by ARKOPAUL DAS
‘No idea as of now’ said Kevin. ‘But I too think that yes there might be some information’
‘Some pictures maybe that he transferred from the camera to the pen drive before smashing the camera’
‘Or maybe some articles from NY Times’
‘Why would that be so valuable?’
‘I don’t know’
‘Well, we will check that tomorrow, better not predict it now’ Ryan ate some chips.
‘But even if something valuable is there in the pen drive, what was Jade Carter killed for? I think there is also somethin’ else going on here’
‘Right, but as they both worked as partners in NY Times, the killer must have thought that it’s better to kill them both’
‘Hmm. Got to be’
They soon stopped their discussion, retired to the bed, and fell asleep within a minute.
* * * * *
It was another clear and hot morning when they reached the precinct. The temperature was high as usual but it was a windy day, so that was a relief. It was 8 in the morning, Ryan and Kevin both drank some coffee and ate some snacks before entering the precinct. The weather was slightly uncomfortable, but they could survive, or so they thought.
The street in the morning generally remains clear, and today was no special, it was all the same. The traffic was less, but the jams would increase in some streets for sure as the day progresses. The parking lot outside the precinct was also a lot empty, which suggests that most of the uniforms were yet to come, save the few official cop cars.
As they entered, they found the ground floor a lot less noisy and nearly empty. They found a group of cops and a SWAT member between them drinking Pepsi and talking among themselves, but surely that was not about anything important.
They made their way inside the lift and soon reached the 2nd floor. And it was also empty except Trevor who was still typing something in the computer .Kevin checked Henderson’s room and found that he was there, making some phone calls and ignored them as they came inside his room.
He, after a minute banged the receiver of the land phone down and said ‘What?’
‘Where’s Alan and Alicia?’ asked Ryan as modestly as he could. He was not sure about Henderson’s mood today.
‘How the hell do you expect me to know that?’ he nearly yelled out.
‘Okay’ said Ryan and they both came out silently understanding that it was not the best time to ask him questions.
Kevin sat on the chair playing with a paperweight and said ‘What’s wrong with everyone today?’
‘No idea’
‘What idea?’
They turned back and saw that Alan first, then Alicia both of them entered the room with a file in her hand which she kept on the table in a manner like it was too heavy.
‘Where were you both?’ Ryan asked with a suspicious face.
‘To the morgue, what were you thinking?’ answered Alan.
‘Nothing’ replied Ryan.
‘And these are the autopsy reports’ said Alicia.
‘Oh I see’ said Ryan ‘umm...anything worth telling us?’
‘Nothing much, just that they have recovered the bullet that was inside our victims head’
‘What bullet was it?’
‘It’s said to be from a M99 sniper rifle’
‘And that’s all?’ asked Kevin.
‘Yes, other than that everything is normal and the autopsy doesn’t suggest much’
Alan’s I phone suddenly vibrated. He took it out, unlocked it and said ‘It’s a message from Luke’
‘What did he say?’
‘He just got confirmed with the room from where the sniper shot our guy’ said Alan. ‘He’s asking us to come and check it out’
‘Then’ Ryan stood taking the paperweight form Kevin’s hand and keeping it nicely on the table. ‘Let’s go’
‘Sure’
The next few minutes or so, saw them driving though the Madison Ave in order to reach the Broadway. It didn’t take much time as stated earlier that the roads were empty and they could zoom past the streets without any problem. They soon reached the Broadway and parked the car on the right side. Most of the shops here were still not open yet.
They came down all, Alan looked around for one time, that was a habit of him checking the area first before entering the main scene, then they all went inside the opposite building of the Plaza.
‘It’s mainly a residential complex’ said Ryan. ‘And parts of it are also used as storing things. The upper floor that is’
The room Luke found was in the 6th floor and unfortunately the elevator was out of service. So they were bound to take up the stairs thus losing all the energy so early in the morning .They, eventually after a lot of effort reached the second last floor and Luke met them there.
‘Just found out the room’ said Luke who was also breathing hard, must be the effect of the stairs. ‘The room is the 5th one from the left’
He led the way and walked straight past the other vast rooms, which were also too small, but empty, save some crates or large boxes in some of them.
‘Here’ he said and turned right. They followed him inside.
The room was small, empty with rough cement floor and walls with the colour that was blurry and coming off. There was no table nothing, not even a ceiling fan.
‘What is this room?’ asked Alicia looking around. The front wall had a large space, which was too large to call it a window. Actually, there was no border at the front, it was all empty and anyone could fall directly on the street if you push them of the edge. But it does give you a 360 degree view of the front building that was the Broadway Plaza. Some amount of sunlight fell on the Broadway Plaza, which made it looked more glittering and much better than what they saw yesterday. The sunrays looked cool but it was too hot, you couldn’t stand for more than 10 minutes at a stretch in the sun.
Alan tried to check the room, all the corners, everything, but there was hardly anything there to be checked.
Luke saw their faces and started explaining. ‘Well this room is empty because this is not a bedroom or something like that, all these rooms’ he pointed outside at all the other rooms ‘are used for storage. You may find some crates or boxes but other than that, it’s empty. Because it’s been cleared out yesterday. And I believe as far as the shooting angle is concerned, this is from where the shooter took the shot’
‘So this room was emptied last night?’ asked Alan.
‘I don’t know. They usually clear away the rooms and then again fill it. It goes on like this. But about this room, I asked everyone here not to enter it, so I think this room is just like it was’
‘I see’ said Alan, but still looked sceptic ‘And you’re sure this was from where the shooter took the shot?’
‘Yes I checked out all the angles and the laser beam was also quite helpful. This is definitely the room, no doubt about that’
He then called two other uniforms and they gave Luke a large long box.
‘What’s this?’ asked Ryan.
‘A sniper rifle’ Luke made everyone surprised. ‘The one I used for a test.’
Then he took the large sniper rifle out and placed it on the stand. He made it ready, loaded it, cocked and then took the aim at the other building. He took the position so that the muzzle of the rifle faces the particular room or Paul Brown’s window. The window was open, he took the aim, pulled the trigger, and the bullet flew out. It went straight inside the Paul Brown’s room and hit somewhere on the bed.
‘It’s a non lethal bullet’ said Luke ‘I used it to test. You saw that, the bullet bounced of the bed but had anyone sat there, the bullet would have hit right in his temple’
Luke pointed at the windows, now folding the rifle again. ‘This’s the right room’
‘Okay’ Alan nodded and came forward to the window and checked its edges first. Then he looked down at the both sides of the street. He saw cars and people moving around oblivious to whatever was going on abov
e them.
Then he looked straight at the window of the Broadway Plaza. It was half-open and the angle was forcing the sunrays to visit his retina.
He felt the angle was right, this was the room. So he turned back at Luke and said ‘Do you have anything more to say about the shooter?’
‘Well...’ Luke thought. ‘No nothing’ he said after a long time. Then he added ‘CSU checked the hotel room last night and found nothing more than that broken camera, and it was destroyed completely so the techs could not recover the files.’
‘Naturally’ Alan smiled at himself.
‘So about this shooter’ said Alicia. ‘Did anyone see him coming inside the building that night?’
‘No, I mean actually the security guards here are not quite sure about that’
‘And?’
‘Well I talked to the security guy who was in charge of this particular floor. He said that he saw a man coming here with a large rectangular bag or box kind of thing with him.’
‘Didn’t he ask the man what was in the box?’
‘Yes, he asked him that what business did he have here, the man said that he needed to replace a crate here. And as this thing, replacing crates and boxes goes on here, he didn’t mind much and let him go’
‘So he didn’t get a name’ said Alan.
‘Obviously not. He was sleepy at that time so he couldn’t even give a proper description of that man’
‘Huh’ Alan smiled again. ‘Did he hear any sound? A sniper rifle usually makes some noise when it’s fired’
‘He must have dozed off at that time’
‘Oh, terrific’ remarked Alan. ‘What time was it when the man came, did he remember that?’
‘It was half past 8 on Tuesday; yes that’s what he said.’ Luke said hesitatingly and thought hard again; just to be sure, what he was saying was correct.
‘That’s about the right time’ said Kevin. ‘It’s about 24 hours before we discovered the body, maybe a little more than 24 hours’
‘So that was a killer’ said Alan confidently, ‘He was right here’
‘Well...’ said Ryan.
‘Yes?’
‘If there’s nothing more here’ said Ryan. ‘We should go back to the precinct now and check the contents of the Pen Drive’
‘Right’ said Kevin.
‘Okay then let us go back’ said Alan.
They started walking back but Luke called them back again. He gave the mobile of Jade Carter to Ryan and said ‘Hey you wanted me make sure the mobile works. So I inserted a new battery in it and I think the baby is gonna be fine for some time now’
Ryan pocketed it and said ‘Thank you’
TWENTY SIX
It took an hour to come back, as they reached the 13th precinct and headed straight to the 2nd floor. Ryan unbuttoned his blazer and threw it on the desk, then he grabbed the nearest chair available, rolled it to his own table, sat down logging in the computer.
‘The mobile, is it working fine?’ asked Alicia.
‘Yes, he said so’ Ryan replied.
‘Let me see it’ said Kevin and opened the outer back cover of the phone. Then he checked the contents and remarked ‘So a new 2000MH lithion battery. Impressive’
‘Just hope it works’
‘Yes I think it will, it’s compatible with this model’
‘That’s good’
‘I will see it right away’ said Kevin, held the red button and unlocked the phone. ‘There you go, it’s working’ Kevin handed the mobile back to Ryan.
‘Right’ Ryan waited for the home screen to come into view.
The screen blinked twice, made a sound they didn’t recognize then resumed itself to the home screen with a blank grey wallpaper as the background.
Alan also came in and joined them.
‘You got something?’ he asked.
‘Just opened it’ said Ryan. ‘It’s working fine, but it’s also lagging a little’
‘Yes, it persists on this sort of Chinese phone.’
‘Yeah I know’
Ryan played through the keypad and went straight to the settings, the message inbox was empty so were the other files. There was no images (of course there would be none, the camera was beyond pathetic) there was no songs, no music player, nothing. There were a few flash games, which he ignored.
Then he opened the contacts and browsed through all the names, most of the names were of the NY Times building, and his wife’s number was also there. When he was satisfied that there was no other name, he moved towards the logs and clicked on - all calls. And there was a number. There was no name only the number. Then he scrolled the page until the very end and he found that the Vic called that number at least once, everyday in the past week.
Ryan then, let them have the phone; he said ‘This was the last number that he called’
The logs page was open as Alan took a quick glance at it.
‘Okay if this is the last number he called then we need to know whose number it is’ Alan said keeping the phone back on the table.
‘When was the last time he dialled this number?’ asked Alicia.
‘At 9 Sunday night’
‘That’s before when he was murdered’
‘Yes he was murdered that very morning’ said Alan ‘This call is important to us. We need to trace the number and find out where this call went to’
‘Yes I think we can do that’ said Ryan and pulled out the back cover for the second time. ‘Okay it’s a MTNL Sim, I hope we can trace the server, and pick up the location’
Ryan reopened their database, entered his IP address and then typed the number in a box. Alan sat down and stared at the screen. He pressed the enter key after rechecking the number. A buffering sign came in the middle and the page froze itself.
‘Huh, it’s loading. We can only hope that it would come up with a result’
‘How much time will it take?’
‘Not more than ten minutes, I guess’
‘Okay then’ said Alan and went outside in the lawn. He realised that he haven’t ate anything till now .Alan went to the coffee machine and filled up a plastic cup with cold coffee. Alicia also went there and did the same. Alan hardly eats anything when working on a case. People usually think fast with an empty stomach than a filled one, at least when working on something that involves murder, or so the studies suggest.
‘So what do you think?’ Alicia gazed at Alan and felt that she should keep a conversation going in the middle or she might feel uncomfortable.
‘About what?’ asked Alan sipping the coffee.
‘The case, the recent findings’ said Alicia holding her cup not sure if she should take the sip or not, as she plugged her brownish peanut coloured hair over her ear. She wore a casual pair of jeans and a white shirt , the condition of the clothes were not so good as she also wore it on the other days of the week but still she looked beautiful anyway.
‘Alan?’ she said this because she found Alan blankly staring at her saying nothing.
‘Uh yes’ Alan took another sip ‘I think we will get to know more soon as we have a few leads in our hand’
Alicia liked the way Alan referred as ‘we’ which suggests that he might be leading the case but he’s considering everyone here.
Alicia quickly changed the topic as she saw that the topic ends there. ‘So I heard that you were in Washington last year’
‘Yes I was’ he said and felt the urge to add another sentence. ‘Someone got murdered that’s why’
‘But why do you need to go to Washington to solve a murder, isn’t there enough murder already going on in the streets of New York?’
‘There is for sure, but I needed to go because that particular murder involved the NYPD too. That’s why. It was actually a lot more complicated than it sounds’
‘I see...so that case got solved?’
‘Yes, it’s solved’ Alan failed to find, what more there was to say.
Alicia then shifted her attention to the coffee a
nd took the first sip. Alan copied her.
‘Well...’ Alicia went on but Ryan’s voice interjected in the middle. ‘Hey guys come one here, just found the result’
Alicia kept the half-finished cup on the machine and hurried inside without saying anything more, Alan finished the last drop and went in behind her.
‘Tell me you got the location’ said Alicia as she joined Ryan.
‘Positive’ said Ryan and scrolled to the second page. ‘The server traced a cell tower near the place. The tracking system suggests that the location is the East 56th street. Someone uses this number, there’
‘Do we know whose phone is this?’
‘No, the server does not provide any personal data’
‘So we don’t know who he called that night?’ said Kevin.
‘Apparently not’ said Ryan, flatly this time and sat back in the chair keeping his hands over his head and looking at everyone, if someone could invent a method to find the user.
‘And’ Ryan sat upright again. ‘If we really wanna know whose number is this then we'd have to pay a visit to the destination and make a thorough investigation to find out who uses this phone’
‘That’ll be tough’ said Alicia.
‘And awkward’ added Kevin.
‘And impossible’ said Alan. ‘We have to find another way to find this man’
‘What other way is there?’ said Kevin. ‘We should go there and see what we can do’
Alicia made a face but kept quiet; she was not sure about what to do. Then she suddenly remembered something and said ‘Hey Ryan, what about the pen drive you got?’
‘Oh right, forgot about that completely’ Ryan said and opened the drawer of the table to take it out. It wasn’t there in the first drawer so he opened the other chamber and got it this time.
He held it and said ‘Here it is’
‘Check it out’
‘Right’ Ryan clicked the red area, and the metal came out, he plugged it to one of the USB ports in the CPU and after a minute, a new window opened in the home page of the desktop.
He clicked the left button of the mouse and opened the folder and a bunch of more folders came into view. He opened one and found a bunch of .doc files. He also tried checking another one and found another bunch but this time of .pdf files.
