“Seriously?” Tessman asked.
“Yeah, I think we know where Zoe Reopelle’s views came from,” Smith said.
“Did you find any posts with locations?” Burke asked.
“Please, I’m offended,” Smith said. “Of course I did. Most people don’t realize that if a phone’s location services are enabled and authorized for their camera app, their cell phone automatically captures and embeds location data, geotags, into the photo’s metadata. This includes the exact latitude and longitudecoordinates. I have about a dozen locations for your team to check out. I’ll send them along with the photos.”
“Smith, I could kiss you,” Burke said.
“Hollyn would be very jealous if you did,” Smith said. Hollyn was his fiancé. “I’m accessing and running down Oliveira’s friends on his social media accounts. I figure many of them have to be other members of the group.”
“Good idea,” Tessman said. “We also have something else we need you to look into.”
November
Burke and Tessman brought Wilson, and Rogers up to date on what Smith had found. It was late afternoon, and it was already dark out. While Wilson and Rogers conducted their surveillance, Burke and Tessman went to the hotel and checked in. Angel had gotten them two rooms, as usual.
When they received the lengthy file from Smith, they spent a couple of hours reviewing it. They organized the locations of the pictures from Oliveira’s social media, grouping them geographically by places of interest to investigate the next day. There were several photos taken north of Grand Rapids in a heavily wooded area that look as though it was used for training. There could be a compound there.
There were also several taken in someone’s home east of Grand Rapids, near Lansing. Oliveira looked quite chummy with several others, men and women, at that location in several pictures taken over a six-month period. It was worth checkingout. Smith had also identified many of the people in the photos, including the home’s owner, Roderick Forsander.
The last piece of info Smith shared was that the burner phone that Oliveira called right after Burke and Tessman met with him pinged off a cell tower near Lansing, very close to the Forsander home.
Tessman’s text chimed a new message. He glanced at the screen of his phone. “It’s from Becca. There’s no one at the DVR house. Donna, her mom, and the kids can stay there.”
“DVR house, that sounds a hell of a lot better than calling it the murder house,” Burke said. “Thank her for me.”
Tessman tapped out a reply on his phone.
Wilson called shortly after they’d been through the entire file from Smith. The hair salon owners had acted in a very suspicious manner when they left the shop. Wilson was following at a distance but wanted to turn the surveillance over to one of them, whom the salon owners had not seen. Tessman volunteered to relieve Wilson. He took the car keys and left.
When Wilson came to the hotel, he brought takeout for dinner and went to Burke’s room to get the keys to his and Rogers’s room. After they touched bases on the case and Wilson looked over the photos while they ate, he made eye contact with Burke. “Look, I apologize for getting all over you earlier about Donna, her kids, and your role.”
“It’s okay,” Burke said dismissively, knowing that Wilson probably had more to say on the subject. “It did give me a lot to think about. I thought I could walk this line with them and that no one would get hurt if I stayed on that line. But I know you’re right. The kids are attached and they’ll be affected if I’m suddenly out of their lives, for whatever reason. And if I’m being completely honest, if I had to step aside, I’d worry about them after I was out of the picture. I’d miss them and I’d want to be sure the other man would be good for them.”
“And Donna?”
Burke shook his head. “I don’t know if she could ever be comfortable with what we do. Her fear of losing someone to gun violence borders on insanity. She didn’t handle my having to leave with no notice when Saxton and Dupont needed my help last Thanksgiving. And when she found out what went down, she lost it, as in freaked the fuck out. There was also one time while I was there that my leave was cut short and she was not too happy about that either.”
“Maybe Rae could talk to her and help on that front, or Lassiter,” Wilson suggested.
“Here’s the thing. She said she could handle it, but she can’t. Fuck, she knows I’m armed, but on the occasions when she’s accidentally bumped my weapon, her reaction is so wrong, off the charts. She’s actually asked if I can leave my weapon at home when I go out to Virginia because of her kids.”
“I assume you told her you can’t, that you are required to be armed at all times for your job,” Wilson said.
“Yeah, I did.”
“I get her concern regarding your weapon being in the same room as her kids. She’s a civilian and doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand that no one is taking that weapon from its holster but you. I’m sure she’s worried one of her kids will get a hold of it and shoot someone.”
“Or that it will just accidentally go off and kill one of her kids,” Burke said, rolling his eyes. “You’d think the kid of a cop would have a better understanding of guns.”
“Has she ever fired one?” Wilson asked.
“No, and she says she has no desire to, and she doesn’t want her kids to even know that I’m armed,” Burke said.
“Yeah, that’s not something you can hide from them indefinitely if you spend any time with them,” Wilson agreed.
“How do you handle that with Lilly?”
