53: Ah, my friends!
It is good to know you finally found your way here! I had hoped to be there with you when this moment came, but alas, it was not meant to be. I take solace in the fact that this material has found itself into your capable hands, as I am sure you will take it to your compadres in financial crimes so they may add it to the mounting pile of evidence against Mr. Talbot and company. While I believe this box contains more than enough information for a substantial conviction, I’m afraid I couldn’t wait for the trial portion of the program and went ahead and passed a sentence I believe to be more than fitting for the crimes at hand. Much like his longtime business partner, Gunther Herbert, Mr. Talbot will meet with justice face-to-face today, and he will answer for his actions on the swiftest of terms. Perhaps I will allow him to give his daughter one last kiss before goodbyes are said? Perhaps not. Maybe it’s best they just watch each other bleed.
Truly yours,
Anson Bishop
Poole smoothed the edges of the paper, studying the handwriting—neat and readable, yet oddly disturbing.
The note had been in the box found at an empty apartment by Detectives Clair Norton and Brian Nash days after Bishop kidnapped Emory Connors, hours after he kidnapped her biological father, Arthur Talbot. The apartment address appeared on employment documents Bishop completed as part of his fake identity and immersion into the Chicago Metro crime lab as Paul Watson. Bishop wanted the information found and had orchestrated a plan (one of many) to ensure it was found no earlier or later than he wished. He knew they’d track the address once his cover was blown but no sooner.
Poole had laid out the contents of the box in neat rows on a folding table before leaving to visit Libby McInley’s parole officer.
Reams of paper all bundled together, twelve in total.
The first seven bundles contained information centered on Arthur Talbot, specifically his real estate transactions and financial holdings. The Financial Crimes divisions of both Chicago Metro and the FBI were still unraveling the details, but to date they had seized more than fifty million dollars in assets believed to be derived from criminal activity. Due to the large size of Talbot Enterprises, most assets were frozen, but the courts allowed the company’s operating accounts to remain funded. Ultimately, they wished to sort this mess out without jeopardizing the thousands of legitimate jobs created by Talbot’s endeavors. Emory Connors’s trust had also remained untouched, as it was entirely detached from Talbot, something he apparently insisted upon.
Poole set these bundles aside.
The next four bundles were also tied to Talbot but branched out to include two organized crime families operating in and around Chicago, as well as twenty-three individuals. The crimes ran the gamut from gambling and money laundering to drugs and prostitution. This data led to six arrests, with many more in the pipeline.
Poole slid these bundles aside as well. It was the last one that interested him.
The final bundle held about three hundred pages of paper. The topmost sheet was lined in green and white with tiny, concise handwriting. The first line read:
163. WF14 2.5k. JM.
Attached to the bundle was a manila envelope containing twenty-six Polaroid pictures of teenagers in various stages of undress, both male and female. Each Polaroid was numbered. The handwriting did not match Bishop’s. According to the report Detective Nash filed, the envelope hadn’t originally been attached to this bundle but had been at the bottom of the box. While the two were most likely connected, Poole preferred to leave evidence exactly as found to preserve the findings. Attaching the two items based on assumptions was careless and could lead to false conclusions.
Poole ran a finger over the first line of text:
163. WF14 2.5k. JM.
The number 163 was believed to tie out to a specific child—a white female fourteen years old, either sold for 2.5K or bought for that amount, most likely dollars but possibly another form of currency. Bitcoin was the currency of choice for most human traffickers.
Poole knew Bitcoin well. The currency had been a thorn in the side of law enforcement since 2008, since criminals could trade it online like cash, leaving no way to trace just who was trading it and what it was being traded for.
If the line meant 2,500 Bitcoins, that would set the value at about 2.6 million US dollars. That was highly unlikely. A fourteen-year-old white female in good health typically sold within the United States for under $25,000. K was sometimes used to abbreviate Bitcoin. If that were the case, then 2.5K would be equal to approximately $2,600, which was far more likely.
The idea that a human life could be bought and sold at any amount disgusted Poole, and he forced the thought from his head. He had to focus on the evidence.
163. WF14 2.5K. JM.
Child number 163, a white female fourteen years old, sold or was for sale at a price of $2,600. The initials JM could belong to the child or possibly the individual buying or selling the child. There was no way to be sure.
Poole flipped through the Polaroids. None were numbered 163.
Someone had matched the other photographs to specific line items; yellow Post-it notes had been placed beside each corresponding entry. Nineteen girls and seven boys.
Poole counted the lines on the first page—twenty-six. With close to three hundred pages, that meant there were almost eight thousand children listed here. Correction: there were almost eight thousand people listed here. If the number appearing after the code for race and gender was, in fact, age, many of the entries were older, although the highest number he found was twenty-three.
Chicago ranked third in the country for the highest levels of human trafficking. Recent studies estimated there were at least 25,000 victims in and around the city. If this list was to be believed, it represented nearly one-third of them. Poole had no reason to doubt Bishop’s intel. All his other data had panned out.
The Cook County Human Trafficking Task Force, the Chicago Regional Human Trafficking Task Force (CTTF), and the Illinois Task Force on Human Trafficking all received copies of the data, but they hadn’t made any headway determining the exact meaning. Should they figure it out, the data might lead to the largest human trafficking bust in US history.
Poole stood up and stretched his legs. He picked up one of the Polaroids and walked over to the whiteboard, held the picture up against the one they discovered in Libby McInley’s house. He had initially hoped they came from the same camera. A long shot, to be sure, but he needed a common thread, something to connect all the pieces.
The pictures had not come from the same camera.
Analysis indicated the photos of the children were taken with 780 Turbo Polaroid film, while the photo discovered at McInley’s house had been taken with PX 680 Color Shade FF. He also learned that Polaroid cameras were much like the barrel of a gun. Each camera left a unique pattern on the photos printed, a series of fine lines too small for the human eye to distinguish but enough to identify pictures taken with the same camera with the aid of a microscope. All of the photos Bishop provided in that box had been taken with one camera. Serial numbers embedded within the film traced back to manufacturing dates and told them that the pictures had been taken over a two-year period sometime in the late nineties.
Poole’s phone rang, and he shuffled back to his desk.
Diener.
He pressed the Accept button.
“Frank? I’ve got something. You were right.”
“The IDs?”
“Yeah. Illinois Vital Records received a request for a replacement birth certificate about a year ago, April 10, 2014, through their online portal.”
“While McInley was still in prison.”
“Yeah. The request was submitted by Kalyn Selke—well, someone pretending to be Kalyn Selke. They supplied all the necessary information: name of the hospital at birth, city and state of birth, mother’s maiden name, father’s full name. They stated the reason for the replacement as ‘lost in fire.’ They even submitted a photo ID with Libby McInley’s picture. It was bogus, but nobody bothered to run it. The replacement went out on May 2, 2014. About a week later, on May 8, 2014, a passport application was received using the birth certificate and three utility bills—electric, phone, and cable—all for the same address, the same place the documents shipped to—a residence in Brighton Park. I’m heading over there now.”
Poole’s chest tightened. “Text me the address. I’ll meet you there.”