Requite (7 page)

The top of the list was as good a place as any to start. I got on the horn with Rick in our Forensics Department. The phone rang a couple times before he picked up.

“This is Rick.”

“Hey, it’s Kane. What do you have for me?”

“Put together a folder from the parking structure. It’s mostly just blood evidence. I’ll have one of the guys bring it up.”

“You guys didn’t get anything more from the Miller’s house?”

“Pax brought over a report. He said that there wasn’t anything more than what he showed you at the scene.”

“Sergeant Rawlings said something about tire tracks?”

“Still working them.”

“OK. Thanks Rick. Let me know when you get something on those tire marks.”

“Will do.”

I hung up with Rick and checked
get forensics info
off my list. I dialed up Hank’s desk.

“Sergeant Rawlings.”

“Hey, it’s Kane. Get on the phone and get something scheduled with those witnesses. I want to go to the crime scene and have a look around. Be ready to go in ten, I’ll meet you at your desk.”

The ten minutes was enough time to cruise past the lunch room and see what kind of mood the coffee machine was in. An early morning mixed with little sleep was starting to take its toll. An espresso for the road would be just the ticket.

I opened my office door and caught Captain Bostok walking into his office. I headed over.

“Anything new, Cap?”

“I just walked in the door. I had fliers made up with a photo I got from the judge’s house. He said it was the most recent photo he had. Here, take a stack.”

He handed me a pile of around thirty fliers with all of Jessica Casey’s information. I looked the sheet over. She was twenty-two, blonde with big green eyes. She smiled in the photo showing perfect white teeth—an attractive young woman that came from money.

“Get anything else out of the judge?” I asked.

“I got a list of a couple of her friends that we can contact. Small list though, guess she spent most of her time with her boyfriend. What about you? Find out anything at the hospital?”

“Well, we talked to the attending. He seemed optimistic the Jake would make it.”

“That’s good. What are you guys working on now?” the captain asked.

“Hank is getting interviews set with the witnesses from last night. Until then, I want head over to the crime scene and have a look around. We’ll see, maybe one of the nearby businesses caught the vehicle coming or going. It’s worth a shot.”

“Keep me updated,” Bostok said.

I nodded.

I took the fliers with me and closed his door. I made my way to the station’s lunch room to try my luck with the coffee machine. From down the hall I could hear a familiar sound coming from the lunch room—banging. I rounded the corner and entered. The machine was occupied by a handful of officers beating on the sides of it.

“Damn thing is broke again!”

“What wrong with this piece of crap!”

“Give me some damn coffee!”

The officers shook the machine and rocked it from side to side. I turned around and continued back to Hank’s desk, there would be no espresso. Hank sat waiting as I arrived.

“Get appointments set?” I asked.

“Yup. One at three o’clock here, and one at five in Brandon.”

I looked at my watch. We had enough time to get what we needed from the crime scene and still be back in time to meet with the witness.

Hank tapped a folder on his desk with his finger. “Forensics just dropped off the file.”

“Let’s take it with. Here, toss these fliers I got from the captain in there. Grab the case folder too.” I handed Hank the stack of papers.

“What are these?”

“Jessica Casey fliers with a recent photo and info,” I said.

He looked a flier over and stuck the stack, plus the file from Forensics, into the folder for the case. We grabbed my unmarked Charger from the station’s lot and drove the four blocks to the scene. We pulled in and made our way up to the second floor. Brown stains of blood on the concrete confirmed the spot the attack took place. We parked and walked over.

Hank opened the folder our Forensics Department put together. We spent a few minutes looking at the blood stains, trying to recreate what happened.

“Looks like the drips start here and continue a few feet to here.” I pointed to the ground as I walked and the drips stains to the large puddle.

“Forensics has it that Jake laid there.” Hank jerked his head to a blood stain on the ground.

“What about this one here?” I pointed to the twelve inch stain a few feet away from the others.

“It has to be Jessica’s or her attacker’s. Sheet says it’s a different blood type.”

“Doubt it belongs the attacker. Witness reported that Jessica and Jake were both lying on the ground. What else does it say?”

“Says estimated blood loss using the MAR method, was around 60 milliliters.”

“So what is that?” I asked.

“Let me check my phone. I’m not so hot with the whole metric conversion thing.” Hank dug his phone from his pocket and clicked away at the screen. “Comes out to about two ounces of blood lost.”

“So she was on the ground bleeding, but only two ounces of blood lost?”

“Looks like it.”

“Good chance she was still alive when the guy took her.”

“How do you think it went down?” Hank asked.

“Well, I’m guessing our guy came up from behind the couple and struck Jake first. Eliminate the bigger threat. That happened around here.” I pointed to the start of the blood drops.

“He had to have hit Jessica here. She went straight down at the blood pool there.” I pointed.

“Think Jake was on his hands and knees, crawling forward?” Hank asked.

“It would account for the drips moving in that direction.”

“Then our guy went to finish the job on Jake?”

“Probably after seeing Jessica was no longer a threat, yeah. Finish Jake off, and then go back for Jessica. Then he got interrupted from our witness driving up the ramp there, and tossed her in the van to finish elsewhere.” I walked over to the side of the parking structure and looked out over the corner of East Whiting and South Franklin Street. “They both attended the college right next to us here, huh?”

“That’s what Casey said, yeah.”

“My eyes locked on the sports bar across the street. How many bars are within walking distance?”

“Nothing within a couple blocks, except Gamers.”

“They could have gone to the bar after class. Let’s go see if anyone is there.”

We left the car parked and walked down the stairs of the parking structure to the street. A half of a block later we were tugging at the front door—locked.

“Sign says they open at four o’clock,” Hank said.

I checked the time. They wouldn’t open for around another two hours.

“Hank.” I pointed up above our heads to the security camera aiming down at the entrance.

“They got video,” he said.

“Let’s take a peek around back.”

Hank and I rounded the side of the building toward the back. A large parking lot with a few scattered cars took up the entire side of the building. A delivery driver with a dolly was loading beer from his truck at the back.

We walked up. “Owner inside?” I asked.

He sat a keg of beer on the dolly. “Manager is. Do you need him for something?”

“We do. We’re from the TPD.”

“Sure, I’m just heading in now. I’ll get him.”

The driver carted the dolly through the propped back door and disappeared into the building. A minute or two later a different guy walked out. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. His black polo had a name tag that said
Bruce
with
Manager
below it.

“Bruce Leonard, I’m the manager here. Driver said you guys were from the police department?”

“Lieutenant Kane, this is Sergeant Rawlings. You have a minute to talk?”

“Sure, I got a couple minutes for you guys. Come on inside, we’ll grab a seat.”

We followed the manager through the back, passing a couple offices and the kitchen before we found a booth near the bar.

“I’m going to guess this has something to do with the attacks over in the parking structure?” he asked.

“So you’re aware of what happened?” Hank asked.

“Sure, something like that happening so close, word travels fast.”

“Did you work last night Mister Leonard?” I asked.

“I was here the earlier part of the night. We were swamped. I’m usually out of here at ten o’clock on Tuesday nights, but I stayed late last night due to the crowd from the basketball game. I still was home by a little after eleven.”

“We have a photo that we would like you to take a look at.” I motioned to Hank to get out a flier.

He slid one from the folder and held it up. “Did you happen to see this woman in here before you left?” Hank asked.

The manager took the flier and studied the photo. “I don’t know. I guess I couldn’t say for sure one way or the other. Like I said, we were pretty crowded last night.”

“Mister Leonard, we noticed that you guys have a video surveillance system in the bar here. Any chance we could take a peek at the video from last night and see if we spot her inside here?”

“Well, I’d be fine with it, but I’ll have to call the owner and get the OK.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” I said.

“Yeah, give me one minute. I’ll try to get him on the phone.”

The manager slid out and walked behind the bar to make the call.

Hank pulled his phone from his pocket, stared at it for a second and put it away.

“Waiting on a call?” I asked.

“No. One of the witnesses is going to be at the station in about a half hour.”

“If he’s going to let us see the footage, I’ll stay, and hoof it back when I’m finished. You can take the car back and interview the witness. If he says no, we’ll split and head back to the station.”

Hank nodded.

The manager walked back a minute or two later.

“Owner says OK. I figured he would, but I just had to check. He used to be a cop before he retired. Told me to do whatever I could to help. You guys want to follow me back to the office? We have everything that controls the video system back there.”

“Here.” I tossed the car keys to Hank.

Hank walked with the manager and me toward the offices before leaving out the back door of the bar. I grabbed a chair next to Bruce at the desk.

“Just give me a sec and I’ll have it pulled up. What time are we looking for?”

“One second.” I opened the case file and searched through looking for the time the 9-1-1 call was made. The report said: 3:06 a.m. “Between 2:00 a.m. and close.”

He pulled up the footage. The monitor displayed the playback in four squares across the screen. The bar was packed with people, almost shoulder to shoulder. Two of the cameras were aimed at the bar itself, catching the backs of customer’s heads. One camera covered the main seating area, and the last covered the front doors. It was going to be difficult to spot them in the sea of people. My best chance was the camera on the front door.

“These are the only views we have to work with?” I asked.

“Yup. The two cameras on the bar are to catch employees dipping into the till. It was the reason we installed the system in the first place.”

“Can you just give me the front door view between say 2:45 and 3:00 a.m.?”

“Sure thing. One second.”

He pulled the video and expanded the entry door’s footage to full screen. He fast forwarded through the frames, pausing it each time someone came into the picture. At 2:52 a.m., I found Jessica Casey and Jake Richwood on the screen. Four seconds of footage as they left the bar and crossed the street.

“Bruce, can I get a copy of all the video feeds starting around midnight until close? I can have the guys in our Tech Department go over them and see if we can locate the couple inside the bar.”

“Sure, I can copy the files. Do you have something to put them on?” he asked.

“Can you email them over?”

“I could try to compress them and attach them to an email but it will degrade the quality of the video. Chances are the files will still be too big.”

“Let me call over to the station. I’ll have one of our guys bring something over. What do you need?”

“Wait, I have a memory stick sitting here. It just has a bunch of photos on it that we were going to use for our website. I’ll transfer the photos over to my computer and we can just use that one.”

“That would be great. I appreciate it.”

He transferred the files off of the memory stick and made the copies of the video. The process took a few minutes.

“There you go. Should be all set.”

He handed me the drive. I stuck it in my pocket.

“Thanks again.”

“Sure. Hope it helps with your case and finding the girl.”

“I’ll have someone bring you the memory stick back when we’re finished with it.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Glad to help.”

After the four block walk back to the station, I went to go talk with someone in our Tech Department.

I walked in and found Terry Murphy sitting at his desk.

“What’s going on, Murphy?” I asked.

“I’m working on getting something from this cell phone that was dropped off. Guess the guys from the drug task force think it could have valuable contacts on it,” he said.

“Anything yet?” I asked.

“Nah, the phone is pretty much shot. SIM card is damaged.”

“Well, I have a couple videos I want someone to take a look at for me. You want a crack at it or should I grab someone else?”

“I’ll check them out. Need a break from this thing anyway.”

I handed Murphy the memory stick. He plugged it into the port on his computer and brought up the files.

“OK. What do you need?”

“There should be a video for the front door camera. Pull that up.”

“Yup, got it here.” He double clicked the file.

“Alright go to 2:52 a.m.”

He scrolled the bar at the bottom of the screen to the correct time.

“Let it play and pause it when you see a couple coming out of the front doors,” I said.

He let the video play for a few seconds. Jessica Casey and Jake Richwood entered the frame.