A Tourist in Mayberry

6/8) Izito Makes Some Phone Calls

Izito took a lot of pride in finding a needle in a haystack. Before he retired, he was famous in his business for having a photographic memory and being able to piece together unrelated, seemingly meaningless data to find a suspect or recover a cold trail. Information was everything in his line of work, and he was the best at finding it. He knew an innumerable number of contacts, some illicit and questionable, and some downright criminal. He relied on all his contacts in his search for answers. To find the missing teenagers and mayor, he called in a few favors.

Izito found the mayor in less than 3 days. Mayor Humble Booker was on a beach in the Caribbean, soaking up some sun. Izito visited Barbados in the 90's on a mini vacation so he knew the mayor was probably living it up. The mayor was off the grid, flying under the radar, paying cash for everything and seemed to have an endless supply of it. The mayor was basically living at the beach bar and had already been with two different women, one a divorced retiree twice his age and one a prostitute, young enough to be his daughter. The contact hired to follow the mayor saw the prostitute go in the hotel, but not out. The contact knew her, and knew she was also a petty thief and speculated the mayor had been robbed. Serves him right, thought Izito.

So far, Izito's associates uncovered three accounts in three different aliases linked indirectly back to the mayor. They suspected there were more. They were certain they were ill gotten gains, though they didn't yet know the source.

Though he did not care for him much, Izito was relieved the mayor was alive and kicking. He worried about Matthew's temper. Matthew was acting strangely out of character lately. He was usually calm and methodical. They worked together for many years and rid the world of undesirables before, but it was a team decision. They made a pact years ago that what happened to one of them affected them all, and nothing they did to eliminate an undesirable, no matter if they had it coming, could be traced back to them. Their type of work depended on it.

There was something strange going on with the mayor besides his disappearance. The mayor had already made travel arrangements to go to another island. He moved hotels twice since he arrived on this island. Izito knew he was hiding, but even his hound dog sources had difficulty tracing the mayor initially. Most local and state law enforcement agencies did not have the means to find someone in a foreign country, so why was the mayor so paranoid? The mayor had probably stolen the money now in his various accounts, but it was so well hidden Izito did not know if the victims even knew the money was gone. So, what was the mayor running so hard from? People he robbed? Maybe, his mad wife? Someone's mad husband? For now, Izito did not care. He was undecided what he was going to do with the information about the mayor. Maybe he would tell the sheriff, maybe not.

The teenagers were harder to find. No accounts, credit card, phone, or debit card transactions could be found. No airline or train or bus tickets. Finally, he relied on face recognition software. This type of search is a lengthy process because there is so much data out there because of the millions of cameras in this country.

Finally, Damien was spotted at a store in Stephenville, Texas. Further scrutiny spotted him at a gas station and fast food restaurant in the same town. No Sienna though. Izito paid some extra cash to his source to have them search the area in a 50 mile radius for the past 6 months. Sienna was finally spotted by a traffic camera crossing the street to a medical clinic. Hopefully, getting prenatal care since Izito could tell from the photo that Sienna was expecting the rumored baby. She was only seen once on camera about a month ago, and this concerned Izito. Why was she so sheltered? Where was she now?

Then, about a week ago, there was no more footage of Damien who had been a regular at the fast food joint. He was gone.

"Maybe headed back here?" Matty said to Izito when Izito updated the Wild Bunch.

"Let's start looking around," said Shiela.

Reid agreed with his usual brevity by nodding.

"Maybe head out to his mom's and see what we see," suggested Matthew.

"I'm worried about the girl," said Shiela scrutinizing the photo. "She looks like there is a baby coming any day now."

"All my fault, said Matthew, "Guess I spooked the boy too much."

"I think whoever cut his finger off spooked him more," said Shiela as she patted Matty's arm.

"Well, let's find her," said Izito.

Matthew headed out to find some teenagers, first he'd talk to the mothers.