Story synopsis:
The BPD Cyber Team discovers severed fingers inside a server that has been confiscated for a minor drug conviction.
Frankie Rizzoli entered the basement carrying the confiscated computer. "Hey, I'm looking for Caroline?" he said, "I have this computer for her."
The room was filled with cabinets and racks, desks covered in hard disks, monitors and cables and the buzz of the computer room air conditioning (crac) unit. It was the Boston Police Dept cyber team headquarters.
A head popped up from under one of the desks. "Hello?" she replied, "I'm Caroline."
Caroline had short auburn hair and wore glasses. She was wearing a BPD polo shirt and khaki cargo pants.
"Where should I put it?" Frankie said.
"Let me check the paperwork and serial number first," she responded, "I believe this is from the drug case but I have to follow procedure."
A few minutes later Caroline confirmed her initial premise. "This needs to be racked. It is a RHEL server," she said, "Hand it here please."
Frankie gave Caroline the computer and headed back upstairs. "She reminds me a lot of Dr. Isles," he thought.
Caroline quickly racked the server and reconfigured it for the BPD management network. When she powered it on however, the server reported a fan error. Sighing, she unracked it and pulled the cover off. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, seeing immediately why the fan was not operational. There were 2 severed fingers stuffed inside.
Jane, Korsak and Frost had all made their way down to the basement as soon as Caroline called upstairs with her discovery. All the techs were crowded around the server when they arrived. "Can we clear some room here please?" Jane asked. Caroline turned to her staff "Guys, let's get back to work and let the detectives do their jobs here. The show is over." Jane was impressed when everyone returned to their desks and she gave Caroline a look of approval. "Detective Jane Rizzoli," she said offering her hand.
"Caroline Cairns, Head of the Cyber Team" the tech responded, "Pleased to meet you." Jane quickly introduced Korsak and Frost – although Caroline and Frost had already met before.
"Where the hell is Maura?" Jane asked impatiently. "Right here" Maura responded, entering the room, "Sorry everyone I was finishing up an autopsy."
She turned to Caroline. "Dr Maura Isles, Chief Medical Examiner," she said. "What do we have here?" "Caroline Cairns, good to meet you. I was working on this RHEL server and there was a fan error. I opened it up to take a look and found this." She gestured toward the fingers.
Maura put on gloves and walked to the server. "Two severed fingers," she said. She placed each in its own evidence bag and then found some other foreign material. "This needs to go to trace for analysis. I'll get to work on the fingers immediately."
"Detective, when will the server be released back to me?" Caroline asked Jane, "It is part of an ongoing case."
"What case?" Jane questioned. "Small potatoes really," Caroline responded "a minor shipping firm employee was using the server to store information on drug deals, times, places, emails but I believe there was nothing to tie it to any big time drug cartel."
"Until now" Jane mused, "Who is working the case?" "Detective Crowe," Caroline responded, making a grimace. Jane made a mental note. Caroline was obviously a kindred spirit because Crowe was an ass.
"Tell you what Caroline; let me see if I can convince the Lt to hand that case over to us. I think severed fingers trumps a small potatoes drug case. We'll be in touch but in the meantime we have to take the server as evidence."
Jane strode into the morgue hoping Maura would have some feedback on the severed fingers. She stopped in her tracks as she saw Maura and Caroline huddled over the microscope talking animatedly.
She cleared her voice loudly.
"Oh hello Jane," Maura said looking up. "Caroline was assisting me with a question on the trace I found inside the server."
"Right," Jane replied, "What about the fingers?"
"Actually we need to act on the information we found from the trace." Caroline interjected, "It appears to be a piece of plastic from a secondary internal SATA hard drive."
"That means the server most likely had the data partitioned off onto a separate filesystem," continued Maura.
Jane groaned. If it wasn't bad enough that Maura spouted medical terms and random facts now the Geek Squad chick had her talking in technobabble.
"All I am hearing is blah, blah, blah," she said pointedly.
"Sorry Caroline, Jane isn't much of a techie," Maura apologized as she smiled at Jane. Jane gave her a dirty look.
"It means, Detective Rizzoli, that there was a second disk inside the server and now that data is missing. We need to get back to that shipping office and retrieve their backup tapes ASAP."
"OK and the fingers?" Jane asked again, "Any information we can follow up on?"
"The fingerprints are still going through AFIS," Maura replied, "I can tell you the victim is male with AB- blood and he was dead when the fingers were removed. Only 1% of the population has that blood type. The implement used to remove them is a hacksaw. There was some trace under the fingernails and I'm waiting on that analysis to come back."
"As soon as you have anything, call me," Jane requested, "In the meantime, Frost, Korsak and I are headed out to that shipping office."
She and Caroline headed toward the door at the same time. Caroline turned back for a moment "I'll get that to you soon," she said, "Do you want a hard or soft copy?"
"Soft copy will be fine," Maura replied.
The two women exited the morgue. For a split second it seemed as if she would ask Caroline what she was getting for Maura. "I'll have Frost bring you the tapes once we have them." She said instead. "Thanks Detective Rizzoli," Caroline acknowledged as she got in the elevator.
Jane, Frost and Korsak pulled up at the Bluebird Shipping office. "That logo is a traditional tattoo image," remarked Korsak, "each bluebird tattoo a sailor had represented 5000 miles at sea." "Going all Maura on us Korsak?" Jane smirked. "I happen to like history concerning animals" Korsak replied as they entered the shipping office door.
Jane pulled her jacket aside to show her badge and Frost and Korsak did likewise. The young girl behind the desk showed little interest and continued filing her nails. "Boston Police Dept" Korsak said "We need to take your computer back-up tapes and we have a warrant."
"Jerry," the girl yelled loudly, "The police are here again."
A middle-aged man with thinning blonde hair walked out of a room with a door marked Manager. His appearance was scruffy as if he had slept in his clothes. Jane wrinkled her nose. He definitely hadn't showered. The detectives introduced themselves.
"Jerry Phillips, Manager of Bluebird Shipping. How can I help you?" he said yawning.
"We need your computer backup tapes, " replied Frost, "where do you store them?" Jerry looked confused.
"I'm the manager not the techno-freak," he said, "the computer room is through there if you want to look for yourselves."
The detectives walked into the room. It was little more than a storage area. "Not exactly the best location for a computer." Frost said, shaking his head as he looked around, "Something isn't right." As he said this, the door slammed and they heard the key being turned in the lock.
"Son of a bitch," swore Korsak. Jane pulled her gun and had the two men step back. She shot out the lock and the three ran out of the room. Jerry and the girl were gone.
"Damn it," said Jane as she re-holstered her gun, "What the hell is going on with this case?"