Page 70 of Wired Justice

Chapter Forty-Three

Sophie satdown in the air-conditioned coolness of the Hilo PD’s computer room. She had yet to find anyone else working in the dilapidated old room when she was there, and she preferred it that way. After the emotional roller-coaster she’d been on, settling in front of her laptop was the best moment of the day so far.

Sophie plugged in her headphones, turned on her music, and cracked her knuckles. She plugged the square black write blocker external hard drive into her laptop’s port and imported the data she had been able to harvest from Chernobiac’s computer to her own for viewing. She searched through the contents, setting DAVID’s parameters to sift for any labeling terms that might help her detect useful information.

While Chernobiac’s info was being data mined, she ran a comparison between the database of the missing persons and the estimated date of death posted by the medical examiner on the bodies they’d recovered from the ditch. Those could be within days or even weeks of each other, since not all the missing were reported, but she might be able to match some of the missing information to the bodies, given the approximate height, weight and hair color of the remains.

Looking at the profiles, she was able to come up with three possible matches. They were certainly unrelated as far as type, with age, gender and ethnicity all differing. All of the possible dead were local Hilo residents, not pretty, rich young tourists like Julie.

Maybe Julie was the anomaly, not the “type.”Maybe the man with the knife was more of a straightforward assassin; but in Julie’s case, he had been preparing to “enjoy what he was about to do.”

Running with Jake’s theory that the bodies were somehow related to the Chang crime family business, Sophie set DAVID to work coming up with deep background on the possible matches.

A few minutes later she could confirm that all of the bodies she’d tentatively matched to identities were petty criminals with records. Though she was unable to find any direct connections yet, it was a strong possibility that the four bodies found in the ditch could have been part of the Chang empire, disposed of for one reason or another, or preyed upon by the killer for that reason.

Sophie glanced up at the clock. Two hours had already passed. She aggregated the information she’d gathered on the bodies, forwarded it to Freitan and Wong’s email, and turned her attention to Chernobiac’s hard drive.

DAVID had mined the data she had for red flag keywords, and come up with a file named Gamestop.

Chernobiac probably thought he was being clever.Hopefully he would wake up from his injuries and be willing to cut a deal with Wong and Freitan to confirm all of this, but Gamestop consisted of rows of initials, dates and numbers that looked to Sophie like names and payout amounts. She printed that file too, her mind churning.

She picked up her phone and called Freitan. “Detective, I have information from Chernobiac’s computer that seems to verify that he was engaged in blackmail. There are initials but I don’t know who they belong to. I worry about Rayme and Webb now. If they were a part of this, if they knew any of the blackmail scheme or had a part in it somehow and someone is tying up loose ends, they might be in danger.”

“They’re locked up tight in county jail,” Freitan said. “But I’ll call over and have them moved to solitary. We’re still out here at Chernobiac’s crime scene but we’ll go interviewthem.”

“Can I meet you there?”

“For what purpose? No. The interview room at the jail is small; too many of us will spook them. Besides, isn’t your client already identified, and alive?”

“Let Jake go to the interview, then.”

“We don’t even know that Rayme and Webb are involved.” Freitan was getting balky.

“Perhaps you’d like me to close my computer and walk away from this case,” Sophie said coolly. “After all, our client has been found. We have no further role in this investigation.”

A brief pause. “Ah, no. We’d like you to continue, please,” Freitan said, mincing her words as if they pained her.

“We are on the Weathersby family’s payroll through the end of the week,” Sophie said. “I will endeavor to maximize the effectiveness of my work, and Jake can attend the interview with Rayme and Webb. Thanks.”

Sophie ended the call, and opened another window in DAVID.

This time, she plugged in the mysterious name of her mother’s organization. It was time to find out more about the Yam Khûmk?n.

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