Fathers and Sons Ch. 02

"Damn, only you." Cindy said, then smiled and said "Really, that was awesome. And seeing Charlie get to tell his mom he loved her..."

After a second of silent reflection, Cindy then said: "So you're going to be working with him to try to solve the puzzles. Well... I mean I understand..."

"Yeah, it's going to be long hours for me, and away from work here," I said, "and distracting me from all the bullshit the politicians and bad guys... but there I repeat myself... are doing behind our backs."

"Oh, there's one more thing I need to tell you." Cindy said. "You know Beatrice, whose son Otis died of cancer?"

"Yes." I said, remembering.

"She quit her job at KXTC. Got another one first." Cindy said. "She said she just could not stand to remain in that toxic place. All that the reporters and staff talk about is what they can do to fuck you and your family over. She says they are openly talking about it, but never talk specifics that she could relay to us. She says she's never seen such collective hatred in her life, and she just had to get out."

"Good!" I said. "Good that she's out of there with another job, good that the Press hates me. Hate comes from fear..."

"... and they'd damn well better fear me."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At 9:30am, as I was getting ready to go to the Hospital, my assistant Helena buzzed me."

"Detective Davis and a visitor are here to see you, sir."

"Send them on in." I said. Thankfully, I was already standing, so I did not have to abuse my back by quickly getting up.

The man that came in with Jerome was older by three decades, just a bit more broad shouldered and just a bit taller than Jerome, who was fit but slender. The family resemblance was unmistakeable.

"Sir," said Jerome, "this is my father Jonathan Davis, Senior Chief Petty Officer, USN, Retired."

"Ah, good to meet you, 'Chief'." I said, giving him his colloquial title as I firmly shook his hand. "Your son is doing an outstanding job for us."

"Thank you, Commander." said Chief Davis, somewhat formally. "I've heard a lot about you, too."

"So, are you here to visit Jerome?" I asked. "I can give him time off today if you like."

"That won't be necessary, sir." said Chief Davis.

"Sir," said Jerome. "My dad knows Morse Code. Very well. He's here to help with Charlie if you need it."

I looked at the retired Navy man as if he were manna from heaven. "That would be awesome." I said. "I absolutely could use the help."

Part 11 - Cicada3301 Wannabees

As we drove to the Hospital in my Police SUV, I said to Jonathan Davis "Your son really is doing an outstanding job. He's in consideration for leadership opportunities, as well."

"Thank you." said Davis. I think he began to realize that I was noticing his shortness in his reply, especially when he saw gray eyes cut over to him like Carole's cut to me at times. "He tells me you don't miss a thing, so I guess I better just say it. I didn't want Jerome to go to the Police Academy. I wanted him to join the Navy. Enlisted, Annapolis, Marines, any of them would've been fine. But he went in another direction."

"I for one am glad he did." I said. "And I hope you'll agree after you've seen him at work with us." Chief Davis just nodded as his eyes shrewdly surveyed the Town.

We arrived at the Hospital, and I parked where official vehicles could park but other vehicles could not. As we got out of the car, my Police iPhone rang.

"Sir, we found the vehicle." said Teddy Parker. "We've got the warrant, and we're going to haul it back to Headquarters."

"Good job." I said. I told Teddy what I wanted the Crime Lab to look for.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"This is Jonathan Davis." I said to Charlie. "He retired from the Navy, and he knows Morse Code very well."

"T h a n k y o u f o r y o u r s e r v i c e." blinked Charlie.

"It was my honor, son." said Jonathan, reading Charlie's eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"G o o d." blinked Charlie. "O n e r e q u e s t: p l a y T - S q u a r e m u s i c w h e n y o u g o. M y f a v o r i t e."

"I think we can make that happen." I said with a smile, gears turning in my head. "Are you ready to help us, Charlie?" I asked.

"Y e s." Charlie blinked. He looked excited at the chance to be able to do something that might make a difference.

We began. I showed Charlie what I'd done with the Queenie Files to this point, and asked if he saw anything I missed.

"G o o d w o r k." he blinked, with Mr. Davis interpreting. "F i r s t f i l e o l d W o r d s t a r f i l e w i t h i m a g e e m b e d d e d."

My laptop had a suite of tools that had the ability to mimic programs from years and decades before. I began applying old Wordstar programs. One of the oldest ones worked.

A file came up, but it was password-protected. Charlie began looking through the files on the monitor, which was the big TV screen in the room. It was laborious and time-consuming, but Charlie was looking intently at the monitor, then blinking an idea.

During this time, his parents came up, and I introduced Jerome's father to them. Jonathan Davis took a break while I interpreted the conversations. It wasn't much, just Mrs. Griswold saying how the Presbyterian Church was praying for him. Flowers from members of the Church were filling the room, as well, and Charlie blinked his request for them to thank the Church members on his behalf.

I could see that Mrs. Griswold was happy to be communicating with Charlie, but her eyes were a bit too bright, denoting her exhaustion. Even with good news and a silver lining to the cloud, all of this was exhausting her. Chief Griswold noticed that I'd observed this, and nodded shortly to me when our eyes met.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The nurses insisted that Charlie get some sleep after his lunch tube feeding, so I took Jonathan Davis to lunch at the Cattleman's Club.

"Are you staying with Jerome?" I asked as we ate.

"No." he said. "I'm going to check into the University Hotel. Jerome's apartment is not clean to Navy standards." he added.

I chuckled. "Well, listen: I have a house on top of the hill that we use on weekends but is empty right now. Why don't you stay there, save some money? I don't know about 'Navy' clean, but it's clean."

"That's very kind of you." said Jonathan. After lunch I took him to the Cabin, gave him the guest passcode, which I could change later, and helped him get his bags inside. Whether out of politeness or approval, he said it met the Navy standard. I didn't say out loud that the Navy standard was nowhere near my Army Airborne standard... nor Laura's 'mother' standard. Mr. Davis also approved heartily of the view from the deck.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We drove over to Headquarters. A large white tent was set up inside the gated parking lot, directly behind the Crime Lab building. We went to it, and inside.

A huge air conditioner was running to keep it from being unbearably hot. I saw a crushed, mangled mass of metal in the center of the tent. On both sides were two powerful, and I mean powerful machines that were very slowly pulling the car at both ends, extending it back towards it's original size.

"Hello, sir, Dad." said Jerome. "We're stretching the car out now, and hopefully we'll be able to find anything that might have been used to sabotage the car or take control of it."

"Good." I said. We watched a few more minutes, then went inside the Crime Lab building.

There were cameras recording what was going on inside the tent, which could be used as evidence in Court if need be. Captain Tanya Perlman was watching the activity on the monitors from within the comfort of the air conditioned building.

"Hello sir. Hello Mr. Davis." Tanya said. "I've assigned Detective Davis as lead Detective on this. He's doing a great job with the TCPD, Mr. Davis. I'm glad we have him with us."

The compliments to a father about his son were accepted, but not enthusiastically. "Thank you." was all he said. Tanya glanced over at me, and I just declined to make any expressions, which told Tanya volumes...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Still Monday, August 6th. It was mid-afternoon, and we were back at it with Charlie. Admiral Cordell, the Hospital Administrator, had refreshed his Morse Code signaling skills, and was able to have a conversation with Charlie, though it was slow. I was speeding up, but was nowhere near as good as Mr. Davis.

After Dr. Cordell left, we got back to work. Charlie had come up with an idea, to use the numbers code I'd found in reverse, using the second set on the 'VVV' message first, then applying the first set of numbers. What came out was a jumble."

"C o u l d b e p a s s w o r d s." said Charile.

"That's a thought." I said. I brought up the first of the 'four files'. Because the technology was so old, it had eight dashes to fill for the password. I typed in the first eight letters.

And it worked! A file opened up. It was one page. A graphics photo was embedded. The photo was on its side, and was a queen's crown. There was a phrase under the crown, which said 'Keep Calm And Bow To The Crown. God save the Queen'.

"Hmmm, Queenie." I said, mostly to myself.

We began examining the image closely, for small lettering embedded. After a couple of hours, Charlie had another idea.

"P i x e l s?" he queried, meaning the height and weight dimensions of the image. I found a way to reveal the dimensions: 503 x 509 pixels.

"P r i m e n u m b e r s." blinked Charlie.

"Yesss!" I hissed. "So, let's try something." I brought up a browser that could access the Dark Web as well as the normal web, and typed in 'http://503509/' and hit the button. I got a '404' error. I tried 'https' in front, still no joy. I tried '//503509queen' and '//503509crown', and still had no luck.

"P h o t o o n s i d e." Charlie blinked.

"That might be it." I said. I tried '//509503', still no joy. then I tried 'https://509503queen'. A screen came up, but it was only a blank screen, dark red in color.

"Well, at least we know this is a site." I said. I tried '509503crown', and got another screen, this time blue.

"Not even a place to put in a password." I said.

Jonathan Davis said "Charlie is saying the URL may need something more. Like a slash followed by a word."

That started another round of attempts. When I tried '509503queen/crown' a page came up. As I read it, I was stunned. It detailed the Harlan-Gonzales scandal, naming the names of their victims, and also gave the Police report numbers and jurisdiction of the four 'Pink Panther' cases: Dawson, Fulmer, Martinez, and Gonzales. If this got out in Public...

"Okay, guys," I said, "I'm sorry, but I can't let you see what's on here. It has to do with a previous case of mine, and the information is supposed to be under seal. But you've done excellent work, Charlie. Are you feeling okay? Want to work on the second file?"

"I a m g o o d. L e t s d o i t." Charlie blinked.

We turned to the second file. Naturally, we applied the same techniques to it as we did the first file. The second file was also a Wordstar file, and another page came up with an image embedded. It was an SBI badge. I took note of its number, then we got the pixels and tried them, with the word 'badge'. We got a blank screen, then I added the SBI badge number after a slash.

A list of names came up, in clear text.

"Wow." I said. "A 'who's who' of past criminals in my life. Henry Wargrave, Austin Murphy, Conrad King, Jack King, Jack Lewis, Leon Mills, Mitt Willis, Clarence Weatherby, Edward Blassingame..." I fell into a reverie as I reviewed the names.

When I came out of it, I looked over at Charlie. It was easy to see that he was totally exhausted, and I further felt the vibe that he was shutting down a bit. "Get some sleep, Charlie." I said quietly. "We'll work on the other two tomorrow." With that, Mr. Davis and I began leaving. Charlie was asleep before we made it out the door.

Part 12 - Work To Do

We went back to Headquarters, whereupon Jonathan Davis drove his car to The Cabin. I went into my office, put everything I'd done so far into the secured servers under my seal, and then began looking at the next two files. They were not old Wordstar files, and I was unable to make any headway with them.

There was a soft knock on my door, and I turned to see Chief Griswold open the door and come in. "Busy, Crowbar?" he growled.

"Hey, Chief, come on in." I said. He sat down as I said "And yes, I'm busy with these files. Charlie has been kicking butt. He's got a real knack for this kind of stuff."

"Heck, I didn't even know he knew Morse Code." said the Chief. "Crowbar... were you looking for something like that when you went in there?"

"No, Chief." I said truthfully. "I just saw him blinking, and started hearing dots and dashes in my head."

"Wow." said the Chief. "And all that time..." He stopped talking. I knew what he was contemplating.

"Spilt milk, Chief." I said. "Nothing we can do about the past. He can talk to us now, and he got a chance to tell you and his mom that he loves you."

The Chief nodded. "Yeah." Then he said "The doctors are saying his vitals have improved a lot. He's not going to get physically better, but he has a purpose, a reason to live now. I guess that's all we can ask for him."

I nodded, knowing the pain the old man was feeling. I knew that I had no idea how I could take it if one of my children were in Charlie's state... and Charlie was the Griswold's only child.

"So what did you get?" asked Griswold, to move things along.

I showed him what we'd found in the first two files. "Wow." was all he said.

"I get the feeling," I said, "that the first file, leading to the Harlan-Gonzales web page, was for the protection of Queenie... or more likely her boss, Katherine Woodburn. It was the easiest to decode, and the FBI would be able to get there fairly easily, I would think."

"And Woodburn would have no problem asking you to find the files, since you already know about the scandal." said Griswold. "But that leaves the question of who this is all about. Is it one of the people on that list? Are they connected to each other?"

"I dunno." I said. "Henry Wargrave, Conrad King, and Mitt Willis are all dead now. Jack King has been out of the country ever since Conrad got him out of jail. Last I heard, he was in France. Austin Murphy disappeared not long after Wargrave died; we haven't heard anything out of him for a long, long time. Jack Lewis is hiding in Sparta, at Eastern State, but has aspirations to return to the SBI. Leon Mills is still in a fairly prominent place in the SBI, and was a sycophant of Jack Lewis. Clarence Weatherby, No. 2 in BigRoadAndRailCorp, and Edward Blassingame, CEO of SPS Delivery, are both Establishment Elites like Mittens Willis was."

I continued: "The only one of these names that could reasonably be blackmailed -and- have information worth getting, is Leon Mills. But I don't think this list contains the name of the blackmailed person. I think that might be contained in the next two files."

"Not much you can prove, though." said Griswold. "Just exactly what crimes have been committed here?"

"Well..." I said, thinking about it, "I'm not sure why Wargrave was even named, he's been dead so long. There may be a connection between some of these others that we haven't found in spite of trying. I do know two things: this is a lot deeper and more complex than a campaign aide finding dirt on Governor Jared; and we can let the FBI figure it out once I'm done with this stuff."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I went over to the big tent behind the Crime Lab. The mangled car had been stretched out almost completely, certainly enough to get at the engine remains from below.

Jerome Davis was still there. "Hello, sir." he said. "The Crime Lab people are starting to find some things. The brakes were severed, and they think they can prove it was done deliberately and not as a result of the crash. The computer junction box was also definitely tampered with. I dunno if we'll get a culprit, but I think we can show a crime."

"Good." I said. "Great work, Jerome. Listen, why don't you call your dad and take him to dinner? Or go see him at The Cabin?"

"I called already." replied Jerome. "He said he was tired and going to bed early."

"Jerome," I said, "you can tell me this is none of my business... but how are things with you and your dad?"

"Well, sir," said Jerome, knowing my intent in asking was for his good, "we don't have anything bad like a family feud, or anything like that. But he wanted me to go into the Navy, and, well... I didn't."

"Which was good for me and the TCPD." I said.

"I did consider Annapolis," Jerome said, "and when I went to college I did the Navy ROTC thing for the first two years, when I didn't have to obligate myself. I liked it all right, but I knew at the same time it wasn't for me. Then someone talked to me about Criminal Justice, and here I am."

"My father did not want me to be in Army ROTC." I said. "I had to stand up and say it was what I wanted to do. As long as you feel you did the right thing, Jerome, keep on being one of my best Detectives. Your father is noticing."

"Thank you, sir" Jerome said, mostly at my words of praise for him, which he as well as I knew weren't idle.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I went home, where some leftovers had been kept for me for supper. Laura fixed herself a plate, also. And to my surprise Carole also had a piece of ham... and some dessert, of course.

"How was your day, Carole?" I asked my firstborn child.

"It was o-kay." said Carole. "Mommy said I'm going to school at East-side." I looked over at Laura.

"Marie will be there with her." Laura said. "Eastside Elementary is within the Town High system, and serves most of us on the mountainside and everyone on the other side of the mountain. The teachers are good, and not as, shall we say, politically oriented as the teachers at Northeast Elementary, which feeds County High and I could've used the University to get her into."

"Good." I said. "Carole, are you excited about going to school?"

"Yes." said Carole. "But not as happy as Mommy and Grandma are about it."

"We're excited for you, honey." said Laura. I shook my head slightly; my daughter knew damn well that Mommy and Grandma were looking forward to more shopping time and such things...

"Daddy," Carole said, her voice denoting a question was coming, "will Pete Feeley's mommy ever walk again?"

Laura looked openly shocked at the question. I'd long since learned to expect anything from Carole, and did not let myself be fazed. I said "Well, Carole, there might come a day where doctors invent something that can help her walk again. But we don't have that technology yet."

"Oh." said Carole. "Well maybe someone will invent it. Can I be excused?"

"Yes you can, and that's very good manners." I said. "Why don't you go get ready for bed." Carole hustled off, escorted by that most redoubtable of Police dogs, Bowser.

"Now why did she think to ask about that?" Laura gasped.

"Believe it or not," I said, "I was sitting here thinking of Charlie Griswold and his condition. Then my thoughts moved to Tanya, and if there was some way she could ever walk again. And then Carole asked that question."

"Huge coincidence!" Laura said, amazed.

"Honey," I said, "there are no coincidences in the Universe, as Dr. Eckhart likes to say. Carole felt my vibe on that."

Laura shook her head as we cleared the dishes and washed and dried them in the sink. "So did you and Charlie make any progress today?" she asked.

"Some." I said. "We got some stuff out of two of the four files we were trying to decode." I lowered my voice and said in a whisper. "One of them leads to web page that exposes everything about the Harlan-Gonzales scandal."