Take the Fourth (13 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Walton
O
rlando and Charles worked most of the night solidifying their case. It was more than a hunch, now that all four of these cases were connected and there was indeed a common thread that was woven through each of these missing little girls—the color of that common thread was indeed blonde. The first missing girl was Orlando’s case—Tanya Drake, yes the case was still open but no one, not even the parents, expected her to return to a normal life. Every law officer knows the first twenty-four hours are the most critical in any missing person’s case and both Orlando and Charles knew they were fast approaching that time constraint with Ripley. It was like waiting for the guards to unlock the cell and bring the prisoner to the gas chamber. Each time the secondhand hit twelve it was one step closer to the inevitable, one step closer to meeting the creator, and one step closer to lights out forever. The clock on Lynch’s desk read 4:37, just a mere seven hours until the… . until the… . neither one of them wanted to think about that… . there was still a chance and that’s what they were going to hold onto—a chance. They were getting closer, they could feel it. There was still much hope left for Ripley Newenberg. Yes, there was still hope for Tanya Drake but it was a superficial hope, not a hope to finding her alive, just a hope that one day they would find the body, give her a final resting place before god and officially close that chapter of her life.
Tanya was three days away from her sixth birthday on the day she vanished from the park oh so very close to home. She was cute as a button and was the only child to the Drakes. She was their miracle child for they tried every natural method of conception under the sun before they chose one of the many medical treatments. Almost sixty-five thousand dollars and four years later Tanya came into their lives. She was the world to them. Although they could have easily given her the world, the parents were well grounded and did not spoil their daughter. She was well mannered, well behaved, and loved her parents. She always had an ear to ear grin, she was always happy, like she already knew how difficult it was to get here, so she enjoyed it as best she could, always making her parents proud no matter what she did . . It was heart wrenching three days after her disappearance when the doorbell rang and Mrs. Drake answered it. There stood before her was Alicia, a classmate of Tanya’s, dressed in the most adorable white taffeta dress holding a present for Tanya’s birthday. She was on vacation with her parents and did not hear the news. She didn’t understand the tearful response she received from Mrs. Drake and she too started to cry. The motherly instinct took over in Mrs. Drake; she opened the door and hugged Alicia like she was her found loving daughter. She wouldn’t let go. Alicia’s mother had to get out of the car and come to the rescue. She herself didn’t understand the situation until Mr. Drake came to the door, took her aside and explained things. Mrs. Drake was never the same after that and still to this day lives on prescription medication.
Colleen Rhinehardt was the second little one missing from a playground also close to her home. She was from a family of five, excluding her natural father. It was Colleen, her mother, her elder brother, and two smaller sisters that made up the household. The mother barely made ends meet but she did manage somehow to put one decent meal on the table each day, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner, though most of the time it was breakfast just because it was the cheapest to make—pancake batter can go a long way. After calling the officer in charge of the case at a little after one in the morning, Garfield and Lynch learned there were no witnesses and he had the sense that the mother had an unnatural feeling of relief—basically saying that was one less mouth to feed. She was at the playground on September 23rd, unsupervised by an adult, her older brother age eight accompanying her to the park but failed to bring her home. It wasn’t until the next day the mother called the police about her missing Colleen, age 5. She was almost identical to the other girls, shoulder length blonde hair, cute as a button as well, and vanished from a playground within the seventy-five mile radius of Ripley’s hometown. The case was still marked open but no one wasted much time on this one for all intents and purpose it was a cold case, a closed case, there were just no leads to follow.
Becky Timberstone was the youngest of the little girls at age four. Her case was still very hot being only a few months old, though hope of finding her safe return had diminished as well. The officer in charge of this case was away on a much needed vacation. He worked himself to the bone on this one because he played the “what if” game, what if it was his little girl, age five, he could not even imagine. He worked so hard on trying to find Becky that his family life was in jeopardy, he actually was neglecting his fatherly responsibilities, his little girl. His partner finally helped him see the light. His partner Josh Cerrito was due in Lynch’s office any minute now. Josh thought about picking up the phone and calling his partner but didn’t want to give him any false sense of hope; he’d better go investigate this new lead until proven otherwise. And so as it was, Officer Cerrito hopped in his car and at 6:36 am he pulled into a visitor’s space just outside Detective Charles Lynch’s building. Lynch was waiting for him outside with a cigarette between his lips.
“Officer Cerrito?”
“Yes, Detective Lynch?”
“Yes, come on up, we’re just about to do a press release,” with that, Lynch did a deep drag on his last bit of smoke to the point it glowed almost bright red and before exhaling, flipped it onto the ground and squashed it with his black shoe. “Coffee,” as trails of smoke followed his question?
“No thanks, don’t drink the vile stuff, I had my morning can of Coke to get my caffeine fix.”
“Suit yourself,” and they made their way to Lynch’s office without another word.
Garfield looked as tired as Lynch and did the normal exchange of introductions and pleasantries, funny thing was he had yet to do this with Lynch; from the moment he walked into the door it has been all business.
“Okay now what about this press release?”
“We found four cases, yours included, that fit the same exact mold all within a year’s time frame. We are coming up on the twenty-four hour marker with the Newenberg case and you know what that means, we now need as much help as possible, so we’ll ask the help of the public—the more eyes looking for… .”
“The sick twisted bastard,” interjected by Orlando
“Perpetrator,” Lynch said with a smile, “the better we’ll be… and now that we have a serial kidnapper on our hands the public will go ape shit and that’s just what we need, an angry mob with eyes. By the evening news tonight this will be a national story for sure with all kinds of clips on how to protect your children. What I’m most concerned is for all the households that lie within that highlighted circle there, to keep their eyes open.”
“Okay, I’m with you but our descriptions aren’t even close. In Becky’s case we are searching for a kid in his late teens to early twenties in a red Mustang.”
“That was what Orlando here calls the three card monte, same thing happened on our case but it was a 74 Camaro and a twenty-two year kid behind the wheel. There are not that many cars like that so finding the needle in the haystack was a so called piece of cake. Turns out he was paid by our guy to basically sit and wait. I’m sure the same thing happened on your end.”
“That’s your theory?”
“Sticking to it until we see otherwise.”
“Alright I’ll roll with it… . for now.”
The release went out on the AP wire just two minutes prior to seven and it wasn’t five minutes later that the phone call came in from one of the major networks… just so happens CNN is located a stone’s throw away in Atlanta. The first interview was with the local station WXIA, they were the first to cover Ripley’s disappearance and never left… they knew the first twenty-four hours hadn’t elapsed as well. At fifteen past the hour, two out three local news segments within the national daily morning shows covered what they were now calling the serial kidnappings, within a half hour the third and fourth were on board. CNN followed suit but their broadcast was national. People already in their daily commute who were tuned into “all news all the time” heard the description as well. Even people bouncing around the dial or glued to their visionless porn and dirty talk stations heard a glimpse of the serial kidnapper, described as medium build, white male, thirty-five to forty-five and walks with a limp. Ripley’s case was no longer just a missing person’s report. Ripley’s case was no longer just a local story. More importantly Ripley’s case was no longer just a local case. The mere mention of kidnapping is enough to wake the dead. Couple this with the word serial and the three letter acronym most commonly seen on cheap t-shirts signifying “female body inspector,” the FBI, was already on route from their Atlanta based office.
While the media whipped the case into a frenzy, the Forest Park police, with the help of the GBI, prepared for the arrival of the men in blue. Lynch waited for them outside and just before he lit another non-filtered Pall Mall, two nondescript dark blue sedans with government plates pulled into the station’s parking lot. He was expecting each of the g-men to be wearing some sort of dark sunglasses to invoke that mystique he has heard so much about—none of them wore any shades. He let them walk right past him without saying a word. He knew there would be hell to pay but he didn’t want to pay it just yet. He also yearned for just going home and trying to get some rest, he wasn’t as young as he used to be and this working through the night shift was for the birds—mainly the owls, but he decided to have yet another smoke hoping to get his fourth wind from the nicotine fix, besides, he was a cop at heart and he needed to find this sick twisted bastard and find him fast. With that need in mind, he extinguished his Pall Mall and decided to pay the piper. He expected the non-shade wearing FBI guys to have commandeered his office—that was not the case but no sooner did he sit down in his chair, Orlando summoned him to the conference room on the second floor. He grabbed his lukewarm cup of coffee, his yellow note pad and away he went. Upon entering the conference room he quickly noticed it looked like these guys already made themselves at home. Maps, folders, laptops, various forms, and paper were scattered on the table, everyone had a cup of coffee except Josh who was holding his third can of red and white, there were a few pastries at one end of the table, and two seats that were open for he and Orlando at the other. It seemed Josh brought the feds up to speed and they were already planning their first move; that move being to focus on the man with a limp.
. . .
G
reg stuck to his word and mostly fantasized about how his evening with Jorja was going to play out. Each one of his dreams ended up in the same shape or form, that being in bed with his green eyed lady and humming to the tune by Sugarloaf. There was one where he brought champagne and strawberries and after their work was done he pictured himself snuggled up on the couch with Jorja watching the Simpsons. There was another one where he opens the fridge grabbed this and that and prepared a five star meal even though he could screw up making cereal. Then there was his favorite, where he set up an elaborate ploy with a system on the network and he and Jorja would hack the system together only to stumble upon a secret code that Jorja could break and it would profess his undying love to her.
It was Saturday and Greg was as a giddy as a school girl showing off a new pair of shoes. He was counting down the hours with fevered anticipation but then he remembered he didn’t know the time. He did a quick check of his email and it turned up nothing, then he flipped open his cell and was about to call Jorja, then decided he’ll play it by ear and say between seven and eight but closer to seven. He assembled his laptop and a few disks they may need, and a nice pen drive with a few coding hacks reserved for backdoor entry into locked documents, spreadsheets, and a password protected operating system or two. One of his so called buddies in the shadows wrote that piece of code, if Microsoft only knew. Yes he was ready, and if need be, he could tunnel into his machine at work or his machine at home. He was hoping that would not be the case; there were many things on his home machine to keep from prying eyes, many, many things and lesbian videos being the least of his worries.
His car was half way to Jorja’s house and his dashboard clock read 7:06. With the hour upon him, Greg was growing rather nervous. Deep down he knew none of his dreams would materialize into reality but he always had hope. Before he knew it, he was in front of his boss’ house. Only once before had he been here and that was for a small informal Christmas party when he first entered her department. He really didn’t know her then, just idle chit chat but right away he melted every time he looked into those eyes. He parked, exited, and was just about to collect his composer and ring the bell when the door suddenly opened. Jorja heard him coming. She had her hair pulled back in the normal work mode ponytail, she had a pair of nicely fitted jeans which was not work mode at all, and neither was the white t-shirt draped over by an unbuttoned oxford. Greg felt a little overdressed in his spanking new loafers, Dockers, and the rest of his business casual attire. He handed Jorja a bottle of wine which he picked up earlier this morning. She thanked him and looked at the label. Though it was not her favorite Amarone, it was pretty damn close, it was a Valpolicella. Her mind quickly went back to the comment “I know a lot of things,” and she had a moment of uneasiness.
“I don’t know if it’s any good, to be honest it was on sale, I was going to get this Spanish wine, it looked pretty close to your name, something like Rio Ja, but some lady convinced me to get this one at almost the same price,” which was a convincing lie.
Jorja, smiled at his mispronunciation of the Spanish staple wine and her uneasiness dissipated. She pulled out a magic marker and simply wrote “Greg” and the date on the label.
“Why did you do that?”
“If we don’t drink it tonight, I’ll place it in my wine rack, and when I do open it I will remember who gave it to me and first toast that person.”
Greg was hoping they didn’t open it tonight.
“So did you get anywhere,” Jorja asked?
“Kept my word I did, looked over the directories I did, noticed a thing or two I did.”
“Alright Yoda, shall we get down to business?”
Greg could only think of one thing at that moment and it had nothing to do with work, “sure,” and added “I can,” finally following her inquiry.
She lead him into her office, Greg had been here before but the office seemed different, it was more cluttered, more like his workspace at home, with routers, modems, and from what he could see three computers, tons of computer parts, books, cables, a few backup powers supplies and enough cords coming out of two surge protectors to warrant a fire marshal investigation.
“Nice layout.”
“Coming from you I certainly appreciate it.”
“No seriously, I mean it, I feel right at home, almost like being on the star ship Enterprise.”
“I think you mean something a bit more like a Ferengi Freighter.”
“You know, you and that sci-fi brain of yours… okay let’s begin,” with that Greg pulled out his laptop and hardwired into Jorja’s home network which was eventually logged into work. He put his laptop aside and pulled out his list of directories, he too had highlighted a few. Jorja pulled out hers and compared notes.
“Where did you get those,” Greg asked?
“Same place you got yours,” she replied, “I printed out an extra set in the office.”
Greg was sure he remembered and he remembered not printing two but he chalked it up to a being completely lost within her eyes or maybe she did a little investigating on her own, either way he didn’t question any further.
They each had highlighted the word mumps. Jorja played dumb.
“Why would mumps be on this thing? I mean what does this machine have to do with diseases?”
Greg had a slight chuckle, “That’s not a disease it’s a database, that’s why I highlighted it, something is stored there and we should be able to find out what.”
“A database? Do you know anything about it?”
“Sure do, I have to, a lot of financial data, some huge banks, investment firms, and securities have this type of db, a wealth of information at your fingertips, no pun intended… not to mention hospital data since this was written by Neil Pappalardo for Massachusetts General Hospital somewhere around 1967. I would like to poke around this machine a bit more, find the size of the machine, its memory, capacity, etcetera.”
“Is there anything more you can tell me about this mumps?”
“Yes, but it’s boring, it’s just another language to learn, fairly easy, I’ll show you once we are in.”
Greg was able to get into the database without the little utility Jorja had up her sleeve. He was able to see the table structures of the database but one thing he learned over the years—a mumps database is unlike the database systems of today. Granted, there are engineers who have placed rather complicated data schemes on top of this database making data queries a piece of cake to anyone with a little knowledge but underneath lies total chaos and this is where Greg was looking, all while giving Jorja a play-by-play on the language syntax. Unlocking the secrets without access to the data structure could be next to impossible even for a seasoned veteran familiar with the mumps language. It appeared to Greg that he would have to dig a little harder to uncover the meaning behind the data. He listed out some of the raw data and most of it looked like gibberish, with the exception of some words here and there. Nothing made much sense at first glance, even at a second glance or third. He tried counting records in a few folders/tables but it took too long to come back with an answer so he aborted his previous keystrokes. He then looked at the allocations for data storage and realized this thing was a monstrosity and he checked the current block size of a few tables. He did a double take when he wanted to reconfirm his findings because the numbers he originally obtained were now out of date; they were always out of date. He rechecked again and again the numbers were even higher. They were growing at an unprecedented rate.
“Jorja, this database is being used, look at these numbers, they keep growing.”
“From?”
“I have no idea, but see these two files here… these two files are growing by leaps and bounds. There is a lot of data being poured or calculated into this machine, a lot of data, every second.”
“Can we see the data?”
“Sure,” and with that Greg punched in a few commands and the screened filled with numbers, “My god it’s full of stars… . I mean tons of data.”
6075781211, 411945138,—82.6171865, 37.37015718405753
6075781211, 411945146,—93.076171825, 44.902577996288876
6075781211, 411945456, 75.3662109301, 42.779275360241904
6075781211, 411945897,—112.0605468789, 34.23451236236987
6075781212, 411945906,—75.0585937582, 39.90973623453719
And they kept scrolling and scrolling to what appeared to be no end in sight, hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of entries. They noticed the first set of numbers appeared sequential even though there were many duplicates, the second set of numbers were sort of sequential but with no apparent next number algorithm, well without a paper and pen anyway.
“Greg, what do you make of this?”
“I don’t know, it appears to be a pattern and then again, no. Without the data schema we would just be guessing.”
“It looks like the first number is always a ten digit number and the second always a nine digit number, the third always a negative.”
“See, not always the case, the third number here is positive . .and . .and this one here has the last number negative.”
“Do a screen print will ya,” and with that the toner cartridge became a little lower.
“If we don’t know what kind of data this is it might help to find out where this is coming from, there has to be something else in the pipeline supplying this amount of data.”
“Divide and conquer then, I’ll take the numbers and try to find meaning, in the meantime see if you can pinpoint the data stream.” With that they both went their separate ways, although they were still in the same room together.
. . .