“I’m not sure it’s available,” she said and quickly explained. “Any chance of facial recognition on that guy talking to our dead pedophile Ken?”
“I can do my best,” he said, “but the face is twisted, so it’s not an easy one. So first impression—not a hope.”
“It’s connected to the pedophile cases that we have ongoing,” she said. “The same for these other two I just sent you. Two little children.”
“Great,” he said sarcastically. “I always love looking for images of children.”
“I’ll send copies of them to the Missing Persons Division and to the International Sex Crimes Division too,” she said.
“Let’s hope you don’t get any hits.”
“I know.” When she hung up, she realized just how much everybody hated working cases involving children.
*
Saturday Noon
The next day,Saturday, at about noon, just as Kate was trying to get some healthy food into her body for a change, she got a call from Detective Martins in the International Sex Crimes Division.
“Dennis Fragipano of ICE sent on your images. The female child in the photo,” he said, “she’s shown up in over ten thousand different images.”
“How long ago?”
“As far as we can tell, about twelve years ago,” he said. “It’s one of the earliest as far as we can tell.”
“So it probably started with our dead pedophile Ken?”
“Or he was one of the earlier ones to get her.”
“Gether?”
“Yes,” he ended up saying. “Chances are she was taken early and kept within the ring.”
Kate sank back in the chair. “See? That’s what I was wondering,” she said. “Are these children being handed around?”
“In some cases, yes. Sometimes these are big rings, and it’s all about the images, the photos, and the videos. In other cases, small groups pass the children around.”
“That’s sick.”
“It’s all sick,” he said. “I have something else I want to send you. I tried to get to you at your office late yesterday and missed you.”
“What is it?”
“That mark on the wrist,” he said.
She straightened. “Did you find somebody with it?”
“Two photos,” he said. “Images of just the hands, but both showing what appears to be, or what could be, that same mark.”
“Send them to me.”
“Already done,” he said cheerfully.
She got up and walked over to her laptop, just as the images came in. And, sure enough, it was the same mark. She called him back and said, “This one in particular has three lines. Are these both from the same guy?”
“Same hand, different angles.”
“Okay, that’s why I can’t see the same lines in the other ones. You have no idea who this man is, right?”