+18 - eps 28-32 - On the sixth installment of the Blackbird series, Cassidy sends Gillian and her team with Brock and Russel to Tampa, Florida, to look into the death of a girl while winter storm Jonas beats the East Coast. But this seemingly ordina...
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Everybody was back by noon, so they decided a quick lunch at the 101 while they checked and updated their information.
Aldana pinned to the board the pictures of three young men in their twenties. "Stewart Carson, Tommy Floyd and Charlie Poole. They were on duty the night Irene was killed, in charge of monitoring northern Tampa up to the Hunter's Green area," she said. "They all have enough clearance to delete a file from the server. But so do all the other employees."
"Actually, you don't need any special clearance to do it. That's the catch," said Tanya.
"Can we know when the files were deleted?"
"Yep, if you give me a couple of hours. I added my own backdoor to the server, so I can work from here. This system creates multiple temporary logs. Maybe our little hacker missed one. We won't retrieve the videos, but we'll have the date and time when the files were removed. And the access IP."
"What about the other missing files?" asked Brock.
He'd changed his suit back to street clothes when he came back from the field office. So there he was, jeans and tennis, sandwich and beer in hand—another punk around the table, Brockner. Tell me about mingling.
Gillian was thinking something similar—only tainted by how good he looked with that black cashmere sweater on top of a plain white T-shirt. But he was no punk, she thought, setting her jaw not to flash her stupid fangirl smile. He always managed to stay himself.
Aldana's reply kicked Gillian back to the missing files issue. "The others are from Epiphany's Eve. Cameras located in the Ybor City area."
Russell sat up. "Wait. January 5th, Ybor City?" He grabbed his tablet to check something. "That's the night Kelly Hayes was killed. And her last credit card charge was at a bar in Centro Ybor."
Aldana moved to the other board and the map of the city. "Where's that Centro Ybor?"
Russell read from his tablet. "1600 E 8th Avenue."
She found the address and pinned a yellow stack. "T, where are the cameras with the missing files?"
Tanya checked her computer and read four different corners.
Gillian grabbed her tablet and checked an online map of the city, while Aldana pinned green stacks on the corners Tanya mentioned, starting at the corner of Ybor Centro. Gillian showed her tablet to Ron.
"Isn't it the best way to drive from the Centro to the nearest access to the I-4?"
Ron studied the map and nodded. "Looks like, yeah."
"Wait a minute," said Hank. "Are you saying the missing files from traffic cameras are from the nights both girls were killed, and the places where they were last seen?"
"Looks like, yeah," Ron repeated.
"Thought there was nothing concrete to connect both cases," said Fred.
"So far," Brock replied.
Gillian huffed. "Jesus! This gets thicker by the minute!"
"But what about the MO?" argued Ron. "Kelly Hayes was raped and beaten before the killer strangled her with his own hands, and then she was dumped in her car just out of town. While Irene was tortured with electroshocks to death and she had no traces of sexual assault."
"That we know of," said Hank. "Let's leave it at this: the body was too damaged to tell." His phone buzzed and he stood up. "Sorry, gotta take this."
"So no matter the different MOs, even if they're two killers instead of one, they have access to the monitoring system," Fred said.
"Or they both know somebody who does," said Brock.
Gillian turned to Tanya. "Can you check who was on duty when Kelly disappeared?"
The girl needed only a moment to reply, "Carson and Poole."
"What day of the week was January 5th?" asked Brock, standing up to join Aldana by the map.
"Tuesday," replied Ron, checking the tablet's calendar.
"And Irene was murdered on a Wednesday. So almost the same day of the week, two weeks apart," Brock muttered, focused scowl on the map.
"T, can you pull police reports from Christmas week?" asked Russell.
"After I finish with the monitoring server. Sorry, Russell, I have three computers here but it's only me to operate them. And this case is demanding loads of information all the time."
"It's okay, T. You're doing your best," said Gillian with a warm smile, and turned to Russell. "We can ask the locals."
Russell replied but she didn't listen. Hank was just out the 101 door and she saw his face reflect his shock at whatever they were telling him over the phone. She met his eyes. Hank looked down the hall and back at her.
"Be right back," she muttered, and stood up to follow him
Hank finished the call as he preceded her to the end of the hall. They stopped outside the laundry and she bit her tongue, to give him a moment to breathe deep and find the words.
"Okay...," he muttered. "I'm not an expert in pregnancy tests, so I thought we could use a second opinion on Irene's blood test. To see if we could be more accurate about when she delivered her child."
Gillian nodded. Everything about Irene's child made her guts twitch, so she honestly didn't dare to rush Hank.
"So I sent the results to a colleague at the Tufts back home. That was him on the phone, and he says I'm right about her giving birth three weeks ago."
"But...?" she tried.
"No 'but'. Only an 'and'. Not a good one, Reg." Hank grimaced. "Her high level of prolactin, plus a couple more indicators show she'd been breastfeeding..." he breathed deep. "Up to twelve hours before her death, give or take."
Irene had been found about seven a.m. and the Coroner estimated her time of death only an hour earlier. Six a.m. So she'd last breastfed at six p.m. the day before. She was on the road then. Only an hour away from the gas station at Downs and the Interstate.
Gillian felt the tingling cold down her spine as her eyes widened in horror. She tried to speak, but her voice choked on the words.
