The following day started much the same as the previous. They rose early, prepared for the day with practiced efficiency, and left for a day of shadowing cops with no leads. Nothing had come of the evidence available so far. The difference today was that the trio of Cal, Gillian, and Ria would join the canvassing in Virginia. Eli and Mark would monitor a live feed of footage from the wider search radius, linking in to cameras provided by The Lightman Group that would be controlled by a selection of cops. It would be hours before they would have the initial results of the young woman's autopsy.
Wallowski and her partner were visiting with the Hamilton family as a matter of priority first thing. Their job was to inform and calm. There was nothing to suggest that the discovery of the woman's body had anything to do with the disappearance of Amy Hamilton, but all instincts were united in the belief that this was more than simple coincidence.
An overnight search of the crime scene in Belle Haven uncovered some tyre tracks in the dirt of the roadside near the ditch and nothing else. The police had appealed via the usual channels for eyewitnesses, but beyond the usual crank calls nothing had come in. Nothing, until about 10am. A woman called the police hotline from a small suburb near Richmond reporting a sighting of a woman running down their street as quiet as a mouse the previous morning before the sun came up. She described a female of slim build and the same approximate height as both Amy and the unidentified victim found last night. By 11am Gillian and Ria were with the police at the woman's door looking to interview her. As they went into the house to talk to the woman, a Mrs Janice Jennings, Cal took some time to walk around the area and observe the activity of the street and its houses.
Mrs Jennings, a 58-year-old widow of two years, was welcoming but cautious. She believed that she was more than likely wasting police time but deciding that she would prefer to feel foolish rather than guilty she chose to call the hotline just in case. She didn't expect to be entertaining a group of police and behavioural scientists as a result of her impulsive phone call and was now preoccupied with the idea that she would be the talk of the neighbourhood. She didn't want to get anybody in trouble over nothing and was fearful of making enemies of innocent neighbours.
Once they got Mrs Jennings talking, having reassured her that nobody would cause her trouble for being a concerned citizen, she described having seen a small female figure in the street at about 5am. The figure was agitated and running as quickly as she could while sticking to the shadows as much as possible. She described the direction she was headed, roughly northbound, and explained that she had lost sight of her once she reached the end of the street. She was unfamiliar with the figure as far as she knew, and she knew of nobody who lived on the street fitting her description.
Mrs Jennings explained that several of the folks who lived in the area kept to themselves, particularly the younger residents. Many of them had young families, but several were young professional who may occasionally have unfamiliar visitors. This was the reason that Mrs Jennings didn't think too much of her sighting until she saw the news reports. She maintained that there was little cause for concern. This was a quiet neighbourhood, and trouble had never visited their small suburb before now.
Gillian made sure to ask for as much information on the residents as she could get before thanking Mrs Jennings for her time and excusing herself and Ria, with the caveat that they may need to return to ask further questions. There were two houses with young unmarried couples, one with a single man who wore a suit to work every day, one with a group of four young men who Mrs Jennings believed were drug dealers and another with a pair of men who she believed were "gay lovers". Mrs Jennings held no suspicions of the other houses, primarily because they consisted of married couples who either had young children or grandchildren. To her mind, tradition equalled innocence.
Exiting the house, Gillian began to search for Cal with Ria trailing behind.
"So how do we know if the person she saw is the kid or the dead woman?", Ria opened frankly.
Gillian sighed with a shrug, "We don't. Not until we find Amy. Maybe not even then. But we need to figure out where she came from, regardless of who she was."
"So do you think it's the place with the 'gang of boys' or the one with the 'young couple that's far too quiet'?"
Gillian shot a raised eyebrow at Ria in good humour, understanding that she was gently making fun of the closed-minded woman in the house behind them. "Well, I think we should keep our options open, but we should maybe start with finding Cal and asking if he's spotted anything. We'll discuss our approach then."
Behind them, the unfamiliar cops spoke up suggesting that they intended to begin with the male only residents. Gillian stopped to argue their case with them, but the cops were only willing to wait long enough to catch up with Lightman.
Spotting Cal standing with Wallowski and detective Hamed about five houses down in the opposite direction of where the mystery woman was headed, Gillian led the small group in their direction. Approaching behind them, Gillian uttered a softly spoken "hey" when they were close enough.
"Hey", Cal replied, turning towards his partner and brushing his hand against her arm in greeting. "Have a look here", he continued pulling her by the arm along side him and gesturing towards the driveway of the house identified by Mrs Jennings as the one belonging to the 'young gay couple'.
Once the attention of the group was focused on the driveway, Wallowski spoke; "Could be nothing, but there's tyre tracks around the same size as the ones we found at the scene where the body was found. No sign of a car."
"You don't think it's maybe in the garage, or maybe the owner is at work or something? Besides there was no car found near the crime scene, right?", Ria played devils advocate.
"Yeah, could be. But this is as good a starting point as any, and there were fresh tracks nearby where we found her. Could be that the car is somewhere else, but we need to check it out", Wallowski argued to the group.
Agreeing that they would approach only with Wallowski, Officer Devon Smith with the Belle Haven PD, and Cal, they knocked on the door. There was no answer.
They then agreed to go door to door, splitting into groups of one cop and one representative for The Lightman Group. Several houses had no answer, this was during working hours so it wasn't too surprising. Those who did answer were friendly, surprised to see police asking questions, but nobody was forthcoming with any information. Nobody had seen what Mrs Jennings had seen, and nobody seemed evasive about the topic. Genuine surprise was the predominant reaction. Mrs Jennings assessment of the area was fairly accurate too. Many of the residents seemed to keep mostly to themselves, and nobody seemed to know a whole lot about anybody else. Everybody had somebody that they were suspicious of. For the most part, it was the house with the group of young men living there. Some thought they were renting the place and were students. Some thought they were dealing or using drugs, like Mrs Jennings had suggested. The closest neighbour understood that the house was inherited by one of the men from his grandmother (the previous resident), and they were harmless and kept to themselves except for the occasional house party. The general consensus was that they just didn't fit in well with the neighbourhood. Nobody else was raised as a concern.
The house with the tyre tracks was, according to a nearby neighbor, previously owned by the family of one of the residents and left to them after they died. The house next door identified the men as being half-brothers; friendly, quiet, never caused a problem and occasionally dropped in to say hi when there was a summer barbeque or a Christmas gathering. The older brother was a lawyer or a legal assistant, "something with law anyway". The younger had difficulty holding down a job for too long but was currently employed as a janitor. The neighbor believed that he had sustained some kind of brain injury in his younger years, but his brother took good care of him. When asked about the other suggested suspects raised by Mrs Jennings, for the most part those interviewed either scoffed at the suggestion, knew nothing about them, or in one case suggested that while "Sarah is a real bitch, she's not out there kidnapping any kids or murdering anyone". Nobody knew anything about the single man that Mrs Jennings noted, except that he seemed to be away a lot.
Every single person fully believed in what they were saying.
Regrouping, they each discussed what they had uncovered, everyone agreeing that the male only households were prime suspects for the time being, at least until they had the chance to speak with everyone else. The Virginian cops returned with Ria Torres to the house where the four young men lived, having been told that someone was likely home just not yet out of bed.
Cal and Wallowski exchanged knowing looks between them, with Cal glancing sideways at Gillian guiltily for what they were about to do. Gillian caught on immediately, grabbing Cal's wrist and looking pointedly between her partner and the detective.
"No", she jabbed.
Cal attempted to open his argument with the puppy-dog eyes.
"No, Cal", then turning to Wallowski, "No."
"We're not going to break in, just take a look around."
"Right, like you didn't break into Cal's house?", Gillian shot back, causing the detective's partner to raise his eyebrows in concern.
"Ok. That's fair. I'll take that. But that was different," she shrugged, "Different situation. Besides. we're just going to take a look around."
"Cal. No. This is a bad idea", Gillian was looking at Cal again with a pleading look, already knowing that she was defeated.
"Darling. Come on. We don't really have anything else to work with, do we? We'll just have a quick look. Maybe peek in a window or something"
"Um, I don't know if this is a good idea. What if...", Detective Hamed was quickly cut off by his partner.
"We're not going to tamper with anything, kid. It'll be fine! We're just going to circle the perimeter. Get an idea of what's going on in there. See if anything looks suspicious", Wallowski argued with a forced aura of logic, knowing that with Cal on her side, neither young Ibrahim nor Gillian Foster could stop them from invading the territory of the suspects perimeter.
Accepting defeat, Gillian pulled on Cal's wrist to bring him into her personal space. Face to face, she looked into his eyes. "Nothing stupid. Nothing dangerous. Nothing illegal. Promise me. Now."
"I promise. We'll just look around the place. You wait here with Hamed. We'll just be a minute." Cal leaned towards Gillian with a reassuring smile and stealing a quick peck, knowing that she would accept it reluctantly but only because the only one watching was Sharon Wallowski and her partner, who – to his credit – was doing his best to look anywhere but at the unexpected public display of affection between the two scientists. Clearly Wallowski had not been gossiping with him about her occasional play pal and his partner.
Gillian did accept Cal's kiss but as he pulled away, she made sure to offer him a look of concern, showing him that she wasn't happy about the intended approach. In response, Cal silently mouthed the words "love you" at her in that drawn out boyish way he had, before turning away to scout out the house with detective Sharon Wallowski.
