Shades of Simon Gray (14 page)

A few minutes later, Devin stood outside the computer lab. The door was closed, which surprised her, but it wasn’t locked. She opened it a crack and peeked inside. At the far corner of the room a bunch of seniors from the football team hovered over one of the computers. One of them let out a whistle. The others laughed.

Her heart was beating so fast she couldn’t think straight. She had to be out of her mind to let Kyle talk her into this.

She was barely halfway into the room when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around. She was face to face with Mr. McCabe. He frowned at her.

Scuffling sounds, the sounds of chairs being pulled out, and general clatter echoed behind her. Devin glanced over her shoulder. All the boys had suddenly taken seats in front of the other computers and seemed to be working. Vaguely she thought, Jocks? Computers? After school? It doesn’t wash.

“You want something, Devin?”

Devin turned back to Mr. McCabe. She was momentarily
distracted by the wild yellow and orange Hawaiian print shirt, buttons stretched to the limit across his bulging stomach. His red mustache was so thick and bushy, it hid his entire upper lip.

“Yes,” Devin said, finally answering his question. “I need to talk to you.” She looked over at the jocks. “Maybe this isn’t a good time.”

Mr. McCabe had assumed a more relaxed position. The frown had given way to a grin. A truly creepy grin, to Devin’s way of thinking. “They’re here for extra help,” he said, nodding toward the group at the other end of the room. He shrugged and gave her a knowing look, as if to say, What do you expect, they’re jocks, then steered her over to his desk and pulled up a chair for her.

“So, what’s on your mind?” His voice was friendly enough, but Devin could see he was preoccupied. Every so often he shifted his eyes to where half the football team appeared to be working at the computers.

“It’s about Simon,” she said. She dropped her backpack next to the chair and sat down.

That got his attention. “Simon Gray?”

Devin nodded. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?”

Mr. McCabe rested his elbows on his desk, linked his chubby fingers, and leaned forward. He took a deep breath, obviously stalling. “I’d say so. Being in a coma, that’s—”

“I’m not talking about that,” Devin said, trying not to sound impatient. “I mean, well, I heard something.”

From the back of the room, one of the jocks yelled, “Hey, Mr. McCabe, my screen’s frozen.”

Looking as if the cavalry had arrived, Mr. McCabe got to his feet. He shoved his chair back with one leg. Devin knew if he retreated to the other side of the room, he could be there for a long time. Surprising even herself, she yelled to the boy, a senior named Alan Caldwell, to hit the Alt, Control, and Delete keys in sequence.

Alan stared at her for a minute, then shifted his gaze to Mr. McCabe. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Right. Forgot about that.” He shrugged and stabbed his fingers at the keyboard.

“I just want to know if it’s true,” Devin said, before Mr. McCabe could escape. “Is he in trouble?”

“I’m not sure what kind of trouble you’re talking about. What is this ‘something’ you heard?”

Devin swallowed hard. If she told him she knew about the breach of computer security, about the conversation he’d had with Dr. Schroder, Mr. McCabe would know she was somehow involved. “I heard the police came to his house and took his PC,” she said.

“Who told you that?”

She had to think fast. Recalling what Charlie Atwater had told Danny, she said, “Simon’s sister. She was at home when the cops showed up.”

Mr. McCabe looked over at the jocks. He sighed. “Devin, I’m really not at liberty to discuss this case.”

So it
is
a case, Devin thought. And McCabe was aware of it, which meant the investigation had gone beyond confiscating Simon’s PC. The police were probably checking out the school computers as well.

“Maybe I can help?”

“Help how?” He was beginning to look annoyed.

“I don’t know. Simon and I are friends. I know him pretty well.”

“Do you know something about this?” He had sat down again, much to Devin’s relief, and even looked interested.

“I know his sister,” she said, dodging his question. This wasn’t entirely true. She had met Courtney only a few times and had never really said more than hi to the girl. “Maybe I could talk to her, find out how much she knows. That’s if I knew what to ask.”

Mr. McCabe’s frown returned. He had thick, bushy eyebrows the color of his mustache, which made the frown seem more menacing. “I’m sure the police have already questioned his sister to their satisfaction.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Look, Devin, if you know something, I suggest you tell me. Otherwise, please don’t waste my time. I have students who need my help.”

Devin assumed he was referring to the jocks, most of whom, from what she could tell, didn’t even seem to be working. They were talking and clowning around.

Mr. McCabe leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his large belly. He eyed her suspiciously. “Just how much did Simon’s sister tell you?”

Stupid stupid stupid. She was digging herself in deeper and deeper. Devin clutched the sides of the chair. All she’d been trying to do was find out how far the investigation had gone and if the police had found anything in the school computers. Or if they had other suspects. It seemed obvious that the investigation was still under way,
and that was about all she’d discovered. It wasn’t much to take back to Kyle, but she didn’t know how to get any more information. She just wanted to leave.

Mr. McCabe was watching her. Waiting for her answer. “Not much, only about the police taking his computer. I thought you might know why.” She bent over to pick up her backpack, then got up to leave. “It’s like I told you, Simon’s a friend. I was worried he might be in some sort of trouble.”

“I’d worry more about whether he’s going to come out of that coma,” Mr. McCabe called after her as she headed for the door.

Her lame encounter with Mr. McCabe was a disappointment. Kyle wouldn’t be too happy about how it had gone either. But what did he expect? She’d warned him she wasn’t good at this Mata Hari stuff.

With the police involved, it could mean possible criminal charges for whoever was arrested. Right now it appeared Simon was their man. As far as she could tell, they weren’t investigating anyone else. Not at the moment, anyway. So why did she feel so rotten?

Debra Santino opened the window behind her desk and stared down at the small mounds of melting snow by the curb in front of the county courthouse. They were almost black from the gravel and dirt heaped on them, magnets for gum wrappers, paper cups, garbage tossed from car windows and by pedestrians. The snow, dirt, and trash formed bleak sculptures—collaborative artistic efforts.

A cool spring breeze washed over the room, bringing welcome relief. She needed a clear head. It was late Friday afternoon and technically she had the weekend off. But she knew she would be in here again first thing Saturday and maybe Sunday. As long as it took.

On the desk in front of her was Simon Gray’s PC. On the monitor was a poem. So far she had found dozens of poems and short stories on the boy’s computer. Although these were not what she was looking for, she found herself reading them anyway, telling herself she might find a clue. Maybe one of the stories would be about a teenage hacker. But she knew that was unlikely. Simon didn’t seem the type to leave such obvious evidence behind.

Over the past few days she had learned quite a bit about Simon Gray from Barbara Schroder, the principal of Bellehaven High. What she didn’t understand was why Dr. Schroder wanted the police on this case. True, if it involved hacking, that would be a criminal offense. But Debra had handled enough of these cases in the public school system to know that one or more students had probably managed to get the teacher’s password. Using someone else’s password, while unethical, wasn’t a crime.

She couldn’t understand why Dr. Schroder didn’t let George McCabe handle the situation. Not only was he the computer science teacher, he maintained the school’s network. If anyone was in a position to search the log on the server for any suspicious activity, it would be McCabe. That way the school could keep this whole business under wraps. Debra had said as much to Barbara during their phone conversation a week earlier.

No one on the Bellehaven police force was trained to handle computer crimes. And the county did not have a computer crimes division. Ordinarily, if the police had to be involved, Lieutenant Santino, who worked in the county prosecutor’s office, directed the problem to the High Technology Crimes and Investigation Support Unit in Trenton. But the situation at Bellehaven High didn’t merit that kind of attention.

Barbara Schroder had called her not only because she had known Debra for years but because, as she told Debra, she was the most computer-savvy person in the county, with maybe the exception of Roger Garvey, a computer consultant who maintained the system in the prosecutor’s office.

Debra hadn’t missed George McCabe’s obvious annoyance when she and Roger showed up at the school to download the server’s log. And she couldn’t blame him. There was no reason he couldn’t handle the matter on his own.

But she had to admit, it was McCabe who had tipped her off about Simon Gray. He had told her that if anyone had the skill and knowledge to hack into the system or secure someone else’s password, it was Simon. Although he’d quickly added that he couldn’t imagine the boy doing such a thing. It wasn’t in his nature.

Obviously there was more to Simon Gray than his knowledge of computers. Debra glanced at the monitor. A poem she had come across a few minutes earlier was still on the screen.

The lieutenant leaned back in her chair, staring at the screen. What was she to make of this? Did the “us” refer to people Simon Gray knew? Suddenly she was thrust back into her sophomore year of college and a literary analysis class she’d hated. The teacher, whose name she couldn’t even recall, was always nagging her students to look beneath the surface of the stories they read, hinting they would find deeper meaning in the symbols, in the metaphors. It amused her to think her career as a police
officer required her to do just that—look beneath the surface for what was rarely apparent at first glance. She wished now she had paid more attention in class.

Could the answers she was looking for be hidden somewhere in these poems, these stories? Maybe, but she needed to know more about the boy and his friends and family before she could make any connections.

And there was something else that bothered her: the accident. She wondered if it was possible that it wasn’t an accident at all, wondered if Simon Gray had been desperate enough to attempt taking his own life. If that was the case, then what had made him that desperate? Had he committed a crime that could ruin his reputation, stain his permanent record? The question brought her back to where she had started—was Simon Gray a probable suspect or not?

Only an inch of thick lukewarm coffee remained in the glass pot of the coffeemaker. Lieutenant Santino sloshed it around, trying to decide whether to dump it and start another pot or just drink the sludge that was left. She would probably be there until late into the evening. So she opted to make a new pot of coffee. Then she went back to the computer sitting on her desk. Simon Gray’s computer.

Later, when she reached for her coffee mug, the few swallows left were cold. As she got up to refill the mug, she glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost seven o’clock. She hoped her husband, Steve, had found something in the freezer to microwave, something he could make for himself and the girls. Well, it was too late to
worry about that now, she thought, pouring another mug of coffee. She would call Steve in a few minutes.

But the few minutes turned into two more hours as she diligently opened documents within files that were tucked away within other files, hoping against hope that one of these documents would yield some sort of evidence.

The first thing Debra had checked, once she was able to access Simon’s e-mail account, was his recent mail. The screen was blank. Not one e-mail remained, not even in his trash file. Not a shred of evidence. She would try to retrieve the messages later. But right now she searched his files, hoping to find some other revealing document, notes or letters, illegal software, or perhaps a journal.

If she couldn’t find anything, she would turn Simon’s computer over to Roger Garvey, who was currently going through the information they had downloaded from the school server, a daunting task, given the amount of data.