21 - The Glendale Expedition

Detective Nora Glass and the other Pasadena police pulled up to a nice suburban home in Glendale about 15 minutes later. Another car pulled up a moment later and handed Nora a sheaf of papers. She rang the bell and an approximately 40-year-old woman came to the door.

"Hello? May I help you?"

"Ma'am, I'm Detective Glass of the Pasadena Police and I have a warrant to search these premises."

"Um. Why?"

Nora pulled out a photo of Paul Hernly.

"Do you know this man?"

"Yes, that's Bryan's writing teacher. He was just here. He left a few minutes ago."

Detective Glass called over one of the other policemen and whispered a few things to him. He went over to his squad car and began barking orders into his radio, then got in and sped off.

"Who is Bryan?"

"My son."

"May we speak to him?"

"Is he in trouble?"

"He may be. Does he have a computer?"

"He has quite a bit of computer equipment. We even had to install a special air conditioner for him."

"Ma'am, please take us to him. Now."

Detective Glass and two other officers were led to a set of stairs and then down to a basement filled with computer equipment, much of it in a state of disrepair. However, further in was a series of consoles and monitors that looked like a control room at NASA. A kid who looked to be about 16 years old was seated at one of them. He quickly turned around.

"Mom, I told you you're not allowed down here!"

"Bryan, these are the police. They have a warrant. What did you do?"

The kid looked scared. He actually looked to be on the brink of tears.

"I…I didn't want to do it. He made me."

The two officers with Nora began looking around the basement.

"Bryan, I'm Detective Glass. Who made you do what?"

At this point the kid was actually crying.

"Mr. Hernly. My writing teacher. Well he was my writing teacher."

"What did he make you do?"

"He made me cyberstalk this lady for him. He wanted to know where she was all the time."

"What else, Bryan?"

"And he made me show him how to remotely work cameras and then he put them where she lived and made me record her doing stuff."

"And?"

"He had me make a DVD of her and post stuff from it on some porno websites."

"Bryan, why did you do all this?"

"I go to a special school for kids who are good with computers and stuff. It was really hard to get into. He was my writing teacher a couple of years ago and one of the things I wrote about was what I found when I used to hack websites, all kinds of websites. And I guess some of it was illegal. Anyway, at first said he'd pay me to set up a website and a blog for him and then he told me he was working on a tv show and he asked me to host a blog for him and teach him about the cameras. Then the tv show got cancelled and I didn't see him for a while. He showed up about a month ago and said if I didn't do what he asked he'd tell my parents and the police about my hacking and get me thrown out of school."

"Detective, I'm becoming a bit uncomfortable here. I think I should call an attorney. And maybe Bryan shouldn't say any more."

"Ma'am, I won't lie to you. Bryan could be in some legal trouble. But if what he's telling me is true, it sounds more like he's been another victim of this creep, Paul Hernly. It's completely up to you, but I hope Bryan might be able to help us catch this guy. The more he can tell us about him, the better things will go."

"Mom, I want to help. Mr. Hernly is a bad guy and someone has to stop him. He's going to hurt someone. Maybe even you."

"Bryan, this has obviously been going on for some time. Why didn't you say something to me?"

"Mom, he said if I told anyone about what he was doing he'd hurt you. He said he'd burn the house down with us in it."

"Bryan, you tell the officers everything you know about that creep."

"I felt really bad about watching that lady. She was really pretty seemed really nice and she didn't know that everything she was doing was being recorded. Mr. Hernly said she ruined his life so he was going to ruin hers. He made me post the recordings and pictures of her on pornography web sites."

"Bryan, do you know where Mr. Hernly is now or where he might be going?"

"No. He just shows up. When he left before he said it might be a while until he came back but that he was watching me and I better not tell anyone anything or he'd hurt me. I'm scared."

"Bryan, here's what's going to happen. You and your mom and your lawyer are going to meet me at the Pasadena Police Station in a little while. We're going to write down everything you tell me and anything else you remember about Paul Hernly and what he's done, what he's doing and where he might be. You may be charged with being an accessory but I'm going to try to convince the District Attorney not to do that but you are probably going to have to do something to make up for what you did. And your access to the Internet and computers might be restricted."

"But computers are everything to me!"

"Like I said, I don't know what we'll be able to work out, but I don't think you're a bad kid. I think you're a victim here just like my friend Penny, that's the lady you've been stalking. I'm also going to leave a couple of officers here to protect you and your mom just in case Hernly comes back."

"Um, I did something that might be able to help you."

"What was that Bryan?"

"I put something in all the files. Something that'll mess them up and any computers they get put on. Hernly doesn't know."

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. When we come back from the Police Station a friend of mine is going to meet us here. You're going to tell him everything you did for Hernly and all about what you did to the files."

"Okay. Please tell that lady I'm really, really sorry."

"For now the files are evidence but eventually all of them will need to be destroyed."

"Okay. I don't have a problem with that."

As they all left for the station, Nora took out her phone and called Howard Wolowitz.

"Howard? It's Nora…Detective Glass."

"Yeah, we found the hacker but missed Hernly by a few minutes."

"He's a kid. A really scared kid who's more of a victim than a perpetrator. Hernly threatened to hurt him and his mother and get him thrown out of school."

"Yeah, it does sound like the creep's MO. Listen the kid, his name's Bryan, he says he buried some kind of code in everything."

"Howard, feel like taking a trip out here to Glendale to speak to that kid? I have a feeling you might be kindred spirits. Also, it might be good if the kid met someone he could look up to. No, not literally, he's about your height. I think he's maybe not a bad kid. He just did some bad stuff. Under duress."

"I thought you might. I'll text you his address. You can come by and look at his set-up while he's at the station giving his statement. He said he'd help get rid of the Penny stuff but I also want you to go over everything he did for Hernly and explain it all to me in plain English. I'm leaving a couple of officers here to watch the place and I'll let them know you're coming. Yeah, normally we'd just take everything apart and bring it down to the station but I kinda think that would cost us time."

"Bring Raj along if you want but I don't think Sheldon really wants to see any of that stuff."

"Yes, Howard. It's weird. I've known them less than a week and they are a wacky pair. But it works for them and, hell, I am in no position to judge."

"Let me know what you find out. Will you be at the hotel for Chinese food and vintage video games later?"

"I don't really blame them at all for trying to insert some normalcy into a crazy week and if that's a way of doing it, well, since they invited me I'm happy to join in. See you later."