small restaurant on the right and what appeared to be a light industrial area to the left. A laundromat equipped with its own bar, aptly titled SUDZ, occupied one end of the structure. Neon signs painted on the window boasted a Tuesday and Thursday singles night. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but then I had never been one for enjoying either activity-doing the laundry or singles night at a bar. Not even when I was single.
The opposite end housed the office and showroom of a small accounting firm with a decidedly ethnic name. A few other nondescript businesses occupied the center, with our destination sandwiched in between. South County Online Internet Services, L.L.C.
Constance nosed her sedan into a space in front of the establishment and directly next to an older, but apparently well maintained, Cutlass Supreme. The car showed almost no sign of the chalky, whitish-grey salt that coated her vehicle and in fact, was even steaming slightly in the sunlight as water from an extremely recent wash evaporated into the chilled air. It couldn’t have been pulled into its space very long before we arrived.
A haggard looking man with shoulder-length hair, dressed in denim jeans and an oversized sweatshirt bearing the logo of a modem manufacturer stood outside the door of the service provider. His winter coat hung limply open over his thin frame, and his wide eyes bore the signature glaze of the programmer’s trinity-caffeine, nicotine, and a late night spent staring at the sixty hertz scan of a computer monitor. Years ago, before I had gone into business for myself, I had seen a very similar face staring back at me from the bathroom mirror each and every morning.
He took a deep drag from the remains of the cigarette held between his thumb and forefinger as he watched us get out of the vehicle. With a lazy flick, he sent the butt sailing through the air in the direction of a large coffee can without even looking. I assumed the receptacle was partially filled with sand, but it was impossible to be sure as it was already overflowing onto the sidewalk with the extinguished remnants of countless other cigarettes. The butt impacted the concrete near the can and exploded a small shower of red embers outward to quickly die then rolled to a stop and laid smoldering amidst the others that had come before it.
The bedraggled man nodded in our direction as he blew out a thick cloud of smoke intermixed with steamy breath. “You two the cops that called?”
Constance reached into her coat as she stepped around the front of the car and withdrew the leather case containing her credentials. In a practiced motion she smoothly flipped open the wallet with one hand to display her badge and identification to him.
“I’m Special Agent Mandalay with the FBI,” she stated in an even, businesslike tone. “This is Mister Gant.”
“FBI, huh. I was just expectin’ cops,” the man grunted then chuckled lightly. “Shouldn’t you be a redhead and shouldn’t he be taller?”
Constance glanced over at me with a thin frown sealing her lips but refrained from commenting on the TV show reference she had probably heard more times that she could easily recollect. Fluidly closing the leather case, she thrust her identification back into her pocket and looked back to the man.
“You are the systems administrator for this Internet Service?” The tone of her voice turned the statement into a question, and she motioned to the sign on the window that proclaimed South County Online to be the “Leading Edge In Internet Information Services.”
“That’s me.” He extended his hand as he acknowledged in a somewhat unsettled tone, having most certainly noticed Agent Mandalay’s cold reaction to his quip. “Rocky Wendell.”
We exchanged quick handshakes and then followed him through the door into the dark interior of the building.
“I can put some coffee on if either of you want any,” he told us as we tagged along through the reception area, past a service desk, and into a corridor lit dimly by a glowing exit sign.
“Thank you, no,” Constance gunned down his offer with sharp, vocational politeness. “We’re running a little short on time, so if you could just answer a few questions about one of your clients, we’ll let you get on with what’s left of the weekend.”
Wendell hesitated for a moment after slapping a pair of switches and stood studying her face as fluorescent illumination poured into the hallway and rear half of the building. It was becoming obvious that the petite federal agent’s demeanor had him off balance. It was almost as if he wasn’t quite sure how to handle dealing with a woman in a position of authority.
Finally, he simply shrugged then turned and continued down the corridor. “Suit yourself.”
“Kendra Miller, yeah, here it is,” Wendell told us from behind a glassy eyed stare at a screen positioned on his desk, “Witchvixen at yadda yadda yadda.” He ripped off a string of keystrokes, and we could see the light of the screen flicker across his face as it changed. “According to her activity log, I think she might have taken that nickname a little too seriously… Says here she was subscribed to some of those wacko newsgroups… alt dot WitchCraft, alt dot Witches, alt dot Wicca…”
“Do you have any record of her complaining of threatening or harassing e-mail?” Agent Mandalay interrupted him before he could continue reading off the list.
“Just a second.” He tapped out another series of clicks and clacks on the keyboard, then once again the screen flickered, and he slowly began nodding. “Yeah… yeah, looks like about a month ago. She got a crank e-mail and called. Looks like we just set up a trap filter on her account for that addy.”
“Did you have to trap an entire domain?” I inquired.
“Nope, whoever it was didn’t bother to spoof it. Address and IP were clean. It was an easy trap, not that it mattered. She only got the one e-mail.”
“Nothing else?” I pressed.
“Nope. Just the one.” He shook his head. “We e-mailed a notification of the problem to the originating server and didn’t even get an acknowledgement back. We assumed they just took care of it.”
“Can you give us a copy of that information?” Mandalay asked.
“Sure.” He rolled back a foot or so and punched the power switch on a laser printer that was positioned behind him. “You want a copy of the original crank e-mail too?”
“Please.” She nodded.
We watched on in silence as he rapidly issued a series of commands through the keyboard then sat back and raised his eyebrows at us. “Be just a second. It’ll spool just as soon as the printer warms up. You know, if you want my opinion, she was pretty much looking to get harassed if she was hanging out on newsgroups like that.” He let out a sudden cackling laugh. “I mean get serious. Witches? What a bunch of nutballs.”
Constance and I remained silent and waited patiently as the device came ready then began spitting out sheets of paper. After a moment, Wendell gathered the short stack of warm twenty-pound bond and handed it across the desk to Constance.
“Originating SMTP server is part of a privately owned domain,” he offered as she leafed through the pages, handing each one to me in succession as she finished scanning it. “Info is right there in the header.”
“Rowan,” Constance said as she handed over a sparsely printed page, “have a look at this.”
The text contained the standard date, time, tracking number and header information one would find on any e-mail. The TO line read “witchvixen@sthcnty-online. net.” The FROM read “wtchhnter@repent. com.” The body of the message was what really struck home. In bold black against the stark white paper the words “Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live” stared back at me. Below that familiar sentence was another, far less eloquent phrase, “You will burn you fucking bitch!”
I glanced over at Constance and raised an eyebrow then turned my attention back to the man behind the desk.
“Did you by any chance run a check on this domain to see who owns it?” I asked.
“Just a sec…” he replied and once again assaulted his keyboard.
Almost instantly the laser printer wound up from a low squeal to a high pitched whine like a miniature jet preparing for takeoff. With a sharp click followed by a dull thunk, it peeled off a fresh sheet of paper from the tray and a moment later spit it out the top. Wendell snatched it up and perused the printing on its face briefly before tossing it on the desk in front of me.
“That’s a ‘whois’ on it,” he explained. “Shows who the domain is registered to, gives a contact name, phone
