False Witness (22 page)

S
ISTER AGATHA ARRIVED AT THE SIESTA INN A SHORT
while later and parked in the back lot where the staff left their cars.

Using the side door, she went inside the building, the dog at her side. All she needed was some trash—John Gutierrez’s to be specific.

If she could get something John had handled and then take it in for fingerprints, she’d know once and for all who she was dealing with. The discrepancy between his appearance and the age stated on his records still bothered her.

Sister Agatha walked down the hall leading to John’s room, trying to think of a way to get what she needed. It promised to be tricky, because she’d have to do it without his knowledge. As she drew closer, she heard the sound of angry voices, and, a second later, Ralph stepped out of John’s room.

Seeing her, he smiled stiffly. “Hello, Sister. What brings you here?”

“I came to update John and assure him that I’m still working.” She heard the sound of hurried footsteps, a pace that was too fast to belong to an invalid, and tried to look inside the room, but Ralph blocked her, closing the door behind him.

“John’s had a hard morning, Sister Agatha. I’ll tell him you’re here and see if he feels well enough to meet with you.”

Still curious, she tried to look past him as Ralph opened the door and stepped inside. Nothing out of the ordinary caught her eye before the door closed once again. Seconds later Ralph returned.

“He’s ready for you, Sister Agatha. You can bring the dog, too.”

She went inside and saw John in bed, a breathing therapy machine close by but not in use at the moment.

“I suspect from the expression on your face that you’ve had no luck finding my niece again, am I right?” Seeing her nod, John continued before she could speak. “Then we’ve reached the end of the road, and I’m wasting my time here. I’m leaving for home tomorrow morning. This trip has been too hard on me.” He began to cough, a deep rumbling sound reminiscent of bronchitis, though in his case it could have indicated something more serious.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked quickly.

“Water,” he said, on his side, leaning forward and gasping for air as he pointed to the nightstand.

“Here you go,” she said, picking up the plastic bottle, a common local brand, and holding it out to him.

He took several long sips, emptying the container, then lay back against the pillow.

Sister Agatha kept the water bottle in her hand. It was too bulky to stick it into her habit’s pocket, but she wasn’t walking out without it.

“Sister, let me take that from you,” Ralph said, suddenly appearing beside her, though she hadn’t heard him approach.

She had no choice but to hand it over. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him drop the bottle into the waste bucket by the dresser.

As John began coughing again, Ralph led her out of the room. “John needs to rest now.”

Ralph said good-bye, but, even after he’d closed the door, Sister Agatha remained in the hall. While she’d been speaking to Ralph, she’d definitely heard someone in the room moving about quickly. Yet no one except Ralph and John had been inside. Something wasn’t right.

As she stood there, wondering how to get the contents of the waste basket still in the room, she heard a familiar voice behind her. “Pax is so terrific. Someday, for sure, I’m getting a dog just like him.”

Sister Agatha turned around and saw Liz Leland coming up the hall pushing a housekeeping cart filled with linens and cleaning supplies.

“What on earth are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school?” Sister Agatha asked.

“We had a half day today, a teacher in-service for the public schools, so I decided to put in a few extra hours at work,” she said. “I’m trying to save up some money. College tuition is expensive.”

“Will you be going to UNM?”

“That’s my plan. I want to study computer programming. I’m hoping to get a scholarship, too. That’s why I’ve been
working so hard to get my grades back up.” She met Sister Agatha’s steady gaze. “Did you ever find the person who framed me and my friends?”

“No, but I will.”

“Cool.” When Sister Agatha didn’t move, she added, “Is something wrong?”

“I need your help, Liz,” she answered. “Can you empty the trash basket in the Chamisa room and bring me the empty water bottle that’s there? Just don’t touch it, or let the people inside suspect anything.”

“Fingerprints, huh? Done deal, Sister. Where do we meet afterward?”

“How about by the ice machine?” she suggested.

As Liz went to John’s door, Sister Agatha took Pax back outside. After standing by the ice machine for twenty minutes, she began to get worried. What if Liz had tipped them off? Sister Agatha brought out her rosary and began praying. Before she’d finished the fifth Hail Mary, she saw Liz pushing the utility cart out the door, humming, a bright smile on her face.

“I’ve got it!” she said and pointed to a trash bag on the bottom shelf of the cart. “I kept it separate from the rest of the trash.”

“Thanks a million, Liz.”

“Tell me as soon as you can what this was all about, okay, Sister? I’m dying of curiosity!”

“I will. Promise.”

Sister Agatha hurried out to the Harley, white trash bag in hand. After placing it in the nose of the sidecar where it would be out of Pax’s way, the two of them drove back to the sheriff’s station. Sister Agatha parked near the main entrance and hurried inside.

Tom, who was talking to the desk sergeant, came over immediately.
“I didn’t expect to see you back here today. What’s up?”

She motioned him to one side, then, whispering, told him what she’d done. “The bottle won’t prove anything in a court of law, but I want to know whose prints are on it, besides my own. I just have to know who I’ve been dealing with.”

“I’ll have it processed,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ve asked one of my people to check out Gutierrez, using the birth date you got. We have access to several databases and might be able to find a good photo.”

It took over forty minutes for the print comparisons to be finished. When Tom returned to join her, he had a somber look on his face. “One set of prints belongs to Jimmy Garza. And there’s more. Millie did a search on John Gutierrez, Angela Sanchez’s uncle. It turns out he owns a lodge up in southern Colorado, and spends most of the year backpacking in hunters and fishermen. Millie got him on the phone, and he says he hasn’t heard from Angie or any of his relatives in years. The man you’ve been dealing with isn’t Angie’s uncle, though it’s clear he’s really done his homework, maybe even including plastic surgery, to pass as Gutierrez. The way I see it, either he or Ralph Simpson is actually Jimmy Garza, or maybe Garza’s been to see them very recently. I’m hauling both those guys in here right now.”

“But what if they’re mixed up in Terri’s disappearance? By bringing both those men in, you could be condemning her to death.”

Tom pursed his lips, then nodded. “I’ll stake out the Siesta Inn for the next twenty-four hours and make sure we tail them if either goes anywhere. But, after that, I’m moving in on them.”

“Let me help. I could keep an eye on Gutierrez while you focus on his assistant.”

“No way. Too dangerous.” He picked up the phone and made arrangements to have an officer watching the motel effective immediately. “Go home. I’ll be in touch.”

Sister Agatha left the station in a dark mood. She tried to come up with a plan that would allow her to get actively involved but, before she could work out the details, her cell phone rang. It was Sister Bernarda.

Sister Agatha pulled the motorcycle over to the side of the road and removed her helmet so she could take the call. “I’m here,” she said at last.

“We have a problem,” Sister Bernarda said. “Merilee, from NexCen, has been in the scriptorium for nearly an hour. She consulted with some of the other techs and she has a theory about our hacker. She asked to talk to you.”

Sister Agatha hurried back to the monastery and arrived just as the bells were ringing for None. As she entered the parlor, she heard the soft chanting coming from the chapel. Sister Bernarda acknowledged her with a nod, then began whispering Pater Nosters, the Our Fathers.

Sister Agatha joined her in prayer. In the silence of her mind and heart, she reached up to the Lord, asking for a resolution to their problems. Despite all her good intentions, she’d muddled things badly and now it was possible Terri was in mortal danger.

After None, Sister Agatha walked directly to the scriptorium and met with Merilee. “I’m here,” Sister Agatha said. “Are you closer to finding our hacker?”

“You’re actually our best hope of finding him or her, Sister Agatha. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and you know almost everyone in town. Who loves computer games and has the know-how to pull a stunt like this?”

“I don’t generally talk to people in town about computers, Merilee. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help you.”

“Will you look through the e-mails NexCen received complaining about the graphics card needed for the Wilder game? I’ve got the folder with me. See if there’s a name in here that catches your eye.”

Sister Agatha did as Merilee asked. “Nothing, I’m sorry,” she said after about fifteen minutes. At the bottom of the stack of printouts, she found copies of the e-mails the monastery had received. She studied them as well. “Wilder’s letters have gotten progressively nastier. But it makes no sense. Does he want to shut down NexCen, or us, or both of us?”

Merilee shrugged. “With cranks, who knows?”

Sister Agatha focused back on the e-mails. “Did you notice that there’s a pattern here? The last three e-mails were sent at around 12:30
P.M.,
give or take five minutes, and they’re from a different ISP, though they’re all signed by Wilder.”

“I didn’t realize that. Let’s see if we can use that to track it back to the sender. I know that the earlier e-mails were rerouted from special Internet sites designed by hackers and spammers to hide the originating computer. But maybe now that he’s using a different server we’ll get lucky.”

After about fifteen minutes on the phone with NexCen’s techs, Merilee finally hung up. “I’ve requested some special software for the monastery’s computer. According to one of our techs, the ISP on the last three e-mails is for the library network at the public high school. Do you know any kids who attend that school?”

“Had it been St. Charles, I would have been able to help you a lot more, but public school is a different world. We could go talk to their media specialist. We’ve got the time the kid
logged on, so if their system is like the one at St. Charles where kids have to sign in, the media specialist will know who was using the computers at the time.”

Sister Agatha rode into town with Merilee. Her sedan, a luxury model, seemed to have every imaginable amenity. With the windows up, road noises simply vanished. “It’s like a magic carpet ride,” she muttered in awe.

“It is, isn’t it? This car set me back some, but since I drive quite a bit and get mileage from NexCen, I decided to go for it. What kind of car does the monastery have? All I’ve seen parked outside is an old station wagon. Does that belong to the gardener?”

Sister Agatha laughed. “Gardener?
We’re
the gardeners. That old bucket of bolts is our mass-transportation system. And let me tell you a secret, we don’t call it the Antichrysler for nothing.”

Shortly afterward, they pulled up to the area high school, a large complex of cinder block and metal beside an enormous gymnasium. As they parked, Sister Agatha noted the large stylized bird of prey painted on the four-story wall of the field house. “Their athletic teams are the Falcons,” she said for Merilee’s benefit.

She’d run into Liz earlier, so she knew today had been a half day. But in-service days, if the meetings were held on campus, usually meant that teachers would still be required to put in regular hours. They walked into the main building and eventually found their way to the library. A tall, thin woman in her fifties and a petite brunette in her late twenties were standing beside a big, U-shaped counter. The older woman glanced at them as they came though the door.

“I’m Mrs. Dale, the media specialist. May I help you?” she asked.

Sister Agatha introduced herself and Merilee, then proceeded to explain the problem. “These last e-mails were sent at 12:30
P.M.
and I was wondering if you used a sign-in system,” Sister Agatha said, handing her the printout. Mrs. Dale looked at the letters, then handed them to the other woman with her. “Check the logbook and see who was here at the time.”

“This really disturbs me,” Mrs. Dale said. “I can’t believe one of our kids is using our computers to hack into a company’s system and send harassing e-mails.”

The younger woman introduced herself as she came back up. “I’m Holly Finney. I’m normally on duty here when Mrs. Dale has her lunch. The student you want is Ernie Rowe—the kids call him Macho. He’s the one logged in, but I don’t think he’d know how to hack into anyone’s system. He’s just not that good with computers.”

“Maybe he’s working with someone else,” Mrs. Dale said. “Give me a chance to talk to Ernie’s friends, and I’ll get back to you.”

Sister Agatha and Merilee thanked both women, then left and headed for the main entrance. Halfway there, Sister Agatha suddenly stopped in midstride. “Wait a minute. I’ve got an idea. Let’s drop by the office before we leave.”

As they reached the busy administration office, Sister Agatha recognized one of the staff and smiled. Maria Paiz came to Mass at the monastery on a regular basis.

“Hello, Sister Agatha,” the middle-aged, portly woman greeted. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“I need to talk to Leeann Karon. Is there any chance she’s around school, maybe at basketball practice or a club meeting?”

“Probably not—though she does have an absolute gift for landing school detention. Let me check,” she said, then typed in some information on a computer screen. “You got lucky,”
she said after a moment. “She’s here, or at least
supposed
to be. Do you want me to call the detention room and have the teacher on duty send her to the office?”