Chapter 42
Tracy looked just as queasy this time, but she managed to tough it out. She held her nose and surveyed the remains through squinted eyes. She cringed, then held her hand over her face. "Yeah. That’s Riley," she said, pointing to the small heart-shaped tattoo at the girl’s bikini line.
I escorted Tracy back into the hallway. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
“I know that was difficult,” I said. “Thanks for doing that.”
She nodded.
“Richard Pearson denied the affair.”
“Of course he did.”
“He was pretty adamant about it.”
“Wouldn’t you be? Riley was about to upend his entire world. He needed her to go away. It’s obvious he killed her. Especially with everything she knew.”
“What did she know?”
Tracy hesitated. “She told me she knew that he was embezzling funds from his firm. I think that was her fallback if he decided not to step up and take care of the child.”
“That would certainly be a motive for murder.”
JD and I drove her back to her apartment. I told her we’d be in touch. On the way back to the van, I called Zoe and told her the news.
"I told you he killed her,” she said in a vindicated voice.
“Proving it’s going to be a different story. Do you still have the corrupted footage?”
“Yes. I’ve tried re-importing it several times to no avail.”
“Let me take a look at it. I know someone who’s good with that kind of thing.”
“Be my guest.”
JD and I went to her apartment, grabbed the flashcard, and returned to the Avventura.
I put it into my laptop and made a copy of the disk image.
I sent a copy to Isabella, then we headed to the station and logged the flash card as evidence.
The guys in the IT department might be able to figure something out, but if anybody could recover the data, it was Isabella.
I took Buddy out for a walk, then JD and I grabbed lunch at Diver Down. We caught up with Teagan and filled our bellies.
Isabella called me back as we were finishing up.
"That was quick.”
“Well, the file header was corrupted. The video data was there, but the index that tells the player how to read it was damaged. There was also some signal loss, which caused encoding errors. I tried to rebuild the container, but it didn’t work.
I’m going to see if I can pull individual frames, but it’s gonna take time. ”
"Thanks. I appreciate the effort.”
She said she’d be in touch and ended the call.
I filled Jack in, and we came up with another game plan. We had to move forward on the assumption that we might never recover the data. Maybe it was time to play bad cop.
I called Zoe. “I’ve got a mission for you.”