Killer Email

 Tom hunts a murderer who kills via email. Does he dare click “Open”?

Killer Email, Part One

The Rogers Park townhouse’s shades and drapes were all drawn, shutting out the morning sunlight. When Cristin Ward opened the door for me, she looked as if she was avoiding the world as well. Deep dark circles under her eyes, hair tied back under a scarf, sweats that looked as if she’d been sleeping in them for a few days. “Mr. Jurgen? Come in.”

            The house inside was spotless, as if she’d been compulsively vacuuming and wiping away every speck of clutter for weeks. Pictures of her husband and her children were displayed on the walls.

She was 32, and despite her state of dishevelment she seemed rigidly in control of her emotions. I’d picked that up when she’d called to hire me three days ago. Sometimes steely façade is more comfortable than the chaos of life. 

            “Sit down.” She pointed to a sofa in front of a fireplace, with a flatscreen TV mounted over the panel. I sat, and she took a seat in the opposite corner. “Thank you for coming.”

            “As I told you over the phone, I’ve gotten a decent amount of information on Chad Tyner, based on what you’ve given me. He doesn’t have a huge internet presence, but I’ve confirmed he went to the Northwestern in the same class as your husband, got a graduate degree at the University of Illinois here in Chicago, and worked at a series of tech companies around the state. The most recent was CronWell, a software company downtown, although he left six months ago and no one knows where he works now. He owned a condo in the city, but sold that six months ago too, and I’m having trouble finding a new address for him. He has a LinkedIn account but it seems inactive—”

            “He was sitting right there.” Cristin stared at my end of the sofa. 

            Huh? “Tyner was here?”

            “No. My husband. Jeremy. He was sitting right where you are now when—” She stopped herself, and for a moment her veneer of control cracked a bit. “I’m sorry. I asked you come here so you could—so I could explain.” She took a deep breath. “Last Wednesday, a week ago, we were sitting here. It was nine or so. I was watching the news. Jeremy was using his laptop, checking his email. And he said—he said—‘Chad Tyner? I haven’t heard from him since college.’ I asked him, ‘Who’s Chad Tyner?’ I was still watching TV. But he didn’t answer.”

            She closed her eyes. “Then there was a flash of light, like a lightning bolt, like a supernova, brighter than anything that ever comes out of a computer, and I looked over, and he was—Jeremy was . . . dead. Just—dead.”

            “I’m so sorry.” I knew that her husband had died recently. She’d told me when she called and hired me, without telling me how he’d died or why she wanted me to look into Chad Tyner. 

            She looked straight ahead, into nowhere—or maybe into the past. “It wasn’t the laptop. I’m in IT. I fix laptops, I fix mainframes, I’ve worked on the biggest supercomputers in the state. It wasn’t the laptop, the laptop was fine, the laptop didn’t explode. He just—they said it was an aneurysm. In his brain. But that doesn’t make sense.”

            We sat there in silence for a long minute. Finally she wiped a hand over her eyes. “The thing is, I looked at it later. There wasn’t any email from Chad Tyner. It wasn’t deleted or archived or anything. And I swear I never heard of Chad Tyner, not once, and we’ve been married—were married for six years. It just doesn’t make sense.”

            She clamped her mouth shut, her lips tense, as if afraid to let any emotion slip through. 

            I waited. I had a feeling I knew what she was going to ask.

            “I want you to find him,” Cristin said quietly. “I want to know what was in that email. I want to know why—how—my husband died. I want to talk to him. How did he and Jeremy know each other? Why did I never hear about him? What was in the email? Did he somehow—somehow . . .” Her voice trailed away.

            Murder by email? She might not have known it, but I’ve stumbled across some strange and dangerous threats as a private detective. Or maybe she did know about my reputation, and hired me because of it. 

            I nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

            Cristin nodded, still looking away. “Thank you.”

            “May I take the laptop with me? To have it examined?”

            “I suppose. Nobody can find anything on it.” 

            “I have associates with—special abilities,” I told her.

            Cristin shrugged. “All right.”

 

Back home Rachel was working in our office. I was under orders to stay out—she was talking with a therapy patient, and she didn’t want me to overhear any of their conversation or have me making phone calls in the background of the session. Her new job had started letting her work from home some days, which was nice, but we were going to have to find a solution that didn’t turn the office into the Forbidden Zone while she was working.

            I looked the Wards’ laptop over. Cristin had given me the password, so I started with their email account. Jeremy had died a week ago. I saw emails from that day from his insurance company, his college, and a friend from work, and they started up again the next morning. I hunted around as much as I could, but Rachel’s better at computer searches than me. When we first started dating she used to be a hacker for the fun of it.

            Rachel is my wife. We’ve lived together for years but we’ve only been married a few months, so I still tend to think of her as my girlfriend. She’s slender, with red hair and hazelnut eyes, and she’s got psychic powers. Not that she can toss sofas around the room with her mind. But she can sense things the rest of us miss. I was hoping she could either find the missing email or pick something up from the computer. And make dinner. Tonight was her turn. 

            So I spent a few hours looking for more information on Chad Tyner. I’d already made one call to CronWell, the company he’d worked for. I called again and got a woman who’d worked with him.

            “No, he didn’t say much when he left.” She sounded busy and eager to get rid of me. “I think he wanted to start his own company, be a consultant? Lots of people do that. Hell, I think about it, but don’t tell anybody I said that. He didn’t talk about it, just said he was leaving and one day he was gone.”

            “Can you tell me what he was working on?”

            A pause. She was multitasking. “Uh, I guess I can say it was an email app. That’s about all, really. Everything like that is proprietary, you know?”

            Huh. “Would it be something like making an email go away after someone opens it?”

            Another pause, without any background noise. “Uh, I don’t really know. Really. Look, I’ve got a meeting—"

            “Go ahead. Thanks for your—” She hung up before I was finished.

            I felt like I’d scored a minor goal—Tyner was working on something involved with email, and the company was a little too quick to get rid of me. I wished I could have asked her if the email app was perhaps a tool for murdering people via the internet, but that would probably have gotten me hung up on even sooner. 

            I wrote up a few notes, then decided to go back to the beginning: Northwestern University, up in Evanston. I searched through all the alumni resources online without finding anything more than his name. Twice. I couldn’t even find a photo. 

So I expanded my search to include the media, everything from the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times to the Evanston Sentinel, the Daily Northwestern—the student newspaper—and any other outlets that had existed around the time of Ward’s graduation. This took time—a simple search for the name “Tyner” didn’t generate any worthwhile results on my first pass, so I had to go deeper, almost page by archived page in some publications. 

My mind was numb by the time Rachel came out of the office. “Hi, sorry. I’ve been finished for a while, you could have come in.” She was in jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot, and the sight of her helped recharge my brain.

“That’s all right. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I need the desktop computer at all. But I do like having a desk for my coffee.” I lifted an empty mug. “Refill?”

“Get it yourself. I’m making dinner. Mac and cheese okay? With some grilled asparagus?” Rachel’s a vegetarian.

“Sounds good.” I picked up both laptops and my mug and carried them into the office, where I kept looking for Tyner.

My mind started breaking down again after another half hour, and I was ready to give up and play some Minesweeper on my phone when my eyes suddenly zeroed in on a photo: 

“TRIVIA WINNERS: Winners of Thursday Night’s Trivia Semifinals at The Club bar,” read the caption beneath a photo of six grinning young men, holding bottles of beer up in a toast. “L to R: Albert Miller, Matt Arreguin, Jeremy Ward, Chad Tyner, Dan Getty, Larry Larsen.”

The photo was from a small neighborhood newspaper, dated March 23, 2011. I zoomed in. There was Jeremy Ward, smiling, next to a man with a scraggly beard and another wide smile. But Ward’s beer bottle, raised high, obscured half the face of the man to his right, a skinny blond guy who was scowling. Tyner? The rest all looked happy about their victory, and a little drunk.

“Dinner.” Rachel stood in the doorway, her own bottle of beer in her hand. 

“Just a minute.” I saved the photo to my hard drive and sent it to my phone. 

“Big break in the case?” She led the way to the kitchen, swigging some beer.

“More names to check on tomorrow. I need you to look at a laptop for me when you have a chance.” In the kitchen I opened the refrigerator for a beer.

“Do you still pay me for help now that we’re married?” Rachel sat down and started spooning macaroni onto her plate.

“I’m not sure.” Rachel has always helped me with my cases, and sometimes I paid her as an associate to my business. Yeah, paying my girlfriend was probably an ethical no-no, but only a handful of clients had ever questioned it; when they did, I’d knock the fee off their bill and pay her out of my own pocket. Now that we were married? I’d have to consult a lawyer. Or an ethics professor.

“What’s with the laptop?”

            I told her about the Jeremy Ward’s death. “So I want you to see if there’s any way you can find that email—without opening it, obviously. And generally see if there’s anything supernatural going on with the machine.”

            Rachel nodded. “I’ll take a look after dinner.”

            “Thanks. How were your sessions?”

            “Fine.” She sighed. “I hate to say it, but we may have to find a new place to live if I keep working from home.”

            “Yeah.” I sighed in agreement. “Is that going to happen?”

            “Maybe. I don’t know.” She spiked an asparagus spear on her fork. “They like me at the clinic. I think they want to keep me.”

            “I like you here. And I want to keep you.” I patted her hand. “We’ll figure something out.”

            She kicked me under the table. “Yeah.”

 

Rachel looked over the laptop after dinner. “There’s something,” she murmured, lying on our sofa and resting it on her legs. “I don’t know what it is, but something. It’s sort of a leftover feeling, like it’s dissipating.” She grimaced. “Like a dead rat in the walls or something.”

            “Yuck.” I took a gulp of water. I had my iPad on my lap.

            “You asked.” She opened the laptop and started tapping keys. “Let me poke around a bit inside. No watching Resident Alien without me.”

            “Not a chance.” I surfed YouTube for funny videos until Rachel sighed and closed up 20 minutes later.

            “There’s some stuff on here I don’t recognize.” She picked up the TV remote. “It could have been hidden or erased when he opened the email. I can’t find it, and if I did find it I don’t know if I want to try and open it. I have a friend I can call if you want.” She handed it back to me. 

            “Thanks. What do I owe you?”

            Rachel grinned. “We’ll talk about that later.” She clicked the TV on. 

Killer Email, Part Two

The next morning Rachel was home again, but she was finishing up some graphic design projects—her job before getting her psych degree. She was tapering off that part of her career, but she wanted to keep a few clients she liked. Sometimes she put on noise-canceling headphones so my phone calls wouldn’t bother her, but today she just played music at a low volume on her phone.

            Coffee mug in front of me, I sent the trivia team photo to my client and then called her. Cristin Ward recognized a few of the names from the photo caption, but knew nothing about them. “I didn’t meet Jeremy until after he graduated,” she told me. “He wasn’t really the type to relive his college glory days or anything like that.”

            I thanked her and started hunting for the trivia crew.

            They were a lot easier to find. I got contact information on three of them through the Northwestern alumni site. The only one I didn’t find immediately was Dan Getty, so I left him for last.

            I left messages on their social media sites and sent emails to two of them I had addresses for, although sending emails made me uneasy after what had happened to Ward. I didn’t mention him, just Tyner. Then I waited, eventually going on to other cases I was working on.

            At 11:30 I got an email from Matt Arreguin. “Haven’t seen Chad since 2010. I don’t know where he is today. He majored in computers, if that helps. Sorry. Good luck!”

            I got another message from Albert Miller a few minutes later:

 

Mr. Jurgen,

I do recall knowing Chad Tyner at college. He was part of a group of friends, although I didn’t know him well. I remember him as quiet, very intelligent, and somewhat arrogant and temperamental. He lived in the same dorm as Jeremy Ward, but not as roommates, IIRC. I haven’t had any contact with him since 2011 or 2012. 

 

            Okay, then. Maybe the next response would be more informative. As a detective, sometimes all you can do is hope.

            At 1:30 my phone buzzed. “Hello, Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Hello, my name is—my name is Emily Larsen. I just saw your email on my husband’s phone. The thing is, uh—he died.”

            Was it—I forced myself not to jump to any conclusions. “I’m so sorry. May I ask what happened?”

            “I don’t, uh, really know. I came home from work, and he was sitting at the kitchen table with his phone, and he was just—gone. The paramedics said it was his heart. At the hospital they said something about an aneurysm. Even though he exercised and everything.” She took a deep breath.  “And I’m afraid I can’t help you, I never heard of this Chad Tyner.”

            Oh wow. “You said he had his phone out?”

            “Y-yeah. His email was open, like he was checking his messages. Why?”

            “Did he ever mention Chad Tyner? From college? At the University of Michigan?”

            “I—I don’t think so. I don’t remember that name.”

            “What about Jeremy Ward? Albert Miller? Or Matt Arreguin? Dan Getty?” 

            “Wait, wait!” She was gasping, and I bit my lip, angry at myself. “I’m sorry, I just—give me a minute.”

            “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Larsen. I shouldn’t have asked like that. Take your time. If you don’t remember any of them, that’s all right.”

            “No, that’s okay. I’m just still getting used to—getting used to the new things. Yeah, I remember Matt whatever. And Danny Getty. The other ones? Maybe. I don’t know. But I couldn’t tell you anything about them, they were just names to me.”

            “All right. Can I ask, when did your husband die?”

            “It was a week ago. Wednesday. I’ll never forget.”

            Wednesday. The same day Jeremy Ward had died. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Thanks for your help.” We hung up.

            Rachel turned in her chair. “What was that?”

            “Nothing, just made a widow cry. You know, doing the Lord’s work.” 

            “You bastard. Everything okay?”

            “Not really. One of Ward’s friends also died last week while reading his email. There’s no way to tell if it was from Tyner, but with my luck, it’s not just a coincidence.” I started typing emails. “Anything on the laptop?”

            “I can have Derek come by and pick it up.” She swung around and started texting. 

            “Derek, he’s the guy who’s fighting—wait, I don’t want to know.” I’d met him once before. He and his friends were fighting some kind of secret war against witches and warlocks, and that was more than I wanted to know. “Okay, thanks.” I went back to typing.

            Rachel went to microwave some soup for her lunch. I sent a group email to everyone on the trivia team, advising them not to open any emails from Chad Tyner. I implied that they might have a virus, because I didn’t want to panic anyone or have them decide I was crazy. Enough people think that already.

            Then I called my client. “It looks as if one other person in that photo got an email and died right away. I can’t confirm that it’s from Tyner, but it’s a little suspicious.”

            “Okay.” She sounded tired, but a little nervous. “By the way, I showed that picture to my kids. My son didn’t recognize anybody, but my daughter Kylie—she said it reminded her of one time when Jeremy told her to, what was it? Watch out for guys who thought they were geniuses. She’s 14. Ben is 11.”

            “She didn’t recognize any of the names?”

            “No, there was just something about it. She doesn’t remember when he said it. I’m sorry, it’s probably nothing—”

            “That’s fine. You never know what might be important. I’ll get back to you.” 

            Now what? I took another stab at finding Dan Getty, the only name on the list I hadn’t tracked down, but after an hour I gave up. Maybe he was dead, or in prison somewhere, or transitioned, or just changed his name and moved to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. 

            So I went back to looking for more info on Tyner. I couldn’t search the entire United States, so I concentrated on the Evanston area and expanded slowly around the state. Nothing showed up on any property listings in the area. His name didn’t appear in any newspapers or other media around in 2010 or a few years before or after. I actually tried calling the bar where they’d won the trivia contest, but it was under new ownership. Someone did give me the name of one of the previous owners, who now ran a restaurant in Skokie.

            I managed to get him on the phone. His name was George Bowden, and his voice sounded hoarse and grumpy, but he tried to be helpful. “Yeah, I remember lots of those trivia nights, they were pretty popular with the college kids, but there’s just no way I can remember a name from that far back. Sorry.”

            “It was a long shot,” I admitted. 

            He didn’t hang up, though. Maybe he wanted someone to talk to for a bit. “I mean, I remember lots of people and stuff that happened. We had one bartender who dated practically every girl who came in for six weeks, and then he just quit and joined the Army. Then there was—wait, you said March in 2010 or 2011, right? That was around the time that girl disappeared.”

            “What girl?”

            “I forget her name, but she was a student, and she just didn’t show up in class and wasn’t in her apartment, and they looked for her for a week, and when they found her, she was dead. Murdered.”

            A chill rose up my neck. “Did they catch the killer?”

            “I think so. I don’t remember much more about it. It was a big scandal for a couple of weeks, people were scared to go out at night. Hurt business until the end of the term.”

            Maybe it wasn’t connected. But it was something to check out. “Thank you.”

            The online search took less than five minutes, and scooped up lots more information than anything I’d been able to find on Chad Tyner or his friends. Miranda Sherman, 20, had disappeared on the night of March 22, 2011, somewhere between the University Library and her apartment eight blocks away. She’d been working on a project at the library with friends, left around 8:30, and never got home. 

            March 22. The picture of Ward and his teammates was in the newspaper on the 23^rd, which meant the contest was probably the previous night The same night as the disappearance. Coincidence?

            Her roommate reported her missing the next morning. Police searched the campus, students posted pictures, friends appeared on TV, and Miranda’s parents begged for answers. Six days later, two students spotted a body under some bushes on the edge of campus. 

            Miranda had been dead for several days, her body dumped sometime in the middle of the night. The media reported that her body had been sexually abused, without going into any gory details. A few days later the police arrested a student, Glen Delvecchio, for the murder. Case closed.

            A call to my client confirmed that Cristin had never heard of Miranda Sherman. I debated sending another round of emails to Jeremy Ward’s friends asking about Miranda, but decided to hold off until I was sure there was a definite connection.

            I realized it was almost three o’clock and I hadn’t eaten lunch. So I made myself a sandwich.  My phone buzzed as I was eating it. 

            “Hi, this is Albert Miller.” He sounded nervous. “I just wanted to let you know, I, uh, I got an email from Chad Tyner. What should I do?”

            The muscles in my neck tensed. “You just received it?”

            “No, I missed it. Last week. I was cleaning out my email just now and found it there.”

“You didn’t read it?”

            “No, not after I got that email from you. I don’t want any viruses. Should I delete it?”

            My first instinct was to say yes. Then—“Can you forward it without opening it?”

            “Uh, let me see . . . yeah, I can send it as an attachment.”

            “Okay, hang on a moment.” I went to my office. Rachel looked up and I opened Jeremy Ward’s laptop. “Send it to this address.” I gave him Jeremy Ward’s email. Just to keep it contained and off my own network. 

            “Just a second. Okay, I just sent it.”

            In a moment, a new email popped up on Ward’s screen. The subject line read only HELLO. The sender was CTY3456@intraX.com. “Okay, go ahead and delete it. You should be okay.” I hoped.

            “All right. There. It’s gone.”

            “Empty your trash, or clear your cache, or whatever you need to do to be sure it’s completely gone.” Or as far gone as possible. Nothing ever completely disappears from the internet, I knew.

            “Okay, okay. It’s gone. What’s going on?”

            “I don’t know yet.” I closed the laptop. “Do you remember a woman named Miranda Sherman?”

            “I don’t think so. No, wait—I do remember her. She was the girl who was killed, wasn’t she?”

            “The same night you guys won the trivia contest.”

            “Really? I didn’t—wait, you’re not saying Chad had something to do with what happened to her, are you?”

            “He has an alibi, obviously. You were all together.”

            “Right. Right. That was terrible. I remember that.”

            “You didn’t know her yourself? Or anyone else in the group?”

            “I don’t think so. You know, it wasn’t like we were all best friends. We were just at the bar that night when they did trivia and we did pretty good, so we kept coming back for a couple of weeks. Eventually we broke up, probably when finals were coming.”

            I nodded to myself. “Well, thank you for getting in touch with me.”

            “Look, let me know if anything else is going on, okay? This is making me nervous.”

            “It’s okay. I’m sure everything’s fine.” I was lying. I wasn’t sure at all. But I didn’t want him to freak out on me.

Rachel was watching me as I ended the call. “I love it when I’m home and I can listen in on all the drama. What’s going on?”

            I told her about Miller. “So we’d better tell Derek to be extra careful with this.” I patted the laptop.

            “He’s coming by after dinner. Which it’s your turn to make, by the way.”

            I looked at the time. “Fine. Tell him to join us, if he wants.”

 

Derek brought us oven mitts as a wedding gift. “Congratulations!” He kissed Rachel on the cheek and shook my hand. “I’m not at all offended that I wasn’t invited.” He pouted.

            “It was a pretty small ceremony,” I told him. “Also, we don’t have your address.”

            He winked. “Got to keep a low profile, you know?” 

            I’d made baked ziti for dinner, and Derek ate enough to make leftovers pretty sparse. He was Asian, late 30s, with a short beard and muscular shoulders in a black T-shirt. He was good company, though, and helped clean up with the dishes when we finished.

            Then in the living we sat down with Jeremy Ward’s laptop, Rachel on one side and me on the other. As Derek opened it up, Rachel suddenly leaned back. “Whoa.”

            “Yeah,” Derek breathed.

            “What?” I asked.

            “There’s some serious bad stuff there.” Rachel edged away from Derek. “Lots worse than yesterday.”

            “The new email. Rachel told you all about this?” 

“Yeah.” Derek carefully explored the laptop without opening the email. “Give me a few minutes.”

“Should we leave the room?” I asked. “In case things go boom?”

He grinned. “That’s what makes this fun.”

            That didn’t answer my question, but it seemed rude to hide in the bedroom. So Rachel and I waited and watched. After a few minutes Rachel yawned and picked up the remote. “Mind if I watch TV?”

            She found a reality show and kept it quiet while Derek worked. After a while he unzipped a leather pouch strapped to his belt and took out a feather, a small rock, and a dried rose petal. He placed them on the screen of an iPad he’d brought, opened an app, and rolled some dice. “Hmm.” He rolled again, shook his head, and repeated. On the fourth roll he nodded. “Okay.”

Rachel turned off the TV. “Just getting to the good part.”

“What is it?” I asked.

He opened the email application. “Let’s find out.” He moved the cursor arrow to the Tyner email, then turned the laptop so it was facing away from us, a finger over the Return key. “One, two, three—"

“Wait—" I reached over to grab his arm, but he tapped the button too fast. “Rachel!”

A flash of light blinked from the laptop screen. Derek flipped the laptop back around and pumped a fist in the air. “Yes!”

I looked at the screen, my heart pounding. In the message space was a symbol I didn’t recognize: a circle with a line thrusting diagonally through it. Like a dagger. “What’s that? What did you do?”

“I defused the curse. It was pretty simple, really.” Derek seemed proud of himself anyway. He pointed. “That’s all that’s left. It’s a symbol from ancient Egypt that was used on the tombs of the Pharaohs, wishing death on anyone who opened them.”

“It’s harmless now?”

“Yeah, there was some code around it that self-destructed when I opened it up. That was the flash. I wish I could have saved that, but it’s what kills the person who sees it.”

I rubbed my head. “What’s IntraX?”

“Must be some kind of private email app. It goes through a dozen different servers, and I can’t find where it originates.” He started gathering up the stuff from his pouch. “How many people did he send this to?”

“Five, I think. Two of them are already dead. Do you have any idea who it is? Or where?”

He scratched his face and then looked at the laptop. “Without something from him, something he’s touched, or maybe a piece of his hair, I can’t get a lock on someone.” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

We stood up. Derek kissed Rachel’s cheek again, and we shook hands. “Good luck!” He winked at me again. “Call me anytime. Rachel’s got my number.”

“I will. Or she will. Whatever. Thanks for helping.” 

            After he left and I’d locked the door, I sat next to Rachel, who was watching her show again. “How did you guys meet, anyway?”

            She sighed. “A friend of mine was mixed up with a bunch of so-called Satanists, who turned out to be a collection of whackos who wanted to sacrifice her to some demon. I was trying to help her when Derek and his friends showed up and, well, killed them. The head guy, Leo, didn’t want to talk much, but Derek was friendly and we kept in touch.”

            “Where was I?”

            “This is before we were living together. I guess you were working.”

            I shook my head. “And you never told me? During a long car trip or something?”

            She laughed and kissed me. “Leo sort of wanted me to keep it a secret. And I think the next day you had a new crisis or something.”

            I kissed her back. “Okay. I just don’t want to find out you have a secret life as a vigilante demon slayer or something that you never bothered to mention.”

            “Oh, I’ve got secrets.” She winked. “Just give me time.”

Killer Email, Part Three

The next morning Rachel went back to her office, and I started the day sipping coffee and staring at my computer screen, trying to decide what to do next. 

            It was time to call my client, I figured. 

“Do you know what’s going on?” She sounded out of breath. As if was out running. Or sitting at home crying.

            I took a deep breath. Cristin Ward deserved the truth. However fantastic it sounded. “I don’t know how he’s doing it, but I think Chad Tyner can send emails that, well, kill the person who opens it. He’s sent them to all the people in that photo I sent you. One other man in the photo got an email and died the same way.”

            I expected confusion or disbelief. Instead she simply asked, “Why?”

            “It may be connected to a student who was murdered around the date that picture was taken. Look, I know this sounds unbelievable—”

            “I think I’ll believe anything right now.” She groaned. “This last week—I’ve never had to try harder to stay sane in my life. Without Jeremy . . .” I heard a sniffle. “Anyway, what is there to do? Anything?”

            “I don’t know. If I’m right—well, getting the police to do anything will be difficult, to put it mildly.”

            “Yeah.” Another sniff, louder. “All right. Can you bring the laptop back to me? Or send it by messenger or something? There’s stuff on it I want. If it’s safe.”

            “I’ll do that right away. Is there anything else?”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t talk right now. I have to make dinner, and—and—”

            “That’s fine.” This is the part of the job I hate—delivering bad news to family members. Whether they’re grieving, angry, or in shock, it’s never easy. “I’ll call you if I learn anything else.”

            “Thank you.” She hung up.

As I was packing up the laptop I realized that today was March 20. Almost 13 years to the day since the triumphant trivia contest. And Miranda Sherman’s murder. Was that significant? I didn’t have any hard evidence that the murder was related to the killer emails, or Chad Tyner, but it was an interesting coincidence. After scheduling the pickup I decided to take a second look at the case.

            The Evanston police didn’t officially want to talk to me, so I looked online and found the name of the lead detective on the case in 2011. Edward Baer had retired five years ago. I managed to find a phone number for his house in Lake Geneva, and he picked up the phone on the second ring. To my surprise, he was willing to talk to me. “I can’t share anything confidential, you know, but I don’t think I remember anything really seriously secret. I remember the girl. I remember the boy. His name was Delvecchio. He cried, but in the end, he didn’t care.”

            “What was his motive?”

            “What do you think? He spent a week doing—things to her body. Sex t5hings. That was his motive. Even though—well, his story was, he found her, and she was already dead. So he spends a few minutes looking at her, and then he shoves her into his car and takes her home. And does—stuff.”

            “Wait—so he didn’t confess to killing her?”

            “His story was that he was driving along and spotted something along the side of the road. She was dead. And yeah, for everything else he did to her, there wasn’t any sign of blunt trauma, or fatal wounds, or even drugs in her system. Her heart gave out, probably because of everything he did to her, and that was enough to get him convicted.”

            Her heart gave out. Just like Jeremy Ward, and Larry Larsen. More coincidence. “Did she have a laptop with her? Or a phone?”

            “They found her phone on the ground near a bench when she went missing. It was open to her email. Why is that important?”

            I couldn’t answer without telling him what was going on, and that would make him dismiss me as a lunatic. Instead I forced myself to ask hium another question: “Does the name Chad Tyner ring any bells with you?”

            My question triggered his cop’s instincts. “What’s going on here, Mr. Jurgen? You say you’re a private detective. Is there some kind of lawsuit I should know about?”

            I had to be careful. “No, sir, no lawsuit. It’s about—well, a series of suspicious emails was recently sent by Chad Tyner to several other men who were students at Northwestern during the time frame that Miranda Sherman was killed.” 

            “And you think that’s connected? How?”

            “I don’t know. Maybe not. I’m just trying to locate Tyner, if that’s possible.”

            “Well, I don’t know anything about that. That is an unusual name, and I have a pretty good memory for names, so I will say that his name was on Miranda’s contacts list on her phone. So they must have known each other. But as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed.”

            “Even though Delvecchio didn’t actually confess to the murder? “

            “The girl’s body was—well, if you saw it, if you looked at the medical report, you wouldn’t care, Jurgen. You wouldn’t care one bit.”

            I deal with demons a lot, but humans can be just as evil—sometimes worse. “I understand. Thanks for your help.”

            After we hung up I put the boxed-up laptyop outside the door of my apartment for pickup. Then I pulled up the photo of the six. Smiling, faces flushed with victory and beer. At least two of them dead. I hadn’t heard from Matt Arreguin, and I still couldn’t track down Dan Getty. Just to be thorough, I sent a follow-up email to Arreguin and took another shot at Getty.

            After 10 minutes I still hadn’t tracked down Getty—I’m not that good—but I got a call while I was searching. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Mr. Jurgen? This is—I’m Matt Arreguin. You emailed me? I’ve been out of town, so I didn’t see it until today. I just—I got one of those emails. From Chad.”

            “What’s the date on it?”

            “Last week. Wednesday. Do I delete it, or what?”

            “Yes,” I said reassuringly. “Delete it and empty your trash. Do it right now. You should be safe.”

            “Deleting, and—there. Okay.” He gave a sigh of relief. “What’s going on?”

            I gave him the story about the nasty computer virus. Then I said, “There’s one person I still haven’t been able to get hold, Dan Getty. Do you happen to know how to contact him?”

            A long pause. “Dan? Yeah. He’s, uh, right here. Dan?”

            Huh? I hung on a moment, surprised, and then a new voice came through. “Hi, this is Dan. You’re—who are you again?”

            “Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective, working for Cristin Ward, Jeremy Ward’s wife.” I had a dozen questions, but I needed to focus on the most urgent one: “I’m trying to locate Chad Tyner.”

            “About the email Dan got?”

            “And other things. Do you have any idea where I could find him?”

            After thinking for a few seconds, Getty finally said, “Well, why don’t we talk about it in person?”

            “That would be fine. Where can we meet?”

            He gave me the address of a house in the Ravenswood neighborhood. I told him I could be there in an hour.

 

The townhouse was small and cozy, with vines over the wall sand a tidy little front lawn. Arreguin answered the door; he was tall and lanky, like a cowboy, in jeans and a button-down shirt. “Hi. Tom?”

            Inside he led me to the kitchen, where Dan Getty sat at a small square table with a cup of coffee in front of him. “Hi.” He stood up, and we shook hands. Getty was short, with a mustache and a thick chin, in a T-shirt and khaki shorts. 

            Arreguin poured me some coffee, and we sat down.

            “We were friends at Northwestern,” Getty said. “Just friends. Not close friends. Matt wasn’t out yet, and I was just—barely out. We didn’t really get together until later.”

            “It was at a football game.” Arreguin seemed embarrassed. “An alumni event. Free beer.”

            “Anyway, we’ve been together for 10 years.” He patted Arreguin’s shoulder. “I’m a sculptor and painter. I sell my stuff mostly through friends and networking.I use Matt’s email and internet, but I don’t really do anything online, so I didn’t look at his email whle he was in Phoenix. Some kind of work project?”

            “I’m an architect.” Arreguin shrugged. “Helping with a new office complex. Danny is kind of a Luddite.” He grinned teasingly. “Except he loves his Fortnite and Minecraft.”

            “Lots of people do.” Even me, sometimes. “About Chad Tyner?”

            Getty sighed. “Yeah. I didn’t know him real well. He was in a couple of my classes. Computer classes. See? I’m not a total Luddite.” He poked Arreguin. “He was always kind of—odd.”

            “Odd how?”

            “Smart. Really smart. But sort of—out of it? Like he wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on because he was thinking about more ‘important’ stuff. And he was also into some new-age stuff. Like crystals, and weird books. Lovecraft stuff. He carried them around in his backpack. He had them that night at the bar.”

            “The night you won the trivia contest?”

            Arreguin laughed at the memory. “We weren’t really all together, just sitting close to each other and chatting, and then they announced the contest, and we all kind of looked at each other, and then we were raising our hands and we were a team. He had a lot of right answers, maybe more than anyone else. And we won! The prize was like, a free pitcher or something like that.” But his face turned sour. “Then . . .”

            Getty said nothing. Finally I asked, “Then what?”

            Getty looked away from me. “We were all pretty drunk, and bragging about stuff we were doing, and Chad was pretty quiet. I remember he looked kind of pissed off that we weren’t paying attention to him. And then he brings out his phone with this funny smile on his face. And he punches it for a minutes, and puts the phone down, and says, ‘I just killed someone.’”

            Arreguin sighed and shook his head.

            “We didn’t know what he was talking about,” Getty said after a moment. “It was just so out there, you know? So I guess we—me, anyway, I just forgot about and went on with whatever we were talking about, and then the next day . . .”

            “Miranda Sherman disappeared,” I said.

            They nodded together. Arreguin said, “I couldn’t really believe Chad had anything to do with it, but the way he said that, the look in his eyes—it was just sort of cold. Proud, almost. I couldn’t forget it. I wanted to tell someone, but what could I say? Then they found her body, and they arrested someone, and I figured it was just a sick joke. But it’s always stayed with me.”

            “With both of us,” Getty said. “I don’t know, there was just something weird about Chad.”

            “Do you know where he is now?”

            They looked at each other. Finally Getty said, “I think I saw him. A month ago. Downtown, at a gallery. He was looking at a painting, something with fire and ice and a frozen face, just staring at it. I think he saw me. We didn’t say anything to each other. He just walked away. I saw him talking to the gallery owner before he left. I suppose they might know where he is.”

            “Where was the gallery?”

            It was called Vivian Gallery, in the River North neighborhood. I looked it up on my phone. “Okay. Thank you.”

            Getty stared at me. “Is this really about a computer virus?”

            I hesitated. Telling the truth is usually less complicated, so I took a chance. “No. Two people in that photo of you at the trivia contest are dead. At least one of them got an email from Tyner. And I had an expert examine it, safely, and it looks like the email is somehow—fatal to whoever opens it.”

            Arreguin clutched Getty’s hand, looking at me. “You think he was telling the truth?”

            “I don’t know. Not for sure.” I stood up. “I’ll have to talk to Chad Tyner in person, I guess.”

            

There was no one named Vivian at Vivian Gallery as far as I could tell. I spoke to a middle-aged man named Liam with gray hair and a black blazer over a white T-shirt, showing him Tyner’s picture.

            “Y-yes,” he said warily. “He comes in here sometimes. I’ve talked to him.”

            “Does he live nearby?”

            He shook his head. “I do not know.”

            “Do you have any contact information on him? A phone number, a mailing list?”

            His eyes were gray and skeptical. “May I ask what this is about?”

            “Some of his friends from college are trying to get in touch with him.” Not exactly the truth, but it would do for now.

            “Well, I can’t just give you his information.” Liam frowned. 

            Not surprising. “Well, maybe you could ask him to contact me.” I gave him my card. Then I snatched it back and scribbled over the email address until it was completely unreadable. “New email, I forgot. Just ask him to give me a call.”

            He took the card carefully, as if it had been dipped in arsenic or something worse. “If I see him.” He wasn’t going to go out of his way to help me.

            I nodded. “Right. Thanks for your help.”

            Outside I sat in my car for half an hour, just in case Tyner happened to walk up for a look at the art inside. He didn’t, of course, but I had to try the long shot. Finally I started up, and just as I hit the first red light, my phone buzzed. Unknown number, but you never know who might be calling.

            I pulled over and hit the flashers. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Tom Jurgen? My name is Chad Tyner. What’s going on? Why do you want to talk to me?” He sounded angry.

            That was quick. What to say? “It’s about Jeremy Ward.” 

            “What about him?”

            “And Larry Larsen. They’re both dead.”

            “Yeah? So? I don’t know anything about that.”

            “So why did you send them an email right before they died? Why are you sending emails to everyone else you were with the night Miranda Sherman was killed?”

            I waited. After five seconds Tyner said an abrupt, “Fuck you,” and hung up.

            I rubbed my eyes, then saved the number. Maybe I should have tried to make friends with him? You never know. Sometimes the direct approach is the best. Other times, not so much.

Killer Email, Part Four

Back home I got myself a Coke and settled behind my desk. First things first—I checked my email. I highlighted the usual spam for deletion, then paused on one that stood out. NEW CLIENT—PLEASE HELP. Sender: Jill Smith.

            I’m always on the lookout for new business. Without thinking, I clicked the email—

—and spotted the IntraX domain as it started to open.

I was an idiot.

I dived to the floor and covered my head, as if I expected the computer to explode. A flash of light burst from the screen, fading after just a second, but I kept my head down.

After 30 seconds of silence, when I realized my heart was still beating—hammering, actually—and my brain seemed to be working at its usual efficiency, I cautiously rose to my knees, peered over the edge of my desk, and saw my email page. Without the “NEW CLIENT” message from “Jill Smith.” The deadly email was gone, just like Cristin Ward had said.

Damn it. Rachel was going to be mad at me, which felt almost worse than the fact that I’d almost gotten killed. By an email. On a case that was literally centered on killer emails. 

            After a few minutes I managed to clamber back into my chair and stop shaking. Tyner had found my email, even though I’d tried to obliterate it on my card. But I was easy enough to find on the internet—I have a web page, after all (Rachel designed it). I just hadn’t anticipated him trying to murder me. That happens to TV private eyes, not me. 

            I gulped some Coke, now lukewarm. Then I called my client. “Chad Tyner just tried to kill me.”

            She gasped. “What?”

            “I’m fine. He sent me one of his killer emails, and I should have been more careful. It was right after I talked to him on the one. I managed to find someone to pass my number on to him, and—”

            “What did he say?”

            “Not much, I’m afraid. He called me, then hung up when I started asking questions. But he seems nervous. He called me very quickly after I left my number with an acquaintance.”

            “Okay.” She sighed. “I’m glad you’re all right. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to get hurt. Or anybody. I just—you can stop if you want.”

            “I don’t know. Now I’m getting mad. But I’m not the kind of P.I. who goes on vengeance quests.”

            “Right. I got the laptop, by the way. Thank you.”

            “No problem. I’ll be in touch.” We hung up.

I needed a beer after narrowly escaping death. And Rachel would be home soon, and it was my day to make dinner. I shut my computer down and went into the kitchen.

            I popped a beer and began searching through the refrigerator and cupboards for something to make. Rice, noodles, vegetables, a little tofu, some leftover ziti from last night—

            My phone buzzed. Retired detective Baer. “Hello, Mr. Baer, how are you?”

            “Good, good. I just called to let you know—I got curious and looked that kid, Delvecchio, up after you called? It turns out he was released from prison about a month ago.”

            “Really?”

            “The sentence was 20 years, but it got knocked down on appeal—the kid’s family hired good lawyers, I guess—and he ended up serving 12. Go figure, huh?”

            “Yeah.” I sat down at the table. “And it’s just about the 13^th anniversary of the murder, isn’t it?”

            “Is it? Let me—yeah, you’re right. It’s coming up. You think that’s important?”

            “It could be.” I stared at the open refrigerator door, still half focused on dinner. “I don’t know. But thanks for letting me know.”

            “Sure thing. I got to go. Wife’s calling.”

            We hung up. I took a beer out of the refrigerator and shut the door. Then I sat there thinking for a few minutes. Or maybe longer. 

            I got a text from the messenger service that the laptop had been delivered. That was fast, but Rogers Park isn’t that far north. Then my phone buzzed with a call. Cristin Ward again. I hid a sigh as I answered.

            “I want to meet him,” she told me.

            “Tyner? Are you sure?”

            “I want to look him in the face. If he knew Jeremy, I want to see him. I have something to tell him.” Her voice trembled, but behind it lay something solid and stony that I didn’t want to argue with.

            But I tried. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Or if I can even set it up.”

            “Please try. It’s important.”

            I bit my lip. “I saved his number from his call. I’ll see what I can do.”

            “Thank you.”

Rachel came home while I was still sitting there thinking. And worrying. “Hi.” She waved a hand in friont of my eyes. “Lost in thought? Or have you been possessed again? I don’t want to do an exorcism on an empty stomach.” She opened the fridge for a beer.

            “I got one of those emails from Tyner. And I’m not sure that’s even the worst thing that happened today.” I told her about going out to meet Arreguin and Getty, finally making contact with Tyner, Baer’s phone call, and my client’s demand. “On the plus side, I think I understand what happened 13 years ago and why Tyner is killing people. On the minus side—” I shook my head. ”I have to set up a meeting with a murderer.”

            “Yikes.” Rachel grabbed a beer from the fridge. “I mean, I get not wanting to tell your client to go to hell, but just—wow. She must really have balls. Unless she’s just stupid.”

            “She sounded pretty determined.” I put my phone on the kitchen table. “Let’s do this.”

 

The next morning:

            In person, Chad Tyner was skinny, blond-haired, with yellowish eyes and bony arms in a green T-shirt. He kept his arms crossed defensively, staring at the three of us—me, Cristin Ward, and Rachel.

            Yes, Rachel had insisted on coming to the coffee shop. I’ve learned not to argue with her about stuff like this. 

Cristin Ward wore a crisp white blouse and a laptop case slung over one shoulder. She had a latté in front of her that she hadn’t touched. Tyner had an espresso. Rachel and I had regular coffee.

“What’s going on?” Tyner leaned across the table. “Who are you again?”

“Cristin Ward. My husband was Jeremy Ward.” She cocked her head, as if analyzing his face for flaws. “Do you remember him?”

“Maybe.”

“You killed him.”

Tyner smirked. “Why would I do that?”

“Because of Miranda Sherman,” I said. 

He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I took out my phone. “In college you found a symbol for an old Egyptian grave-robbing curse and figured out how to send it in an email so that it would kill whoever saw it.” I showed him an image of the symbol Derek had found. “Look familiar?” 

He chuckled. “Keep going. This is fun.”

I showed him the photo of the trivia team. “The night of the trivia contest, you were a little drunk and feeling good—or maybe you were feeling ignored by the rest of the group? Either way, you decided to show off. So you send an email to Miranda Sherman and told everyone at the table that you’d just killed someone. Was she the first? I’m wondering how you knew it would work. Or if you cared.”

Tyner frowned, but kept his mouth shut.

“Miranda died, but someone found her body and took it home for—well, some disgusting activities. His name was Glen Delvecchio. The cops caught him, and he went to prison, but he got out about a month ago.”

Tyner’s face was stony now, but he blinked when I when I spoke Delvhecchio’s name.

I sipped my coffee. “He must have seen some trace of your email on Miranda’s phone. The police found your name in her contacts, but they didn’t connect you with the case. But Delvecchio knew you’d done something to her, and he had a lot of time in prison to figure it out. So when he got out of prison, he contacted you and accused you of killing Miranda.”

Tyner shook his head. “I never heard of him.”

“That’s why you jumped to the wrong conclusion. The only people who had any ideas you’d killed someone were the guys on the trivia team. So you decided to send them all the same kind of email you sent to Miranda and make sure they didn’t start talking. You killed two people, and tried to kill the rest of them.”

Cristin bit her lip, but didn’t speak.

I glanced at Rachel. She’s not a mind reader or human lie detector, but she can pick up things. She nodded. 

Tyner sat back. “Maybe I did. This Delvecchio? I don’t know him. But if—if—that happened, well, what are you going to do now?”

“How did you work it?” Rachel asked. “With the curse and the email. You can’t just send a picture and have it kill somebody.”

He sighed. “I’m not admitting anything, all right? But let’s just say—look, I’m smart. Real smart. And I was into a lot of stuff in college. Obscure, arcane shit. Spells and things. Ancient history. You can find stuff like that. But I majored in computer science. Software, mostly. And you can find different ways of sharing information, not just in text or images, but in bursts. Like QR codes, right? So maybe, maybe someone could combine that and make—something special.” He smiled. “Someone smart could do that.”

“Was Miranda the first? Was it an experiment to see if it would work? Or did you send it to other people before her?”

Tyner rolled his eyes. “This wouldn’t be the kind of thing you can test on a hamster or a lab rat. Think about it. People die, though. They die all the time. I’m sorry—” He looked at Cristin Ward directly for the first time. “I’m sorry for whatever happened to Jeremy. But you can’t get me blamed for it. Nobody will believe you. Really.”

I wanted to throw my coffee in his face. But it was lukewarm by now, and it wouldn’t solve anything anyway. “Maybe not, Chad. But we know. Ms. Ward here knows. And we just wanted you to be sure we know.”

He laughed. “Fine. Are we done?” He stood up.

“Not quite.” Cristin took out her phone. “I’m sending you something.” She tapped at the screen. “Just—a picture. Of Jeremy. And our kids. Something for you to remember and think about. For the rest of your life.”

He laughed again. “I’m sure I’ll treasure it always. Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here.” He turned and headed for the door.

I watched him go. Rachel scowled. Tyner opened the door and stepped out onto the street.

“We should probably warn Delvecchio,” I started, but Cristin raised a hand.

“Wait for it,” she said quietly.

On the sidewalk Tyner reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone. He tapped, frowning, ignoring a woman pushing her baby in a stroller. Then he turned north, peering down at his screen—

And collapsed on the sidewalk.

The woman yanked her stroller backward as Tyner’s forehead hit the pavement. She looked up, confused, and turned her head back and forth, looking for some explanation of what was going on. Someone inside the coffee shop stood up and pulled out their phone, pushing through the door to the street, where Tyner lay motionless.

I turned to Cristin Ward. “Did you—?”

She tapped her phone a few times, then rubbed her eyes. “I wanted to look him in the eyes. I wanted to see what he was.” She sipped her latté. “Nothing’s really gone on the internet. I wasn’t sure I could find it. But it was in a cloud file, hidden away. I was careful with it. And then I wasn’t sure I could—do it.” 

Her eyes faded to a thousand-yard stare. “But then he—he apologized to me? For murdering my husband? And laughed about it?” She shook her head. “I know. I know. But I just couldn’t let him—walk away like that.”

Rachel put a hand on her arm. “I think we understand.”

“Yeah.” I watched as the guy from the shop tried to give Tyner chest compressions, and the woman with the stroller stared in horror. 

I can’t say I approve of murder, even in revenge as justifiable as this. But I wasn’t going to argue with Cristin or Rachel on this. And not just because one was my client and the other was my wife. I sipped my coffee. It was already cold.

Cristin stood up. “Thank you.” Her voice was quiet. “You can send me an invoice whenever it’s ready.”

I nodded. “Sure thing.”

“You okay?” Rachel squeezed my hand as Cristin walked away. 

I looked away from the scene on the street. “It’s probably justice. I just wish I didn’t feel like an accessory.” 

She gazed out the window. “He was—proud. Of being smart enough to do it and get away with it. If there was any other way . . .” 

“But there wasn’t.” At least he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. I stood up. “Let’s go home.”

# # #