Chapter 21

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Rich Friedman pulled up to the Corrections Office for the Lemonwood Police Department. He saw John Peters' car already parked. He pulled up next to his partner's car to see him sitting in the driver's seat, John nodded to Rich, and held up a burger, as he took a large bite out of his taco. Friedman got out of his car, walked around and leaned against the passenger side. Peters had his window rolled down, passed him the burger and continued to eat.

"Thanks, you read my mind." Friedman unwrapped his burger, and took a bite, and wiped away the juice running down his chin.

"Yeah, sure. Geez, it was painstaking talking to that king of melodrama. You saved me, so I figured I owed you." Peters rolled up his window, and turned the car off. He stood and leaned against the side of his car, opposite of Friedman. "You know, it still bothers me about Alvarez dropping the case so quickly. I hate to look at a cop, but something smells, I'm thinking we may have to run a check on him, maybe discreetly run his finances." He shook his head, and scuffed his foot on the ground.

"I'm not sure about that, I mean, Alvarez, he's always been a good cop, a real heart for the job. I can't see him knowingly let a kidnapping go. Maybe it's just burn out, he's only a couple weeks away from retiring. We start snooping around on another cop, one we've worked with on several occasions, word's gonna get around, and we will get all the crap cases, and lose the cooperation from other departments."

"I still think it needs to be checked out, but you're right, no one can know we are looking into him, unless we file an official complaint. If I'm wrong, and I hope I am, then it would ruin his reputation, and could effect his retirement. I would hate for one slip up, to put a black cloud over his whole career." Peters kept turning it around in his head. "This whole case is off. We're missing something, and I know it's gotta be something Greene found or did at work. Any news on the warrant yet?"

Friedman shook his head, "They petitioned the judge for the warrant, and almost immediately a team of very expensive lawyers hired by Bollock's, started blocking it. The DA's office is working their way through it, but it's like for every step forward they are pushed back three."

"Blast!" Peters hit his hand on the roof of his car.

Friedman finished his burger, and nodded to Peters, and together they walked into the building. The first officer they found pointed the way to Lee Denver's office. The door was closed, and the small window showed the Probation Officer speaking to a disheveled looking young boy, probably twelve or thirteen. A distraught mother was sitting in a chair outside the office. Friedman and Peters didn't want to interrupt, so they took seats and waited.

Friedman leaned over to Peters and spoke quietly, "If we decide to check into Alvarez, and that's a big "if", I mean like last resort, right? Well, I know this PI, he used to be a cop, he got shot by friendly fire, recovered physically, but never got over it. Quit the force and started his own PI business. Anyway, he is good, and he can get around things that we can't."

"Alright, we'll keep him in mind and just hope this all blows a different direction, like you said, last resort. I know the people he was extorting money from doesn't really tie into the murder/kidnapping, but, you know, I am looking forward to seeing the looks on the faces of the remaining two. I wonder how long it will take for the bureaucracy cloud to clear. I can't wait to see the Deputy Mayor sweat, he always seemed unshakable, the mayor's ever-eager gopher." John smiled at the thought.

Friedman nodded and smiled, "Yeah, it's going to be hard to spin his way out of this one."

Finally, the door to Denver's office opened and the kid with his long, messy hair, and his baggy pants falling below his boxers. He just walked past his mom, and she got up quietly and followed.

"Detective Friedman, my partner Detective Peters. Can we speak to you for a moment?" Friedman extended his hand, and it was taken by a firm grip.

"Yes, please go in and have a seat, I'm going to grab a coffee, would you guys like anything?" Lee Denver was about 6'2", but his build made him seem much larger. He was a solid man, built like a small mountain. His teeth seemed to glow against his jet black skin.

"No, thanks, we're good."

Denver came in and sat behind his desk, shuffling files to the side.

"We want to ask some questions about a kid on your caseload. You reported a DJ Williams missed your meet this morning?"

"Yes, that's right, is he okay?" A flash of concern showed on his face.

"As far as we know. Honestly, we have no idea if there is any connection to the case we are working, but it seemed enough to check it out. Can you tell us about Williams?" Peters pulled out his notepad, and a pen.

"Yes, one moment, let me pull his file." Denver walked over to the file cabinet in the corner of his small office. He continued talking as he rifled through the files. " He's really a good kid. You know, there are some kids who are hopeless, they seemed bound and determined to spend their lives in prison. Then, you get the kids who did something stupid, got caught, and are changing their lives around. DJ, he's one of those."

He sat back down at his desk with the file in hand.

Friedman stared at the file, "What's his story?"

"He's seventeen, lives with his grandmother. Last year, his cousin, who later was arrested for theft, gave him a laptop. DJ and his grandmother are fairly poor, she's living off of Social Security. He treasured that laptop, was on it all the time. He's not necessarily a strong student, but, boy is he good with computers, too good. He somehow rigged a wireless router and discovered he could pick up the internet off of someone else's Wi-Fi feed." Friedman nodded, and noticed a gleam in the man's eye, almost looked like fatherly pride. "He figured out that he could access anyone's files that were hooked up to the same wireless network. So, he started hanging around Hot Spot areas like businesses, and coffee shops. He ended up using a signal booster, so that he could stay out of sight. He accessed the accounts of people who used online banking, easily got their information, only taking between $20 and $40 at a time, and used it to buy things for himself and his grandmother.

"She didn't seem to care that all of a sudden there was extra food in the house, or a new warm jacket for her, or clothes for DJ. I think she thought he got a job. Any other kid who could get access to money like that, they would be blowing it left and right on video games, and stupid kid stuff. DJ only bought necessities. Anyway, his cousin tried to push some of the blame onto him, when he was arrested. He told the cops what DJ had been doing. They brought DJ in, and questioned him. He admitted everything, and was put on an eighteen-month probation, until he turns eighteen. We have bi-weekly meetings, we alternate meets between here, and his house. As part of his probation he is to have no access to a computer. When I go to his house, I have to look around and verify that there are no electronic devices. Also, for his schooling, any research is to be done the old-fashioned way, books, no use of school's computers. He is now working a part-time job as a maintenance worker for the city parks, he clocks in with a punch card, no electronics available to him."

"In your report you filed, you said he has never missed a single meet, is that correct?"

"Yes, that's correct. See, the thing is...his father was in prison. DJ's grandmother used to take him to visit once a month, until his father was killed by a fellow convict. DJ is terrified of prison, and he is very aware of the consequences of missing even one scheduled meeting. Now, can I ask what you think may have happened to him, or what this has to do with your case?"

Peters shifted in his chair, "We have a murder/kidnapping case we are investigating. It seems the kidnapping was ransom to get a flash drive." He let Friedman take over from there.

"So, anyway, I got to thinking that it was most likely encrypted, and was checking into priors having to do with computer crimes, when I saw the flag on Williams. This is all just speculative at this point, but we don't have a lot to go on. Do you think there is a possibility Williams could have gotten involved with something like this?"

This time Denver shifted, and it felt like the whole office moved. He leaned over the desk and looked at Rich, with a dead-serious look on his face.

"No, absolutely not! DJ would not associate with anyone who could do something like that. Besides, if he had, he still would have made sure to show up today." He was near rage.

"How can you be so sure?" Peters asked him.

"I know him, I know DJ. You work with these kids so much, they get to be like family. And, there is absolutely no way he would be involved."

Unless he had no choice, Peters thought.

"Okay, well, if you hear anything, please let us know." Friedman stood up and shook the man's hand again, and left. It was about 3:00, and they decided to head back to the station, and do their write-ups on the interviews they had conducted for the day. Then, they could put in a little time for research, and touch base with the DA's office.

After they got back to their desks, Friedman looked like he had an epiphany. "Hey, we got all that evidence so quickly, and there hasn't been a lot of time to go over it. When we got the statements from June Greene, and McGovern, didn't they mention she had recorded the second conversation with the kidnappers? Do you remember checking in a mini-recorder, or mini-tape?"

Peters arched his eyebrows, then pulled up the evidence log for the case. Scanning through it, he saw it about two thirds of the way down. "Yes, it's here. Let's go check with EPU, and see if they have had a go with it yet, maybe we can see if there is any background noise they can isolate, to help us get a location."

They walked downstairs to the Evidence and Property Unit. The team in EPU were responsible for handling all evidence removed from a crime scene, including analyzing the evidence, logging it, and storing it. Their were a couple of officers who also worked in the HTCU-High Tech Crimes, they dealt with the electronic devices brought in. It is the civilian employees within EPU who ran trace evidence, fingerprints, and DNA. People outside the department referred to them as the more common name of CSU-Crime Scene Unit.

"Hey John, Rich, what's up?" The small man coming up to them in the hallway, was Freddie Nixon. He was the epitome of a nerd, with his thick-rimmed glasses, button-up shirt, and pocket protector in his breast pocket, filled with various pens, and test tubes. You never knew what he was going to pull out of that pocket. But, he was good and was happy to spend his whole day staring into microscopes at water samples, hair, fibers, whatever crossed his path.

"Hey, Fredster, how you comin' on Sons of War II?" Rich Friedman, smiled and shook his hand. Friedman was a nerd at heart, he and Freddie sometimes played against each other on their favorite computer game.

"I just took out the remaining members of Vlaskov's militia. But, I got myself captured by one of Rabofsky's black ops, now I have to try to figure out how to get out of that. So, what you guys doing down here, were you punished and sent to the basement?" He smiled again, there were always jokes going around about the EPU crew, how they never saw the light of day, etc.

"The Greene case. We need to see if anyone has run the mini-tape included in the evidence." Peters spoke up, he like Nixon, but if he didn't get to the point, those two would go into super computer gaming zone.

Freddie scratched the back of his head, "No, I don't think we got to that, been busy with the tools from the Greene residence. That man had everything we have in our surveillance vans. He put quite an effort into hiding all those cameras, mics, and recorders inside each of those tools. You know, I bet he looked like any old construction worker, that you wouldn't even give a second glance. Clever guy. Hey, I've got a lunch date to make, but go talk to Striper, he'll check out the tape, and set you up."

They found "Striper", who was named so for the stripe of gray through the right side of his, otherwise, dark brown hair. His name was Quincy Macelroy, and he worked HTCU. They told him what they were looking for, he looked up the item number, and went and pulled it out of storage. After about twenty minutes of isolating, and tuning out the voices on the recording they were able to lock onto a sound of interest.

"It sounds like machinery, maybe." Quincy stated.

Peters agreed, "Yes, like large saws, or drills, or something."

"Can you record this sound and then run it to see if we can find the tool or tools that match it?" Friedman was listening hard, "It sounds big, industrial, maybe?"

"Well, I can try to run it against the audio database, but there might be a few different machines, so it would be hard, nearly impossible to get an exact match."

"That'sfine, run it, and let me know what you get, maybe it will at least point us ina direction." Friedman and Petersthanked him, and went to go finish writing their reports.1& 

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