It’s like magic
08Oct
“Chase!” Lt. Miller called from the door of her office.
I sighed. I looked down at the open drawer. I was trying to surreptitiously pack its complete contents into a box under my desk. I moved the giant salamander claw out of the way and pushed the drawer closed with my shoe.
I wasn’t even all the way into her office before she asked in full earshot of everyone. “Did you pay the Cormacks a visit?”
I stopped and leaned against the door frame. I didn’t want to sit down for that shit.
Miller saw my face and her head dropped.
“You’re just trying to make all of this as difficult as possible, aren’t you?”
“Don’t worry. Mrs. Cormack made it clear I wasn’t welcome.”
“Nevertheless, she called Legal. They called me. I’m to advise you that you are not to speak to the Cormacks, for any reason, without counsel present.”
She didn’t say ‘or else.’ She didn’t have to.
“Do you understand?” she asked, as if she knew how stupid a question it was and was angry at me that I was making her ask it. “Not if they threaten you. Not if they invite you for tea. Not if their house is on fire. Got it?”
I nodded. “I don’t suppose it matters why I went.”
“No. It doesn’t.” She looked at me sternly. She was serious, too. She’d just about used up all the patience she had left. “I have something else for you. Just came in.”
She moved to sit, which was my clue to follow her inside.
“Forensics finally got out to the derelict house,” she said. “You were right. Looks like the crime scene. Large amounts of the victim’s blood were found on the floor inside, along with a sleeping bag and a bunch of her clothes and personal effects.”
“You mean like she was living there?”
Shawna nodded. “Abusive ex maybe? He finds out she’s run away, tracks her down, things get violent?”
“Could be. I’ll take a look. But if it’s all right to ask, why is it all my evidence seems to be going to you first?”
She tossed an evidence bag to me from her desk. There was a flash drive inside.
“The security footage from the gym,” she explained.
The bag was still sealed. She hadn’t watched it yet.
“What about the victim’s place of business?” she asked. “What was it? Outreach clinic or something?”
I nodded. “On my list. After a walk-through at the crime scene. I’d like to look at the video first, though.”
Apparently I was being micromanaged.
“That’s fine. Just keep me in the loop. And I still need that report on the apartment thing. You know, with your leg and all that.”
“Is that really a priority right now? I got eight bodies on the board.”
“It’s a liability thing. You were injured.”
“And it’s more important to the guys upstairs that I don’t sue than that I find Amber’s killer.”
She turned her head sideways. “Just write the damed report.”
“Right.”
She shook her head. “You’re lucky, Chase. Or so damned good that we can’t even tell. Sometimes I really don’t know how you do it.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A dozen officers donated an afternoon to canvas that stretch of drainage from the overflow to the other side of the freeway. A dozen men and women came away with nothing. You go for a job and snag the victim’s car and the crime scene, like magic.”
I turned my head as if to say “ain’t it though?”
She waited a polite moment to see if I’d add anything. I didn’t.
“Let me know if you turn up anything at the clinic.”
“Will do.”
I went back to my desk and loaded the video, which I was still watching when Lt. Miller left for the evening. It wasn’t until I heard her turn off the light and lock her office door that I realized she and I were the only ones left on the floor. I think she’d been waiting for me.
“Tell me you’re working on that report,” she said from across the room.
“Almost done,” I lied.
She fixed her purse on her shoulder and lifted her briefcase and walked out. I heard her keys jingle in the hall. I was alone. It was when I was alone, and only then, that I could very occasionally hear the muffled shouts, as if through a heavy gag.
I kicked the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. “Shut up.”
I put my chin on my palm and clicked through the footage again.
The problem wasn’t that there was no color or sound so much as the angle was off. But then, the camera was intended to capture traffic in front of the gym and not what was going on across the street. As such, only the steps below the side door of Dr. Massey’s building were in frame, not the door itself. The good doctor was a little younger than I expected. She trotted down the steps and disappeared down the sidewalk toward the main road. Sure enough, a few minutes later, an American four-door sedan identical to the one I found pulled in front of the curb and stopped. She got out and started loading boxes.
At some point, a bearded man in fashionable, thick-rimmed glasses waited by the open trunk of the blue car. Doctor Massey came out and seemed surprised to see him. They had words. First it seemed like she was threatening him. Then it seemed like he was threatening her. She got spooked. She ran to the steps, like she was going to flee back to her condo, but something out of frame stopped her. And that’s when I saw the man with the coat. He wandered into frame on the sidewalk, apposite the man in glasses, and just stands there. Unfortunately, one of the trees that dot the sides of the street blocked his face in profile. And it blocked only his face. The rest of his head and torso were visible over a parked car, but his face was obscured by the trunk of the tree, as if he knew right where to stand.
Just then a big vintage car stopped in the street and blocked most of the shot. I could see some movement, but that’s all, and by the time it pulls away, everyone is gone, including Dr. Massey’s blue sedan.
All of this took place across the street from the camera, of course, meaning it was all crammed into one tiny corner of the video footage. Blowing it up made it blurry—too blurry to make out any retail detail. The department has some video forensics guys of course, but they’re usually backed up, which is why detectives and support staff also have access to an off-the-shelf video editing program—so we can do some of the easy work ourselves. Nothing fancy. Whatever we find has to stand up in court, of course, which means a proper run. But enough to keep us on the trail.
I can’t say I’m an expert at it, but I’ve gotten handy with some of the algorithmic presets. After you load your video, you can select enhancement and the app gives you a choice of nine algorithms. If you run all nine, it tiles them on your screen in a grid so you can compare them as the video loops. As you might expect, some of the algorithms are better with some parts of the footage than others. I was at the office until after midnight getting a clean still shot of the two men—the man with the beard and the man with the coat—to show to the staff at Dr. Massey’s work, and to her family and friends, if we found any.
At some point, the lights over my head shut off, leaving my computer screen and a handful of others the only light in the long room. And of course the exit sign.
I heard muffled shouting and kicked the drawer again.
I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery, FEAST OF SHADOWS, in order until the book is released. A blend of hard-boiled whodunit and contemporary urban fantasy, it’s been described as “Tolkien meets Dashiell Hammett for dinner in the present day.”
You can sign up here to be notified when the book is released.
You can start reading in order here: The old ones are patient.
The next chapter is: (not yet posted)
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