D.D. was already lost. “Why is that suspicious?”
“Because Sandra herself had visited lots of different websites preparing assignments for her class. All of those sites should have shown up in the browser history, but none of them did. That meant someone was clearing the cache file, then purposefully building a false history by clicking on the same three websites when he was done. That was sheer laziness,” Wayne murmured now, probably more to himself than her. “Like all criminals, even the techies sooner or later do something stupid to give themselves away.”
“Wait a minute, back up: Why would someone create a false browser history?”
They’d reached the waterfront, walking along the docks toward the aquarium. It was still drizzling out, making the docks much less crowded than usual. Wayne made his way toward the railing, then turned to face her. “Exactly. Why
D.D. blinked at him. “Could you help her?”
“I was trying to. This was December, mind you, so only a few months ago, and given that she suspected her husband, we had to proceed carefully. She and Ethan had already run Pasco on her computer, but Pasco can only find what you tell it to find. It’s not nearly as powerful as, say, EnCase, the software we employ in the lab. EnCase can mine deep into a hard drive, inventorying the slack space, analyzing unallocated clusters, all sorts of good stuff. Better yet, given Sandra’s concerns, EnCase has an image carver tool that will dig out any images on the hard drive, spitting out literally hundreds of thousands of photos. Finally, EnCase also has the ability to pull out Internet browser histories-”
“So you ran EnCase on Sandra’s computer?”
“Don’t I wish.” He rolled his hazel eyes. “First off, you never work on the source. Bad forensic protocol. Secondly, Sandra needed to be discreet, and running EnCase on the family desktop for three to four days was bound to be noticed. Searching and seizing a computer is easy. Ripping one apart on the sly, however…”
“So what did you do?”
“I was working with Sandra to make a forensically sound copy of the family hard drive. I gave her instructions on what kind of blank hard drive to purchase, then how to attach it to the family computer and transfer over the data. Unfortunately, Jason had recently purchased a new five-hundred-gigabyte hard drive, and the copying time alone was over six hours. She’d made several attempts at it, but couldn’t get the job done before he returned from work.”
“Sandra Jones has spent the past three months basically plotting against her husband?” D.D. asked.
Wayne shrugged. “Sandra Jones has spent the past three months trying to outmaneuver her husband. As she has yet to get the hard drive copied, I have yet to run EnCase on it. So I can’t tell you if she has genuine reason to be afraid of him.”
D.D. smiled. “Wouldn’t you know it, as of last night, BPD became proud owners of the Jones family computer.”
Wayne’s eyes widened. “I would love to-”
“Please, your nephew is connected to the case. You touch any piece of evidence and it’ll be tossed out of court faster than you can say ‘conflict of interest.’”
“Can I get a copy of the reports?”
“I’ll have someone from BRIC get back to you.”
“Assign Keith Morgan. You want to rip apart a hard drive, he’s your boy.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” D.D. considered Wayne Reynolds for a minute. “Did Sandra believe her husband had figured out what was going on? She’d been at this for months. Long time to be living with someone she thought might be a closet pedophile. She had to be getting more and more nervous…”
Wayne hesitated, the first glimmer of discomfort crossing his features. “Last time I saw Sandra was two weeks ago, at the basketball game. She seemed withdrawn, didn’t want to talk. She said she wasn’t feeling well, then she and Ree left. I figured she really was sick. She had that look about her.”
“You know Sandra was pregnant?”
“What?” Wayne seemed to pale slightly, genuinely startled. “I didn’t… Well, no wonder she was nervous. Nothing like having a second child with a man you’re already worried might be a pervert.”
“She ever talk about her husband’s past? Where he grew up, how they met?”
Wayne shook his head.
“Ever mention that ‘Jones’ might be an alias?”
“Are you kidding…? No, no, she never mentioned that.”
D.D. considered the matter. “Sounds like Jason Jones is pretty computer savvy.”
“Very.”
“Savvy enough to use the computer to either hide a previous identity or build a new one?”
“All of the above,” Wayne concurred. “You can open bank accounts, sign up for utilities, build credit histories, all online. A sophisticated computer user could both create and disguise multiple identities using the computer.”
D.D. nodded, turning it over in her mind. “What would he need besides the computer?”
“Ummm, a mailing address, or P.O. box. Sooner or later, you have to provide a mailing address. Say, something he rented from a UPS store. And a phone number connected to that name, though in this day and age, he could buy a disposable cell phone for that. So he would need some tangible items to support the identity, but nothing too hard to manage.”
Post office box. D.D. hadn’t thought of that. Either in Jones’s name or Sandy’s maiden name. She’d do some digging…
“Sandy ever mention the name Aidan Brewster’?”
Wayne shook his head.
“And can you swear to me, as an investigator and law enforcement officer, that to the best of your knowledge, Sandra Jones was never alone with your nephew?”
“All Ethan ever talked about was meeting with Sandra in the computer lab during free period. Yeah, they were alone for a lot of those sessions, but we’re talking in the middle of the day, in the middle of a public school.”
“She ever talk to you about running away from her husband?”
“She would never leave her daughter.”
“Not even for you, Wayne?”
He shot her that look again, but D.D. didn’t withdraw her question. Wayne Reynolds was a handsome man, and Sandra Jones one very lonely young woman…
“I think Jason Jones killed her,” Wayne said flatly. “He came home Wednesday night, discovered her trying to copy the hard drive, and blew his top. He was up to something, his wife figured it out, so he killed her. I’ve been thinking that since the second I saw the press conference yesterday, so if you’re asking if I’m personally involved in this case, yeah, I’m personally invested in this case. I was trying to help a young, frightened mother, and in doing that, I may have gotten her murdered. I’m angry about that. Hell, I’m pissed off beyond belief.”
“Okay.” D.D. nodded. “You understand I’m going to need you to come in, give an official statement?”
“Absolutely.”
“This afternoon, three o’clock? BPD headquarters?”
“I’ll be there.”
D.D. nodded, started to break away, then one last question came to her. “Hey, Wayne, how many times did you and Sandy meet?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Eight, ten times maybe. Always at the basketball games.”
D.D. nodded. She thought that was a lot of times to meet, given that Sandra had never had a copy of the computer’s hard drive to share.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
