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Arnie Waugh sighed. “Oh, I don’t think we’re going to be consenting to much of anything, Detective Wright. But I wish you luck with your endeavors.”
Matthew ended the call and went to Sarah Jane’s desk to fill her in. Her phone was on her desk, screen up and awake. Her screen saver was a photograph of her with her family. They were standing on a jetty in a row of four, with arms linked and grins for the camera. There was Sarah Jane, an older couple who were almost certainly her parents, and a man in his mid-twenties. That must be her brother who had died. He had dark hair cut very short, and a beard. And a face that looked similar to the face that looked back at Matthew every time he looked in the mirror. Oh. Okay. He looked like her brother. Was that the reason for her slight awkwardness around him?
She realized he was there, and he’d been silent too long. Matthew cleared his throat and filled her in on his conversation with Waugh.
“We’ll get a warrant and get divers out,” Matthew said. “That lake is more of a pond. I saw it. It can’t be deeper than fifteen or twenty feet.”
“I read about a case where they got data from a phone that someone had dropped in a toilet,” Sarah Jane said, as her hands flew across her keyboard. “But the pond would be deeper. When did she drop it? Yesterday? How long is too long?”
Matthew frowned. “I don’t know. But I’ll talk to Foley. See what he says.” He retreated to his own desk and made the call. It was lunchtime on a Saturday. There was every possibility that he wouldn’t answer. Christopher Foley was head of forensics, and a man who liked to keep a strict boundary between his home and work lives. He’d told Matthew that unless he was on call, his cell phone was turned off and tucked away in a drawer in his kitchen.
The phone answered on the fifth ring.
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d pick up. Thought the phone would be off.”
“I forgot,” Christopher said.
“Okay to run something by you?”
“Not a problem.”
Matthew told him about the phone and the pond. “Might be in there twenty-four hours, maybe a little longer. At its deepest my best guess is it might be twenty feet. At its widest point I think maybe five hundred yards. I guess what I want to know is what the chances are that we find it, and if we do, whether or not we’ll get anything from it.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem to find it. The boys will go in with metal detectors. If we know the general area it went in, that will make it go easier, but even without that information, that sort of area, we should be able to track it down.”
“And the data?”
“What kind of phone was it?”
“I don’t know, but given the kid, I’d say it was something new. Latest model iPhone or Samsung.”
Christopher’s tone was that of someone trying to work out a math problem. “Some of those phones have tested in lab conditions as waterproof for at least half an hour at ten or fifteen feet. Now, in this situation it’s been in there longer, and very possibly deeper. So let’s assume that water got through the case. Still not the end of the world. We can take it apart, dry it out. If it’s an Android we can hack it. If it’s an iPhone, hacking will be harder, but we should be able to get some information. Most of what’s on an iPhone is encrypted, but not all.”
“So you think it’s worth it?”
“I do.”
“I’m going to get the warrant.”
“I’ll line up the divers.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jamie
I went to Simon’s room and started going through his things. It didn’t take long to confirm that his jacket and boots were missing, and some of his clothes. I went to the mudroom and laundry and ultimately the garage, and they weren’t there either. We keep our hiking packs in the garage, hanging from hooks. My day pack was there, but Simon’s big backpack was gone.
I went to Rory’s study and knocked. He was on a call, but he ended it when he saw my face.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
I told him about the missing clothes and bag, and his face fell.
“I just, I don’t know where he’s going. The weather’s so bad, and it’s only going to get worse. He’s hardly going to camp out. Where’s he going to stay? Did he have money? Did he take cash?”
“I don’t think so,” Rory said. “Not much. I changed the code on the safe.”
