual, he offered no explanation. Jaid wondered if it had to do with what had happened last night at his town house. Her stomach knotted anew at the memory. “But I think we’ll discover she’s telling the truth. She’d make an easy target, despite her strong protective instincts for her boss. She’d follow security precautions to a
T
, but she doesn’t recognize the technological possibilities.”

Jaid cast him a jaundiced look. How much of his feeling was due to those razor-sharp instincts of his and how much due to the woman’s air of anguish? Because Jaid was afraid the question stemmed from the personal rather than professional, she refrained from asking. “That’s the last from the judge’s list, right?”

“The only other incoming texts came from his family,” Adam affirmed. “I’ve been in contact with Byron’s widow. She’ll make the family computer and phones available to us at our convenience.”

“Let’s head over there, then, shall we?”

Jaid placed things back in her briefcase and threw a last glance at the antique mantel clock. Since Shepherd seemed to have no problem doing all the driving, the ride over would give her an opportunity to check in on Royce. And then she could start digging into Mara Sorenson’s background a bit more.

Something told her that they were going to find nothing in their examination of the Reinbecks’ phones and computers. The smoking gun was the text complete with link on Sorenson’s phone.

Everyone had a weakness. She got up from the table and followed the two men out the door. Shepherd had called it correctly. Sorenson had children, she’d said. That might be a place to start.

Jaid knew from personal experience the lengths a parent would go to protect her child.

“How are all of you doing, Jo?”

Jaid and Shepherd were in the study with the family’s computers and cell phones. Adam had elected to take the opportunity for a brief word with Mary Jo Reinbeck. It was the first time he’d seen her since the night of Byron’s assassination.

With his arm around her waist, she leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment. “Truthfully? Most of the time I feel like I’m sleepwalking. Like I’ll wake up, and it will all have been a nightmare.” She gave him a wan smile. “But then I recall I haven’t been sleeping. At all. So.” Drawing in a breath, she released it slowly. Straightened. “We’re getting through. My parents are here. Byron’s. It helps a little. The boys need all the support they can get. It’s been hard for them. The waiting.”

“I can check and see how much longer before they release the body,” he offered quietly.

“I’ve done that.” She stared into the open doorway of the office. “They don’t have an answer for me. I don’t want the boys to go back to school until after all the arrangements are over. There’s no point in yanking them in and out. But there’s not much for them to do here, either. Some of their friends have been visiting them each night. I think that helps.”

“And what about you?”

There was a shadow of her old spirit in her blue gaze when she turned it on him again. “What’s going to help is you telling me you’re unraveling this thing. I heard something disturbing yesterday, and no, I’m not going to tell you from whom.” She stemmed the question before it could leave his lips. “Is there any truth to the rumor that Byron’s death might be linked to another one?”

Rumor his ass. “Dammit, Jo . . .”

Her gaze was steady. “I’ve got contacts, too. At all different levels. But I will tell you that someone I trust in the DCPD—someone with brass—told me there may be a connection. I don’t need you to confirm or deny it. He wouldn’t have told me if there was nothing to it. I just want to know if you’ve being given the authority to look into a possible link. Because I want you at the highest juncture of this case, and if you haven’t been given this information, I can . . .”