Tracking Shot

by Colin Campbell

  The thing he’d learned more recently was that people will bend over backward if they think they might get into the movies. Having Titanic Productions take up half the rooms was incentive enough. Helping the police liaison adviser with the promise of a bit part was like gold.

  “No problem. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  The security office was a small room just behind the reception desk. It had all the usual things, like a security log, flashlights and pepper spray. The part-time security patrols weren’t allowed firearms, mainly because they were recruited from the bottom of the gene pool and might end up shooting the guests. If there was any rowdy behavior, it was better to call the police than have security take matters into their own hands. The multi-camera security system was something else though. It was the Crescent Motel’s pride and joy. In glorious color.

  “Okay. So here’s what we cover,” said the clerk.

  The room was only big enough for one viewing monitor, so instead of having several TVs, the screen was split into four. It had the capability to split into eight or twelve, but the motel only had four cameras. Nevertheless, the lack of coverage did nothing to dampen the operator’s enthusiasm. He tapped the keyboard and brought up the live feed.

  “Reception.” He pointed to the top left image on the screen.

  “Second floor balcony.” Top right.

  “Parking lot entrance.” Bottom left.

  “And parking lot.” Bottom right.

  McNulty scrutinised each segment. The reception camera was in the corner above the front door, pointing toward the check-in desk. Anybody coming in or out would have to pass through its field of view. Any trouble at the counter would be caught on camera, therefore preventing trouble before it started. Good positioning. Sensible precaution. Protect the receptionist, mainly at night when rowdy behaviur was more prevalent.

  The balcony camera was at the far end and angled to cover its entire length. Access to the upstairs rooms was from this balcony, meaning there was no entry at the front. There was some collateral view above the balcony, but only treetops and distant buildings. Anyone coming up the stairwell would get a close-up, but from the middle stairs to the other end the figures would be grainy shadows.

  The parking lot entrance had the best camera. There was no barrier. Any vehicles using the narrow lot at the back of the motel would be caught coming in or driving out. Whether it caught the driver would depend on how close they sat to the windshield, but it would certainly capture the license number.

  The parking lot camera was about as much use as the one on the balcony, the far corner giving a long view away from the motel. It caught an angle of wall but mostly aimed at the parking slots in case anyone broke into guests’ vehicles. As with the balcony, any figures would be small and distant unless they walked directly under the camera.

  “Can you make these bigger?”

  “Sure thing.”

  A couple of taps on the keyboard and the individual views became full screen. The first one up was the reception area, larger and more detailed, but it wasn’t the one McNulty wanted to see.

  “The balcony?”

  The operator switched cameras and the balcony view filled the screen. Again, more detail but not close enough to Randy Severino’s room. Next he checked the full screen views of the parking lot and the entrance. Having gotten his bearings it was time to push to the next level. He glanced at the base unit under the monitor, then rested a hand on the young man’s shoulder and put added friendliness into his voice.

  “So, how long do you keep the recordings?”

  Strictly speaking the police can’t view recordings without a court order or a search warrant. There are rules of evidence that have to be observed for any CCTV to be admissible in court. But McNulty wasn’t seizing evidence for court and he wasn’t a cop. He was a celebrity asking a favor of a young man with the promise of giving him a favor in return—a walk-on part in a Hollywood movie. Well, a Boston-based Titanic Productions movie, anyway. The young man cued the recording to the relevant times and showed McNulty how to switch between cameras, then he had to go deal with a rash of guests who were checking in.

  McNulty settled into the chair and watched the day unfold, beginning from an hour before he’d come to search Severino’s room. He watched in multi-screen mode first so he could see what each camera showed, then viewed the individual camera views for more detail. What he came up with was this:

  Forty-five minutes before McNulty had arrived, the red van pulled into the parking lot. It passed through the entrance and showed its arse to the camera. There was no signage on the back doors. The license plate had been smeared with mud. Once it was in the parking lot, it spun around and parked against the back of the motel, facing away from the distant camera. It sat there for a few minutes before a man got out of the passenger door. The van was too close to the wall for the driver’s door to open. The figure went around the front of the van and disappeared.

  A few minutes later a man came up the end stairs farthest from the balcony camera and began checking room numbers. When he found the one he wanted, he didn’t hesitate; he simply shouldered the door open and went inside.

  There was a long segment where nothing happened, then somebody came out from the middle stairwell and walked away from the camera. McNulty recognized himself, but his figure was so indistinct on the video that you couldn’t stand up in court and swear to it. A little later, McNulty is shown doing his thing with the key card, then slipping the latch, helped by the door having already been forced. He went inside and closed the door.

  More time passed. Not long. Then the first man burst from the room and raced toward the camera. White male. Medium height. Medium build. After a few seconds, McNulty followed and gave chase. In desperate flight now, the first man approached the camera, but before his image could become clear, a uniformed cop appeared from out of the stairwell, blocking the view of the camera. The cop drew his weapon. The fleeing man went over the balcony railing and slid off the roof of the red van.

  Now it was time to check multiple angles. The balcony. The parking lot. The entrance camera. The fleeing man ran across the parking lot and disappeared onto the riverside walk. McNulty bounced off the van roof and tumbled to the ground. He got to his feet facing the wrong way, then followed. They were both lost from view. The cop fired a warning shot from the balcony and spoke into his shoulder mic. Fast words. Urgent gestures. Then he went back down the stairs.

  Peace. Tranquillity. No movement. Until the red van eased out of its parking bay and heads for the exit. It didn’t drive fast. It didn’t draw attention to itself. It drove calmly and quietly around the end of the motel and along the exit lane. Right under the camera. The angle was too high to see the driver’s face, but he was shorter and bulkier than the intruder. When the van drove out of the camera’s view, McNulty stopped the recording.

  The police hadn’t viewed the CCTV yet. As far as they were concerned, a petty thief was stealing from motel rooms. They seemed undecided as to whether the culprit was the running man or McNulty. As for McNulty himself, before watching the recording, he had thought the running man was simply somebody searching for the Zapruder film, possibly the gunman himself. He certainly fit the vague description that witnesses had given. White male. Medium height. Medium build. That was before he’d seen the red van that had once been grey.

  Viewing the CCTV changed everything. Now it wasn’t just about the man burgling Severino’s room. Now there were two culprits. This had turned into a grassy knoll situation, because now it wasn’t a lone gunman.

  Just then there was some commotion behind the check-in desk. McNulty looked through the door and saw the receptionist go outside and peer around the corner. McNulty got up and looked through the side window. Blue lights were flashing across the river where McNulty had seen the fishermen earlier. McNulty squinted through the dying sun, then stood up straight. Over by the industrial complex a police launch was pulling something o
ut of the water.

  SIXTEEN

  Nova Biomedical was practically opposite the Crescent Motel, but McNulty had to cross the bridge then walk along the Charles River Greenway to reach the empty parking lot. It wasn’t empty anymore. There were emergency vehicles, blue flashing lights and men in uniform. He wasn’t sure what had sent the shiver down his spine. He’d seen dead people before. Even some that had been dragged from the river. Given his vantage point from the motel, there was nothing to suggest he might know who it was.

  Except it was across the river from the motel.

  And upstream from the bridge.

  Right along the route the leisure boat had taken after turning around.

  The police launch had hoisted the body aboard by the time McNulty reached the crowd of onlookers. White male. Hard to tell but somewhere around medium height and medium build. The crew hadn’t wasted time trying to revive him. There are people who look dead and there are people who look like there’s a fifty-fifty chance you can save them. This guy was dead and he wasn’t coming back. He was tangled in weeds and river skank. Judging by the angle of the head, his neck was broken.

  “Back up. There’s nothing to see here.”

  The uniformed cop held his arms wide and urged the crowd back while one of his colleagues strung crime-scene tape across the footpath. A paramedic clambered up a gangplank to examine the casualty. It wasn’t long before he announced what the cops already knew: The guy was dead. His neck was broken. Everything else would be determined by autopsy and the medical examiner.

  McNulty turned his attention to the onlookers. He didn’t consider himself to be one of them because deep down inside he still felt like a cop. It amazed him how quickly people gathered around disasters and tragedies. Even motorists driving past an accident became rubberneckers. The difference between an accident and a crime scene was that sometimes perpetrators came back to view their handiwork. McNulty scanned the crowd to see if anyone looked like they’d broken this fella’s neck.

  An ambulance backed into the edge of the parking lot and a second paramedic wheeled out a gurney. The victim might already be dead, but removal was still their responsibility. Another police unit arrived and blocked the entrance to the parking lot. A cop got out and stood with a clipboard to start a scene log, recording the name of anyone who attended the crime scene. He came across and got the names of the officers who were already there, then returned to the entrance.

  A helicopter thudded overhead. It hung back toward the bridge then slowly swung downriver to get the scenic angle with sun reflecting off the water—TV news with a cinematic bent. McNulty didn’t bother looking to see which network was covering the breaking news. He concentrated on the crowd to see if anybody was avoiding being caught on camera, anyone who didn’t want to be connected to the crime scene. Nobody scurried away. Nobody hid their face.

  He turned his attention to the riverside, checking for CCTV cameras. He already knew what the Crescent Motel cameras covered, but he scanned the south bank opposite the industrial complex. There were a couple of small businesses but most of the buildings were private houses. Riverside property was always a premium location. He checked the north shore next. Back along the footpath the Greenway wound its way through the Riverwalk Park alongside the Fitchburg Line, the rail service into Boston. There was nothing with CCTV until the Francis Cabot Lowell Mill beyond the bridge. The only thing near the crime scene was Nova Biomedical, which owned the long flat industrial buildings at the far end of the parking lot. They would probably have security cameras. The question was, which way were they pointing? No doubt Waltham PD would check them once the scene had been cleared.

  Raised voices drew McNulty’s attention back to the police launch. The paramedics had almost dropped the gurney over the side as they carried the body down the gangplank. There was no winch and tackle; this was a manual transfer. One of the boat crew grabbed the gurney and helped steady the balance. The three men crabbed their way to dry land then lowered the wheels. The paramedics adjusted the corpse and tightened the straps.

  A plain Crown Vic pulled into the parking lot and the cop at the entrance jotted something on the scene log. There was a brief conversation through the open window. The helicopter drifted south and west to get a fresh angle on the first responders and the riverside death. The crowd refused to disperse despite more commands from the uniformed cop. The blue and white tape fluttered in the breeze. The gurney was wheeled up the embankment onto level ground.

  McNulty looked toward the motel and retraced an imaginary route that wasn’t imaginary at all. Motel parking lot to the riverside walk. Riverside walk to midway across the bridge. Then a sweeping curve on the river and a continuation along the north shore until the hump of land where Nova Biomedical narrowed the channel. Where the leisure boat had to steer left before continuing to its home base. He looked back at the gurney being wheeled toward the ambulance and replayed what little he knew.

  Shooter at the movie set.

  White male. Medium height and medium build.

  Intruder at the Crescent Motel.

  White male. Medium height and medium build.

  Body in the river.

  White male. Possibly medium height and medium build.

  It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots but McNulty was cautious about drawing conclusions with insufficient evidence. That’s where TV news and investigating officers differed. The press loved to draw conclusions. The police only wanted the facts.

  The plain Crown Vic eased across the parking lot and pulled up behind the ambulance. The helicopter drifted closer, looking for the money shot. A close-up of the body when it was transferred to the ambulance. They were about to get a whole lot more than that.

  A detective got out of the Crown Vic. McNulty slipped away from the crowd and ducked under the crime scene tape. The paramedics reached the back of the ambulance and opened the doors. McNulty came around one side. Detective Jon Harris came around the other and waved for the paramedics to stop. He unzipped the body bag to get his first look at the deceased. McNulty stepped past the paramedic to get a look himself.

  White male. Medium height and medium build.

  McNulty blinked back his surprise when he looked at the face. It wasn’t the man he’d chased from Randy Severino’s motel room. It was Randy Severino.

  PART TWO

  “Seems like we’ve got a lot more to talk about.”

  —Jon Harris

  SEVENTEEN

  McNulty knew he shouldn’t have, but he did exactly the wrong thing. The shock of seeing Severino’s pasty, dead face forced a kneejerk reaction. He spun on his heels and tried to dash around the side of the ambulance. Harris saw him. A uniformed cop wrestled him to the ground. And Fox 25 caught it all on camera.

  “Seems like we’ve got a lot more to talk about.”

  Jon Harris closed the interview room door and sat opposite McNulty. The sun was long gone by the time McNulty had been searched and documented. He had been read his rights this time. He was under arrest. The interview room didn’t have a window overlooking the parking lot. There was no coffee machine.

  “I’ve never understood why they return to the scene of the crime.”

  McNulty didn’t speak. Harris straightened a manila folder on the table and tried to get comfortable in his chair, which was bolted to the floor, along with the table. The walls were soundproofed for better recordings. The recorder wasn’t on. Not yet. The detective mimed taking photos.

  “Always a good idea to take pictures of the crowd.” He lowered his hands. “What I don’t understand, you being you, why run?”

  McNulty shifted in his seat. “I didn’t run. I was going to be sick.”

  Harris looked at him. “Because you’ve never seen a dead body before. Right?”

  McNulty shook his head. “Not somebody I knew. It was a shock.”

  That part was true. McNulty had seen plenty of bodies but it made a surprising differe
nce when the face staring back at you was somebody you knew. When the light goes out behind the eyes it changes everything. The face stops being an extension of the personality and becomes a dead blank canvas. Nothing behind it. A waxwork of whomever it had once been. Randy Severino might have been new to Titanic Productions, but McNulty had worked with him and shared time in the cafeteria. Seeing him dead was almost as bad as seeing the shooting victims.

  Harris opened the folder and leafed through the papers inside. “Ah yes, the missing cameraman.” He shuffled them together and straightened the pile. “The guy whose room you were searching.”

  McNulty jerked a thumb to one side. “It was the other guy searching it. I chased him off.”

  Harris leaned back in his chair. “Unless the guy you chased off was…” He checked the name in the file. “Severino.”

  McNulty kept steady eyes on the detective. “Why would he be searching his own room?”

  Harris returned the stare. “Exactly. But if you were doing the searching and he disturbed you…”

  “Then he’d be chasing me.”

  Harris shook his head. “Medium height. Medium build.” He sized up McNulty. “How big are you?”

  McNulty gave a blank look. “Not medium.”

  Harris raised his eyebrows. “No you’re not, are you? So when Mr. Medium disturbs Mr. Big, who d’you think’s going to chase whom?”

  McNulty sighed. “It wasn’t him.”

  Harris smiled. “Yeah. And you didn’t make a run for it, either.”

  McNulty crossed his heart and held a hand up. “I swear by Almighty God.”

  Harris stopped smiling. “You can swear all you want. When we check the motel CCTV.”

  McNulty shrugged. “Good luck with that.”

  Harris sat still and looked at the Yorkshireman. “Meaning?”