by Brian Ewing
“I think so,” Sisto replied, sounding unsure. “I haven’t had any visions that included anyone other than Carson Vinnova, but I can feel something isn’t right.”
“Agreed,” Caden chimed in. “If we can’t find Carson at this point, we need to find someone that may be in contact with him.”
“When can we expect some results and info about the identity of the bodies at the scenes?” Sisto asked.
“Already been on the phone twice today with the M.E.,” Caden said. “That was my first call after speaking to Agent Porter. Ferrer said he would call me directly once he had anything.”
Chief Medical Examiner Ronaldo Ferrer had overseen the Saratoga City Coroner’s office for the last twelve years and enjoyed playing favorites. He was not opposed to dragging out an autopsy or blood analysis if a gung-ho detective had acted too big for their britches by confronting him impolitely. Sisto also understood why Caden had made the call herself as opposed to tasking Calvin Bell, with his unique old school sensibility and lack of bedside manner, to push for results. Sisto had taken a ride with Caden months ago for a hit and run off Main Street that occurred during the Fourth of July weekend, in hopes of The Reels picking up something off the body. Upon being walked back into the exam room of the victim, a wiry man in his mid-fifties walked in eating a cruller topped with powdered sugar. The cruller avoided any intent from Ferrer to shake Sisto’s hand upon introduction but after speaking with the man, Sisto was unsure the handshake would have been offered regardless of the hand being available or not. Ronaldo Ferrer was very direct in his analysis and had multiple facts to support his claims. Caden handled the man with finesse. Sisto remembered being in awe as he watched how she walked right up to the line with him, but she knew when to take her foot off the pedal and drown the man in praise and thanks.
“You think the victims are random?” Sisto asked, valuing Caden’s opinion.
“You don’t?” There was a note of concern entering her voice.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell who the fuck the barn victim was with the man’s face caked in dried blood and maggots starting to eat away at it. I know for sure I don’t know the butcher shop owner, but he does seem familiar for some reason. It was the owner, right?”
Clearing his throat to contribute, Bell answered, “Fernando Aguilar. Worked for forty years in Saratoga City kitchens, until saving enough to buy a small shop in the industrial corner of the city. Paid pennies on the dollar, probably the property manager assuming he would never last or make a name big enough to have the city folks drive their BMWs to the outskirts for some beef tongue.”
The name didn’t register with Sisto and as far as working in kitchens for years, Sisto knew everyone at the bar he’d tended a lifetime ago, front and back of house. Sisto had learned early on that if you respect the back of the house, your food comes quicker, the help comes faster, the complaining and shit-talking about you gets minimized. Plus, he’d picked up a little Spanish over the years that rarely helped him outside ordering food, but nonetheless was a nice gift from his predominantly Hispanic cooking staff. Some people that waited tables and bartended during the day or on Sisto’s off nights, never got that memo, and it showed. He would always hear a waitress gripe about how long it took for her to get the silverware cleaned so she could wrap them as part of her cut duties. There were times the bartender from the night before Sisto’s shift would say how they were stuck waiting with the managers for the dishwasher to clean, not leaving until four in the morning some nights. Sisto just shrugged his false sympathy, not able to fully understand, as he always was out the door no more than a half hour after balancing the banks and cleaning up. He would hook up the cooks and dish staff with beers after they kicked everyone out as a thank you for their hard work. Was it the most legal thing to do, serving after hours? Of course not. He chose not to burden Caden and Bell with the weight of his crimes, pre-Reels.
Replaying his steps from earlier, another thought entered Sisto’s mind. “The fingerprint. The bloody fingerprint on the note. Whose finger made that print?”
“It’s getting ran through the databases and should get it back by end of day. This Vinnova wouldn’t be that dumb to literally give himself up red-handed like that though, right? So by reasons of deduction, it has to be the stiff in pieces in the freezer,” Bell angelically determined.
Sisto, searching in his memories for the composition of the human structure presented in the freezer, found a few flashes from when he was tiptoeing around the display, to ensure he didn’t knock into it on his way to the picante bucket, and froze his memory on the last glance he gave the tee-pee.
“Did SCF submit the crime scene images to the department intranet yet?” Sisto urgently asked, while his mind was running down a certain course.
“Why?” Bell asked.
“Yes, they did,” Caden stated, following a long gulp of the black coffee. “I saw Walters and Ruskin down the hall after using the ladies’ room and asked them if they found anything substantial. Walters said there is a lot to sift through but wanted to upload the images before LeNard came in for the next shift, in case any of us came sniffing around.”
“Pull it up,” Sisto directed, pointing to the slew of desks, knowing around the corner she had a folded laptop in an idle sleep.
“What are you running with, Tom?” Caden asked, almost halfway out the door of the makeshift office they’d created out of Interrogation Room Two.
“I am almost one-hundred-percent sure that the fingerprint does not belong to Fernando Aguilar,” Sisto stated, more to himself to keep his thought focused until Caden returned to the room.
It took a few minutes for Caden to stumble her way through the login pages and access the intranet, which allowed them to search the database for the scene from that day. It was the first time Sisto noticed how clumsy she was around the device. She looked like someone’s grandmother being introduced to AOL Instant Messenger back in the nineties. Finally, the folder from the SCF logs were in front of the three, Caden turning the laptop towards Sisto, allowing him to take over and search for what he knew in his heart would already be there. It took nearly a whole minute, even with thumbnail images, due to the extensive angles and clarity of Walters’ designated photographer, Langdon or Lundstrom or something like that. Sisto got his confirmation as he double-clicked the image of an almost aerial view of Carson’s sculpture of limbs, zooming in on the opening of the design, which allowed Carson to secure the head on top of the tattooed belly that had once belonged to Aguilar, transferring ownership at the last minute over to Carson Vinnova to do as he pleased with it. To keep the structure supported, the two limbs on each side of the opening were the man’s severed forearms, hands interconnected finger by finger. The aerial pics taken by Langdon, or Lundstrom, gave a clear view of the hands and not a digit had any remnants of blood on them.
Before presenting his findings, Bell surprised the hell out of Sisto and picked up on where he had been going with it. “The hands didn’t have any blood on them.”
Looking at him in shock, slowly realizing how he had kept his job all the decades past, Sisto raised his left eyebrow in shock but nodded in solidarity.
“So, you think Vinnova was dumb enough to leave a target on his back like that?” Bell asked with heavy cynicism.
“I do not,” Sisto countered, “but I think I know the person that can confirm that for us a bit quicker. How do you forward this to my e-mail?”
“Are you kidding me? This is an ongoing investigation,” Caden said, looking at Sisto like he’d pulled a brick out of the wall and smashed it against her face. “I can’t send that to your unsecured Gmail account, Tom.”
He should have realized that and was mad at himself for letting such an amateur request escape his lips.
“Right.” Sisto simmered down in a moment.
His face lit up as he reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a ring with a hodge-podge of keys. There was a valued shopper’s card on the ring that he used
when grocery shopping at Martino’s, his apartment key, a key he had so long he couldn’t remember what it went into, a key to C.O.S. in case Laura needed help closing up, his poorly neglected car key to his Honda, and last but not the least, a small titanium thumb drive with minor scratches.
“Can you put that image on this for me?” Sisto asked, trying to use his least scummy smile on Caden.
She looked at the image he pointed to and sighed in defeat as she snatched the drive attached to his key set and plugged it in the laptop. She removed the drive as soon as the single image transferred and asked who he knew that could get a hit back on a fingerprint faster than the resources of an American government institute such as SCPD. Sisto had indeed known someone with the set of skills he needed and knew she would be up for the challenge. He threw the key set back in his pocket and looked at the time on his phone.
“One of you guys feel like dropping me off back at Corden Palisades?”
CHAPTER 16
After a very, very overdue breakfast at IHOP, even though it was lunchtime at that point, Caden and Bell dropped Sisto back in front of Corden Palisades. Caden and Bell opted for something off the lunch menu, but Sisto couldn’t pull himself away from his breakfast crepes and hash browns. He justified it as a gesture to keep it simple for the exhausted waitress, Amy, who looked like she hadn’t even left the building since they saw her the other day. Caden must not have eaten anything either because her order was in regular par for her platter of hot dishes that surrounded her anytime he had been witness to her eat a meal. Thankfully, when the bill came Bell pulled his department card out, minimizing the scowl from Caden—after the discovery of Sisto’s secret wealth—to a mere glare. He asked them to take him to an ATM a block away from the IHOP in hopes he could move forward with his plan, then proceeded towards the paint-chipped entrance of the building with the sun-bleached logo of Corden Palisades Apartments written on it. Getting out from the backseat of Bell’s ten-year-old Lincoln, he thanked the two for the ride, and told them he would reach out once he got any information.
Peeking around the corner of the entrance walkway towards the lobby, Super Dave was enduring a berating conversation with Mrs. Tunny from the second floor. Sisto didn’t care enough to focus on what it was about, but was pleased that Dave’s attention was diverted, allowing Sisto to glide across the lobby at a speed just a fraction slower than a group of housewives out for a power walk in Saratoga City Pines Park, until slipping through the door to the stairwell. The damp concrete scent wrapped its love around Sisto’s nasal cavities like a hug from a friend, when he used to hug people, and embraced him all the way up to the third ascension, where he exited in hopes of catching Ama at her apartment. He should have texted her to ensure he would find her there, but was consumed by the idea that ran through his head—it got pushed behind the human craving of sustenance, and once the first bite of crepes hit his mouth, the courtesy escaped him. He walked up to the door and was about to knock, but hesitated. Sisto had a scenario pop in his head he was not ready to confront if it came to fruition. What if Ama was gone, but Ojibwe was there and wanted to chat him up? He had to risk it and was about to conclude the knock when the latch on the other side clinked as it fell to its side.
“Lemme guess,” Ama greeted him upon cracking the door open slightly, “dark web shit mess your computer up again?”
Looking down and not seeing any laptop in hand, her sarcasm had swiftly been replaced with confusion.
“I need your help, I’ll pay you,” Sisto said.
Opening the door to let him in, Ama remained in the way, just an inch too close, and Sisto grazed her, activating The Reels to divulge a moment, a personal one from what Sisto had been thrown into, and barely noticeable to her during the blink or two it lasted in reality. Sisto tried to keep his composure at what he saw. He would have to file that vision under his mental follow-up tab, he noted internally. Looking over in the corner at the sage brush, it was not lit at the moment. The aroma still noticeable, but much more subtle. Ama closed the door and extended her arm to invite Sisto to the kitchen table to talk business.
“Ojibwe here?” Sisto instinctively spoke slightly softer, trying not to invite a conversation with the older woman if she had been in one of the connecting rooms.
“Trader Joe’s.”
Not expecting the answer he received, Sisto accepted the response and asked Ama to sit so he could dump a huge mess in her lap in hopes she could help.
“Do you by chance know how to run a fingerprint against public databases?”
Her manicured, pierced eyebrows raised with intrigue, “Why?”
“Look, I know you are really good at this computer stuff and I assume you have caught the news the last few nights?”
Mentally collecting the background noise of the news she had on while filling out some reports earlier, one story had popped out at her, causing her beautiful eyes to widen, “Are you working that serial killer case down at the farm?”
“I think it’s not considered serial until its three cases or more, but yes,” Sisto corrected.
Her dark brown irises held a moment of admiration Sisto was able to see before she quickly brought forth the answer to his original question. “I have a few things I can try at my end. Do you have an image or copy of the print card?”
Sisto took the small thumb drive out of his jacket pocket, explaining how vital it was to keep the information to herself and only relay what she found out to him directly.
“I get it, 007.”
“Sisto will be just fine, thanks,” he said, declining the offer to be addressed as the international super spy.
“Come with me,” Ama said, rising from her seat at the kitchen and proceeding to a room off the side from the kitchen.
Sisto followed Ama into what he assumed was her room, with a half-assed attempt at a made bed tucked in the corner. Ama hit the switch while walking in, illuminating the room with a very dim, white glow, on her way towards the opposite corner of the room. Her desk was pristine, not an element out of place. She had two towers shielded behind multiple monitors, one small and one monstrous. The tabletop held two rectangular twenty-four-inch monitors and perched above each of those, on opposite walls from the corner placement of the desk, were another two monitors raised above with anchor mounts. The elevated monitors were slightly larger than the two resting on their stands. The seat she piloted her inner web adventures in was a top-of-the-line, ergonomic beast that looked like you could be just as happy playing hours of online games as you would be passing away and being buried with it. Obviously not accustomed to guests, she realized she didn’t have a seat for Sisto, and disappeared less than a minute before reappearing with a black folding chair. Unfolding it, Sisto thanked her and sat beside her in the lumbar-torturing chair.
Booting up the computer entailed a process of turning on the two towers, hitting the buttons towards the bottom right of each monitor, and entering two passwords, each with an authentication app that sent a code to her phone.
“I had to give up my office when Ojibwe moved in,” Ama felt the need to explain. “Sorry for the tight quarters.”
“It’s no worries,” Sisto assured her. “It’s nice you took her in the way you did. I know a lot of people that would not have accepted family to move in on their personal space with open arms like you had.”
“She practically raised me. Every summer, my parents would send me to the reservation for cultural enrichment where I would stay with Ojibwe. She helped teach me about folklore, cook Native American cuisine, appreciate nature, while learning to do things like archery. She took me to fun events all the kids in the reservation gathered for, almost like being at camp. She gave me a room every summer for years. I just look at it as my turn to return the favor.”
She plugged in the thumb drive, where Sisto directed her to disregard a folder named Photo Album, another folder named Documents, to the single image document at the bottom of the minute list. Double clicking on the image, the
bloody signature dedicated to Sisto showed up. Realizing immediately what type of ink composed the lines of the human signature, Ama’s labret piercing shifted as if she wanted to say something, but she refrained and minimized the image. She opened a command line and dragged the box to the upper left monitor mounted to the wall and entered some prompts Sisto was too novice to recognize. After a few moments, lines of code and script started running down the black box. While the inquiry was processing, Ama opened an icon on the desktop named AmaVDI. The application made her go through another round of security and once in, dragged the new desktop to her right lower monitor. The wizardry was starting to fry Sisto’s brain and he decided to just let Ama run with it, without holding onto too much concern that he was meant to be taking notes. After the secondary desktop was visible, she enabled a VPN that looked like it was auto-prompted to change every twenty seconds towards various IP addresses, and that’s when he recognized the logo on the website she finally coursed her way through.
The page showed an admin login page with the seal of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations stamped in the left corner. Sisto’s jaw fell open as he realized the route Ama was planning on taking to find an answer to his question. She dragged the login page to the upper right monitor and went back to the lower right monitor to open an application that started a sequence that created a tornado of letters and numbers to fly across the screen. Ama, looking as calm as if she was browsing for a new rock band shirt on Amazon, clicked along with an intent and focus he rarely saw in people. His admiration was cut short when she felt his eyes on her, released her lock from the screen, and looked at the mix of emotions he wore on his face.
“That’s about it. I am running a search on all national identification databases. Military, criminal, federal, public registries, etc. If the owner of your print has a record, good or bad, we should find it here. This could take a bit. You want me to text you once it’s done?”