Read Online Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella by Barbara Seranella - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Barbara Seranella
Ads: Link
*
The afternoon found both men back at the squad room
on the fifth floor of Parker Center. Each concentrated on his
respective chores. Cassiletti perched in front of his typewriter, his
large fingers diligently poking at the keys, filling in all the
spaces on the Preliminary Investigation Report, and the two separate
Death Reports.
Mace sat at one of the scarred empty desks in a
windowless corner of the large, open room. A television connected to
a video player hung from brackets bolted to the acoustical-tiled
ceiling. On it he watched the video footage from the Gower building's
surveillance camera while he ate his sandwich from its cellophane
wrapper and sipped lukewarm coffee. Actually, he was watching a copy.
The original was safely stored in the evidence locker, away
from anything with a magnetic field like a metal detector—and with
the write-protect tab broken off. All these precautions were the
result of painful lessons. As soon as they'd gotten to the Gower
crime scene, Mace had sent one of the support officers around the
neighborhood to seize any videotapes that might have recorded
evidence. The building's security cameras were on a two-day recycle
schedule. They took eight-second time-lapse photographs but switched
to real time whenever the building's keypad was used.
The officer had also recovered the videotape from a
camera mounted on the roof of a nearby Bank of America. The cop had
correctly noted that the camera's range included the alley running
behind the apartment complex. Mace had had two copies made of each
tape before returning to Parker Center. It was difficult not to play
them immediately, but experience had also taught him that each
playing of a tape degraded it—especially tape from a
surveillance-camera video system that was constantly recycled.
He began with the apartment-building tapes. A series
of stills flashed across the television mounted high in the corner.
The time and date showed in white dot-matrix-style print across the
bottom right corner of the screen. Later the technicians from the
photo lab of the Scientific Investigative Division would develop
individual stills off this copy. Pausing the tape or running it in
slow motion also caused degradation and loss of data. Later he would
have all the time he needed to pore over the individual prints.
Indeed, if this was like the last case, those images would be
imprinted in negative on the insides of his eyelids. Now he reviewed
the footage to make sure nothing that required immediate attention
was missed. Spread before him were several sheets of paper from a
yellow legal pad on which he charted a time line of events, beginning
with when he'd arrived at the scene and working backward. The
anonymous tip had come in at 4:13 A.M. to the Hollywood Division
desk. The caller, who had not used 911, had been put on hold while
the switchboard routed him through to Homicide. The information,
delivered in a whisper, was that there'd been a killing at the
address on Gower. The caller did not stay on the line long enough to
be questioned further.
A black-and-white unit had been the lirst to respond.
The officers had duly recorded the times they received notification
and when they arrived at the scene. Twelve minutes had elapsed. They
found the apartment door open. Two minutes later they discovered the
two victims and called in a report via land line to their watch
sergeant.
The coroner arrived at six-thirty, made small
incisions beneath each of the women's rib cages, and inserted his
chemical thermometer. He determined from the temperature of their
livers and state of rigor that both had died within minutes of each
other and no longer than six hours prior. That fixed the time of
death between midnight and four that morning, pending any unusual
findings when the toxicology reports came in.
What Mace now knew was Munch's limousine had arrived
at the apartment complex on Gower at 6:58 P.M. the previous evening.
The tape showed the driver's arm,
The afternoon found both men back at the squad room
on the fifth floor of Parker Center. Each concentrated on his
respective chores. Cassiletti perched in front of his typewriter, his
large fingers diligently poking at the keys, filling in all the
spaces on the Preliminary Investigation Report, and the two separate
Death Reports.
Mace sat at one of the scarred empty desks in a
windowless corner of the large, open room. A television connected to
a video player hung from brackets bolted to the acoustical-tiled
ceiling. On it he watched the video footage from the Gower building's
surveillance camera while he ate his sandwich from its cellophane
wrapper and sipped lukewarm coffee. Actually, he was watching a copy.
The original was safely stored in the evidence locker, away
from anything with a magnetic field like a metal detector—and with
the write-protect tab broken off. All these precautions were the
result of painful lessons. As soon as they'd gotten to the Gower
crime scene, Mace had sent one of the support officers around the
neighborhood to seize any videotapes that might have recorded
evidence. The building's security cameras were on a two-day recycle
schedule. They took eight-second time-lapse photographs but switched
to real time whenever the building's keypad was used.
The officer had also recovered the videotape from a
camera mounted on the roof of a nearby Bank of America. The cop had
correctly noted that the camera's range included the alley running
behind the apartment complex. Mace had had two copies made of each
tape before returning to Parker Center. It was difficult not to play
them immediately, but experience had also taught him that each
playing of a tape degraded it—especially tape from a
surveillance-camera video system that was constantly recycled.
He began with the apartment-building tapes. A series
of stills flashed across the television mounted high in the corner.
The time and date showed in white dot-matrix-style print across the
bottom right corner of the screen. Later the technicians from the
photo lab of the Scientific Investigative Division would develop
individual stills off this copy. Pausing the tape or running it in
slow motion also caused degradation and loss of data. Later he would
have all the time he needed to pore over the individual prints.
Indeed, if this was like the last case, those images would be
imprinted in negative on the insides of his eyelids. Now he reviewed
the footage to make sure nothing that required immediate attention
was missed. Spread before him were several sheets of paper from a
yellow legal pad on which he charted a time line of events, beginning
with when he'd arrived at the scene and working backward. The
anonymous tip had come in at 4:13 A.M. to the Hollywood Division
desk. The caller, who had not used 911, had been put on hold while
the switchboard routed him through to Homicide. The information,
delivered in a whisper, was that there'd been a killing at the
address on Gower. The caller did not stay on the line long enough to
be questioned further.
A black-and-white unit had been the lirst to respond.
The officers had duly recorded the times they received notification
and when they arrived at the scene. Twelve minutes had elapsed. They
found the apartment door open. Two minutes later they discovered the
two victims and called in a report via land line to their watch
sergeant.
The coroner arrived at six-thirty, made small
incisions beneath each of the women's rib cages, and inserted his
chemical thermometer. He determined from the temperature of their
livers and state of rigor that both had died within minutes of each
other and no longer than six hours prior. That fixed the time of
death between midnight and four that morning, pending any unusual
findings when the toxicology reports came in.
What Mace now knew was Munch's limousine had arrived
at the apartment complex on Gower at 6:58 P.M. the previous evening.
The tape showed the driver's arm,
Similar Books
