Chapter 20
Bruno had not been wrong. It took a while to cross check the addresses that Louis Howey had accessed on his and his coworker, Jerry's, computers. Some were legit for his day-to-day work and others were not. The problem was that there were at least ten different locations that he'd checked multiple times. A few of them had lapsed construction permits but the rest had no indication if they were in use or abandoned.
"There has to be a way to narrow this down without visiting each one. There is no way a judge will give us a warrant on each," Fin said.
"Well maybe we can check to see when a construction permit was last issued for a building or when ownership changed hands. More than likely the older the building, the less chance of it still being occupied. New owners within the last few years may own a beat-up old building but if they have intentions for it, then they'll have security cameras. Especially if they're trying to avoid vandals and thieves," Kilgore thought.
"How would Louis look them up? Sure, he could go to each site but that would seem like he wouldn't need to check them on the computer multiple times. We still haven't figured out where he was keeping them as it was. His apartment was clean," Klass spoke up.
"He needed to keep an eye on them; to make sure that they were not in the process of being sold or that any permits were filed. Why would he need ten buildings though?" Bruno asked the question that no one wanted to ask. Everyone hoped there weren't more victims in each building.
"Can we check to see how long he's been monitoring these particular properties?" Benson wanted to know.
"Our system isn't like Google. It just keeps a log of when the file was last accessed, not how many times it was accessed. No one ever thought we'd need to worry about that," Kilgore admitted.
"You might not have programmed the software to keep track but like you said, you aren't Google. The software that you use accesses a database on a server. That server must have backup files or temporary files that get stashed somewhere and kept until they are deleted," TARU Tech McNeese took his attention off of Howey's computer.
"I'll call IT. I'll make sure that they give you access to the server," Kilgore picked up the phone and dialed an extension.
"Sergeant Tutuola and Detective Bruno tell me that Louis never mentioned his extracurricular activities to any of you. He never mentioned a bowling league or what he did on the weekend? Did he go on vacation?" The Captain turned to the man's coworkers, who were all seated at one of the worktables.
"I could never figure out why he had that palm tree. He never mentioned going to the beach or to where you would find palm trees," a woman named Kate spoke up. Klass threw the Captain a look.
"I got it," McNeese took hold of what appeared to be a desk tchotchke, on top of the monitor. Carefully he removed the rubbery, plastic tree, which had been secured to the top of the monitor with a small sticky adhesive pad. He felt it and a look passed over his face.
"What is it?" Klass asked.
"It's not a tchotchke. Well, it was at one point, he made it into a little treasure trove," McNeese explained as he showed them what he found. The TARU tech carefully removed the palm fronds and inside was a flash drive.
"High priority. Get everything on that drive analyzed," Captain Benson told him. McNeese handed a colleague, TARU tech Shakuntala Patel, the flash drive. The woman quickly sat down at a desk and plugged the hard drive into her tablet.
"What's going on?" A man with dark rimmed glasses asked as he walked into the room.
"This is Scotty, our IT guy. As for what's going on, it's a long story but I need you to take the officers to the server access room," Kilgore told him.
"Ok, let's go," Scotty said. TARU Tech McNeese and a patrol officer headed off with the IT man.
"Captain Benson…" Shakuntala had this look on her face and the Captain quickly went to her. She saw the pictures that the TARU tech found on the flash drive.
"It's so much worse than we thought," the words barely came out above a whisper.
To Be Continued…