Chapter 10
Olivia and Huang walked back into the precinct to find people everywhere. Fin and Bruno had brought the gravediggers back to the precinct and they found a very unhappy boss charging up on the Captain.
"How much longer are we going to be here? There's work to be done and people are going to be upset!" The Funeral Director, Casey Barreto, exclaimed.
"Sir, your men may have seen a serial killer dumping a body or someone who was out of place. There is a little girl who is dead and her mother is missing. There is another little girl missing. Her mother is dead. Those that are having funerals today will not have to wait much longer but we have details we must nail down," Olivia tried to be calm with him and she could see the man's face fall.
"I'm sorry but I don't want to get those phone calls. There are others that are grieving just like the families of those poor people," he said. Huang stepped in and offered his assistance.
"Mr. Barreto, why don't we borrow the Captain's office, while she sees who can go back to work?" The former FBI agent suggested. The Funeral Director nodded and the two went into the office.
"Where are Klass and Gonzalez?" Olivia turned to Amanda, who was just returning from the ladies' room again.
"I haven't seen them yet. Maybe they struck paydirt?" The blonde wondered.
"We certainly did. I dropped a pile of memory cards off at TARU. They're going through video files that the neighbor, Mrs. O'Leary, had. She'd forgotten about them because one of her neighbors was handling the footage. Seems our perp stole the camera the night before the demolition of the property," Olivia explained as she helped the detective into her seat at her desk.
"What good would stealing the camera do?" Amanda asked.
"It ran on the memory cards. My guess is that he didn't notice it was there until he went back for something," her friend said.
"Hopefully there is something good then," Amanda smiled.
"How goes the interviews?" Olivia wanted to know.
"Churlish, Bruno, and Fin have a lot going on but these guys are honest. I snagged Detective Lee from downstairs to help out. I was trying to keep Mr. Barreto busy," the blonde told her.
"He seem awfully jumpy to you? For a funeral director, I mean," the Captain had to ask.
"Well, I can understand his concern, but Ben Updike said they had three cremations and only one funeral today. Otherwise, it was going to be landscaping and picking up trash," Amanda said.
"Do a check on him, will you? I don't want this guy to slip through our fingers and I don't want us to have egg on our face if our killer is sitting in my office," Olivia said.
"On it. Did Mrs. O'Leary and her neighbor know what this guy looked like?" Amanda couldn't help but wonder if her friend had a point.
"The guy, who was supposedly the nephew of the man who died in the house, was five ten, about a hundred and seventy-five pounds. He had short brown hair and wore glasses. Remind you of anyone?" Olivia raised an eyebrow.
"He's missing the glasses, but he could be wearing contacts now," the blonde nodded and immediately got working on the keyboard. She wasn't at it long when Klass and Gonzales walked back into the bullpen.
"How'd it go?" The Captain asked them after she informed them of what happened at Mrs. O'Leary's house. Klass's shoulders sunk and Olivia made a note to speak to her later, when it wasn't so hectic around the precinct.
"Not well. The supervisor, Jim Kilgore, won't play ball. He wants the DA to force his hand. I'm not sure we have enough for that. He wouldn't give us addresses but he did give us permission to speak to whoever was in the office. They seem like normal people. We ferreted out as much as we could without making it seem weird but…" Klass shrugged.
"Was everyone in the office?" Olivia wondered.
"There were two that were out on job sites. We managed to track down one but the other – we either just missed him at the job site or…" Gonzales spoke up.
"All right. Help Amanda track these names down in the database. Maybe we can avoid the supervisor. Start with the one that you couldn't track down," she said.
"I think I know why Mr. Barreto is nervous," Amanda spoke up.
"What have you got?" Her friend wanted to know.
"He's six months behind in child support," the blonde said.
"I'll go tell Huang," Olivia gave her a nod and headed into her office.
To Be Continued…