I went on, ‘I know the Richmond Police Department is on-line. So are Chicago, Dallas, Charlotte, the Virginia State Police, the British Transport Police. And quite a number of other departments both here and abroad are in the process.’
‘What’s on your mind?’ she asked me.
‘Tell me what happened when the body of the unidentified woman we believe Gault killed was found Christmas Eve. How was CAIN a factor?’
‘The body was found in Central Park early in the morning, and of course I heard about it immediately. As I’ve already mentioned, the MO sounded familiar, so I entered details into CAIN to see what came back. This would have been by late afternoon.’
‘And what came back?’
‘Very quickly CAIN called our VICAP terminal with a request for more information.’
‘Can you recall exactly what sort of information?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Well, let’s see. It was interested in the mutilation, wanting to know from which parts of the body skin had been excised and what class cutting instrument had been used. It wanted to know if there had been a sexual assault, and if so, was the penetration oral, vaginal, anal or other. Some of this we couldn’t know since an autopsy had not yet been performed. However, we did manage to get other information by calling the morgue.’
‘What about other questions?’ I asked. ‘Did CAIN ask anything that struck you as peculiar or inappropriate?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’ She regarded me quizzically.
‘Has CAIN ever sent any messages to the Transit Police terminal that have struck you as peculiar or confusing?’
She thought some more. ‘We’ve entered, at the most, twenty cases since going on-line in November. Rapes, assaults, homicides that I thought might be relevant to VICAP because the circumstances were unusual or the victims were unidentified.
‘And the only messages from CAIN that I’m aware of have been routine requests for further information. There has been no sense of urgency until this Central Park case. Then CAIN sent an Urgent mail waiting message in flashing bold because the system had gotten a hit.’
‘Should you get any messages that are out of the ordinary, Frances, please contact Benton Wesley immediately,’
‘Would you mind telling me what it is you’re looking for?’
‘There was a breach of security at ERF in October. Someone broke in at three in the morning, and circumstances indicate Gault may have been behind it.’
‘Gault?’ Commander Perm was baffled. ‘How could that have happened?’
‘One of ERF’s system analysts, as it turned out, was connected to a spy shop in northern Virginia that was frequented by Gault. We know this analyst - a woman - was involved in the break-in, and the fear is that Gault put her up to it.’
‘Why?’