by Alec Peche
Their program matched the thirty points of one fingerprint to another. Damian thought it would go faster if you matched the first six points and then moved on to more decisive matching with sixteen points of match which seem to be the criminal justice standard. Mathematically, it would be faster to run a large data search in that manner, than trying to match the first sixteen from the start. Having set up his backdoor and his data run, he walked away from the terminal to look again at the cold cases. He had some ideas that he listed on paper and sent to Natalie along with a summary of what he’d done with the database. Of course the second part of the message was written in code as he wanted no trail to his doorstep of his hacking successes.
He’d let the fingerprint matching program run, and over the next three days, he was able to identify about eighty percent of the prints found at the scenes of the five cases. As it came in, he would send it to Natalie, then forget about the cases as he went back to inventions. In the back of his head was a worry about having Trevor visit the next day. It would be his first social call in seven years, before the death of his family. He decided, when Trevor arrived, he would use his drone to move the beer and then give Trevor the choice of riding his zip line or walking up the hill. His boat captain would let him know when he left the Richmond Marina and then Damian would know that Trevor would arrive in about twelve minutes. He had chips and dip and meat to barbecue. The house was clean and he could offer his guest tea, coffee, or water. His couch had plenty of space for two guys to sit and watch a basketball game.
The Bay was his source of water. Damian had built a small desalination filter that pumped water out of the bay and up to a tank close to his house and he used that for everything but drinking. He had a few more filter gadgets that he put his drinking water through inside the house and the water tasted so good he thought about setting up his own home brewery. Maybe he’d ask Trevor’s opinion on the taste of the water. He had the equipment for a microbrewery as well as yeast, but he’d have to import the hops. He could have his own beer on the island in two months and perhaps if he made enough, he could supply Pete with the brew for his bar. That thought brought a smile to his face.
He checked his satellite receiver, something else he’d built to make sure he could get the station that the game was on. He could lock onto any satellite, but since he wasn’t a subscriber he had no idea what he was watching until the commercials ended and the show began. To move from one major network to another took his computer finding the satellite then locking on it, but he couldn’t complain as it was free. Okay, he was ready for a guest.
It was time to step outside and fish for tonight’s dinner. He opened his door and was shocked to see a package sitting there. Never in his seven years here had there been a package on his doorstep.
Chapter Eight
Could it be a bomb?
He paused and did calculations in his head of what kind of damage something explosive inside the small package could do; and then he shook his head at his negative thought and bent down to reach for the box.
Then he smiled. It was a rare use of his facial muscles. He hadn’t had much to smile at in the past seven years.
The box was addressed to ‘The man on the rock, whose name I don’t know.’
He was sure he knew who the box was from, the question was how had it arrived without his alarm systems going off? How had she gotten on the island without him knowing it?
He opened the box and found two flavors of tea from a tea shop in Sausalito and a thank you card from Ariana.
He read, “I tried to find out your name but you’ve done a great job of hiding that from the world. No, I didn’t step on your island, instead I matched you for technology. After practicing dropping toys in the bay for my dog to retrieve, I dropped this package close to your doorstep. I appreciate your help with my air tank; it would have been a dangerous and long swim home without your help.”
Cheers,
Ariana
He admired her approach and decided to acknowledge her gesture. He picked up the phone and called the number on the card she originally gave him as she had not included one in the package of tea. The phone rang six times before he heard someone pick up the other end.
“Ariana”
Damian tried to remember if this was the voice from a few days earlier, but he couldn’t confirm it, but since she said her name, he figured he had the right person. Then he froze, what was he going to say? It’d been an impulsive gesture on his part, just wanting to say thanks.
“Ah, hi, it’s the man on the rock.” Wow, Damian thought, ‘aren’t you a brilliant conversationalist’.
“Hello man from the rock,” Ariana replied. “Did you get my package?”
“Yes and thanks. I assume you used a boat and a drone rather than just launching the drone from your house.”
She laughed and replied, “I ordered the drone the minute I got back to my house and practiced the next two days before attempting the delivery to you. No way could I have made it from my home to your island without dropping the package or the drone into the bay. As it was I took two packages with me in case one of them ended up as fish dinner.”
“I don’t think fish like tea leaves. They like to eat each other or kelp or algae. I can’t imagine tea made from kelp or algae being at all tasty.”
Again, Damian thought, always hide behind science rather than asking her about herself. He’d never work up the nerve to invite her to his island. Whoa. He felt like his brain had hit the brakes so hard that it slammed into the bone of his cranium. Where had that thought come from? First he invited Trevor and now he was thinking about inviting Ariana? What about his treasured solitude and privacy? His thoughts were going a million miles an hour, so he tried to disengage his brain and tune back into Ariana.
“These are Silicon Valley fish, so they probably eat sushi or kale.”
He liked her sense of humor and replied, “Did you see any sushi underwater on your swim home?”
“No, Man on the Rock. Do you have a name? I admit I looked you up but I couldn’t find your name anywhere and I’m good at that kind of thing. So in my mind I’ve been calling you Manny as in Man of the rock.”
“Manny?” Damian exclaimed, wincing. “I’ll have to tell you my name just to get away from that awful nickname. I’m Damian.”
“Damian, hmmm. That’s a Greek name. Are you descended from Father Damian who saved the Hawaiian Lepers of Molokai, or are you Dr. Damian, the patron of physicians?”
“I never looked at my name that way. I have a PhD, so I’m a doctor of sorts, but not one of medicine.”
“Okay Damian, call me when you need another order of tea dropped on you. I’ll keep you supplied with tea as long as I have the hang of operating this drone. I really do thank you for the scuba air, I was thinking about my body being hit by one of the ferries crossing the bay and was just going to try and drown myself off of your island to save myself from being chopped up in a boat propeller, so I’m serious about keeping you in tea for a long time.”
“I had the same vision; you take a lot of risks when you don’t pay attention to scuba air. I hope that event made you more aware of that.”
“I’ll admit it did and in fact I haven’t been out for a long distance swim since then.”
“Why do you scuba dive in San Francisco Bay? I wouldn’t think there would be much to see as the water isn’t very clear?”
“You’re right about that, sometimes it's creepy coming upon stuff suddenly, but I have the sense not to go outside the Golden Gate Bridge for fear those currents would sweep me to Japan.”
“Why don’t you fly to some place warmer like Hawaii or the Caribbean? From what I know about you it’s not a matter of affordability.”
“You looked me up?”
“Yes, you left me your card, otherwise I would have looked for you under the title of mermaid, and you were the first person to breach my security in seven years, so I needed to know what you were up to.”
T
here was dead silence on the other end of the phone, while she thought about his words then she said, “Then I’m glad your first visitor was a mermaid. If you’re ever over in Belvedere, give me a call and I’ll cook dinner for you at my house, where you can just see your island off in the distance.”
“Thanks for the invite, and I’ll do that sometime. Are you a good cook?”
“No. I’d probably fake it and order something from a restaurant around here and throw it into a saucepan or my oven to make you think I’d made it.”
He laughed at her candid response and said, “I’ve got to go and it was a pleasure talking to you, Ariana. Be safe.”
After Damian ended the call, he decided he would do just that, cross over next week and look her up. He liked her adventurous spirit and intelligence. They were kindred spirits in that they were both widows and of about the same age. He’d certainly enjoyed their call.
Now it was back to fishing for tonight’s dinner. He learned years ago, that it was best to fish in the afternoon as sometimes it took a long time to catch fish suitable for eating and he and the cats could go hungry if he failed. There were a variety of fish in the bay but he mostly caught halibut or flounder and the occasional striped bass. If the fish was small, he released it back to catch another time. His cats needed two fish for food throughout the day, while he liked one to two for dinner. Sometimes he fished just for the cats when he had beef or chicken or pasta for dinner. On the rare times he left the island, it was dry kibble for the cats, but they hadn’t starved, nor had he found dead birds on his return.
Fishing was also thinking time. He’d worked out many puzzles while catching dinner. He also depended on the wind direction or current, fished from different spots on his little island and the different views never ceased to power his creativity and problem solving. He had so many things going through his head; the anniversary of his family’s murder, inviting Trevor out to the island, Ariana, the cold cases, his wave powered energy unit. He hadn’t had this much on his mind in years. He decided to focus on the cold cases as all the other emotions roiling through his head would hopefully work themselves out in time.
Chapter Nine
He’d sent about forty five fingerprint identifications to Natalie, but could he do more for her? Maybe write a program that would search a bunch of databases to say where these people were now, so she'd have an immediate summary of each person without having to research each one. Likely the FBI database was out of date and didn't include every death, or prison stay. As he pulled up the second and final fish for the day, he was anxious to get inside and filet the fish, then get downstairs to his computer lab.
A short time later he was sitting in front of his terminal looking at the results from the first algorithm that he wrote. Sometimes it took several modifications before he hit it right and other times he nailed it the first time and this was one of them. He picked up the phone to call Natalie.
“Hey Damian, thanks for the run,” Natalie said upon answering her cell phone.
“Well, I’ve got something even better, I’ve got two people you need to immediately focus on.”
“What? What did that brilliant brain of yours do?” and Damian could hear the excitement in her voice.
“I thought you needed some help narrowing down the huge list of prints and while I was fishing, I thought of an algorithm to create pulling in a bunch of different databases to create a bio on each person, otherwise you could waste a lot of time researching people with just a random connection to the case.”
“Yes,” and “what did you find?” asked Natalie, impatience in her voice.
“One of the cold cases is for a woman named ‘Debbie Altman’. She disappeared one night in south San Jose in the summer of 1988. Her car was found on the side of the road, but she has never reappeared, so she’s classified as a missing person, not a homicide.”
“Yes, I remember that case,” replied Natalie with growing impatience. Damian could feel her voice urging him to move faster.
“So a fingerprint from that case is connected to other cases that are not on your cold case list. I believe the police lifted prints from her car and her apartment since they never did find Debbie, dead or alive.”
“Who is the person with prints in these two cases?”
“It’s a man named John Avery. He was placed on trial for the murder of another person in 1990 but was acquitted on a technicality.”
“Yes I vaguely remember that case. I was working patrol at the time, but I kept an eye on the detective division as that was where I wanted to end up. He wasn’t tried because of something with paperwork,” Natalie said trying to reach back in her memory to the case.
“He was released because the district attorney filed the case on the 91st day and the law requires it be done in 90 days. His prints were taken at the time of his arrest, so they were in the system. Besides the run I just did, there was another incident of his prints in an apartment of a woman that went missing from Santa Cruz County. Granted all of the cases are at least twenty years old. What’s the likelihood of his prints being connected to two different missing women and one murder victim?”
“It's small Damian, very small. Did the bio you created say where he is now?”
“Yeah, it did. He works at a small convenience store and he is reputed to be connected to the Aryan Brotherhood gang. So I guess that means he’s probably trafficking drugs through that store.”
“Wow! That is quite a break and since there is no statute of limitation on murder, we can haul his ass in for questioning, or rather I should say the detective I’m working with can haul in this suspect. I forget I no longer have police powers. Even though you already know it, Damian, you’re a genius! Tell me about the second name.”
“The second name was also a missing person who was eventually found, but the case wasn’t solved. Her name is Barbara Watson and she was reported missing by her husband in 1982. The husband was suspected, but other than being the first person police usually look at, there wasn’t a shred of evidence and no weapon was located. Her remains were found on a hillside with brush covering the ground that utility workers came across when they constructed an area called Communication Hill.”
“I was a detective at the time for that case, but I remember hearing about it. I think the body had been there five to seven years when they found her, so they used dental records and DNA to identify the bones. The husband had gone on to make a life with another woman, and while he seemed happy that her remains had been found, his affect hadn’t seemed right at the time. He seemed more uneasy than relieved. So what connection did you find?”
“It’s an odd finding, there was a knife used in a stabbing case around 1983 and prints were lifted to match the suspect in that case. The knife had two sets, one was the person in custody and he was convicted and sent to prison. He served his time and was released. The second set of prints matched Mr. Greg Watson whose prints were taken five years ago when he provided consultant services to the Federal Government. His prints weren’t matched to the knife as that case was considered solved. I accidentally landed on the prints by the way I did the algorithm.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“He relocated to Phoenix, so he’s not in your jurisdiction.”
“I wonder if the knife is still available for a forensic pathologist to compare to the wound evidence in Barbara’s remains.”
“Are her remains still available?” Damian asked, thoughts roiling through his mind. “Even though the case isn’t solved, the remains would still get a burial right? The police don’t hold on to the remains indefinitely waiting for new clues right?”
“No we count on our medical examiner and crime scene techs to collect all the available evidence. Think about it, we have some two hundred plus cold cases. Where would we possibly store the bodies related to those unsolved cases? Granted not all of them have a body, but you get my point.”
“Okay.” Damian said, relief in his voice. “Keep me pos
ted with what happens, Natalie. I’m going to see if I can find any other leads like these. Good luck with these suspects.”
Natalie said curiously, “So, you already think the first guy murdered three women?”
“Yes, I ran a statistical analysis of my finding and it came back at 99.994 for the first case and 85.7 for the second case. Statistics rarely lie.”
“Good to know. Great work, Damian, and I’m going to try to nail these guys.”