Mrs. Bird’s eyebrow lifted. “You don’t think my son had anything to do with that?”
“No. Not at all.”
“So how’s he supposed to help you?”
“Mom,” said Jamal.
“Honey, you gotta be careful. Ask yourself why the police would come around asking for help from a fifteen-year-old boy.”
“？’Cause maybe I know stuff they don’t?”
“They’re the police.”
“But they probably don’t know shit about computers.”
“Actually, he’s right,” admitted Jane. “We don’t.”
Jamal swiveled around in his chair to face Jane. “Tell me what you want to know.”
He might be only fifteen, but at that moment, looking into his eyes, Jane saw a confident young man looking back. “You said that Sofia bought the laptop to do online research,” said Jane.
“That’s what she told me.”
“Do you know what sort of research?”
“No. She just asked me to set up the laptop for her. I installed some software, got her a new Gmail account.” He laughed. “I mean, she was still using AOL for her email.”
“So you’re the one who signed her up for Gmail?” said Frost.
“Yeah.”
“Do you happen to know her log-in information?”
Jamal regarded him for a moment, as if trying to discern some unspoken reason for the question. A question that could get him into trouble. “I didn’t hack her account, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not at all what we’re saying,” said Jane. “But we are hoping you can do it for us now.”
“Hack her account?”
“You seem like you’d remember details. Like user names and passwords.”
“Maybe I do. So?”
“If we can read her emails, find out who she’s been corresponding with, we might be able to catch her killer.”
Jamal thought this over, weighing the risks of trusting them. Helping them. At last, he took a breath and swiveled around to his keyboard. “Her password is Henry plus her address. I told her that wasn’t secure enough, but she said it’s the only way she’d remember it.”
“Her password has her fish’s name?”
“Why not?” He typed, his fingers moving so fast they were a blur. “There. You’re in.”
Just like that. Jane and Frost glanced at each other, both of them stunned by how quickly their problem had been solved by a fifteen-year-old.
“And here’s her inbox,” said Jamal. “There’s not a lot in here ’cause she only had the account for a few weeks.”
But those weeks were the all-important ones just before she died.
Jamal scooted out of the way to let Jane and Frost see the screen. Jane grabbed the mouse and began to click through the messages.
In the three weeks before her death, Sofia Suarez had received emails from Pilgrim Hospital regarding her work schedule, a message from the hair salon confirming her appointment, a nursing journal renewal reminder, two alerts from Amazon about new romance releases, and messages that were clearly spam. Lots and lots of spam. There were no threatening messages, nothing that seemed out of the ordinary.
Then Jane clicked on an email that was sent from a Hotmail address. It was only two lines long.
Your letter was forwarded to me from my old apartment. I want to know more. Call me.
Jane stared at the phone number in the message, a number she’d seen before. “Frost,” she said.
“That’s the number on her call log,” said Frost. “The call she made to that burner phone.”
Jane looked at Jamal. “Did Sofia say anything about this email to you?”
He shook his head. “I was just her computer guy. I don’t know anything about any phone call. Why don’t you just call the number and find out who it is?”
“We’ve tried. No one answers.”
“Well, you’ve got the email address. Lemme see what’s in the header.” He tapped a few keys, made a few clicks of the mouse.
Frost frowned at what was now on the screen. “IP address.”
Jamal nodded. “Maybe it’ll point us to the sender’s location.” He navigated to a new website, pasted the data into the search box, and sighed. “Sorry. It goes to Hotmail in Virginia. Why don’t you just send him an email?”
“And if he doesn’t answer?” said Frost.
Jane stared at the computer, thinking for a moment. “He says he got a letter from her, forwarded from his old address. Which means she was the one reaching out to find him. She probably searched for him online.”