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“It wasn’t me.” Strauss frowned. “I didn’t need a ride. I had my truck and if I’d gone with her, I figure my boss would have been asking me where I’d been all day. I was back at the ranch before three. Ask him. I dropped by his office with an invoice from the produce store.”
Jenna made unnecessary notes—everything was being recorded—but when interviewing a suspect, making notes made them believe what they were saying was relevant. In fact, it was just a pause to give her time to rearrange her thoughts. She raised her eyes. “You used to design and develop video games, is that correct?”
“Yeah, I’m taking a break from that right now.” Strauss shrugged. “I’m burned out.”
Nodding, Jenna twirled her pen in her fingers. “Have you used deepfake technology in creating video games?”
“AI is a massive contributor to video games and one of the uses of deepfakes would be the avatars.” He looked at Jenna. “Are you a gamer?”
“No.” Jenna frowned. “The games have evolved very fast over the last few months. Can you give me a few more details?”
“Basically, when a gamer wants to assume a role as a character, his likeness is used. This is one use of deepfake technology. The AI program is able to substitute a likeness of the player for the character.” Strauss shrugged. “I’ve been out of touch for a time and I’m not fully aware of the advances. It’s moving very fast at the moment, and from what I’ve heard, the pitfalls ahead are great. It’s gone way past gaming now.”
“So you’re saying, we can’t trust what we’re seeing.” Kane leaned back in his seat.
“Unless it’s with your own eyes.” Strauss shrugged. “When you watch movies or shows when the old people are young again, that’s a deepfake. It’s all about competing algorithms. The two algorithms form a generative adversarial network, called GAN. This is used to create the fake.”
Casting a look at Kane, Jenna leaned forward. “So how much skill would it take to change, say, CCTV footage?”
“It takes a degree in the technology, at least, and experience.” Strauss rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Plus, the raw data. Unless they were hackers and could access the footage at high speed, change it and feed it back into the video stream without being noticed. I figure that would be illegal.”
“Is that something you’re capable of doing?” Kane stared at him his face emotionless.
“It’s within my capabilities if I was working with my team.” Strauss raised both eyebrows. “I don’t have that technology in the bunkhouse out at the ranch. I don’t even own a laptop. When I stepped away to rest my brain, it was absolute.”
“Can you run down the timeline of yesterday?” Carter was eying Strauss with curiosity.
“I worked around the ranch as usual, left around twelve and went to the produce store.” Strauss stared into space. “It was raining buckets and I parked under cover for them to load my truck with feed. I covered it with a tarp and headed out of town to speak to a rancher who’d had problems with one of our cutting horses. I checked out the horse, who didn’t like to work in the rain.” He chuckled. “Came back to town, dined at Aunt Betty’s, and then went back to the ranch.”
“Do you own a stun gun?” Kane raised one eyebrow and leaned forward.
“Nope.” Strauss frowned. “There’s cattle prods at the ranch.”
“If you wanted to increase the amperage in a stun gun, how would you do it?” Kane’s mouth twitched up at one corner. “I’ve always wanted to know.”
“I know about gaming, not electrical engineering or whatever.” Strauss met his gaze. “Why would you want to do that anyway? You planning on killing someone? The idea, if I’m not mistaken, is to stun someone with that device, not fry them alive.”
Jenna switched off the recording. “Indeed. Thank you for your time. The information on deepfake was very enlightening.”
“I’m just glad we have DNA to rely on.” Kane pushed to his feet and used his card to open the door. He handed Strauss his keys. “Your vehicle is outside.”
“Glad I could help.” Strauss walked out of the door and headed down the passageway whistling.
Jenna looked from Kane to Carter. “Again, he could have committed the murders, right time, right place. He understood what happens if the amps on a stun gun are increased. Ask a dozen people and only a few would be aware of the consequences. The thing that concerns me is how the killer set up the ride with Leona.”
“I spoke to her at the café and whoever climbed into her truck was wearing clothes like mine and sunglasses… in the rain.” Carter shook his head slowly. “Leona was aware I’m an FBI agent. If I flagged her down and asked her for a ride for some stupid reason, it’s likely she’d accept. She came across as flirty, so if she thought this guy was me, I doubt she would have taken much convincing.”
The idea was feasible, and Jenna stood and gathered her things before turning to him. “Okay, say this doppelganger murdered her. How did he get back to town?”
“Leona worked the same shift every day.” Kane leaned against the wall, one eyebrow cocked. “It would be an easy setup.” He looked at Jenna. “He’d drive to the Triple Z Roadhouse, park his truck, and get a ride back to town. He has two options: most of the drivers would give a man a ride in the pouring rain, or he could take the bus. The bus comes through there around midday, that’s easy enough to check. He’d likely planned to go and speak to Leona to make her familiar with him, but then Carter walked in and struck up a conversation.” He shot Carter a look. “You wear the same brown jacket when you’re not working. Both Holden and Strauss have similar jackets. All of you wear the same hats, throw on a pair of sunglasses and you’d all look similar to a casual acquaintance.”
Chewing on her pen, Jenna thought for a beat. “Apart from the voice.” She looked from one to the other. “Don’t take this as anything but an observation, Carter, but you have a sexy drawl, and don’t sound as if you were raised here. The other two suspects are similar to each other.”
“Sexy drawl, huh?” Carter grinned at her. “I figure that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” Kane opened the door and held it for the others to pass.
“Too late.” Carter chuckled and sauntered along the passageway.
