Getting Good
Previously: Jeannie has a chat with an unexpected informant.
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12:36 PM - Thursday November 6, 2014
The Thomas Residence, 341 Infantry Terrace, The Presidio
Paco reached out a hand for Jeannie so she could roll up to standing from the floor. The three of them glanced at each other and then Mark tilted his head toward the door, leading them out to the landing and closing the door behind them. Spiro Thomas’ office door was open now, revealing an empty room.
“Okay, hold on a sec.” Mark whispered. “Thoughts on asking the parents about this?” Jeannie glanced between him and Paco.
“I - I don’t know. I feel like if they knew they’d have mentioned it? Or there’d be a good reason why they didn’t mention it?” Jeannie whispered back.
“More than that though — “ Paco added, looking upward, “if — if Charlie isn’t our guy, and I don’t really think he is, I don’t think mentioning it to a grieving father would be wise. You never know what Dads will do to a boyfriend they don’t like, and we already know Spiro was primed to dislike someone from the Seb situation.”
Mark’s eyebrows raised, considering this. “I see what you mean.” He whispered. “And I agree — we don’t need an angry father going vigilante, even in the fancy neighborhood. They’ll have enough to deal with if the warrant goes through tomorrow.”
Jeannie nodded. “Okay, let’s keep this between us for now and pay a visit to Master Dagonet again.”
Making their way down to the main floor, the crowd of mourners was still thick in the dining and living rooms. Carole and Spiro were in the sunroom chatting with some of the students, hailing the trio as they went to the door.
“Thank you so much for coming.” Spiro said, shaking hands with the three of them, his eyes belying his welcoming tone.
“We — we were wondering if we could chat with you both — can we go out on the porch?” Mark asked. Carole nodded for them both and the group went out the front door, forming a small huddle at the far corner of the empty porch where they discussed the logistics of the next few days with the possibility of the warrant coming through. The Thomases were wary but resigned, asking for clarification here and there, but mostly agreeing to everything. Mark wondered if they knew how vastly their lives were to change in rapid order. Again.
Making their goodbyes, the three moved down the stairs to the SUV. Paco noted that very few cars had left the street, and that the hub-bub, even if well-intended, was probably exhausting to the family. Jeannie shut her car door firmly and heaved a big sigh, staring out the front window as the other two climbed in.
“Okay. Back to Dagonets?” Paco asked, starting the ignition. The radio on the dash immediately broke in as soon as the engine came to life.
“Mayfield this is base? Mayfield are you there?” Paco jumped slightly, his hand scrambling for the radio to respond.
“This is Mayfield — what’s up?”
“Pac — where have you guys been?” It was Meg’s clear voice coming through. “Raj is saying you need to come back to the office right away. He’s been trying to reach you.”
“It’s a funeral Meg, the phones were off. We were inside. What’s happening?”
“You just — just come back here. What’s your 20?” Mark thought it was likely that Raj was standing over her to make sure she got them to return.
“We are 8 minutes out. 10-4.”
“10-4.”
“What could that be?” Jeannie asked as Paco hung up the radio receiver, his face perturbed.
“No idea, but I’m guessing if it’s Raj, it’s probably something we need to see — he wouldn’t pull us back over nothing.” Mark asserted. Paco roared the SUV to life and took a right to go up the hill, turning on his flashing lights for a silent run.
Mark made it up the stairs first, Jeannie and Paco hurrying behind. Raj pushed open the heavy metal door before they reached the top.
“Come in here — you need to see this.” Raj’s signature smirk was gone, his face looked pale. He led them to the conference room where he sat in front of the laptop that was recording the Pr3pSF website. “This came online about —” he checked the time stamp “35 minutes ago.” He scrolled back up the site to a video that had been posted. “It’s not from the Admin or the Alexa ghost account. It’s someone we haven’t seen before, at least not posting. They’ve made plenty of snarky comments though.” He pressed play and a garbled, dark video began. It was difficult to see what was happening with the camera turning from horizontal to vertical and back again. There were sounds and some laughter, swearing.
Paco looked beyond the blurry foreground to see what was in the background, spying some familiar wood paneling. “Woah — we’ve seen this room before. The bed looks familiar too.”
“Yeah it does.” Raj said flatly.
The blurs in the foreground sharpened into figures, figures moving on top of each other in the awkward way that only means one thing. There was a lamp dimly lit, but the figures were just shapes — outlines.
“Oh — oh my God, are we — is this a porno?” Jeannie’s mouth gaped. “What is this?”
“I don’t think it was intended to be a porno, but it was definitely recorded for some reason.” Raj said, “and posted for some reason too. Keep watching.”
“I — I don’t think I —” Jeannie stammered.
The camera moved toward the dark bed, changing the angle to see the faces of the figures lit by the lamp. Jennifer Tyson’s face was the first to appear, with Dash Reilly moving behind her. The blonde curls of Seb Podesta’s head were below her on the bed, although his face was still obscured. Jen was straddling him, her own body a mass of hands and grabs between the two boys, with Dash holding her white blonde hair back, pulling every so often. Jeannie turned away.
“This — this is —”
“Illegal.” Mark said simply. “Even if they were consenting to the video, it’s unlikely they were consenting to it being posted online. Who posted it?” Mark crossed his arms, brow furrowed.
“The account is “whynotmefucker13” and it’s up and down the whole site, but they haven’t posted anything like this before. They’ve just made comments on other people’s shit.”
“More than who posted it,” Paco added softly, staring at the screen, “who shot this video?”
“That was my question.” Raj said. “And then I realized the person who shot it and the person who posted it could be the same person, couldn’t they?”
“But who else was in the room?” Jeannie tossed out, her back turned away from the laptop. “We know from the video of Alexa that Dash tried to corner her, Seb and Jen were…occupied —”
“And it looks like their being occupied turned into this once Alexa left the room.” Raj added. The video continued and Mark winced, looking away himself. Everything about the video was wrong, even if they needed to learn from it.
“Okay, okay stop this — “ Mark said diving for the keyboard to pause it. “Enough. We don’t need to see more.” The frame on the screen showed a strange blur of the three bodies melding together. “Is there any kind of timestamp on the video?”
“Nothing visible and I’m trying to dig out the metadata, but it’s going to take time.”
“Did you do a side-by-side of the video with Alexa?”
“Not in detail, but it’s definitely the same room, same bed.”
“But didn’t we think it was Tripp Hartman who shot the Alexa video?” Mark countered. “It was more like a— , I don’t know, like a prank? Like he videoed it to make fun of her?”
“And why did Alexa’s ghost account post that video, but this other random account is posting this?” Paco tossed out.
“Because the Alexa’s ghost account was trying to show what she went through in that room, remember?” Jeannie put in. “They called out Dash and Seb as the bad guys. It was to change the narrative and put the focus on the boys being terrible rather than Alexa being some kind of prude, and Jen was more collateral damage. And then they followed it up with the excerpt, or whatever that first-person narrative was about Alexa being in the guest house and hearing the people on the beach.”
“And how scared she was —” Paco added solemnly.
“From which we thought the people on the beach were Tally and Dash.” Mark concluded. “But what were Tally and Dash doing in the meantime?”
“I don’t buy that.” Jeannie said shaking her head. “No way Tally Briggs is going to video Dash Reilly get at some girl like Jen Tyson and then make out with him on the beach.” She paused for a second. “No — this feels like something else. Seb and Dash both admitted that there was GHB on July 4th, and that Tripp told Seb that he dosed him. This feels like something that happened late-night. You know, like when the hard drugs came out and the real party started.”
Mark sighed. “Then Tally Briggs wouldn’t know about it.”
“Right —” Jeannie agreed. “If it was Dash and Tally on the beach, I’d venture that happened pretty quickly after Alexa bolted. They were still looking for her, right? So, they don’t find Alexa, they go on and do whatever it is that they do, and then Dash says goodnight, and goes back upstairs for more fun.”
“Then that would mean the cameraman would still have to be Tripp Hartman.” Mark concluded. “It’s the only way it makes sense. He kept everybody in the drugs to the party kept going.” Everyone was quiet, thinking this through. “Okay Raj — this is all kinds of illegal: non-consensual sexually explicit content on the internet is a big one, plus there’s something revenge-porn about it.”
“I was going to say that too — “ Jeannie added. “Clearly this is something to make Jen look like —” she faded.
“Yes, exactly.” Raj agreed. “And yes, it’s way across the line, and the Pr3pSF site is over the line now too because it’s hosting it. If they’re at all smart they’ll take it down as soon as they see it.”
“Can we trace the IP location of the “whynotme” account?” Mark asked. Raj immediately sat down and started typing. “Woah.”
“What? Where is it?”
“It’s not that — the commentary below the video post is blowing up.” Jeannie turned back to look at the screen over Raj’s shoulder. Dozens of comments were posted below the video.
“This is awful. They’re all about Jen. “What a slut.” “Everything everyone said about her is true.” “The Dyson in full form.” “Jen Tyson is trash.”— there’s even a hashtag: tysonthedysongetsfucked — my God, these kids are vicious.”
“Maybe that’s the point.” Raj said, twisting around to face all of them. “Maybe it’s what Jeannie said that this isn’t about who posted the video but who they wanted to target. The boys are going to look like legends from this, but Jen Tyson? I can’t imagine a high school girl coming back from a sex tape where she’s in the middle of a threesome. Sorry— it’s not right, but it’s the truth.”
“But why Jen? What does anyone gain by coming after her?” Paco asked.
“Maybe we don’t know yet.” Mark sighed. “Or maybe she knows something and someone was trying to scare her off.”
“That sounds more like it to me.” Jeannie agreed. “Maybe we go talk to Charlie and Jen Tyson too.”
“Oh, wait, look — there’s a new comment from Alexa’s ghost.” Raj said, eyes on the screen. “Hey whynotmefucker13 — you’re disgusting. How fucking dare you. You have no idea what you’ve just done. You’re going down in this, not Jen.” “ He paused. “Well, I’d call that a threat.”
“This is so ugly.” Jeannie said disbelievingly.
Raj shrugged slightly. “I think it’s just getting good.”