68- The Disturbing Hobby of Three

It was nearly 7pm when Harlowe knocked on the door of Evidence Room 2 causing Mazurka to jump.

"Sleeping on the job?" Harlowe questioned as he opened the door having noticed that he had startled him.

"No, just reading over this journal," Mazurka replied as he set the large notebook onto the top of the nearby stack.

"Anything interesting?"

"Disturbing more like it."

"Very disturbing," Kavak added as he looked up from the book he was going over.

"Fill me in," Harlowe said.

"Ogilvy was a sick one. He's been watching Quayleigh for well over a year, and she wasn't the only one," Mazurka explained as Kavak handed a file to him.

Opening the cover, he handed it up to Harlowe, "This is Laine Mackay. Age 17 when she went missing on her way home from school. Her body was found three months later washed up on our side of the river just passed Centerline Bridge. The case remained unsolved until an hour ago."

"Ogilvy has detailed journals of his 'observations' of Laine for nearly a year, during which time he begins to refer to them as being a couple. It was about six months later that he abducts her. Then the journals take a much darker turn. He recounts the way she tried to deny their relationship, and how he enjoyed the way she played hard to get. It sounds as if he hid her in a room in the cellar of the house," Kavak said as Harlowe looked over the file in his hands.

"Except, that we didn't find a cellar at the house, only a partial basement," Mazurka stated as he picked up a second file and held it out to Harlowe.

"We need to find out if he had a different registered address at the time of her disappearance and if not, go back to that house tomorrow and tear that basement apart," he ordered as he took the file from Mazurka.

"Eva Jessen, also age 17 when she went missing, a year after Laine's remains were discovered. Her body would also be found in the river, but it was in the spring after the river thawed. She had been gone for almost eight months. This was also an unsolved case."

"I'm going through his journal on Eva now," Kavak said as Mazurka picked up his note pad.

"Ivy-may Sutton, Paige Lawson, and Stacey Grier are all mentioned by name, but there were never any MPR's filed on them, and the journals, at first glance all seem to be observatory in nature, Stacey's being the only one under ten pages; although there are plenty of photos of each of them, along with a dozen more women who are unidentified. And all three of the dates in the journals, coincide with Mackay and Jessen's disappearances. Then we come to Eliza Warren-Bishop. She disappeared two years ago, age 19. We have yet to read his journals on her, and while her body has never been found, I suspect he will detail the location of her final resting place.

"And that brings us to Quayleigh Vershinin. His entries on her start shortly after Eliza's disappearance. He had files on her just like the others that he abducted, including the photos and hours upon hours of handwritten observations. He was convinced that Quayleigh was trying to seduce him away from Eliza, but he swears he will remain loyal to her, but about four months ago, the tone begins to change in his writing. He makes it sound as if he's been unfaithful to Eliza, and that he wants to confess what he's done, and knows it isn't right. There are pages about how morally reprehensible it is to cheat, and how he should break up with Eliza, even though he loves her, because he can't be faithful to her anymore. It's a complete dumpster dive into the inner workings of his mind. And on top of all of that, there are photos, and hours of writings on at least a dozen other woman, who are only identified by a series of numbers and letters."

"It looks to be some type of a code, but Quayleigh and Eliza are the only ones identified by name as well," Kavak said as Mazurka's phone chimed.

"It's Skye. She's asking us to meet her at her lab. She must have gotten into his laptop and computer."

"Don't let me keep you. And good job with those cold cases. It will be nice to inform the families that the bastard's dead," Harlow remarked.

"Will you tell them how he died?" Kavak questioned.

"Only if they ask, and I won't give them specifics. I'll just be sure to tell them that it wasn't pleasant."

Mazurka pocketed his notepad and gathered his phone and jacket. "If we find out anything else, we'll let you know."

"I'd appreciate it, kid, but I'm off for the night. You two should get out of here when you can. These days aren't bound to get any shorter for the foreseeable future."

"Will do," Mazurka replied as Harlowe lead the way from the room.

Mazurka insured the door had closed and locked behind them, before heading to Skye's lab with Kavak.

"Nice to see you both again," Skye remarked as they made their way towards her. "I know it's late, but I thought you would like to know what I found as soon as possible."

"That bad?" Mazurka asked as she motioned to the large monitor and adjusted the input to a computer's desktop.

"Yeah, this one ranks in the 'worse than bad' category. We're talking extreme torture porn, 'snuff', beastie class stuff here, and his desktop is full of it. 2TB's worth, and Josephine is still trying to crack into the third hard drive. Unlike the other two, this last one has some really impressive security measures. But back to what I thought you would want to see. As soon as I hooked this into the net, this program booted," Skye explained as she motioned to a black box with a username and password prompt, already filled in, that had loaded into the center of the screen.

Clicking, log in, the black box immediately began to multiply, until the screen was covered, and one by one, they began to load with live video feeds.

"What the hell is this?" Kavak asked, anger clinging to the edges of his words.

"From what I've been able to figure out, this computer acts as a server for at least 20 different live cameras, and records everything. For the most part they appear to be motion activated unless this program is in this active mode, and from here, they can be live broadcast, on a handful of different platforms. I'll be able to tell you exactly which ones, once I get access to his crypto account."

"He's making money off of this?"

"Yeah, and from what I can tell, it's more than enough for him to live on. Ogilvy has never had a registered job. All of his income comes through his crypto account, and he pays income tax based on a self-employed bracket where his occupation is listed as videographer. Hey, Yechi, you doing alright? You look like you've seen another Karakaram."

He had heard what Skye had said but his eyes were glued to the feed in the upper right corner of the monitor.

"This one's labeled, QVRoom. Why is it black?"

"I thought it was a malfunction at first, but it's not. The camera starts up when this program goes into live mode, but after checking activity logs, he only let's this one run briefly before turning it off, and nothing has been recorded for well over a year on it."

"Can you show me the last file it recorded?"

"No, but I can show you the last file he saved from it," she said as she pulled up a file marked QVR4. "Is this your friend's girlfriend?" she asked as she enlarged the cover photo.

"Yeah, that's her. She looks younger, but it's her."

Opening the file, hundreds of video files populated; some no more than a few seconds long, while others lasted for hours. Each had a label with a title and description.

"That must be her room at her previous residence," he concluded, based on the size and layout of what he could see. "Is it just me or does this camera seem to be up high, like it's on a shelf or at the top of a window maybe?"

"That's what I was thinking too," Kavak concurred.

"Can you get me a still frame of this for me?"

"Yeah, not a problem, Yechi," she replied as she tapped on her tablet. "You can grab it off the printer by the door. From what I can tell, this is the last saved file, based on the series of numbers in the coding system he uses. Which as of yet, makes absolutely no sense. Anyways, the video is pretty long, and its labeled, restless night."

"When is it dated?"

"Wish I could tell you, but he even has the timestamps altered to some weird code. Look Yechi, it's going to take me weeks to go through all of these files, but you should warn your friend about this. Chances are, there is a lot of footage of his girlfriend floating around on the net, and not all of it is going to be her just sleeping."

Mazurka's hand trembled as he pinched at the bridge of his nose, "Can you find out where the other feeds are coming from?"

"Yeah. It will take a while, but they're all traceable. I suspect the numbers on the cameras will help identify the files he has too."

Mazurka shook his head as he looked at the screen, "What numbers?"

"Oh, sorry. You can't see them until I hover over the cameras. They all look to have customized numbers, but the IP's are static," she explained as Mazurka pulled out his notepad and flipped through the pages.

"Show me one of them again," Mazurka said and Skye hovered the mouse over one of the cameras. "They are customized. They match the numbers in the journals, and then the v1r, v1b, v2r, V2b etcetera, matches the camera labels."

"That would make sense, since there are at least eight sets of cameras, all set up the same way. One in a bedroom facing the bed, and the second in a bathroom; r being room, and b being bath. Then there are these four individual ones. The first three, including your friends, are all clearly apartments, but this fourth one; let me pull it up for you."

Clicking on the camera, suddenly opened up a new page with four live feeds of a small room. It appeared to have cinder block walls, no windows, and no doors. The first camera showed what looked to be a bathroom area that wasn't separated from the rest of the room by any walls or curtains, providing absolutely no privacy. The second camera focused on a single wooden chair and small table in the center of a braided rug. The third camera was a wide shot of the entire room, showing the complete layout, including the display of adult toys along the wall, a rack of costumes and lingerie, and several larger devices that appeared to be more torturous in nature. And the fourth camera was focused on the bed. It was at least a queen size, covered in a heavy, plush blanket, and what appeared to be a woman could be partially seen laying beneath it, with a thick collar visible around her.

"It's a woman..." Kavak gasped.

"Is she alive?" Mazurka wondered as Kavak bolted from the room.

"There's no audio from these cameras but watch the blanket. It's subtle, but its moving."

"Track this camera, Skye. Find out where this is coming from."

"I'm already working on it. Have been since I discovered it. It's why I called you here."

"It's her, Yechiel!" Kavak announced as he ran back into the room with a file in his hand.

Pulling the picture from the front cover, Kavak held it up to the monitor for Mazurka to compare.

"Holy shit, you're right. That's Eliza Warren-Bishop."