Castoff
part 6

"She's dead? When? How?" Donatello asked.

"I don't have all of the details yet, but it looks like it happened early this morning," Casey said, taking a seat in the kitchen. "There has to be an autopsy. My buddy at the lab is having a fit. She ran those prints before the woman was discovered and then saw the body when she was collecting trace evidence from the Senior Medical Examiner."

"She can't just keep it to herself?" Raph asked.

"No way. Even if she wanted to take that chance, I wouldn't let her. When the detectives investigating the case check the woman's prints, they'll see that Yvette ran them already. Even the bloody newspaper will have to be explained. Yvette can give us until the detectives start asking questions, then she has to tell them about my involvement," Casey said.

"Maybe if we come up with some answers, it'll take the heat off of you," Leo said. "Tell us what you know."

"The woman's name was Lia Colón," Casey said. "She was twenty-four and had a rap sheet as long as Raph's arm. Prostitution, drugs, petty theft, the usual array of street crimes. She's never served more than a few months in jail and that was only because she was caught holding an ounce of heroine. They couldn't prove intent to sell or she would have gotten a minimum of five years."

"Where'd she live?" Raph asked.

"Therein lies another of life's great mysteries," Casey told him. "The address in our files was the one she used before her jail stint. After that she dropped off the radar. No probation therefore no probation officer to report to. Whatever she was into since she got out kept her out of the eyes of the law."

They heard Shilo snuffle and then whine, a good indication that he was waking from his nap.

"I'll get him," April offered, taking the stairs up to the turtle's bedroom. A moment later she returned with the baby turtle and Mikey pulled a chair out for her so she could sit down.

"Leo, could you grab one of the clean pacifiers for me? They're on a towel by the sink," April said. "When was the last time he was fed?"

"A couple of hours ago," Don said. "He'll want something in a little while."

April smiled as she accepted the pacifier from Leo and placed it against Shilo's lips. He latched onto it immediately and his eyes closed as April gently bounced him on her lap.

"Okay, next question," Leo said. "Where did she die?"

"Should we be talking about his m-o-m in front of him?" Mikey asked, spelling out the word.

"He doesn't understand us yet Mikey," Don answered. "Besides, we've already learned that he sleeps better when there's some kind of noise in the lair."

"Not established," Casey said, answering Leo's question. "Her body was found under the tresses near the 125th Street Rail Station."

"East Harlem," Raph said. "That's the area where the baby was dumped."

"She was dumped too," Casey informed them. "Someone killed her, drove up close to a piling, and pushed her body out. There are businesses all along that section of street and none of them were open when it happened. She wasn't found until some pedestrians took a shortcut under the rail line."

"That's just too pat," Leo said. "She gets rid of her baby and then someone gets rid of her. Cause and effect?"

"I hate to say it, but yeah," Casey said. "One almost has to do with the other. That makes the baby an important clue. One we can't produce for obvious reasons."

"Couldn't you just say you found the bloody newspaper?" April asked. "You could explain where you found it and that you gave it to your lab friend because you wanted to determine if there was something to be concerned about."

"Tell Chief Vincent that we found it," Leo said. "Tell her we saw a woman behaving furtively but we were too far away to catch up to her before she disappeared. When we found the newspaper we were concerned that she was injured, so we turned the paper over to you hoping you could use it to locate her."

Casey thought about it for a minute and then said, "Yeah, I think that'll work. It'll explain the delay in turning that information over to the detectives, get Yvette off the hook, keep the detectives off my back, and keep everyone thinking the baby is still out there someplace."

"I'm sure the detectives have thought to check any cameras in the area to see if they caught the killer dumping Colón's body," Don said. "I can look at those same feeds."

"It would help if I know everything the detectives assigned to the case know," Casey said. "They won't tell me unless Chief Vincent orders them to, and I'd rather not have them scrutinize me that closely. If they're watching me, I can't be of any assistance to you guys."

"Forewarned is forearmed, Casey my man," Mikey chirped with enthusiasm.

Don had already gone to his computer array and begun hacking into traffic and security cameras near the rail station. It didn't take him long to discover a dark colored Honda Accord pulling up next to the trellis, stopping for less than two minutes, and then pulling away again.

He called the others over and replayed the footage for them. "You can see the passenger side back door being opened, but none of the cameras had the right angle to see inside the car," Don said. "Colón was small, it wouldn't have taken much to roll her out off of the back seat."

"Can you zoom in on the license plate?" Casey asked.

Don's fingers danced over his keyboard and the car's license plate filled the screen. "Hang on, let me run the numbers," Don said.

"Stolen," Casey muttered in frustration when the information was displayed. "The detectives will have an all-points bulletin on the car. They'll find it before we will. Whoever killed her knew enough to avoid cameras, so they probably won't leave any forensic evidence in the car. Dead end."

"It's almost six," Leo said, glancing at the clock. "Will Chief Vincent still be in her office? You should talk to her before it gets any later. Your friend should also go ahead and inform the investigators about the newspaper. Beating them to the punch will keep the heat off of her."

"I'll make the calls," Casey said. "Somehow I think doing this over the phone will keep me from spending the night down at the station. We have one piece of information no one else has yet. Before the area is swarming with cops, I want to try and find where Colón was coming from when she dumped the baby."

"That's what I forgot to do," Don said suddenly, snapping his fingers and startling everyone. "I meant to check the street cams along the route that Colón took so that we could backtrack her."

He started typing furiously while murmuring incoherently to himself, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Come one, come all," Raph said with a grin. "Witness the effects of a baby upon the mind of a genius."

Don seemed not to hear him as different camera views of the same street popped up on the computer screens. "There she is," he said, pointing at a figure walking hurriedly down the sidewalk, a bundle clutched in her arms. "She's on West 120th Street coming from the direction of Lenox Avenue."

The camera they were watching lost her, but then another picked her up immediately.

"She turned down an alley in the block before she reached 7th Avenue," Leo said. "As soon as she dumped the baby, she headed back in the direction she'd just come from. Can you pick her up on the way back?"

"Just need to advance the clock time on the camera recordings," Don said, his tongue protruding from his mouth as he worked the keyboard.

"There's no way for anyone to know that someone was checking these camera histories, is there?" Casey asked. "I'd hate to lose our advantage by dropping this info in the investigators' laps."

"Donnie sneaks into all kinds of systems without anyone the wiser," Mikey said, answering for his brother. "He's a genius, remember?"

"No one will know," Don assured their friend as his computer screen showed Colón ducking out of the alley and proceeding along West 120th Street, moving quickly.

"She just gave birth and she's probably still bleeding," Casey muttered as he watched her. "She had to be in pain, yet she got dressed, wrapped the baby in newspaper, and took off into the night to find a place to dump him. That spells scared out of her mind in my book. I wonder what she was so scared of."

"Considering she was murdered soon after that, I'd say she was justified in being afraid," Leo said.

"Do you guys really think her getting rid of Shilo had something to do with her being killed?" Mikey asked. "That's just wrong."

"Everything about this is wrong," Raph said. "Somebody needs to pay."

"She crosses Lenox Avenue and then Malcolm Boulevard," Don said, keeping a running commentary on Colón's progress. "She's still on West 120th."

The turtles and Casey were so focused on Don's computer screens that they didn't notice that Shilo had gotten fussy. Master Splinter took him from April, who got up to prepare a bottle for the hungry baby.

"She's passing the camera in front of the fitness club," Raph said. "I recognize the area 'cause it's close to Marcus Garvey Memorial Park."

A couple of minutes later the woman was gone.

"What happened? Where is she?" Casey asked.

"There are no cameras until you get to the transit stop at 5th Avenue," Don said. "She didn't go that far."

"So we lose her somewhere along 120th near Mount Morris Park West," Raph said. "That's a big area. What if she had a ride waiting for her somewhere near the park?"

"I doubt she would have walked so far in her condition if she had a ride," Leo said. "Casey, better make your phone calls. I think a trip to the park is called for."

Casey went out into one of the tunnels to make his calls, ensuring that no background noise would give away his location. Don left his computers to check on Shilo and found that his father was feeding the baby.

"Want me to take over Dad?" Don asked, sounding a little anxious as he sat in a kitchen chair next to Master Splinter.

"I believe I am capable of feeding a baby turtle," Master Splinter said with indulgent good humor. "I am fairly certain that none of you four starved to death."

"Sorry," Don said, looking abashed. "It's just that I'm . . . ."

"Donnie, you were going to use the food thefts that were reported last night to try and pinpoint an area where we could continue our search for Bebop and Rocksteady," Leo called out. "Have you done that?"

"No," Don said, jumping up from his chair and shuffling quickly back to his computers, where Leo was waiting. "Sorry, sorry Leo."

He sat down and began to type instructions into his computer. Leo leaned over his chair and said softly, "That's okay, Donnie. Having a baby in the lair is distracting for all of us."

"We can't afford to be distracted," Don said, unable to meet Leo's eyes. "I can't afford to be distracted. We aren't going to find those two unless I can track them down. It's not safe for any of us if they're on the loose. Suppose they find our home? Suppose they attack when we aren't here? Shilo is . . . he's defenseless."

Raph had been pounding his punching bag but stopped when he overheard his brothers' conversation. Walking over, he said, "They ain't gonna find the lair, Donnie. You've got so many security features set up that no one is even gonna get close without setting off all kinds of alarms. Besides, there's a hundred ways out of here and at the first sign of trouble, Master Splinter will grab Shilo and get him out of the lair."

"That's a very different view from the one you had last night," Leo said, looking up at Raph.

"Yeah, well last night it was Don here trying to reassure me with talk of our new security measures," Raph said. "I guess at some point you have to come to terms with what you can't change and find a way to live with it. Besides, Shilo's family now and I'll be damned if I'll let anything happen to him."

Mikey had been watching Master Splinter feed Shilo, but now he wandered back over to where his brothers were gathered and said, "Me either. Nobody's gonna lay a finger on his little head."

Their assurances seemed to calm Donnie, who turned his focus to the job at hand. "Got it," Don sang out, pulling a map up on one of his screens. "The food thefts from last night all took place in an area bordered by the Hudson River, West 34th, and Central Park. One of the thefts from two nights ago was on 9th Avenue, which is in the same general area."

"That's way the hell on the other side of Central Park from Harlem," Raph said.

"Only fifteen minutes by truck," Don said as Casey reentered the lair and came over to join them.

"We can investigate both," Leo said, making the decision for them. "We'll take the truck to West 120th and see if what we can find that might clue us in to where Shilo's mom was going. Afterwards, we'll drive over to check out all three of the places that were hit last night."

"Food thefts. Bebop and Rocksteady," Mikey said, seeing the confused look on Casey's face.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about those two. So, I talked to Chief Vincent. She's going to speak to the detectives and let them know why Yvette ran Colón's prints and that she has the bloody newspaper. They would have turned it over to Yvette anyway. Chief Vincent will tell them I found the newspaper so there's no chain of custody issue," Casey said. "They'll want to talk to me tomorrow, but that's then and this is now. Are we heading out?"

"We are," Leo said decisively. "Let's go."

All five of them jogged towards the garage. They had just reached the garbage truck when April's voice sang out from behind them.

"Did you forget something?"

Spinning around, they saw that April was standing at the top of the stairs, holding a wide awake baby turtle in her arms.

TBC….