S&P: Your Papa's a Pig

Crane thought for a minute. "Miss Gibson, you probably should go to Lieutenant Shannon and tell her about this, if your parents don't do it first. The hacker might have gotten to you through her or Officer Adams."

Josh turned back to Mike. "Lieutenant, I'd like you to sign a consent form for us to pick up the computer and take it in. I don't know anybody without a computer science degree who could have breached your system the way this one did. That means the list of possible hackers may be very short. I have some college buddies who can tell me more about the electronic footprints the Web designer left. If we can find him or her, we may be able to trace the hacker."

"Do whatever it takes," Mike said.

Crane nodded, and then went over to Carol and Stephanie. "Miss Gibson. I don't know what laws this hacker has broken, but it's clear this is an act of sheer malice. This person – or, more likely, these people - may strike at you again. I know I'm just the officer on scene, but if there is any way I can help, please contact me through your parents.

"And, Miss Gibson –" this to Stephanie – "I understand what you said to me and I know you don't know me. You have every right to suspect everybody – your sister already does. Butplease,Miss Gibson, don't let your feelings control you. I saw some pretty bad things in high school myself. I saw my friends get victimized by vicious rumors. One of my friends is in his grave – he hung himself in his own closet after rumors spread about his sexuality.

"I don't want to go to any more student funerals. So keep watch on your sister and let her talk to you, and don't judge the people around you. My friend had a younger sister too, and it affected her so much she's been in rehab for six years.

"Good night, sir, ma'am. I'll put this in my report and you should hear something from the powers that be as soon as possible. Sooner if I can get this to the right people."

When Crane put the diskette and other information in a zippered sandwich bag, courtesy of Patricia, and stepped outside the door, his shadow remained on the window. The family heard him slowly tear a blank page out of his notebook, crumple it in his fist as tightly as he could, drop it to the concrete and methodically grind it under his heel.

* * * * *

The next big thing occurred three days later.

After the drug bust at the high school, which left student Zach Williams dead (with Officer Sue Adams' bullet in his ribs and his own bullet in his head) and Lieutenant Linda Shannon seriously wounded by Zach's first bullet, the school board had coughed up the money to install metal detectors at every entrance. They became fully operational that morning.

If a student walked through a metal detector and triggered it, a high-pitched noise sounded. Security guards escorted the student to a holding area and went through backpacks, pockets, shoes and anything else they could use for smuggling.

This led to long lines and lots of complaining, since the students had to go through the detectors one by one.

On this day, Carol and Stephanie arrived together and stood in line a few students behind Samantha Black. She went through the detector and...

Carol, having only recently met Samantha, didn't know if she could talk. But she could certainly scream. The scream was so loud and terrifying that one student behind Carol and Stephanie simply dropped his backpack, spun, shoved his way through the students behind him and bolted, running straight to his car, getting in and burning rubber out of the lot. The school police had to chase him for nearly a half mile.

Screaming wasn't the only thing Samantha did. She clutched at her ears, pivoted this way and that, and finally fell to the ground, writhing. She vomited (fortunately, she hadn't eaten breakfast yet), she turned sickly white, and sweat poured down her face. Stephanie instinctively rushed through the metal detector to get to Samantha. Huge mistake. Stephanie set off the detector and the screaming started up again.

Elaine Renfro, who had been in the main office complex, raced down the hallway like a linebacker at full throttle. When she got to the officers running the metal detector, she used some words of description which were strange even to Carol's ears. With the obscenities edited out, the gist of what she was saying read:

"You _____! You _______! Turn that ________ thing off RIGHT NOW!!! Get the ________ nurse this instant! Have her bring water and the strongest ______ analgesic she can find, and ______it, get her something for nausea! You ______ _______, why didn't you _______ TELL me about those sounds! She has severe brain damage, you ______! She's got metal plates in her _____ skull. If they ______ vibrate at a high enough pitch, it goes straight to her cochlea. My _____ God, haven't you ever HEARD a ________ dog whistle? Those ______ _______ vibrations are like applying a ______red-hot poker to her cochlear nerve! ______ you, you ___________! I could kick you in the ________ ________ and it wouldn't hurt HALF as much! You want me to _________ demonstrate?"

All this came out in one long exhalation and was said in about half the time most people could say it in normal conversation – seven-syllable curse words and all. Then Elaine spun around, sat on the floor and took Samantha's head in her lap. Stephanie, gasping for breath and crying surrogate tears over Samantha's suffering, had retreated to a doorway. Carol stood transfixed with a gaggle of students around her.

Using sign language and the spoken word simultaneously, Elaine conveyed consolations and comfort to Samantha. Fortunately, the school nurse had a good deal of experience in trauma cases – she had worked with Dr. Sandy Kendall, who had gotten the bullet out of Linda with minimal side effects – and knew what to do in cases of extreme pain. Twenty minutes later Samantha was able to walk, shakily, to the nurse's office and lie down, while Elaine filled out a report.

During the next passing period, Carol went to the nurse's office and conversed with Samantha through Elaine, apologizing for what Stephanie had done and going into considerable detail about Aunt Linda's injury and how she, Carol, had always felt responsible. She spent the next class period – unexcused absence be damned – holding Samantha's hand as the young lady gradually relaxed.

When Samantha drifted off to sleep, Elaine took Carol aside and expressed her thanks. So did the nurse, who had contributed stories about her former boss. From that point, the metal detectors were turned on and off, and students – Samantha excluded – were checked at random.

And that random checking would be something Carol would live to regret.

* * * * *

The switch was off on Friday when Carol came in. She tossed her backpack in the locker, pulled out a couple of textbooks, and didn't return for three hours. All in all, she thought as she pressed the numbers for the combination, today had been pretty good. The locker door swung open...

A plastic bag fell from the top of the locker and hit Carol in the chest. Instinctively she grabbed it before it could fall to the floor. Then she looked down at the bag, dropped it, and grabbed the locker door handle. But by then the flood had started. Vials of pills, and more plastic bags filled with ominous-looking white and sick-yellow powder cascaded out.

Carol let go of the locker handle. She backed up three steps. And she stayed where she stood until the campus police came up to her, handcuffed her and led her away.

* * * * *

Anyone who has watchedHawaii Five-O has felt a chill run down the spine upon hearing the words "Book 'im, Danno." To this day, you can find that phrase (along with recordings of the theme song) as an audio link on a dozenFive-OWebsites.

Actually, the phrase was far from all-pervasive – it was uttered on perhaps maybe one episode in three; most other times, the villain was dead or the action shifted to other characters. But it's indicative that on at least two shows, when the chief villain was killed and his accomplice taken into custody, Steve McGarrett stared at the corpse and said: "Maybe he was the lucky one."Then,"Book 'im, Danno, murder one, two counts." Freeze frame. End of show.

Actuallybeing booked is much more complicated, and far more mundane. The arresting officer escorts the suspect to a desk sergeant who fills out lots of paperwork, makes sure the suspect has been read his or her rights and reads them again if necessary, takes the suspect's personal belongings and tags them, escorts the suspect to the fingerprint room and the photograph room, and passes the suspect along to the guards of a holding cell.

When the suspect makes his or her famed phone call, the desk sergeant provides the phone. The desk sergeant isn't supposed to listen in, but it's almost impossible not to. Thus, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office desk sergeant knew in advance that his old training partner would be around very shortly. Instead of taking Carol Gibson back to the holding cell, he simply escorted her to an interrogation room and stood by the door. He quietly vanished as the partner entered.

"Aunt Linda..." Carol's voice trailed off.

"Carol, I know all about it. The sergeant and I go way back, long before I met your dad. He told me everything about this – and about what happened before."

"Aunt Linda, I don't want to be beaten up at best, raped or blinded at worst. The prostitutes and shoplifters are going to think I'm the scum of the earth for this. Can you get me some kind of protective custody or something?"

"Your dad's working on that now, Carol." Linda paused and bit her lip. "Carol. Why didn't you tell me? Was it because of me and Sue? Was it because I'm so close to you? I'm not as tough as I look, but Iam as professional as I look."

"Oh, Aunt Linda!" Carol burst into tears. "It's all that and so much more. If I hadn't come to you that day with those pills, you wouldn't have gotten shot and that boy wouldn't have been killed."

"I could regret getting shot, and I'm sorry Zach killed himself, butyou remember how I met Sue for the first time. I wouldneverhave learned what a real person Sue is, and you'll know what that means when you fall in love.And I wouldn't have broken up the drug ring which could have created hundreds of addicts.

"You did exactly the right thing. Both then and today. Only an innocent person with nothing to hide would have stood there, not trying to hide the drugs and not getting her fingerprints on the bags and vials.

"Carol, I'm not your mom and I'm not your lover, but I believe in you as much as I believe in Sue or your mom or your dad. This isnot going to destroy you. I'm not a religious person, but I swear unto God that I will prove you innocent and catch whoever did this."

Carol's tears, which had started two paragraphs earlier, had slowly dried, but it was still an effort to speak. "Aunt Linda, I've wanted to be a cop ever since I met you. If I can't be a cop, I don't know what I will do."

"Carol, I wanted to be a lot of things. A ballet dancer, a Marine, a wife, a mom, a best friend. Most of those didn't work out, but I'll be your best friend. All I ask is that you be mine for now."

Carol held up her hand and closed all of the fingers except the little one. "You ever hear of a pinkie promise?"

Linda smiled, closed her hand and wrapped her pinkie around that of Carol. "Pinkie promise. Sue taught it to me. Hold up your other hand and I'll give you a surrogate pinkie promise from her as well."

Carol did.

* * * * *

The next ten days were a whirlwind of activity. Pat's obstetrician took one look at her drawn face and ordered her to go into a hospital. It would be much later that she learned of Stephanie's ten-day suspension.

Frankie Harmon, a guy Stephanie had a crush on, happened to utter, "So what's it like, being the sister of a big time drug"- and that's all he got out before the punch landed. As far as anyone knew, Stephanie had never hit a person except in play. She certainly made up for it.

The young man's cheekbone, nose and ego went out with a crack. If Stephanie's real friends hadn't grabbed her arms immediately thereafter, the guy would have walked with a horrible lurch, and would have had an artificial face, for the rest of his life.

Stephanie was spared an aggravated-assault charge only because of intense lobbying by Mike to the boy's parents. And even then they had their own reasons for losing faith in their own son.

Carol's boyfriend broke up with her. It wasn't necessarily the drug charges, though those factored in. He had been pushing her for sex for a long time. Carol had fended off his advances with humor and doing fun things with him, but the fun had all stopped when Carol went into her senioritis days. The boyfriend wasn't yet at the point where he could handle Carol's mood swings, and he had provoked several arguments.

To be fair to him, he hadn't called her any names. But he wanted someone else, maybe someone as smart and caring as Carol, but he would nonetheless take anyone who would show him a good time in bed. He seemed destined to go through about a dozen girlfriends in his college years.

The Sheriff's Department had passed the hat for Carol's bail money. The District Attorney must have known that, because he asked the judge to set a sum usually reserved for murderers with Lear jets at their disposal. Only when the judge threatened the D.A. with contempt of court did he back off. But he announced he would seek stacked prison sentences which would keep Carol behind bars until her parents died of old age.

The judge then recused himself from the case and offered to meet the D.A. in a back alley. When that offer was refused, the judge reinstated himself, ordered a new bond hearing and allowed Carol to go for a relatively modest sum – albeit one which would have paid for much of her first year at college.

The charges of "conflict of interest," which could endanger Linda's promotion, were not taken lightly, but Linda let them go. She took a leave of absence and worked independently, while Sue stuck to her regular duties and did the housework.

After the third day, Linda and Sue moved into the Gibson house, with Sue sleeping on the couch and Linda taking a rollaway bed in Carol and Stephanie's room. Nobody made love to anybody else during this time, but Carol and Sue became extremely close friends.

Linda stopped off at the county lockup one day, and requested permission to see a certain Marie Ault. A large woman in her late forties, Marie had been in and out of county lockups for the last thirty years, usually on drug charges.

Linda had just taken down Marie with an Aikido hold when a panicky Zach Thurston came onto the scene and instinctively pulled his gun. Ten seconds later, he had panicked even worse when Linda made a sudden move to shield two female students who had walked onto the scene.

Marie had watched all this from a handcuffed position against a patrol car. So, Marie was even less friendly than usual when Linda met her in the interrogation room, especially since Linda was dressed in civilian clothes. Marie greeted Linda by using various synonyms for "woman," none of them complimentary, in her first few sentences.

She stopped, puzzled, at Linda's lack of reaction. In fact, Linda leaned back in her own chair and – though she didn't smoke – basically acted like she was lighting up a cigarette.

"And a happy Mother's Day to you too, Marie," Linda said. The shot hit home. Marie, during a sober period, had conceived a son who was now twelve years old and very smart.

"The word is that you're still running that drug ring via pay phone from right here in the lockup. Of course, we can't listen in on your calls, so I don't know. Seems unlikely, though – the people we bust have reported a profound drug shortage in the various 'houses' we frequent. Some of them beg us to keep them in custody so they can get chemical fixes."

Linda leaned forward. "And you know something else? From the evidence we have so far, the D.A. isvery unlikely to secure an indictment against you for that last bust."

It sounded extremely suspicious to Marie. She was used to plea bargaining rather than getting off outright. "How come?"

"We confiscated some drugs all right, when we were cuffing you and your associates. But we were expecting to pick up a lot more – tens of thousands of dollars worth. And you know what? We figured there'd be Ben Franklins and General Grants and President Jacksons all over the place. We didn't find more than three or four hundred dollars. Not in your bank account and not in your house. Misdemeanor drug possession, a few bucks on the side. We couldn't prove that was drug money even if we wanted to."

"That wasn't drug money."

"You want me to think you're lying. I know better. That's why you're doing time for forgery. You didthat to get money for Patrick's summer camp... right?" Marie shot an indignant look of denial. Linda feigned smoking a cigarette.

"Whatever. Marie, you're practically a welfare mom and I know youneverdip into the cash you pay to your suppliers. You've always beenvery good about that. But isn't it funny how that charge, that one little charge, was the only one that stuck? If we can't find additional drug evidence on you in the next day or two, your jail time will be up and you'll be on probation, as free as you get. Bet the boys in [a really bad neighborhood] will be mighty happy to see you."

"Lieutenant" – it sounded like an obscenity – "I can talk to you because you're naked as a (blank) jaybird. There was at least fifty grand of shit in that last supply and about ahundred grand in cash. If you stole it –"

"Then I would be in jail with you – for about a day. But the thing is, some other copsfoundsome of the money and most of the drugs in my niece's locker. Icouldhave sold her down the river, but I wouldn't have had any reason to – would I?"

"You bitches are capable of anything."

"We certainly are – we're women, aren't we? But I didn'tknowwhere those drugs were when we busted you. And Istilldon't know where most of the money is."

Marie stared at Linda. Linda let her stare. Then Marie let out a final choice word of description, followed by, "You know what? I believe you."

"I'm glad you do. The District Attorney sure as hell doesn't. He's going to take Carol Gibson down and he'd love to take me, her parents, my undercover operative and any other dirty cops with her. I wouldn't say he'll put you in for the county's thanks, but..."

"HOLD IT, LIEUTENANT!"

"Marie, you've been ripped off. I don't know by whom and neither do your suppliers. You cantry to tell them, but..." Linda let this part hang. "You've been away from your turf too long, Marie. Somebody is using all thatshit – and all that money – for his or her own purposes. I have an idea why, and it has nothing to do with 'supplying the needs of the students.' It's called a vendetta, and whoever has it doesn't carehow many people get hurt. Or worse."

Again, Linda let this part hang. "Who do you know who is psycho enough to break every rule in your drug dealer's code of conduct?"

"Lieutenant. If I become a jailhouse rat, there's no difference and you know it."

"I know, Marie. That's why this is an unofficial visit. We can have you and Patrick in the Federal Witness Protection Program as quick as –." Linda snapped her fingers. "You're a real piece of work, but so farhe's a good kid. Be nice to have him grow up in a safe environment and indulge his taste for rocket science."

"Lieutenant – maybe I can tell you who youdidn't catch. And some of them are pure cop haters, that's no secret. But between you and me, they don't have the brains to frame people for possession or post Website information or all that crap. Yes, I heard all about what happened to Carol before that. Some of the stuff she went through even mademesick."