I’m 6215 Thorndike and he’s 6251 Thorn-drive, which is clear on the
other side of Fairfax County. That whole stack is his. And that’s just
this week. I’ve told the mailman who handles this route, called the
Postal Service a million times, called all the companies who have been
erroneously sending his mail here.
Still happens.”
Sidney slowly turned toward Fisher. An improbable idea was taking shape
in her head.
“Jeff, an e-mail address is like any other address or phone number,
right? You type in the wrong address and it can go to someone you never
intended it to go to. Like this magazine.” She held up Field & Stream.
“Right?”
“Oh, sure,” Fisher replied. “That happens all the time. I have most of
my frequently used e-mail addresses programmed in so I just have to
point and click. That cuts down on the error rate.”
“But if you had to type in a full e-mail address?”
“Well, there’s a lot more room for error in that scenario. The
addresses can get rather lengthy.”
“So if you hit a wrong key, the message you intended for someone could
go to God knows who?”
Fisher nodded as he munched on a potato chip. “I get misaddressed
e-mail all the time.”
Sidney looked at him with a puzzled expression. “What do you do when
that happens?”
“Well, what happens most often is pretty simple. I only have to click
on my reply-to-sender command and I send a standard message saying they
got the wrong address and I send the e-mail back so they know what
message I’m talking about. That way I don’t need to know the address.
It automatically sends it back to the originator.”
“Jeff, you mean if my husband sent an e-mail to the wrong location, the
person receiving the e-mail by mistake could simply reply back to
Jason’s e-mail address to let him know the mistake?”
“Right. I mean, if you’re on the same service, say America Online, it’s
relatively simple.”
“And if that person did reply back, the e-mail would be in Jason’s
computerized mailbox right now, right?”
Fisher looked up at her, a slightly fearful look in his eyes at the tone
in her voice. “Well, yes.”
Sidney collected her purse.
Fisher looked at her. “Where are you going?”
“To check our computer at home for the e-mail. If the password is on
there, I can read this disk.” Sidney popped the disk out of the floppy
drive and put it in her purse.
“Sidney, if you give me your husband’s user name and password, I can
access his mail from right here. I have AOL on my system. It’s not
hardware-specific. I’ll just log you on as a guest. If the key to the
encryption is in the mailbox; we can read the disk here.”
“I know, Jeff. But would your access of Jason’s mail from this location
be traceable?”
Fisher’s eyes narrowed. “It’s possible. If whoever was looking knew
what they were doing.”
“I think we have to assume these people know what they’re doing, Jeff.
It’ll be a lot safer for you if no one can trace that e-mail being
accessed from here.”
Fisher turned a shade paler. He spoke slowly, the nervousness evident
in his tone and features. “What have you gotten involved in, Sidney?”
She turned away from him as she spoke. “I’ll be in touch.”
After she left, Fisher sat at the screen for a few more minutes and then
plugged in the phone line to his computer.
Sawyer sat down in the recliner and looked once again at the Post story
on Jason Archer and shook his head. He flipped the paper over and as
his eyes hit the other headline, he almost gagged. It took him two
minutes to devour the story. He jumped on the phone and made a series
of calls. That finished, he tore down the stairs. A minute later his
sedan shot down the street.
Sidney parked the Ford in the driveway, hurried into her house, threw
off her coat and went straight to her husband’s office. She was about
to access her AOL mailbox when she suddenly jumped up.
“Oh, God!” She couldn’t do it from here, not with whatever was on there.