Fragmented (8 page)

BOLO, be on the look out.

Unfortunately Jack did not get a clear look at the person who had returned to the house to shoot it out before running. A search agent brought Jack a crumpled sheet of paper, pressed it flat for Jack to read.

“The house utility bill,” the agent said. “Account belongs to Petroski.”

Another agent holding onto a cell phone called out from the behind. “I got a previous address for Petroski. It’s in
Citrus Heights
.”

The sergeant chimed in. “I’ll send two detectives down there now.”

Jack turned and pointed at the first agent he saw. “Get on the phone and call Hoskin, find out if he’s heard back from anyone on a missing kid. I’m chasing someone and we have no idea who he’s got.”

The agent turned away and went straight to his phone.

Jack looked around again for more help. Tom Cannon was squatting next to another agent, scanning through the unopened mail left on the living room floor.

“Tom,” Jack called out.

Cannon looked up.

“Go with the two detectives to the
Citrus Heights
address. Do a neighborhood, find someone that knows him. Maybe someone will remember this guy and have some idea where we can find him.”

Cannon nodded and quickly stood up, gathered up his notebook and car keys.

“And, Tom, be careful. Nothing says he’s not back there hiding with an old friend.”

Cannon forced a nervous smile and waved a two-finger salute before heading out the door with the two detectives.

10

Tuesday –
6:47 p.m.

Jack walked
into the forensic lab at the
Sacramento
office. Calling it a “lab” was giving the area more credit than it deserved. It looked more like a converted storage closet in a
Tokyo
electronics store. Jack stared at the rows of blinking lights and monitors scrolling as if they had a life of their own, and wondered how the world of criminal investigation had changed so quickly. Back in the day, investigations meant talking to people and digging through papers, even garbage. Now everything revolved around hard drives, the Internet and thousands of electronic databases. If you wanted to know anything about anyone, go to their_ computer. It’s everyone’s personal diary, everyone’s identity, warts and all.

Special Agent James Harrington’s face was buried deep in the guts of Petroski’s seized computer, deep enough to occasionally bump the aluminum cover of the computer’s hard-drive, gouging a scratch on the tip of his nose. Jack watched from a seat beside Harrington, who was too engrossed in his work to even notice Jack’s presence.

Harrington pulled strands of multi-colored cables from his bag, plugging them into ports and sockets inside Petroski’s computer. He had already spent an hour making an exact copy of the computer’s hard drive so that the investigators could manipulate the data in search of pictures, text, and anything else that would help them locate the whereabouts of the bound and gagged child. The mirrored copy was plugged into a Bureau computer and immediately rows of data streamed onto the large monitor.

“What do think? Anything of value?” Jack asked.

Harrington tilted his head toward Jack, obviously annoyed at the disruption. He pulled off his glasses and tossed them on the computer bench, then scratched his head causing the thin, short hair on top of his head to tangle like fine strands of blond cotton. “The good news is I found your photo.”

“And the bad?”

“It’s encrypted. A safety precaution. Without going through the right protocol, the system will start to destroy its contents. Every time it’s turned back on, the system starts to eat itself alive. I was able to terminate the destruction sequence but the data is scattered all over the hard drive. Right now it’s difficult to know if the good stuff has been overwritten. I also determined that a large chunk of data had been deleted. I’m guessing to get rid of incriminating evidence.”

“Can you get them back?”

Harrington puffed out his chest. “If I can’t get it, nobody can.”

“Then you can get it?”

Harrington shook his head. “Nobody can.”

Everyone wants to be a comic.

Jack rolled his eyes. “What
can
you get?”

“There are things I might be able to retrieve.” Harrington began tapping on the computer keyboard as layers of codes flashed on the screen. After a series of pages, Harrington stopped and pointed at a row of hash values. “Look here. This tells me the photo of the girl was the last in a series taken yesterday, which we already knew, but this information tells us that the picture is number two-fifty nine.”

“Where are one through two-fifty-eight?”

“More than likely recently deleted.”

“Great.”

Harrington turned and shook a finger. “Not to worry. I think I can at least retrieve most of those photos. This stuff may have been taken out as recently as today, which means the area where the information was stored has not been over-written. If I’m lucky, I should be able to retrieve most of the data and piece it back together.”

“What do you mean, piece it back?”

“Just that. Find the pieces and put them back together. Data isn’t stored on a computer all in one spot. If you could see what is written on a hard drive, you would see bits and pieces of data scattered, separated by specific types of values. This allows for efficient use and speed of data retrieval by the CPU. How they all come together is through software. It’s like gathering pieces of a shattered mirror and putting it back together. Your data is fragmented.”

Jack thought about the explanation. Fragmented.

“Sounds malignant,” Jack said.

“Would it be easier if I just say it’s all magic?” Harrington cleared his throat. “The data is up and running on our system right now. I’m going to try and retrieve as much as I can and reassemble it. Fragmented or not, I should be able to get you something.”

“How long is this going to take?”

“Maybe a day. But I can’t guarantee success.”

Jack didn’t like his answer but had to accept it. “Thanks.”

 
11

Tuesday –
6:49 p.m.

Tom Cannon
approached the dingy white house with blue trim in the middle of a cul-de-sac on
Redburn Road
, followed closely by two
Chico
detectives, Manny Salazar and Jay McGuire. The front porch light was on but Tom saw no other light coming from inside. He pointed to one of the detectives, indicating for him to circle around back.

A black, steel-bar gate protected the front door of the house. Most of the residences in the neighborhood had the same bars. A telling sign about their crime problem. Tom pulled on the grate and it swung open. The screen was not locked.

“Not very protective,” he said to the detective.

McGuire leaned to the right of the door and peered into the house through the front window. The back of a couch, an old high-back chair, a fireplace and console TV. Several cheap, framed pictures hung on the walls. He could make out a walkway leading to a kitchen nook but could not see how far back the house went. The evening rendered the unlit area completely black, blurring the shapes of the furniture and appliances. He raised a flashlight up to the window looking for movement from within. Nothing.

Tom pulled open the heavy steel gate and pounded on the front door. He waited for any sound while McGuire kept close watch through the front window. Still no movement.

“I guess no one’s home,” Tom whispered.

Salazar returned from the back of the house.

“No movement around back. I looked through the patio slider. Doesn’t look like anyone’s inside.”

“Agent
Paris
said Petroski listed this as his address of record not more than a week ago,” McGuire stated. “Judging by the way the inside looks, I can’t believe someone moved in and settled that quickly.”

Tom turned away and walked back to the street.

“I guess we can do a neighborhood search to see if anyone has seen this guy Petroski. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

The two detectives shook their heads.

Salazar said, “Don’t think that’s a good idea. It could alert the asshole we’re on to him before we can get a chance to find him.”

McGuire nodded in agreement.

“What do you suggest?” Tom asked.

The two detectives looked at each other.

“Did you hear that Agent Cannon?” McGuire said.

Tom raised an eyebrow, confused.

Salazar looked over at Tom. “Sounds like a child crying. It’s coming from inside that house.” Salazar pointed toward the front door.

Tom creased his forehead. There was no noise, no baby crying. Then suddenly he caught on to their scheme.
So this is how it’s done
.

He strolled back up the walkway, followed by the detectives, all three pulling their weapons from their holsters. Upon reaching the front door, Tom paused and silently prayed for forgiveness from the law enforcement gods. He reached down and twisted the doorknob. Just like the security gate, the door was unlocked. Salazar smiled at McGuire, who in turn slapped Tom on the back. “Let’s go save that crying baby.”

Tom pushed open the door and shined his flashlight while the two detectives split to each side, one heading left toward a hallway, the other to the right and the kitchen. The air was hot and stuffy, indicating the house had been buttoned shut for a while. Tom swatted away flies dancing around his face. He scanned the room with his flashlight, weapon drawn, before trailing McGuire down the hallway. The detective cleared two opened rooms to the left, while Tom kept his flashlight aimed at a closed door straight down the hall.

The first door led to a bedroom filled with boxes stacked around a small, wooden table and chair. A day bed was shoved in the corner under a window. Stacks of old clothes covered the bed. No one had used it for some time. McGuire backed out of the room and continued down the hallway. They approached the second door to the left. McGuire fixed his flashlight into the darkened room.

“Police,” he called out, waiting for a response. As he swept his flashlight across the room, something disturbed the silence.

“Movement,” the detective shouted. “Police, show your hands!”

Tom pivoted, steadying his light and the muzzle of his pistol. Two glowing green dots emerged from the depths. A house cat walked out of the dark toward the two officers. The detectives lowered their weapons and exhaled a sigh of relief. The gray tabby sauntered out of the room and rubbed against Tom’s leg, purring, before prancing down the hall toward the last room. The hair on the cat was twisted and matted, wafting a cloud of stink.

Tom grinned. “Cats like me.”

Salazar smiled. “Maybe the cat just wants to rub its shit off on your pants.”

Tom looked down, checking for skid marks on his neatly pressed trousers before shadowing the cat with his flashlight.

The cat strolled to the end of the hall and sat in front of a closed door, which had a towel stuffed under it. The one officer let out a groan. That’s a bad sign. Tom reached down and yanked the towel away. A foul odor engulfed the hallway. Tom bit down hard, fighting off the urge to hurl his lunch, and carefully opened the door. With the room partially exposed, Tom saw it was a bathroom. A white porcelain bathtub and a cock-eyed curtain rod fell into view, the curtain covered in fuzzy mold thick as a fur rug. The vile stench poured out in waves.

Tom’s cheeks ballooned as he forced back the feeling of bile coming up his throat. “Oh, Christ, that smells bad.” He choked out a dry cough then pressed his shirtsleeve tight over his mouth.

Having never been privy to a murder crime scene, Tom Cannon was unfamiliar with the smell of a rotting corpse. But Salazar knew it well.

The two entered the bathroom, crisscrossing streams of light illuminating the cramped space. Tom held his free hand over his nose and mouth.

Inside the bathtub lay a contorted body, its fluids puddled in the basin. The body had turned purple with an almost black tint, the elevated extremities hardened to a crusty yellow and orange. The face had sunken into the skull, with portions of the face scavenged from blowfly activity. Areas of the body not inflicted with rotting ooze were covered in maggots. Hardened brown shells littered in and around the chest and open orifices indicated advanced larvae colonization. Blowflies swirled around the body, disturbed by the intruders. The first time viewing a dead body, coupled with the pungent smell, continued to churn Tom’s stomach, making him nauseated. McGuire pointed out the door with his chin, ushering the rookie out before he could contaminate whatever evidence might be in the room. Tom took advantage of the offer, bolting out the door and down the hall.

The acrid smell hung in Tom’s nose as he sat outside on the front concrete steps with his head between his legs. He could feel his stomach grinding. With his elbows planted deeply into his thighs with his fingers weaved into his hair, Tom struggled to take slow, even breaths. The detectives exited the front and each gave a consoling pat on Tom’s shoulder, Salazar maintaining a look of empathy while McGuire went to retrieve the car.

“It’s never easy coming up on a dead body.” Salazar knelt down. “You going to be all right?”

Tom took in several deep breaths. “I’m okay.” He stood up and straightened out his clothes. “Any idea who’s the unfortunate bastard in the bathtub is . . . was?”

The detective nodded. “He’s pretty rotted but based on what I can tell, same guy in the pictures on the wall. Also found his wallet in one of the bedrooms. No license or credit cards. Library card, Costco, couple other photo I.D.s”

“Guy have a name?”