“Like that big child pornography, pedophile case you all just cracked,” Grigg said.

“Yes, photos sent as files through the World Wide Web, where children can talk to strangers again,” she said. “What’s interesting in the situation at hand, is scanning black and white is no big deal. But when you move into color, that’s getting sophisticated. Also the edges and borders in the photos sent to Dr. Scarpetta are relatively sharp, not much background noise.”

“Sounds to me this is someone who knew what he was doing,” Grigg said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But not necessarily a computer analyst or graphic artist. Not at all.”

“These days, if you’ve got access to the equipment and a few instruction books, anyone can do it,” said Frankel, who also worked in computers.

“All right, the photos were scanned into the system,” I said to Lucy. “Then what? What is the path that led them to me?”

“First you upload the file, which in this case is a graphic or GIF file,” she replied. “Generally, to send this successfully, you have to determine the number of data bits, stop bits, the parity setting, whatever the appropriate configuration is. That’s where it’s not user-friendly. But AOL does all that for you. So in this case, sending the files was simple. You upload and off they go.” She looked at me.

“And this was done over the telephone, basically,” Wesley said.

“Right.”

“What about tracing that?”

“Squad Nineteen’s already on it.” Lucy referred to the FBI unit that investigated illegal uses of the Internet.

“I’m not sure what the crime would be in this case,” Wesley pointed out. “Obscenity, if the photos are fakes, and unfortunately, that isn’t illegal.”

“The photographs aren’t fake,” I said.

“Hard to prove.” He held my gaze.

“What if they’re not fake?” Ring asked.

“Then they’re evidence,” Wesley said, adding after a pause, “A violation of Title Eighteen, Section Eight-seventy-six. Mailing threatening communications.”

“Threats toward who?” Ring asked.

Wesley’s eyes were still on me. “Clearly, toward the recipient.”

“There’s been no blatant threat,” I reminded him.

“All we want is enough for a warrant.”

“We got to find the person first,” Ring said, stretching and yawning in his chair like a cat.

“We’re watching for him to log on again,” Lucy replied. “It’s being monitored around the clock.” She continued hitting keys on her laptop, checking the constant flow of messages. “But if you imagine a global telephone system with some forty million users, and no directory, no operators, no directory assistance, that’s what you’ve got with the Internet. There’s no list of membership, nor does AOL have one, unless you voluntarily choose to fill out a profile. In this case, all we have is the bogus name deadoc.”

“How did he know where to send Dr. Scarpetta’s mail?” Grigg looked at me.

I explained, and then asked Lucy, “This is all done by charge card?”

She nodded. “That much we’ve traced. An American Express Card in the name of Ken L. Perley. A retired high-school teacher. Norfolk. Seventy, lives alone.”