by Sijal Aziz
Derek made a note of Richards’ name.
“What does that mean?” Jeff asked once Alison had left.
“Well it means we have one more very strong piece of evidence that Kate did not commit the murder”
“Kate?” Jeff inquired.
“I meant Katherine Hawkins”, Derek added quickly. Derek had been thinking more and more about Kate ever since watching the Union Station surveillance footage.
“Jeff, I want you go down to the front desk and inquire about the Ian Richards case. Once they let you know who was in charge of the case, contact him and get me the file on Ian Richards case. Also let the detective know that we need it as it will help us in another case. Don’t let him know that we are looking into the case”
“Sure”, Jeff left.
Detective Derek hoped that Kate would call him again so that he could tell her about the progress on her case.
As long as she was on the run, she was a suspect. Although detective Derek knew Kate’s new appearance now, but he did not release her facial composite. He wanted to get to Kate first before anyone else could approach her.
Kate was wondering why the police had not released her new facial composite. Detective Derek had looked straight at her and followed her to the door of the metro.
Kate also knew that it was not safe for her to live in the same hotel. So, she made a mental note to change the motel in the coming days.
Detective Derek went down to the Evidence Unit to check the property that was found on Matt at the time of his murder.
Matthew Raymond’s property had been documented as a bag full of clothes, mobile phone, shaving kit, toothbrush and toothpaste, a few dollars, credit cards and a diamond ring that must have cost a fortune.
The diamond ring was found in Matt’s coat’s inner pocket. Detective Derek looked at the diamond ring, it looked expensive. So Matt was thinking about proposing to Kate.
Derek mentally kicked himself in the balls. Why hadn’t he looked into Raymond’s property before. The angle of his investigation in the beginning was based on the suspicion that Kate had found Matt with one of his other girlfriend’s and murdered him in rage.
Now it seemed far from truth because if Raymond had wanted to propose to Kate, he would not have been having sex with another one of his alleged girlfriends with a ring in his coat pocket. Also, Matt was fully clothed when they had found him.
As per police procedures, Derek needed to report all of his findings immediately to Captain Todd. Derek decided to hold onto his new findings until he was sure that Kate was not a murderer.
When Detective Derek reached his desk, Jeff was waiting for him at his desk.
“Well here is something that doesn’t add up”
“What?”
“Detective Maurice Hammond at the Major Crash Investigation Unit handled Ian Richards accident. According to his report Ian Richards death was declared as an accident. He was driving a driverless car”
“So, what doesn’t add up?”
“The hard drive of his driverless car was erased. Police could not find any information on what had caused the accident”
“What do you mean?”, Derek asked.
“The hard drive of the driverless car is like a blackbox of a plane. It tells you every detail like how fast the driver was going and if anything malfunctioned etc. Now I have talked with detective Hammond myself and he says he did not look into the hard drive because he was under a lot of pressure from Captain Todd to close the case. Captain Todd has his eyes set on becoming a police chief and the CEO of the driverless car involved in the accident must have offered full support to Captain Todd to shut the case and declare it as a human error. Of course, I did not come up with this, this is what detective Hammond has told me”
“Ok, this is what I want you to do. Go back to detective Hammond, ask him if he would be willing to provide you with the hard drive. If he consents, bring the hard drive here and try to recover the data”
“I am on it” Jeff was enjoying working with detective Derek. He had finally become part of the police force.
Detective Derek picked up the phone and placed a call to Alison.
“Ms. Garner, this is Detective Derek. Did Mr. Richards own a driverless car?”
“Yes, he liked everything computer based”
“Was he a good driver in your opinion?”
“No, he was a lousy driver”
“Umm can you please give more detail?”
“Of course. He never drove a car above forty. He used to put the upper speed limit in the car’s controls at 40 and the car drove us to anywhere we wanted to go at that snail’s pace. We used to fight whenever I went out with him. But he never listened.
His parents died in a car accident when he was 12. The whole family was going to a Christmas party. They were late so his father was driving well over 100 miles per hour on a road with a speed limit of 40. They hit another car being driven by a drunk driver and both his parents were killed. Ian was badly hurt and barely made it. He promised himself then that he will never drive over forty and that is what he did”
“Ms. Garner, the police report here says that he was going well over 120 and the traffic cam also clocked his speed”
“I don’t know what could have happened, but Ian would never have done that. Oh, and I have found the receipts for lunch. I paid through my credit card at 1:35 PM. I will be bringing the receipt to you tomorrow after office”
“If that is not too much of a hassle for you, can you please take the receipt with you to your office tomorrow. I will be visiting Kent and Cooper tomorrow to check the CCTV footage. I will coordinate with you then”
“Ok”
“Once again, Ms. Garner, thank you for your assistance. Have a nice evening”, Detective Derek said putting down the receiver on the cradle.
Jeff arrived back at Detective Derek’s desk with the hard drive 35 minutes later.
“I had a hard time convincing detective Hammond. He resisted at first but finally caved in because according to him the case should have been investigated more thoroughly. But he also said that if Captain Todd finds out that we were looking into the evidence, we are on our own”
“Makes sense. So I want you to ..” detective Derek started.
Jeff cut him short, “You want me to try to recover the data that was on this hard drive before it was erased. It is usually very easy if the drive has been erased by a novice. But if it was erased by an expert, we may not be able to recover some or all of the data”
“Yes. But try anyway. I will pay a visit to Detective Hammond to see if he has the surveillance tapes from the street where the accident took place”
“Before you go and check the surveillance footage please remember if someone manually erased the data or hacked the car’s hard drive, they will need to be in close proximity to the vehicle.
So please check surveillance not only from the street where it happened but also the streets where the victim was driving his car prior to the accident and also check after the accident because he would have erased the data after the accident”, Jeff said hooking the hard drive to his laptop.
“Ok. I will do that. Thank you for the information”
“No problem”
CHAPTER 21
Detective Derek picked up his coat and made his way over to the Major Crash Investigation Unit.
Once he reached detective Hammond’s desk, he introduced himself to him, “I am detective Derek from the robbery and homicide unit. You have been visited twice by my colleague Jeff, regarding the Ian Richards accident case today”
“I never see you guys, and today I was visited by your boy Jeff twice and now you are here. This Richards’ accident sure must be important”
“Yes, we think it can help solve another murder case. Do you by any chance have any of the surveillance footage from the street where the accident took place?”
“No, I went down to the District Department of Transportation and saw the feed myself. The guy was driving over
the speed limit. I decided not to take copies of the surveillance since they already proved what I have said in my report”
“Thank you. I will get in touch if we need any assistance”
Detective Hammond gave a non-committing nod.
Detective Derek’s next stop was District Department of Transportation. The District Department of Transportation had a good working relationship with MPD and shared its live feed from a few locations with the MPD. Also, it did not require a court order from MPD to show them previous footage.
Once detective Derek reached the department, he introduced himself to the front desk and requested to see the video surveillance from the cameras on the day in question.
He was directed to the archive unit. The archive unit held on to traffic surveillance footage that was more than two weeks old.
Donna Grahams was in charge of the archive unit. She respected the MPD as her husband and her father both were part of the MPD, and Donna made it a point to go out of her way to help MPD in any way she could. Detective Derek shared the street information with Donna and had to wait for only five minutes before he could see the video.
As Detective Maurice Hammond had written in his report, Ian Richards was going well over 120 miles per hour on a road with 40 miles speed limit. Detective Derek could also see that Ian Richards was trying to control his vehicle.
“Can I see where he entered this street from please?”
“Sure. We just need to rewind this to the start of the street”, Donna said rewinding the video to check which street he had entered from.
Once sure of the street she clicked on another computer file. The video began playing. The street was empty for a while until they could see the Richards’ car. It was going at a speed of 40 miles per hour. Then all of a sudden in the middle of the street the car sped up.
“Can you please freeze the video where the car starts to speed up?”
“Of course, no problem”
Donna stopped just before the car sped up.
“I don’t see any other cars on the road. Is there another angle which can show us if some car was following him?”
“Hmm. Let me check”, Donna went over to the computer next to the one she was using and played the video from another angle.
“I don’t see any other cars but there is a Ducati bike that has stopped with the car at the signal” Donna said scanning through the video.
“I can see it here too, in the next street going alongside the car. Can you please play both videos side by side so that I can see whether the Ducati had anything to do with it?”
“Ok, here goes”
The Ducati stopped next to the car at the signal and the rider seemed to be doing something on a device mounted on the handlebar. When the signal turned green both the car and the Ducati went to the next street side by side with the motorcycle rider constantly tapping on the device on his handlebar.
“Can you please focus on Mr. Richards car? Can we zoom in on him here?”
“Yes, we have the technology to do that, thanks to NSA!”
Donna zoomed in on Richards’ car. They could see Richards calmly sitting in the driver’s seat and then trying frantically to control the steering wheel and then when it did not work, they could see him trying to open the door. It was as if the car had a mind of its own. All the while the Ducati was following the car. As soon as the car hit a tree the Ducati came to a halt next to the car, the rider stayed there for about 5 minutes before speeding away. The rider was wearing a helmet.
“Can you please try to zoom onto the license plates of the motorcycle?”
“Sure, but most of the times the motor cycles’ number plates don’t show up because of the angle of the camera. But I can try from different angles”
“Thank you”
Donna tried to look at the license plates of the motorcycle from 8 different cameras from four different streets, but they could not see the license plates.
“I can see everything on the motorcycle but why are the registration plates unreadable?”, Derek asked perplexed.
“Well, it could be because the rider had put wax or oil on the plates to make them extra reflective. If there is a lot of reflection from them the cameras cannot focus on them because of the glare. However, the traffic police will not see anything wrong with the plates. So, criminals mostly pull these tricks when they do not want their registration plates to be captured by the traffic cams”
“This is something I did not know about. These criminals sure are smart people! May I have copies of the surveillance tapes from all angles?”
“Sure, anything to help you with your case”
Donna made a CD of the surveillance and handed it to Detective Derek.
“Thank you, Ms. Adams, you have been most helpful”
“My pleasure”
As Derek sat down in his car, he saw a white van parked in the street. He wasn’t sure but he thought he had seen that van before somewhere. But he could not remember where.
He kept an eye on his backview mirror all the way to the station but did not see the white van again. So, it could have been a coincidence.
Jeff was still working on the car’s hard drive when detective Derek reached home.
“Any luck?”
“None so far, whoever erased the hard drive knew what they were doing. He did not just erase the hard drive, he formatted it as well. It will take me some time to do this and once I am done, I am not even sure we will have anything useful”
“I have caught a break with the Ian Richards case. It seems like the ex-girlfriend was telling the truth. It was by no means an accident.
But we need the data on the hard drive to build our case.
Someone killed Ian Richards while he was working in the Gamma department of Kent and Cooper and someone murdered Kate’s boyfriend while she was working there and then tried to cover it up by giving her a police record.
The length these people are going to protect whatever they are trying to protect points to something big”
“So, Kate is innocent after all. Are we going to stop chasing her now?”
“Nope as far as the law is concerned, she is a fugitive and needs to be caught”, but even as detective Derek said it, he wondered whether he will really arrest Kate. There was no justice in apprehending an innocent woman and prosecuting her for a crime she did not commit.
He needed to talk with Kate desperately.
Kate was pacing in her room unsure of what to do next. She had given detective Derek a lot of leads and she wondered if he had followed up on any.
She turned on her laptop and there was an email from Alison on her personal email address.
“Hi Kate,
Hope you are doing well.
I was interviewed by a detective Derek Markus down at the second district police station yesterday. I need to tell you something important before we talk about the interview. The important thing is that Detective Markus is hot. I mean hot in a rough manly sort of way. Just the way all men should be. There is that animal magnetism about him that drives you mad, but I managed to keep my cool as the interview was about you.
Kate shook her head and smiled as she read on
“Now that we have gotten that out of the way. He asked me to provide the lunch receipt for confirming our lunch timings on the day Matt was murdered. He will also be coming down to the office today to check the CCTV footage of us having lunch together. He says that it is of the utmost importance. If he can have proof of when you left the cafeteria, it will help you somehow.
I am missing you. Office is so dull without you and Alexander Cooper has turned into a tyrant by making life hell for our senior management who in turn, is making like hell for us.
Keep Safe!
Alison”
Kate was relieved that detective Derek was still investigating her case. She was thankful for the fact that her case had not landed in the hands of some old cop who just wanted to put it to rest in the shortest possible time.
Kate needed to talk with detective Derek.
She sent an email to Alison’s personal email address. She used an VPN to send the email so that her IP address could not be traced.
Subject: “Only for Detective Markus”
“Hi
This is Katherine Hawkins. As you may have found out several inconsistencies with my case and may have already reached a conclusion that I did not murder Matt, can we share information? My phone call was traced last time I talked with you. I have critical information that may not only save my life but that of countless Americans. Can you share your cellphone number with me so that we can talk?
I don’t want to be traced and pursued like a criminal again. If you try to trace my phone call to you, I will not share what I know about Kent and Cooper”
Detective Derek reached Kent and Cooper around 3:00PM. He went straight to Shonda and put down his request to see the surveillance video from the canteen to the afternoon in question.
“Just give me a few minutes, while I get Mr. Cooper’s approval”, Shonda said with that enticing smile.
“I have to add as well, that I can bring a warrant if I have to but if Mr. Cooper cooperates with us it will be in his best interests and ours”
“Sure”, the smile on Shonda’s face died for a few seconds and then came back again.
Shonda knocked lightly on Alexander’s door before entering.
“Detective Markus is here. He is requesting to see the CCTV footage of one of our canteens on the afternoon of 20th of March. He says that he can get a warrant if needed but hopes that you don’t have any objection to his request”
Alexander Cooper was in a foul mood.
Simon Carter was nowhere near done and Detective Markus was becoming a nuisance. Alexander knew that if he antagonized the detective, he will think that Alexander was trying to hide something.
“Ok. Take him to the security department and have them show him the video and try to find out what this is all about”
“Yes, Mr. Cooper”
Detective Derek was waiting impatiently when Shonda came back. He was hoping Alexander Cooper didn’t want to see a warrant because he couldn’t get one. To get a warrant he would have to update the captain and he did not want to do that just yet. Updating him would be like asking for god’s wrath. Captain Todd wanted Kate caught and case closed. Derek was just doing the opposite.
