Chapter 14: Connections and Changes
"The Aquarium"
CtOS Control Center
The Wards
7:00 PM
Harrison entered The Aquarium, at which point seemingly every employee in the room turned to notice him.
"What?" he nervously asked as he stepped further into the room. He held up his hands, attempting to feign defensiveness. "I swear I wasn't the one who farted!" he said with a shrewd smirk on his face. Realizing that no one reacted, his expression returned to a more stoic one.
Dr. Bartholomew then stepped to the front of the room. "Are we to understand that your upstairs neighbor is now a viable suspect in a case we're investigating?" he asked in a very strict tone in his voice.
The detective then gave his supervisor a very confused look. "Hold up, Doc", Harrison said, "I was only told that Aiden Pearce was a suspect in an aggravated assault investigation that two of my squad mates were working on. Are you saying that he's possibly a suspect in something that this task force is working on?"
Bartholomew turned toward the largest of the room's observation monitors and pressed a button on the remote control he was holding. A bird's-eye view image of May Stadium appeared the left side of the big screen, while an image showing a complicated cluster of encrypted computer code appeared on the right. "We now think he was our hacker during the May Stadium incidents", he said, "We were able to connect the intricate code algorithm used to black out the stadium that night to one that was used in several white-hat cyber-attacks believed to have been perpetrated by the DeadSec hacker group."
Dean McCain then stood up from his workstation. "We've always thought that Pearce was a member of DeadSec", he explained, "But as you may know, like most hacker groups, they operate with a lot of secrecy."
"Has the FBI been investigating Aiden Pearce for a while now, Dean?" Harrison asked, "Because you're sure making it sound that way."
McCain then sighed and nodded his head, seemingly confirming his colleague's suspicion. "The Bureau first got wind of Pearce a few years back simply because he was the son of an Irish ex-patriate known to have been associated with a militant splinter group that was sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army."
Harrison then held up his hands again, but with more critical intentions this time. "Before we elaborate on anything here", he said as he momentarily stepped behind his workstation and typed something on his computer, "I've set up a web conference between us and my colleagues at CPD."
As Harrison stepped in front of the large monitor screen, a large split-screen web conference board appeared on the screen behind him. The faces of Detectives Voight, Olinsky, Tran, Dobbs, Brooks, Asher, and Machado appeared in each respective screen. Asher and Machado were apparently sitting beside one another in front of Asher's computer in the Narcotics squad room, while the Homicide detectives appeared to all be seated around the conference table in front of a communal computer in the District 34 conference room. Voight and Olinsky, meanwhile, seemed to be seated in front of Olinsky's computer in the Gang Unit squad room at District 21.
"Sorry about the short notice for this web conference everybody", Harrison said as he addressed both the task force members in the room and the conference participants, "but it appears that our revered task force has found a connection between a suspect in our stadium caper from the other night and an assault case that Dobbs and Brooks investigated."
"You're talking about that Janson guy, right?" Detective Dobbs asked.
Harrison nodded. "Yeah", he said, "We believe that Frank Janson has a connection to someone we're looking at as a suspect in that stadium caper that Detective Asher and I stumbled into the other night."
"In what way, Troy?" Detective Asher asked inquisitively.
"We found Mister Janson's cell phone on the scene", Detective Brooks started to explain from his side of the screen, "The call log indicated multiple calls to a lady named Nicole Pearce."
"We spoke to Miss Pearce later that afternoon", Dobbs chimed in, "She told us that she'd received several harassing calls over the past few weeks from an unknown male who made threats against her life and the life of her ten-year-old son, Jackson. All the calls came from Frank Janson's cell phone."
"Do you think Janson took it upon himself to make the calls just for some creepy thrills?" Detective Voight asked.
"I don't know for certain, Hank", Harrison said candidly, "But it does seem to me that a sleazy businessman like Janson would do anything for a quick buck, even if it was something shady."
"Why do you call him 'sleazy'?" Detective Machado asked.
"We looked into his background after we found out about Dobbs and Brooks' investigation", Dr. Bartholomew replied, "On paper, Janson runs a linen company that vends to hospitals and hotels all around Chicago. However, our check of his IRS business tax records showed that his company hasn't made any sort of major profit in two and a half years."
"So, Janson's company's going to shit", Olinsky surmised, "And he has to keep up appearances as well as keep the company above water. So, he takes crooked jobs on the side and uses whatever proceeds he gets from those to keep his business afloat."
Harrison nodded. "That's a good theory, Alvin", he said, "You guys should all know, Nicole Pearce's brother, Aiden Pearce, is our suspect in both the Janson assault and the stadium caper. He's apparently a very seasoned computer hacker and has been for some time." He motioned to Dean McCain. "Our Agent McCain here tells me that he's been under investigation by the FBI for a while because of his possible connection to the hacker group DeadSec. Dean?"
Dean McCain stood up from his workstation and started reading from the FBI case file he had on hand. "Aiden Pearce is a thirty-nine-year-old white male, about five-foot-ten inches tall, and he weighs about one-thirty", he began, "He was born on February Sixteenth, Nineteen-Seventy-Two in the village of Caseyville, Illinois out in Saint Clair County. His father, Flynn Pearce, came to the US with his wife, Aisling Pearce, from Cork, Ireland back in Seventy-One."
"How were they able to come stateside?" Detective Tran asked.
"That's part of the reason why Flynn Pearce initially showed up on FBI radar", McCain replied, "He and his wife tried to claim asylum after he claimed that they were trying to escape the Irish Republican Army. Immigration granted the request and they were able to stay in America."
"What did your inquiry into Aiden Pearce show?" Voight asked.
"He was an honor student in high school and college", McCain said, "He majored in Computer Science at DePaul University here in Chicago and graduated with a Four-Point-Oh GPA. The ironic thing about all this is that, six months after graduating, he actually landed a job working for the Blume Corporation."
"Wait a minute", Asher chimed in, "You're telling us that this dude who's apparently now working against Blume used to work for them?"
"Yes", McCain said, "Not only that, but he was one of two people who created the original code for the program that would later become our Central Operating system, or CtOS as we all know it by now."
"Huh", Asher said, "That is ironic. How long was he with the company?"
"Until Two-Thousand-Three", McCain explained, "He was fired for what they said were 'unspecified reasons'. Unfortunately, that's where his official trail ends. He hasn't had any known sanctioned employment or income since then, but his bank records show both checking and savings accounts with a combined balance of Five-Hundred-Thousand dollars."
Various looks and exclamations of surprise came from everyone, both those who were physically in the room and those who were in the web conference. "Damn!" Voight said, "Looks like someone's been working under the table. What about his sister, this Nicole Pearce?"
McCain flipped to the second page of reports in the file. "Nicole Pearce", he began "She's a thirty-four-year-old white female. Height of five-foot-six, weight about one-forty. She was born on March Sixth, Nineteen-Seventy-Seven, also in Caseyville and is the second child of Flynn and Aisling Pearce. Graduated high school in Ninety-Five, majored in Public Relations also at DePaul where she graduated with high marks. She went on to have two children, Lena and Jackson Pearce. Unfortunately, she suffered a terrible tragedy about a year ago."
"What happened?" Olinsky asked.
"Apparently", McCain continued, "Aiden Pearce was driving his niece and nephew to Pawnee for a day trip. They were going through a tunnel when an unknown suspect on a motorcycle pulled up alongside them. The suspect produced a handgun and shot out one of the passenger-side rear tires, causing the car to roll over twice rather violently. Aiden and Jackson survived, but Lena didn't. She sustained massive head injuries and was taken off life support two days later."
The conference then fell into a very perceptible moment of saddening silence, as if pausing out of respect for the dearly departed Lena. "How old was she?" a now tearful Asher asked as she momentarily removed her glasses to wipe the tears from her face.
McCain sighed. "Six", he said.
After giving everyone a moment to compose themselves, Harrison managed to regain his own composure and tried to change the subject. "What else do we have on the Pearce family's background, Dean?" he asked McCain.
McCain flipped to the bottom few pages of the file's accumulated contents. "Uh", he stammered for a moment, "Flynn and Aisling Pearce apparently divorced in Nineteen-Ninety-Seven. Mister Pearce then left the United States and repatriated to his native Ireland, where he later died from a sudden heart attack in April of Two-Thousand. Aisling Pearce still lives at the Pearce family farmhouse in Caseyville and has worked as a secretary at the local elementary school for the last ten years."
"Should someone head out to Caseyville and interview the mother?" Voight asked.
Harrison shook his head. "I don't see the point in doing that right now", he said candidly, "I mean, we just named Aiden Pearce as a suspect. When, and if, we have more concrete proof, we should consider that as a possibility."
"Do we even know if this Aiden Pearce is the one responsible for all those killings at May Stadium that night?" Dobbs asked.
On her and Machado's side of the web conference, Asher grabbed a piece of paper off her desk beside the computer. "Based on what I'm looking at here", she chimed in, "I wouldn't exactly say that."
"What've you got, Abby?" Harrison asked.
"I asked the Crime Lab to fax us a copy of the forensic results from May Stadium so I could reference them in my report", Asher said, "Every single body that we found in the corridor that night was covered with hair and DNA belonging to an Asian male."
Harrison nodded. "That may rule out Aiden as the murderer", he said, "but I have an idea about how we can definitively prove that. I'll call the lab in the morning and have them pull Aiden's DNA sample from his niece's death investigation. I'm sure they sampled it back then when they analyzed the wrecked car."
"Until then, Troy", Dr. Bartholomew said, "I want you to tread lightly around Aiden Pearce." He then turned to the web conference screen and addressed the others. "I know I'm not a cop", he said, "Or your supervisor, for that matter. However, I'm going to suggest to you all that you also tread lightly around Aiden Pearce. Until there's any solid proof, I'm going to support Troy's point that we not charge at him full force for now."
"I appreciate that, Doc", Harrison replied before turning to the web conference screen. "What do you say we all call it at night for now?" he continued, "Thanks to all you guys for your input and I'll talk to you all tomorrow at some point."
With that, every one of the web conference participants logged off the conference, with the exception of Asher.
"Hey Troy?" she asked through the screen.
Harrison stopped in his tracks and looked to the screen once again. "Yeah, kid?" he said.
"Can I call you in the morning?" Asher asked, "I've got something that I want to talk to you about privately."
Harrison gave her a thumb's up. "Sure", he said, "I'll probably be up by six."
"Okay", Asher replied, "I'll talk to you then. Bye." The web conference's final screen went black as Asher logged off.
