Ghost Material
Sharon stepped out of the house of the late Doctor Whateley, pausing a moment to read the plaque fastened to the wall of the neighboring building for the second time that day: Historical Landmark, James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes Birth House. James 'Bucky' Barnes, Howling Commando, missing in action December 18th 1944, was born here on March 10th 1917 as the eldest son of George and Winnifred Barnes.
"The nerve!" Adam groused behind her, shooting Whateley's front door a sour glance. "They literally have no shame!"
Silently, Sharon agreed with her colleague. It really was adding insult to injury to move in right next to a place directly connected to a man who had given his life to fight the organization one was working for, but then again she supposed that terms like 'empathy' or 'respect' weren't commonplace in HYDRA's vocabulary, certainly not in that of a man who literally grew his own humans to experiment on.
"Let's just get to work. The sooner we're done here the better." she orders mildly and steps aside, letting Adam, Kelly and the remainder of her small team carry the boxes of evidence to their vehicles. They had processed the scene for the better part of the day, after spending the entirety of the previous two on the clinic and its seedy hidden bowels. Someone had taken the majority of the files, assuming there had been any left to take to begin with. Someone had also most definitely been in the house with Whateley. They had found some traces: hair, skin, a third of a fingerprint. Sharon hoped there'd be a match in any of the databases at their disposal, but doubted it if she were to be quite honest with herself. At least whoever had been there had left behind Whateley's laptop. Adam was already itching to get his fingers on that, she knew.
They'd been afforded a few rooms at the local police station, and Sharon briefed her people on what she wanted whom to work, then went to get herself the next of too many cups of coffee in too short a time span. Sharon barely notices the time pass as she works, flitting through the rooms of the station, telephone in hand more often than not, coordinating this investigation that poses more questions than it yields answers. With a long-suffering sigh, she hangs up on her boss after giving a thorough status update and stares blankly at the case board. The case board is just a cork pin board with a handful of photos and handwritten notes and many, many question marks at this point.
Their current theory is that whoever accosted Whateley in his house knew the doctor was secretly HYDRA and confronted him about it. There had been no trace of outside force on Whateley's body, leading them to assume that he, cornered by the mystery assailant, took his own way out rather than give anything up. The unknown person then went on to search the clinic, finding the secret labs in the process. Possibly they took the missing baby. This would mean that this person was the same who placed the anonymous call. Unfortunately, none of this brings them any closer to identifying the man.
Sharon is staring intently at a blurry figure, slightly hunched over, walking briskly by a store front. The image is dark due to the time of day, and he keeps his face cautiously averted from the security camera. Athletic build, about six feet tall, a description that does little to exclude potential suspects. This does not exactly look promising, Sharon finds.
"So this is the guy that placed the call?"
"Yeah, I traced the call back to that phone and matched the time." Adam explains, "I couldn't even get a profile shot, but get this!" His fingers flit over the keyboard swiftly as he rewinds the footage, then zooms in and applies some kind of filter that makes the image lighter. The mystery man is just hanging up the phone receiver. his head is bowed away from the camera, and he's cradling one arm against his torso. There seems to be some kind of lump underneath his bulky dark jacket, which is half unzipped. There is a small flicker of movement, light against the dark fabric, then he quickly adjusts the lump and takes off towards the store.
Sharon can feel her heart in her throat as she leans in closer.
"Can you zoom in further? And make the image clearer?" she asks breathlessly. Adam works his magic again, and after some moments of filtering and adjusting they can make out that the flicker of movement from the man's jacket is a tiny, little hand.
"So he did take the missing baby." Sharon breathes, not sure how to feel about that.