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Oh, of course—he has to travel for his work
.
We were phone buddies for about three years, both enjoying the banter
and the sense of accomplishment.
If we had ever met in person, I would have given her a kiss to thank her
for all the wonderful help she gave me. Ann, if you read this, your kiss is
waiting.
I guess real detectives must have a lot of different leads to follow up when
they’re working a case, and some of the leads it just takes time to get to. I
hadn’t forgotten that Eric’s apartment rental contract was in the name of a
Joseph Wernle; I just hadn’t pursued that lead yet. This was one of the
several times while playing detective that I would turn to my Social
Security chum, Ann.
She went on the MCS and pulled up an “Alphadent” file, used to find a
person’s Social Security number from his or her name and date of birth.
I then asked for a “Numident,” to get my subject’s place and date of
birth, father’s name, and mother’s maiden name.
Joseph Wernle had been born in Philadelphia, to Joseph Wernle Sr. and
his wife, Mary Eberle.
Ann then ran a DEQY (pronounced “DECK-wee”) for me—a “detailed
earnings query,” giving a person’s work history and earnings record.
Huh?…
What the hell!?
Joseph Wernle Jr. was forty years old. According to his Social Security
records, he had never earned a penny.
He had never even held a job.
What would you have thought at this point?
The man existed, because Social Security had a file on him. But he had
never had a job and never earned an income.
The more I dug into his background, the more intriguing the whole thing
seemed to get. It didn’t make sense, which just made me all the more
determined to find out what the explanation could be.
But at least I now had his parents’ names.
This was like playing Sherlock Holmes.
Joseph Wernle Jr.—the son—had been born in Philadelphia. Maybe his
parents still lived there, or at least somewhere nearby. A call to directory
assistance for the 215 area code, which covered Philadelphia as well as,
back then, surrounding areas of Pennsylvania, turned up three men named
Joseph Wernle.
I started calling the numbers the directory assistance operator gave me.
On my second try, a man answered. I asked if he was Mr. Wernle, and he
said yes.
“This is Peter Browley, with the Social Security Administration,” I
began. “I was wondering if I could take a few minutes of your time.”
“What’s this about?”
“Well, we’ve been paying Social Security benefits to a Joseph Wernle,
and somehow the records appear to have gotten mixed up in our system. It
seems we may have been paying the benefits to the wrong person.”
I paused to let that sink in and let him squirm a little, so I would have
him at a bit of a disadvantage. He waited without saying anything. I went
on, “Is your wife’s name Mary Eberle?”
“No,” he said. “That’s my sister.”
“Well, do you have a son named Joseph?”
“No.” After a moment, he added, “Mary has a son named Joseph Ways.
But it couldn’t be him. He lives in California.”
This was coming together; now we were getting somewhere. But there
was more: the man on the other end of the phone line was still talking.
“He’s an FBI agent.”
Son of a bitch!
There was no such person as Joseph Wernle Jr. An FBI agent named
Joseph Ways had adopted a false identity using real family names that he
could easily remember. And that agent was passing himself off as a hacker
named Eric Heinz.
Or at least, that was the most likely deduction, based on what I now
knew.
The next time I tried to call Eric on his landline telephone, the number was
disconnected.
Earlier in my hacking career, there had been a point when I had decided it
might come in handy sometime to have access to another of the Los
Angeles area’s utility companies, the Department of Water and Power, or
DWP. Everybody needs water and electricity, so the utility company
seemed like an extremely valuable source for finding out someone’s
address.
The DWP maintained a unit known as “Special Desk” to handle calls
from law enforcement, staffed by people trained to verify that every caller
was on the list of people authorized to receive customer information.
I called the DWP corporate offices claiming to be a cop and explained
that our sergeant who had the phone number for Special Desk was on
assignment, and we needed to get it again. I was given it without a problem.
Next I called LAPD’s elite SIS division. It seemed only fair to include
these guys in the fun since they were the ones who had tailed Lenny and me
at Pierce College several years earlier. I asked to speak to a sergeant, and I.
C. Davidson came on the line. (I remember his name well, since I continued
to use it for a long time, whenever I needed information from the DWP.)
Telling him, “Sergeant, I’m with DWP Special Desk,” I said, “We’re
setting up a database of authorized people for law enforcement requests,
and I’m calling to find out if any officers in your division still need access
to Special Desk.”
He said, “Absolutely.”
I started out, as usual, by asking if he was on the list and getting his
name.
“Okay, how many officers do you have who need to be on the list?”
He gave me a number.
“Okay, go ahead and give me their names, and I’ll make sure they’re all
authorized for another year.” It was important for his people to have access
to the information from the DWP, so he took the time to patiently read off
and spell out the names for me.
Some months later, Special Desk added a password to its verification
process. No problem: I called up LAPD’s Organized Crime Unit and got a
lieutenant on the phone.
Introducing myself as “Jerry Spencer with Special Desk,” I chose as my
opening gambit a slightly different version of the earlier one: “By the way,
are you authorized for Special Desk?”
He said he was.
“Fine. What’s your name, sir?”
“Billingsley. David Billingsley.”
“Hold on while I look you up on the list.”
I paused a bit and rustled some papers. Then I said, “Oh, yes. Your
password is ‘0128.’ ”
“No, no, no. My password is ‘6E2H.’ ”
“Ohhh. I’m sorry, that’s a different David Billingsley.” I could hardly
keep from laughing. I then had him look up the list of officers authorized
for Special Desk in the Organized Crime Unit and tell me their names and
passwords. At that point I was golden forever. I wouldn’t be surprised if
some of those passwords still worked today.
With this access to DWP Special Desk, it took me only about five
minutes to discover Eric’s new address: he had moved to a different
apartment in the same building. Lewis and I had shown up at his address,
and three weeks later he’s not living in the same apartment anymore and has
a new phone number—but he’s in the same building?
And the new phone line is listed in the same name as before, Joseph
Wernle. If Eric had really gone into “secure mode,” as he’d told us he was
going to do, why the hell would he still be using the same name? This was
the guy who was supposed to be such a good hacker? He didn’t seem to
have any idea of what I’d be able to find out about him. I was still a long
way from unraveling all the riddles, but I knew I had to continue now that I
was getting closer and closer to the truth.
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