The Weight of Silence by Gregg Olsen

Author:Gregg Olsen [Olsen, Gregg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503901353
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2018-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Wednesday, August 23

The Tech Department at the Aberdeen Police Department isn’t the largest or most current in the world. It’s a far cry from what I’d had access to in Bellevue before my fall from grace. On the plus side, we have Angelina Marco, a brilliant high-tech sleuth. Seattle PD and the Washington State Patrol have tried to recruit her, but each time she’s stayed put. As smart as she is, she just isn’t ambitious like that. One time she told me that she preferred computers to people and that she was used to everyone here in Aberdeen.

“I’m fine where I am,” she told me one time. “I just don’t want to start over and smile and suck up and act interested in new people. I’m not into people.”

Angelina is barely five feet tall. Her hair is a bluish black, and she favors sweatpants over any other attire. She’s trim, but her slouchy clothing suggests that she just can’t be bothered with things like fashion.

“In the lab or the break room,” she told me once, “I fit in just fine.” When she dresses for court, she looks like a different person—a person she doesn’t necessarily want to be.

Carter, looking like he is catching a cold or maybe hungover, comes with me to meet Angelina in the conference room next to her office. On the wall above the old library table is a flat-screen that displays the contents of the MacBook we picked up from the Tomlinson residence.

“The Dell really was dead,” she says. “I sent it out to WSP because there’s a guy there who can work miracles when they’re needed.”

“Can’t you just reboot it?” Carter asks as he slides into the seat next to mine. “That usually fixes all tech problems.”

Angelina smiles. “Actually,” she says, “that does work now and then. But this one’s given up the ghost. If there’s anything on it that’s retrievable, we’ll get it. Not that you’ll need it.”

She seems pleased.

“You found something else,” I say.

Angelina picks up the mouse. “A treasure trove,” she says, “that we almost missed because it was buried in an encrypted Dropbox account. Pretty disgusting too.”

Carter and I are all ears. She tells us that there had been some effort to conceal some content from prying eyes.

“People forget that there’s a pathway to everything. You can delete your search history easy enough, but really all that does is make you think you’ve deleted it. If you know where to look, you can find just about every click that was ever made on any device. Same thing about encryption. Not all that hard to get in, when you know where to look.”

“Treasure trove,” I repeat.

Angelina nods. “Yeah. Let me show you.” She indicates what she says is a hidden folder.

It’s a series of photos that flail at us. It’s a pornographic jack-in-the-box. Selfies. Nude ones. Some images are a close-up of Mr. Magnum, both flaccid and erect.

Carter shifts uncomfortably in his chair. I imagine that it’s awkward sitting with two women and looking at another man’s private anatomy.

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