Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Charlie sat at Declan's desk. He liked the feeling of being at his own desk, in his own private office, interviewing his own clients. He began to type up his report on the Cody White interview. First impressions—he had been nervous, and not just because he was being interviewed. Cody had chewed his fingernails down to the quick and, from the dried blood on some of his cuticles, he had been doing so for some time. Also, Cody had seemed more concerned about his mother than himself…

Charlie continued transcribing his written notes, ensuring that the key points were captured in detail, then he began to listen to the recording he'd made. There might be something more in that. By the time he was finished, Charlie had compiled a hefty document of what had transpired. He would show Declan that he could handle situations like this on his own.

Charlie looked at the time on his phone. It was almost six o'clock and there had still been no response from Declan. He tapped out a quick message.

Just checking. Did you get my last text about Cody White and Tull and Monarch? Is everything okay?

Charlie hoped there would be an immediate ping back, but nothing. This was important. Why wasn't Declan answering him? No point in worrying. Maybe he was just running late from whatever his other business was, but Charlie wanted to be here when he got back.

To distract himself, Charlie thought back on what Cody had said about meeting Tull on an SM online hookup site. Charlie wondered if he could find which one Tull had used, and what it might tell Charlie about him. He hadn't thought to ask Cody which site it was, so he'd have to do a bit of digging. In a matter of minutes Charlie had discovered five popular sites. He went onto the top-ranked one, Chaps-n-Slaps, and discovered that to access any of the user profiles, he had to create an account. Charlie settled on ComputerHustler as his username.

He was surprised to find that there were close to a thousand members in Alberta. There was a range of profiles, but to get detailed pictures or information, the user had to request permission from the person they were interested in. As Charlie surfed through the profiles, he discovered that one of the users was SmoothStud123. Next he looked for BakuBondageBoy, Tull's email username. There he was. This was the site! Charlie was on a roll.

"Well, let's see how lucky I am," he said to himself.

He filtered his search by men in the Drumheller area and searched for the other file that had been on Tull's computer—BurlyBiker27. Nothing. He shouldn't have been surprised. Cody, after all, was from Calgary, not Drumheller, and Tull's other visitors could have been from other places outside of Drumheller. Charlie expanded his search to all of Alberta. He skimmed through the profiles and eventually hit pay-dirt. There was the profile for BurlyBiker27 but there was no image on his user icon. And in order to access more of his profile, BurlyBiker27 required that you send him a full nude shot. Charlie wasn't about to have a dick-pic of himself floating around on the web, so there'd be no images of the third blackmail victim this evening.

Charlie stared at the screen.

"Wait a minute. You idiot," Charlie said to himself.

He already had a picture of the guy he knew as BurlyBiker27. Charlie had a whole video's worth of just about every square centimetre of him. And if he had a picture…Charlie was struck with a new idea.

He called up the video for BurlyBiker27 on his laptop. It showed two men involved in sex play. One of them had a dark bushy beard and was lying in the sling. The other, who was penetrating him, wore a leather mask which hid his identity. The two men had their hands around each other's throat and were clearly choking one another. Charlie stopped the video and zoomed in on the masked man. There was a tattoo of a spider on his left forearm.

Charlie continued to scan through the video until he found the clearest possible shot of the face of the man who was in the sling. He took a screen-capture of it. Then, Charlie did an internet image search.

In a short period of time, images started to pop up, dozens of them. Then hundreds of images that the search engine's algorithms determined looked similar to the one Charlie had hoped to match.

The image Charlie had asked the computer to find matched a lot of different men, as the man's bushy beard hid a lot of facial features which would have been helpful in narrowing the search. Charlie played with the image, focusing more on the man's eyes, nose and mouth then narrowed his search to images posted within the last five years.

This brought it down to a manageable one hundred and fifty-three images. Charlie began to scroll. After a few minutes, Charlie found what he was looking for.

"Oh shit."

There was no doubt about it. This had to be BurlyBiker27. Charlie was staring at an image from an Edmonton Police Service post from 2020. It was a plea to the public looking for information on the whereabouts of "Adolph Moses. Age forty-two. Height one-hundred-and-ninety centimetres. Weight one-hundred-and-seven kilos. Warning—this man is armed and dangerous. Do not approach. Call…"

Charlie stared at the image of the man's face. His eyes looked crazed. His hair was a tangled mess. He had the same beard as the guy in the video—a full biker beard.

Biker beard.

Biker.

"No way," Charlie said as he grabbed his phone and called up the images in his photos folder. He scrolled through them quickly until he came to the one he'd taken of the biker they'd seen on the road near Hoodoo House. He zoomed in on the face. He couldn't be absolutely sure. The helmet and goggles obscured the details, but there, on the biker's left cheek, just below the eye, was a tattoo of some sort. Charlie looked back at the video and advanced through it until he could see the left side of the man's face. There, on his cheek, was a tattoo below the left eye. A double teardrop. The same as the one on the face in the police bulletin.

This must be BurlyBiker27, the same guy who had threatened to kill Tull in the emails.

Charlie grabbed his phone and called Declan. The phone rang three times, then went to voicemail.

"Declan. It's Charlie. I've found out who BurlyBiker27 is. This is big. Call me. Please!"

He disconnected. Where could Declan be?

Charlie looked at the cold coffee on his desk and decided to rinse out the mug and use the washroom. As he washed his hands, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He was a rumpled mess. He'd slept in his clothes the night before and hadn't shaved. He couldn't believe he'd interviewed Cody looking like this. He needed to get home. Declan could call him if he was interested in what Charlie had found out.

Home! Charlie realized he hadn't even taken the time to let Carrie know he was back in town. He shot off a quick text.

Homeward bound! Have the wine ready. I've got stories.

Within a minute, she texted back.

At work until ten. See you when I get home. Can't wait to hear what you and your Hot Dick have been up to.

Hot Dick. Charlie shook his head.

See you at ten.

Charlie locked the Cody White file away in a drawer, turned off the lights then set the alarm. He'd just started down the street towards the car when his phone rang.

He glanced at the caller ID.

"Declan! I've got news!"

"Yeah," Declan replied. "I just saw that. Great work. Listen. Can you meet me at Bar-None? There's something I need to talk to you about and it can't wait."

"Sure," Charlie replied. "I'll be there soon."

As he disconnected, Charlie's stomach began to churn. Declan sounded upset, and Charlie had a feeling that whatever he wanted to talk to him about, it wasn't the case.