The Hunt

Eight

I felt relieved when Mark told me the news. It wasn't much but at least we had something to start  with. 

"Here, look at this." Mark took something out of the Manila folder he had "Bennett was studying Arts and Vernon was in Law School, in 1995. They both were members of Sigma Chi fraternity, an all male one."

"Let's see what Google tells us about this fraternity." I typed the name but got no interesting information. It had been founded in the 19th century in Oxford Ohio, and it had branches all across the country. A huge number of preeminent names had belonged to that fraternity, and so far there were no  policial files on the Harvard members.

"We'll have to talk to the people in Massachusetts, maybe they have more information about Bennett and Vernon."

"Okay, you call them and I will try to convince Gmail and Yahoo to give us access to their email accounts." It wasn't that easy to convince both companies of opening the access, but a sort of veiled threat of a demand for justice obstruction was enough to make them change their minds. And using the name of a Congressman was another ace in my sleeve. I waited until Mark finished talking with Cambridge police station before going to Computer Forensics Unit.

"I got nothing from Cambridge," he said after hanging the phone up. "There are no active policemen from 1995, at least not in Cambridge. Most of them moved, to California or Florida, looking for a warmer place to live. But, and this is the interesting thing, the only retired policeman living there had an accident about a month or two ago."

That piqued my interest "What kind of accident?"

"Nothing apparently suspicious, he was fixing something up on the roof and fell from it. He broke his neck and died just in the act. The woman I talked to, Laurel Harris, told me he liked doing this kind of things. The days before it had rained, so it was quite easy that he had just slipped. She seemed to be surprised when I told him why I was calling, and she said she would send us the coroner's final report."

"Shit, there has to be something and that was our only way to know it. " I was frustrated with that news. The only clue we had led us again to a dead end.

"Lets talk to Computers, there could be something in the emails." As usual, Mark was the optimistic one.

It didn't take long before Kate, the Computers Unit's Chief, gained access to the victims' mail accounts. She had been arrested while in college for hacking the website of her University and modify her marks, and after that she had started collaborating with the Police Department every now and then, until she finally graduated and was hired full time.

"Hey," Kate lifted her sight from the screen as she heard us coming "What can I do for you? I'm working on an industrial spy case but it can wait."

"It's about the Bennett Vernon murders, their laptops are missing and we need to take  look at their emails."

"It won't take long, finding passwords is like ABC. " She smiled and started typing in her computer. "Done...and done. Why in earth is people so predictable? If they knew how easy is reading theirn emails." She took a small piece of paper and wrote down something in them."There are their passwords, first one is Bennett's. Good luck, guys." 

"We'll tell you if we find something. Bye, Kate."

"Oh, can you tell Dennis to come? There's something here he would like to see."

"Fine, we will." Mark smiled "Vernon or Bennett?" He asked when we were in the elevator.

"Bennett." 

We logged in their accounts and scrolled down the emails they had. Most of them were about job, meetings with customers or negotiations with different Museums about this or that picture "Nothing, these guys were pristine clean." 

"Or someone's deleting evidences. " 

"You mean...?"

"Yep. The murderer must have threatened Bennett and Vernon and needed to delete those emails. Otherwise, stealing the laptops makes no sense." 

"And the only one who knew what happened had an opportune accident.."