Dead Hunt

are you talking about?’’
‘‘I wrote a facial recognition program that searches the Internet for image files, picks out faces, and compares them with a target face. It’s called Arachnid.’’
‘‘And you kept this a secret?’’ said Neva. ‘‘You should sell it.’’
‘‘It must only be used for good,’’ he said. ‘‘In the wrong hands it could be evil. Besides, something like it is probably out there already in dark places, collecting pictures of all of us.’’
‘‘So the red light means it found something?’’ said Neva.
‘‘It found something,’’ said David. ‘‘I told it to call my computer up here when it did. I didn’t think the light would be so...so glowing.’’
‘‘You put Clymene’s picture in, didn’t you?’’ said Jin. ‘‘Come on, let’s go look at it.’’
They took the elevator down to the basement and headed to David’s space.
‘‘I thought you did photography down here,’’ said Jin as David was unlocking the door.
‘‘I do. I also have my laboratory,’’ he said in mock Boris Karloff voice.
David led the way to the room where he kept Arachnid. When he opened the door the first thing they saw in the dark was a closeup photo of a spider’s mouth parts on the monitor.
‘‘Jeez, David,’’ said Neva, ‘‘now I see why you said, ‘It’s in the basement.’ ’’ Neva did a better Boris Karloff impersonation than David.
David flipped on the light and went to the printer.
‘‘Oh, my God,’’ he said. ‘‘Arachnid did find something.’’
They laughed at his surprise. He fidgeted nervously and handed the printed page to Diane.
‘‘Isn’t that her sitting at the table?’’ said Neva, pointing to the face of a woman seated at a banquet table with an older man who had his hand over hers. There were three other couples at the table with them.
Neva had a good eye for faces. Diane had to look closely. The woman in the photograph had short dark hair in a swept-up style, giving her quite a different look from the woman Diane had sat across from in prison. Or the woman who sat in court. But it was Clymene’s face.
‘‘Does it also collect information that goes with the photograph?’’ said Jin.
‘‘Of course. It wouldn’t be much use otherwise,’’ said David.
He sat down and punched a few keys printer started printing more pages. Diane and the snatched the pages as they came out.
‘‘This was taken at the Commonwealth Lawyers Convention in 1997, Richmond, Virginia,’’ said Diane.
Neva read the caption. It listed the names of the people in the photo.
‘‘Mr. and Mrs. Grant Bacon,’’ said Neva. ‘‘We have one of her aliases. Too bad they didn’t give her first name.’’
‘‘It could be one of her sisters,’’ said Jin.
‘‘That’s true,’’ said David, ‘‘if they are identical in features.’’
‘‘Well, Clymene or her sister, you’ve got one of them,’’ said Neva.
As the three of them were talking, another name caught Diane’s eye.
‘‘She did know her,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Who?’’ asked Neva.
Diane told them about the call she received the day before from the estate attorney complaining about the e-mail Diane had posted on the Listserv.
‘‘It was this woman—Emma Lorimer,’’ Diane said, pointing to the name in the caption. ‘‘I need to fax this to the marshals.’’
‘‘They have several people to talk to now,’’ said Jin. ‘‘That should make them happy.’’
‘‘Arachnid did a great job, David,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Things are coming together finally. With all the searches, we are bound to find out who Clymene really is.’’
Diane raced up to the crime lab and called Deputy Marshal Merrick.
‘‘I got your voice mail,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll ask the locals to have a talk with this Emma Lorimer.’’
‘‘I have an alias for Clymene,’’ Diane blurted out. ‘‘Mrs. Grant Bacon. I also have names of people she was with at a lawyers’ convention in 1997—including Emma Lorimer.’’
‘‘You’re kidding. Do you think that’s who she really was before she married Robert Carthwright?’’ he asked.
‘‘I don’t know. And it’s possible that it is one of the identical sisters, but it’s a place to look,’’ said Diane.
‘‘We’ve been coming up dry on this end,’’ said Merrick. ‘‘Do you know if this Grant Bacon is alive or dead?’’
‘‘No, I don’t know. That’s the next thing I’m going to look at. Is there a place I