Chapter 4. Detective Versus Inspector
November 1, 2015
The officers froze, appeared to read each other's minds again without looking at each other, and turned back around. "There's no security footage," said Dianthea. Leander crossed his arms over his chest and glared Jimmy down in silent agreement.
"Detective Fog doesn't keep a security camera in her office?" said Jimmy. He gave Cassandra a look that said best officers in the force.
Dianthea and Leander finally exchanged glances as well. Leander took his turn as the mouthpiece. "There's no footage in any of these disappearing body cases. The murderer's too smart for that. If there was a camera in Detective Fog's office, the crime never would have been committed there."
A monumental shrug from Jimmy said he didn't give a hoot about the officer's reasoning, and he elaborated on that, "Why don't we take a look and see?" He waved the officers to come back around the desk to watch with him and called up the security footage on his thin-screen monitor. It took a second to load, during which time he added, "I don't know how you ever made inspector, Inspector. Don't feel so bad, though; Officer Savalas asked me for a copy. I hope they give her your job. Now that's real police."
Everyone fell quiet as the footage began to play, Dianthea and Leander looking over one each of Jimmy's shoulders, Dianthea somewhat pushing Cassandra out of the way.
They were looking at the inner office from the top right corner opposite the window, and it was empty. Impatient, Jimmy scanned the image until there was movement, two figures, one dressed light and one dark, but he went too far and backed up to watch them enter the room. The woman came in first, dressed in a sky blue peplum suit jacket and a white fedora, at gunpoint; the killer, in a black suit and black fedora, followed.
Not much was visible except a slim, straight up and down form. Not so much as a shadowed chin was visible. Even as the perp came into the center of the office, their face was invisible to the camera under the hat brim. The awkward head turn almost suggested that they already knew where the camera was. The counter at the bottom of the video player reeled off a total of five seconds between the killer following Athena Rex into the room and pulling the trigger, firing, as Leander had pointed out, one to the head and one to the chest.
The shots rang out of the tinny computer speaker like a low-budget low-fi film school clip and Dianthea started even though it wasn't loud. "That was with audio?" she said as the killer walked out before the body hit the floor, not rushing but fast, head low below the hat brim. There hadn't been a single sound up until the report of the compact Beretta.
"Play that again," said Dianthea. Jimmy obliged, once, twice, three times. Every time it played out like a silent movie until the cacophony of bad quality audio that marked the firing of the gun. "You're telling me he didn't say anything? No instructions, no final words?"
"He?" Cassandra responded right away. "Did you see that Beretta? That's a ladies' gun. Looked like a woman to me."
The other three turned to look at her as one, but no one dignified her with a reply.
Instead Jimmy responded to Dianthea's question. "You heard it just like the rest of us. No dialogue. I don't know what to tell you."
"It almost sounds like you added that gunshot after."
"Me?" said Jimmy, covering his heart with his hands in the picture of offense.
"Yeah, you," said Dianthea. "Step away from the computer, Jimmy, I'm taking this with me."
"I can send you the files, officer."
"Not a chance, slick. I'm taking the whole computer. I'd just take the hard drive or whatever if I knew what the heck that was."
"Call in a tech analyst, some late night geek type." The whine that was coming out of Jimmy's mouth was the only sincere communication he'd spoken all night. He really didn't want the police to take his computer.
"You can borrow Malyssa's, Jimmy, but I'm taking this one. Next question, how long have you had security cameras in the office?"
Leander hefted the heavy desktop tower under his arm as if with complete knowing that Dianthea didn't have many more questions.
"Since always," said Jimmy. "We bought this model when we moved into this building two years ago. It's tiny, right now it's hidden in a hat on the hat stand."
"How long has it been in that location?"
"Couple of hours," said Jimmy. He elaborated in response to her wide eyes. "Whenever we both leave the office, whoever's last to leave the place empty, we move it. That's my favorite spot. You'll see the footage is from a dozen different angles, depending on the day."
As if Leander was Dianthea's twin and not Detective Malyssa Fog, the two nodded knowingly without even looking at each other. This apparently infuriated Jimmy Lambeti. "What are you so pleased about? Aren't you baffled as to how the killer knew where the camera was located? Or have you two crack detectives already solved the case?" He chuckled at that, a low laugh at first but then he slapped his knee and really let it out.
Cassandra smiled, warming to him.
"Anything else you'd like to submit for evidence, Mr. Lambeti?" Dianthea asked when he was done.
The room got quiet for several seconds and all smiles vanished. Somehow Cassandra Aniston had become a staunch ally of Jimmy Lambeti and she crossed her arms in front of her chest, the uncountable diamonds of an engagement and wedding ring set glistening on her left hand. The square faced private investigator leaned back in his chair with a challenge in his eyes. Outside the window there was the unlikely sound of car tires on wet streets which signalled the occasional rainfall in San Francisco; the drought had been getting worse, the only thing more unlikely was the sound of actual raindrops.
All parties slightly cocked their heads toward the window for a number of seconds to listen for the slightest hint of pitter patter, but of course there was none to be heard. It hardly ever really came down in The City.
Satisfied, Jimmy talked over the faint indications of changing weather and said, "I'm not doing your job for you, officer."
"That's fine," said Dianthea, moving a third and hopefully final time toward the door, because the pair of cops really would look stupid if they made to leave again and Jimmy pulled out something else that they'd missed.
Leander stayed where he was just in case. "As long as you realize how this looks. You're a mite bit on the short side in comparison to the average male, I'd put you about an inch or two shorter than me, let's say five foot six? As far as I can see that video makes you the most likely suspect. You know where the camera is, you know there's audio, so any spoken words will be captured, and, well, it's your office. That could've been you hiding beneath the hat rim."
Finally at the end of his tether, Jimmy stood up from the desk and the desk chair rolled a few inches back. "Of course. It wouldn't be real police work if you didn't at least try to pin it on the African American in the room. Do you two incompetent gumshoes really need everything spelled out for you? Of course it looks like it's me. Jeez Louise, it's called a frame-up, chaps. That's why you can't see the murderer's face, that's why the murder was committed in this office, that's why there's security footage when there's never been any before."
"Yes, but here's the fun part," said Dianthea. "You are going to do my job for me. Because it's a pretty good frame-up, and with the face turned away from the camera, it really looks like it's you in the video. We can't even tell the gender, but statistically speaking, when a woman is killed, it's a man holding the gun. I can't tell the race of the perpetrator. All we have is your height and your physique. So it's in your best interest, I believe, to crack the case, eh? You look like a well-equipped and accomplished crime solver — isn't that what it says on the door?
"I'll be at the bar. Probably the Dogpatch Saloon. I'll text you if we move to another watering hole."
This time she and Leander did move out, the door slammed behind them, and Jimmy was laughing again as he fell back into his chair.
"Those two are the most useless police I've ever had the displeasure of working with," he told Cassandra. "But at least I've been formally invited by the police to investigate the case."
A/N: Thank you for reading Detective Fog. It's just one story in the Constellations series. Why not check out Stars Rise, another novel in the Constellations universe? The series can be read in any order, and you will find Leander's character in both novels.
This book does not need any knowledge from the rest of the series in order to follow the story. Yet a few fun easter eggs will come out in the next few weeks, and it will be fun if you read even just the first few chapters of Stars Rise :)
And drop a star for me on your way out, won't you?
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