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“Yeah,” said the police officer on the other end of the phone. “We will. Thanks. And Ms. Murdoch? I just love your books. I was supposed to go to the event today.”
“I understand. I think everyone was upset by Sandy’s death and by the event being postponed, but if you pre-ordered anything, I have someone coming by in the morning to help me. I’m going to sign all the books and mail them to folks. Or if you have some books already, if you’ll come by the hotel, I’d be happy to sign them.”
“You would?”
“Of course.”
“That would be great. I’ll make sure Detective Wilder gets the information tonight.”
The call ended, and Lori looked at her, shaking her head. “You do that so well. You’re so gracious.”
“Here’s a little tip: embrace your readers. You have a symbiotic relationship with them. You supply them with the books they want to read, and they provide you with a living.”
“That is the best explanation I’ve ever heard,” said Fiona. “I got into trouble because I forgot that during my tumultuous marriage and even worse divorce.”
The other women wouldn’t let Jessica lift a finger and quickly had the entrees on the table. As the waitress had promised, they were perfect. They were almost finished when the phone rang.
“Jessica Murdoch.”
“Ms. Murdoch, it’s Detective Wilder. You kept a copy of the damn thumb drive?”
“Have you had dinner, Detective? You sound awfully grouchy.”
“I am not grouchy. I’m annoyed. I thought I was very clear.”
“You were, but we gave you the drive…”
“Which Ms. Crofton should never have picked up.”
“And you can’t prove that she did. Never once did we confirm or deny your suspicion about where that drive came from. Now do you want to continue to berate me, or would you like me to share what we believe those numbers show?”
“You know? Our techs are completely befuddled.”
“Did you just say ‘befuddled?’” laughed Jessica.
“I did. Now answer my question,” he answered gruffly.
“Obviously we can’t be sure, but as you know, Sandy was an author, as are all four of us.”
“The techs think the second to the last column looks like larger dollar amounts with the last column looking like some kind of running total.”
“That’s what we thought, as well. We think the first column is specific authors. When you look you can see a couple of numbers are the same. The second column looks like country codes for selling books. And we’re pretty sure that the third column is ISBN or ASIN codes for specific books.”
“Damn. You ladies have been busy.”
“Well, we’re authors. The numbers looked familiar to us. And in case your people didn’t figure it out, that number at the top is an IP address.”
“Yeah, the site looks huge.”
“It is. It is what we call a pirate site. The owner of that site doesn’t pay authors any royalties. The books are uploaded illegally. And in answer to your next question, authors can’t do much about it.”
“Any idea what Ms. Parkinson was doing with this information?”
“Blackmail is the first thought that occurred to me.”
“To me, as well. Any chance you know who the authors might be?”
“Not a clue; that would be a specific internal code to the owner of the pirate site.”
