* * * *
The briefing room was full with all 25 seats taken by other detectives and patrolmen. The overflow of other officers occupied the sidewalls. At the podium in front stood Lieutenant Scott Wilson younger than most of the force in attendance and was considered by many an astute political strategist. Despite his age, most of the station house liked him because he was charismatic, he socialized well with his subordinates, and he didn't step on his coworkers during his advancement through the ranks of the division. Detective Green, one of the few, found it hard to work with him, especially since he felt he had amassed more experience being a field detective almost three times as long as Scott Wilson had been on the force. Detective Matthews, on the other hand, didn't care.
Four men in suits entered the briefing room and stood with erect stances behind Lieutenant Wilson next to the white board. One-on-one chatter ended abruptly as most of the officers and detectives each speculated on who the men were.
“Detectives, officers,” the lieutenant began. “First off, just a reminder of something I'm quite sure you are all well aware, don’t release any information to the public. The department is having public affairs withhold all information until something more definitive is determined. The coroner won't have anything for us for at least a couple of days, so those hoping to have more information will have to wait.” He sorted through and scanned several of the papers on top the podium before continuing. “Some of you working key points of this investigation may have already received some of the evidence from the crime scene. We received permission from the Feds to release what we do have. They will be taking the lead until it’s determined that it was not a terrorist-related act. They've already used a considerable amount of resources on this investigation.” Many in the room grumbled at the comment.
Detective Matthews attempted to suppress his continual coughing; sometimes he was successful, other times the vibration of phlegm in his throat would amplify the sound. The lieutenant continued despite Detective Matthews’s unintentional interruptions. “They think one possible motive is revenge for not being invited as a primary attendee or getting standby tickets to the funeral. Detectives Salinski, Johnson, Eidelbacher, and Juarez will work with Special Agent Normans as lead, reviewing and interviewing the list of all potential attendees. I know some of you already interviewed witnesses and those waiting outside in the standby line yesterday afternoon; do it again.”
As the lieutenant continued discussing other assignments, both Detectives Green and Matthews found their attention wandering until their names were mentioned. “Detectives Green and Matthews will work with Special Agent Underwood talking to the only known witness. I'll need to talk to this team right after we're done here. Plus there was a new development since last night. Three more bodies were found that weren’t in the chapel: an attendant working in the basement, a shift manager working in the back office, and a receptionist. Folks, now is no time for speculation; we need to gather solid evidence and work to determine what went down at the crime scene. We'll meet back here today at 1700 to discuss any new findings and pass it on to the command center for this investigation. Dismiss.”
The officers assigned to the cases spilled out into the hallway to meet with their agent counterparts while the others headed back to their offices or small cubicles. Detectives Green and Matthews caught up with Agent Underwood and made the obligatory introductions. The agent's grip was solid and firm. As they finished up, Lieutenant Wilson walked up to the three men. “I see you’ve met. What do you plan to do today?”
Agent Underwood was about to answer when Detective Green interjected, “We're going back to the hospital to finish interviewing Stephen Williams. Hopefully he’s more coherent today.”
“Detective Green, that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you both abou ...,” the lieutenant began. Agent Underwood interrupted, “We already interviewed Mr. Williams this morning. There's nothing new he can tell us at this time. If need be, we'll head back to talk to him later.”
Detective Matthews’s eyebrow arched. Detective Green reacted with an angry outburst. This was another reason Detective Green didn’t like the lieutenant; he easily could’ve led off with this information. “What the hell?” Detective Green blurted out, focusing on the lieutenant. “Why weren't we involved with this? This is bullshit.”
Conversations in the hallway went silent. Everyone focused on Detective Green. They resumed their conversations realizing his outburst was incidental.
“Did you get a chance to review the photos and videos from the crime scene?” Agent Underwood answered for the lieutenant, maintaining a calm, collected voice.
“Yeah? So what?”
“We jumped on this, and our video forensics team downloaded and scoured the images and video overnight. Several showed Mr. Williams in the background until just before the estimated time of the event. He’s not relevant at this time.”
Lieutenant Wilson broke into the conversation. “Detectives, special agent, there’s one other thing. An outside investigation team from the Church may be joining up with you later at the crime scene or visiting Stephen Williams at the hospital.”
All three men focused a look of disbelief at the lieutenant. Detective Green turned toward the special agent and presented him with a sarcastic grin, “Sucks doesn't it?”
“Who authorized that?” Special Agent Underwood asked.
“It was cleared through your SAIC in the command center.”
Agent Underwood pulled out a tattered and scratched smartphone device, scrolled through a contacts list, and stepped away from the group to the other side of the hallway with the phone to his ear.
“Detectives, look, between you and me, I don't think the FBI will be around during this investigation too long. They're just going through the motions right now. You know there’s no way in hell they would've allowed anyone from outside our department to enter the crime scene this early in the game.”
“Then why in hell are we, especially the Church?” Detective Green asked, still faintly upset.
Lieutenant Wilson moved in a little closer to the men, reducing the volume of his voice. “From my understanding, Cardinal Millhouse asked a personal favor from the chief. At first the chief denied his request, but when Millhouse somehow managed to get the Feds to allow it to happen, they called the mayor, and next thing you know, they were allowed to investigate. Look, just babysit them and make sure they don't get in the way of our guys? OK.”
“Why would they even want to get involved?” Detective Matthews asked, finally chiming in.
“They want to rule out anything supernatural. Imagine what it does to the Church if angels are going around killing people.”
“Sure, if you believe in that crap. How many are we supposed to babysit?”
“Not sure yet, but the other inside chatter is that some are already trying to call this an accident or inconsequential mishap, maybe a gas leak or fumes from improper ventilation from the adjacent crematorium.”
“We just need to do our job lieutenant. Let us find out what happened,” Detective Matthews injected along with a congested cough.
“Look, you both just need to deal with it. Agent Underwood is lead until determined otherwise. End of story.”
Detective Green found it difficult to accept the lieutenant's edict. But he decided to back down, knowing there are battles you fall on your sword over, others where you withdraw. Detective Matthews tended to be more laissez-faire in these situations. Sometimes this would upset Detective Green even more because he’d think Detective Matthews didn’t care. Detective Matthews’s view was that if something is going to happen, it’s going to happen, you can't change fate. Whenever the two of them would discuss worldviews, religion, or politics, one saw life in terms of decision determining destiny and the other as destiny without influence on decisions. Both retreated to their office and left Agent Underwood talking on his cell phone in the hal
lway.
At their desks, they both resumed looking through the photos from several other of the victims’ cameras. They were a bit peeved when Agent Underwood entered into the office without knocking. Detective Matthews could see Detective Green getting upset, his partner’s face was turning several shades of red. He thought he should diffuse the situation and said, “Agent Underwood, we're reviewing some of the photos from the incident. Want to go over some of them with us?”
“No thanks. Our analysts already reviewed quite a few of them last night. I dropped the ones we cleared on your desks this morning. They didn’t find much of anything.”
Detective Green, barely managing to keep his control, reacted harshly, “Why in hell would you give them to us?”
“We believe in sharing information,” the agent responded.
“Then why work behind our backs instead of bringing us in right away, and why not tell us about talking with Stephen Williams instead of us being coldcocked after the brief?”
Agent Underwood maintained his stone-faced expression but clearly sensed the antagonism in Detective Green's comments. “It wasn't my decision. I can tell you why we think Stephen Williams isn't a person of interest at this time.”
Detective Green was stunned. Detective Matthews accepted the comment and, instead of getting ready to sign on to the online case file system, he pushed his keyboard to the side to focus his attention directly on the conversation.
Agent Underwood continued, “I don't know if you’ve noticed that a lot of the photos on your desk have time stamps, and they run up to the time right before the incident. Any images after that were either deleted or simply disappeared from the memory. Even cameras using film were the same; frames up until about 2:29 p.m. held images. Successive frames were blank. There were some who were using their phones’ or camera video recorder. We came across the same results; the video went blank at that same time. So we immediately thought maybe some sort of electromagnetic device.”
“What did the video show before then?” Detective Matthews asked.
“Pretty much the same thing as the stills, just a bunch of activity inside and outside of the chapel at the funeral home. We saw attendees coming in, taking seats, eating food, and then the service beginning up until it appeared it was ending. After that, everything went blank.”
“So what about Stephen Williams?” Detective Green asked.
“Investigators searching the crime scene found a security system with several cameras and a DVR. Our forensic digital specialists are still reviewing the video. Initially, it looks like no one tampered with it. What we’ve seen so far is an overhead view of the chapel with funeral in progress. Just before the incident, a lot of the victims looked to be sniffing the air and looking up, and some of them were looking in the direction of the altar.
“You can see Stephen Williams in his pew after getting some food. A little less than a minute before the incident, the video went bright white and blank for almost 90 seconds. When the image reappears, everyone in the chapel is dead with no visible trauma and Stephen Williams isn’t in the chapel. That’s when he went outside to the parking lot. One minute they're alive then, wham, they’re dead.”
“Couldn't he have been working with someone else?” Detective Matthews inquired.
“That's why we're still working this. When we see people smelling the air and looking around, we’re thinking maybe there was a release of some sort of noxious gas. Yet we couldn't find any type of device or any tampering with the ducting or anything else in the ventilation system, nothing illicit. Discounting the other three victims being found in different parts of the facility, it’s beginning to seem like some sort of weird, unexplainable accident.”
“When you talked to Stephen Williams, did he spout off some weird crap about angels?” Detective Green asked, calmer than before.
“The reality is no angels were seen on any of the cameras, or video, or anywhere else. With all the hypothetical angel visits over the years, there’s never been a report of one going rogue and killing a room full of people. Our only witness mentioned a lot of stuff, that's another reason we're thinking some sort of gas or chemical leak causing delirium or hallucinations.”
“Aren’t you making a lot of assumptions?” Detective Matthews noted rhetorically.
“No, we're making an analysis based on evidence presented. This was not a supernatural event. None of the peripheral signs of this being a terrorist or orchestrated event are there either, and no one’s claimed responsibility, so we just don’t know.”
The Fallen and the Elect Page 8
