their unsolveds. Pull the jpeg images from the PowerPoint and email them the photos. Do the same for SoCal.”
Mann pointed at his pad. “Other than his trip up north in ’98, looks like he came from Albuquerque, shot west along I-40 to L.A., then worked his way up the state.” He touched the pen to the paper with each location, as if it were a map. To Tomas, he said, “Can this image analysis technology also date the photo?”
“No,” Tomas said. “But it’s funny you should ask. I started thinking, if your bad guy took any of these photos with a GPS-enabled phone, the time, date, and place of the picture would be embedded in the photo. When I looked at the individual image files, some were taken with a regular digital camera, and they’re time-and date-stamped. I’ve got the camera model and exposure for each photo, but that’s not going to help you.
“I can’t be sure the dates and times are accurate because it depends on whether the owner input the correct data when he set up the camera. But as it turns out, the later pictures were shot with a GPS-enabled camera phone, and one was taken near downtown Los Angeles. We’ve also got a scanned photo, and when you scan film prints, the scanner leaves behind embedded data in the digital file that’s created. This picture was scanned March 9, 1998.”
Brix shot a glance around the room. “That would fit with the Marin County vic found near the Golden Gate.”
“What can you tell us about the document itself?” Agbayani asked.
“Lots of good stuff,” Tomas said. “First, let me ask you something. What do you think this killer’s deal is? You think he wants publicity?”
Lugo looked up from his notes. “Yeah, that’s exactly what we think. Why?”
“Well, I assume if he wants publicity, you want to minimize that, to reduce panic.”
“That’s one theory,” Brix said. “Why do you ask?”
Tomas shrugged. “This killer could post the PowerPoint document on some websites with unique tags and let search engines ‘find’ it, then use a kiddy script virus kit to create a virus that would then spread. It’d be disseminated from thousands of computers.”
Brix sighed deeply. “Well, that’s fucking great.” He rubbed his eyes and said, “Let’s hope our UNSUB is not that tech savvy. Can you tell anything from the document that would indicate his level of sophistication?”
Tomas bobbed his head. “I’d say he’s more knowledgeable than the average computer user, but he’s not a hacker or anything like that. So if his intent is to try to wreak the most havoc possible, and he knows something like that virus kit exists, he’d still have to research it. But you can find out how to build a bomb on the Internet from household items, so yeah, it’s possible he could create this virus even if he’s not an expert.”
“What about the document itself?” Mann asked.
“Okay. Here’s the deal. Office documents contain more information than what you see when you open the file. There’s a good deal of PII—Personally Identifiable Information—that’s kept in the document to help the user. It’s called metadata, like that embedded time and date info in the digital photos. Metadata’s stuff like word count, number of lines and characters, and so on. It’ll also tell you how many times the document was revised, how long the author spent editing it, who saved it, when it was printed, and what printer printed it.
“You can cleanse the document, but you have to know this metadata exists in the first place, and then you have to know what to do to get rid of it. Your killer used Office 2007, which has a built-in feature called Document Inspector that scrubs away just about all PII. But it’s something you have to actively apply, and lucky for us, your guy didn’t use it. That’s why I think his level of sophistication is good, but not high. Anyway, I used some custom cracking tools—including my favorite, the Palmer Plunger—and a couple other security tools from our Honey Monkey project.” He looked at the camera and winked. “Silly sounding stuff, I know. But if it works, the embedded PII becomes the bread-crumb trail your killer left behind for us.”
He flicked a document aside and spread his fingers to enlarge a printout that looked like rudimentary computer text.
“So here’s the info we’ve got.” He moved his finger toward the top of the screen and the long document scrolled top to bottom. “You want the name of the guy who created this document?”
Brix sat forward in his chair. “You got the killer’s name?”
Tomas moved the page a bit and zoomed in on lines of text. “I’ve got the name of the computer user who registered the software on this particular PC. If it’s a real name or an alias, I have no way of knowing.”
“And?” Brix asked. “What’s the name?”
Tomas looked away from the camera, said something to someone off screen, then turned back to Lugo. “I’ve got it right here.” Tomas zoomed again and a name filled the screen. “John Mayfield.”
Brix’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. We’ve really got a name?” He reached for the phone.
“Hold it,” Tomas said. “Before you make any calls. There’s another name embedded, so I asked the licensing team to check the database used for binding the registered user to the software. Just to try to verify if that name is real or not.”
“And?” Agbayani asked.
“And the software
“What’s the other name?” Brix yelled.
“Right here.” Tomas flicked the screen and it scrolled down. Tapped it again and it stopped. Zoomed. “There. The document’s author.”
“George—what the hell are you doing in here?”
Panda smiled disarmingly and stepped forward, then grabbed Dixon beneath her armpits and threw her across the room, into the opposing wall. A flat tile wall, perfect for his needs.
Dixon slipped on the wet tile and went down hard. Panda turned and grabbed her. She shook her head, fighting through the momentary daze. He lifted her off the ground and pounded her against the wall. Clamped his left hand across her mouth. Grabbed her left bicep and squeezed. “Very good, Roxxann. Very nice.”
Dixon yelled and kicked, her right foot slipping on the moist floor—and landed a knee to his groin. But it didn’t matter because he was wearing a cup. It landed impotently against the hard plastic.
That didn’t stop her. She kicked again, in the thigh, and then again. The last one knocked him back a bit—she had powerful legs. He’d have bruises for sure, but again, it was nothing he couldn’t handle.
He brought his right forearm out in front of him and grinned, then bent his elbow and slammed his arm into her throat. Her body rebounded against the tile, but his forearm bounced back. Her neck muscles had prevented the crushing blow.
Panda leaned back and thrust forward again, and this time he had greater impact, because her eyes bulged and she coughed. Hard.
But a crashing blow to his right cheek knocked him back and temporarily blinded him.
She yelled—hoarse, loud—
But it disappeared into the deadening fog.
And then she landed another blow, from the left, across his jaw—blinding pain—and he staggered back. He saw her darting around his side.
He reached out and grabbed her arm—slipped off the wet skin—but he’d gotten just enough because she went sprawling forward. He swung hard, connected with something, and he felt her body jolt. He wasn’t sure what he hit, but all that mattered was that it was her. And he wanted to do it again.
Panda reached back and swung again, and hit hard flesh again. He thought he heard a cry, but in the jet- noise and dense fog, it was swallowed whole, absorbed into nothingness.
He leaned over for a better look—he’d finish her on the ground if need be—and saw a blur of skin in front of him—reached out and grabbed—felt a breast and pulled her body against his. She was facing away, which would not do. He needed to watch her face. As he squeezed the life out of her.
