The Only Suspect & An Arrest Warrant
Both Eric and Calleigh had told Horatio about the 'confrontation' Calleigh had had with Jake in the parking garage several months back. This was only enough to possibly make a suspect. However when the burned blue Toyota was found and the tags were traced to an Alma Shea-Berkley, a woman with dementia living in a nursing home, the connection was made to former police detective Jake Berkley. Jake Berkley had been stripped of his badge weeks ago after testing positive for cocaine. His exposure wasn't passive, he had been snorting the drug for a month.
The fire Jake had set in the front set of the car had destroyed much of any DNA evidence or fingerprints but the remains of a disguise, a gray bucket hat, a goatee and wig of stringy blond hair. It was a long shot but it was possible the heat hadn't destroyed all the DNA in the disguise.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Frank?" Ryan asked as he examined the disguise.
"One Jake Berkley's time as a free man is ticking away," Frank said.
The discovery of the car linked to Jake had enabled detectives to obtain a search warrant for Jake's home and property; there they found the "mother load." Photo album after photo album of pictures of Calleigh, pictures she usually didn't know were being taken, ones with her and Eric and Chloe and of her and Eric together. All dated from the digital camera he used. In one of the rooms, these photos were all over one wall in what could only be called a shrine to Calleigh. In the shrine photos Eric and Chloe's faces were blacked out with the a marker. An arrest warrant was issued for Jake Berkley and an all points bulletin was broadcast.
"This nut really did go over the deep end," Frank murmured.
Frank had never liked Jake Berkley.
"Where you able to speak to the aunt, Frank?" Horatio asked, while at Jake's home.
Frank shook his head. He had gone to the Coral Gables nursing home. He hadn't taken the attorney's word that the woman was non-verbal. But she was. She didn't know who she was and was not aware of her surroundings. She hadn't spoken a word in six months according to the staff.
"The lawyer was telling the truth. The poor woman doesn't know her own name anymore or what's going on around her. She won't be able to give us anything."
The minuscule amount of DNA around the mouth of the goatee was too degraded by the heat from the fire for testing. Still there was enough circumstantial evidence to convict Jake of attempted murder as well as reckless endangerment for the danger he had posed to the others on the highway.
An all points bulletin meant that if Jake tried to board a plane the warrant would come up when he passed through security. This wasn't going to happen for another 24 hours. Right now he lay low in a cheap motel room across the airport. Two plastic bags of corner store snack food and instant meals enabled him to hide out in the room with the shades drawn. He would leave only once, to go to the airport. As much TV as he watched, Jake didn't see the APB out for him. The clerk who had signed him didn't notice it, either.
Calleigh's condition was being kept secret. Horatio feared if Jake found she were still alive and expected to recover he would come after her again. Calleigh had been shown the photo albums filled with the secretly taken photos and told of the "shrine." All the photos had bothered her. She couldn't believe even Jake would go to this level. Still seeing the pictures of Chloe, Eric and her playing at the park, Eric tossing the child in the air and Chloe laughing and out as a family off the job made Calleigh want to rip Jake's throat out.
How dare you bring my child into this, she thought.