Close to Home (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 5)

by Robert Dugoni

  Dan stroked Rex’s head. “We’ll go in a minute,” he said. He looked to Tracy. “You want to walk through it?”

  She didn’t, but she also knew Dan was not offering just to be kind. He had enough on his plate at the moment. With a criminal defense background, he was a good sounding board, and she needed one, with Kins out of commission. Dan also knew she would stew on her thoughts, preventing her from sleeping. Talking to Dan was the equivalent of writing it on a sheet of paper to get the thoughts out of her head.

  “Sure.” She sat up and adjusted the pillows at her back, considering where to start. “Laszlo Trejo runs a red light and hits a kid in Seattle. Why was he over there?”

  “He had heroin in his car and was making a delivery.”

  “Right,” she said. She rubbed her face and shook off the cobwebs. “Who helped him ditch the car and get back to Bremerton?”

  “The most obvious choice would be the guy he was delivering the heroin to, but you’re not going to be able to verify that with both men dead.”

  “Agreed. Highly doubtful we can verify it; highly probable Tseng helped him.” She grimaced, her head now pounding. “I don’t know where to go with this. Ordinarily, I’d say this is a drug deal gone bad, but we have the issue of the missing convenience store videotape, and I no longer believe it was just a bad coincidence.”

  Tracy put her head back against the pillows. She could feel the fatigue settling into her joints and her eyelids becoming heavy.

  “Who had access to that videotape?” Dan said.

  “Anyone who had access to the evidence room in the DSO building.”

  “Which is who?”

  Tracy took a deep breath. “Battles, the defense attorney; the prosecutor; his assistant; the court reporter; the janitors. The problem is, I got a copy of the security tape for the building before I left Bremerton and no one came in or out of the building the night and morning that the tape disappeared, except the janitor.”

  “You viewed it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then—”

  “I was told what was on the video by Leah Battles and by her officer in charge. She pulled it the day the convenience store tape went missing.”

  “Could it have been the janitor?”

  Tracy thought of Al Tulowitsky and his boss, Gary Buchman. “It’s possible, but it seems unlikely.”

  “What about Battles?” Dan said.

  Tracy told him about the link to the video Owens had sent her, the one showing Battles disarming a person holding a gun.

  “I know you don’t want to believe it was her, Tracy, but everything seems to point to her. She lives in Seattle. She had the opportunity, certainly, to take the security tape. She has no seeming alibi for Trejo’s death and now, apparently, she had the ability to get his gun. How much do you really know about her?”

  “Not a lot,” Tracy said. “Maybe not enough.”

  “Maybe that’s where you should start.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But I’m not doing anything until I get some sleep.”

  “The less you have the more you crave it,” Dan said.

  She smiled.

  “You said you have a copy of the security tape for inside the building that night? Tracy?”

  “Huh?”

  “The security tape. Do you want me to watch it?”

  “It’s on a disc in my briefcase.”

  He stood watching her sleep. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Dan braced the front door to prevent it from shuddering and stepped inside, the dogs following. He’d taken the dogs on his fifty-minute run into the trails behind the house, roughly five miles, then spent ten minutes walking and stretching to cool down. He didn’t want the dogs to run into the house like two drunkards and wake Tracy. He’d closed the bedroom door before leaving, but in their small confines that was only so effective, and he knew she was exhausted. Detective work was a lot like legal work. You could leave the office, but you couldn’t escape the case. Dan thought about his cases and his clients when he went to bed and when he awoke. He thought of them in the shower, when he went for a run, and when he shopped in the grocery store. He knew Tracy did the same thing, looking for that piece of evidence she’d not seen or had overlooked. When they were home at night they had a rule—“no work,” unless the other needed a consult to get it off his or her mind.

  He filled the dog bowls at the tap in the kitchen and set them on the floor. As Rex and Sherlock slurped, he filled a glass at the sink and grabbed vitamins from the cabinet, including glucosamine. He wasn’t getting any younger, and his knees reminded him of that fact each time he ran. Running on the dirt trails was a marked improvement over the concrete sidewalk along Alki Beach, but it didn’t eliminate all his aches and pains.

  He brought the glass and vitamins into the main room and retrieved Tracy’s briefcase. Sitting at the table, he powered up her laptop, inserted the disc, and waited for it to boot up. He downed his vitamins with gulps of water and wiped sweat trickling along the sides of his face. He’d had experience with videotapes during his legal career, though usually he’d been on the other side, trying to keep a tape out of evidence. In civil cases, defense attorneys would hire private investigators to follow their injured clients, hoping to videotape the clients during a moment when they weren’t as incapacitated as they claimed. The rules of admissibility were rigid. The biggest hurdle for an attorney seeking to have a tape admitted into evidence was establishing a proper foundation—proving that the tape was a reliable depiction of what had actually occurred. That meant putting someone on the witness stand who could testify that the tape had not been edited or tampered with. And that’s where Dan usually focused his initial attack.

  The video loaded. Dan looked down on the interior of an office space with a reception area and desk counter off to the right. He hit “Play” and sat back, watching like a spectator, occasionally hitting “Fast Forward” to skip the moments when nothing appeared to be happening. He wiped another drip of perspiration from his temple and watched a tall Asian man descend stairs and approach an office at the back of the video. He knocked on the door and pushed it open. Dan noted the time to be 10:31 p.m. and deduced from Tracy’s recounting of the Article 32 hearing that this was Brian Cho, the prosecutor. Dan again hit “Fast Forward.” Cho exited the office, shutting the door at 10:37 p.m. Again he paused, this time to slip on his camouflage hat. As he approached the camera, he shook his head, grinning as if bemused by something.

  Shortly thereafter, a woman exited the same office carrying a box. She walked away from the camera. This he assumed to be Leah Battles, the defense lawyer. Dan noted the time to be 10:49 p.m. He hit “Fast Forward,” then slowed the tape when Battles returned. The counter indicated the time to be 10:54 p.m. He sped up the disc, then again hit “Play” when Battles departed her office. She’d changed from the camouflage attire into athletic clothes. Approaching the camera, she snapped on a bike helmet as she departed. He scribbled on his notepad that she wore a backpack and raised the question: Could Battles have hidden videocassette in her backpack when she left for the night?

  He sat back, sipping his water and glancing over at the dogs. They lay flopped on their sides in a stream of sunlight through the windows. He returned his attention to the video when the janitor entered the building. Dan scribbled the time: 11:03 p.m. The janitor began emptying trash bins. Dan hit “Fast Forward,” and the janitor moved quickly about the reception area and the offices. When he exited the front door, Dan hit “Pause” and noted the time to be 11:17 p.m.

  On the notepad he wrote, Second-floor janitor? He hit “Play.”

  The first-floor janitor returned at 11:26 p.m. carrying a bucket of what looked like cleaning supplies, and a vacuum, which he left in the lobby. He carried the cleaning supplies to the back of the camera’s coverage, presumably to the bathrooms.

  Dan again hit “Fast Forward” and then “Play” when the janitor reappeared, set the supplies on the reception desk an
d vacuumed. When he’d finished vacuuming, the janitor exited the building carrying the vacuum and cleaning supplies. The time stamp indicated it was 12:13 p.m. No one else entered or exited the building until the following morning. Cho returned at 7:15 a.m. and disappeared down the hall to the stairs. Others arrived. Leah Battles entered the office at 7:42 a.m.

  Dan hit “Stop” and scribbled on the notepad.

  Janitor have motive?

  Court reporter?

  Leah Battles?

  Cho? Arrived early the following morning. Was court reporter in office yet? Why would Cho take the tape?

  He set down the pen, sipped his water, and gave the tape some additional thought. After a moment he hit “Rewind,” and played the disc contents backward. He’d learned the technique from an experienced trial lawyer in his firm in Boston. The man said he played tapes and discs backward to prevent his eyes, and his subconscious, from anticipating what he was about to see, instead of seeing what actually occurred. He said it also allowed him to focus not on the people in the tape, but rather on the environment.

  After a few minutes, something caught Dan’s eye, or so he thought. Uncertain, he played the tape forward, then played it backward a second time, then a third and a fourth time. He was considering the door across the hall from Leah Battles’s office, trying to determine if it had changed positions. That is, the door seemed to have partially closed—only about a foot—though no one had touched it, at least no one on the videotape. Dan rewound the tape and played it forward yet again. The janitor left the building at 11:17 p.m. with the rolling garbage can. Dan watched the office door. Just before the janitor’s return at 11:26 p.m., the door was slightly more closed than it had been when the janitor had exited. Dan played the tape back again to be certain, confirmed what he’d seen, then let the tape run. The janitor took the cleaning supplies into the bathroom. Dan noted that the door again seemed to move, this time slightly more open, and again without anyone being present, at least not on the tape.

  He took out his legal pad and made three entries—the position of the door at 11:17 when the janitor left the building, the position of the door at 11:26 when the janitor reentered the building, and the position of the door when the janitor left the building for the night.

  Either the Navy had a ghost, or someone had edited the tape.

  CHAPTER 42

  Tracy awoke, startled at the man standing over her bed, and screamed. Sherlock too sat up and barked.

  Dan winced, feeling guilty. He stood at the edge of the mattress holding her laptop and looking down at her with a goofy grin, apologizing for having wakened her but not looking sincere.

  After a few moments to catch her breath and regain her bearings, Tracy said, “Well, that would just about scare the crap out of Stephen King.”

  As Dan continued to apologize, Tracy looked across the room to the clock on the dresser. Noon. She had three hours until her shift started again. She could use three days. She felt groggy and sleep deprived.

  “I have something to show you,” Dan said.

  “You better. I set the alarm for one o’clock. You owe me an hour of sleep.”

  Dan sat on the edge of the bed and played the tape on her laptop, going through the sections he’d noted on his pad, and pointing out what he’d noticed about the door to the office across the hall from Leah Battles.

  “Somebody edited the contents of the disc,” she said, recounting what she’d seen, but also asking Dan for confirmation.

  “Sure seems like it.”

  She got out of bed and began to put on clothes. “This changes things. Really changes things. How could they do it?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  Tracy thought of Mike Melton. “I know someone who will.”

  At just after 3:00 p.m., the start of her shift, Tracy walked into the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab on Airport Way carrying the envelope with the computer disc. Detectives called Mike Melton “Grizzly Adams,” but Tracy called him “Oz,” as in The Wizard of Oz, only Melton wasn’t a sham hiding behind a curtain. He was the real deal.

  Melton’s office smelled like vinegar from the wilting, unfinished salad in the bowl on his desk. He looked up as Tracy entered his office, considering her over reading glasses resting on the tip of his nose. He set down a document he’d been reviewing and sat back. “You look like you’ve seen better days.”

  “Thanks,” Tracy said, sounding hurt. “I really needed that.”

  Melton leaned forward. “I didn’t mean anything by it; you just look tired.”

  Tracy chuckled. “You have a wife and six daughters, and you still haven’t figured out when a woman is playing you?”

  Melton laughed, rich and full. “And I doubt I ever will.” He had the sleeves of his plaid shirt rolled up meaty forearms, like Paul Bunyan about to swing an ax and fell a tree.

  Tracy pointed to the salad. “You going soft on me or is another one of your daughters getting married and you need to fit into your tux?”

  “I fit for the first three, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to squeeze into it again, no matter how many salads I eat.” He picked up the bowl. “This is my wife telling me, ‘You better fit into that monkey suit, given what it cost us.’”

  “Have you seen Del?” Tracy asked.

  “He and Faz came in a few days ago. He looks good. Maybe we’ll rub off on Fazzio.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Melton pointed to the manila envelope in her hand. “Is that it?”

  She’d called him from home, told him what Dan thought he’d detected, and asked him to take a look. She handed him the envelope, along with the yellow legal paper with Dan’s scribbles designating the times he’d noticed the changes in the office door’s position.

  Melton pulled the disc from the envelope and inserted it into his computer. He looked down his nose through his reading glasses at the computer screen. Tracy walked behind him and peered over his shoulder as he typed in a command to pull up the video and started through it.

  He watched for a few seconds and said, “Superficially, it looks legit.” He pointed. “Date and time stamp in the lower-right portion of the screen.”

  “That’s the office door,” Tracy said, pointing over his shoulder to the office across the hall from Leah Battles’s office.

  Melton spoke while continuing to view the screen. “And you need me to tell you if you’re crazy, the naval base is haunted, or the tape’s been edited.”

  “Correct.”

  “Is this a copy?”

  “The tape? Yes,” she said, recalling her conversation with Rebecca Stanley.

  “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “Be better if we had the original.”

  “I’m working on it. Tell me why.”

  “Whoa.” Melton had come to the first door movement. He hit “Stop,” rewound the tape, then hit “Play.” “There it is. Definitely moved.” He sat back, continuing to watch.

  “Why would you need the original?” Tracy asked.

  Melton looked down at Dan’s log of times on his desk as his fingers clicked more keys. “It’s nearly impossible to monkey with an original tape.” He looked up at her over his shoulder. “So I’m told. I’m not a computer guy. I was born too early, but I know it’s difficult from what I’ve been told. If somebody wanted to monkey with the video it’s easier, as I understand it, if they make a copy. They can then use certain software programs to remove the date and time stamp, edit the video, and replace the date and time stamp so it looks continuous. There it is again,” he said. “Definitely a ghost.” He again hit “Stop,” rewound the tape, and replayed it. This time he pointed with his finger. “Did you see this?”

  “The door movement?”

  “Not the door. Take a look at the crack between the door and the jamb. Watch the shadow.”

  Tracy leaned closer—her chin over Melton’s shoulder. She could smell his cologne. The crack between the door and the jamb darkened. “Somebody’s b
ehind the door.”

  “Sure looks like there could be. Something’s creating the shadow. Look. Now it’s gone again.”

  “Why couldn’t somebody edit the original?”

  “Again, as I understand it, these security videos are watermarked by the manufacturer with a code to prevent someone from tampering with them. It could be like 000111000111. If this was edited, we’ll know because the watermark will have been broken.”

  Tracy straightened. “How long will it take?”

  Melton hit “Stop” and ejected the disc from the computer. Tracy picked up the paper with Dan’s log and walked back to the other side of his desk.

  “I have a guy in the lab who does a lot of this,” Melton said. “It will be right up his alley.”

  “Does he need the log?” Tracy asked.

  “Shouldn’t.” Melton considered his watch. “Not sure if he’s still here, but if he is, it shouldn’t be too long to determine whether the tape’s been edited, depending on what he has going on. Let me get him working on it. I’ll call later and let you know.”

  Back in her car, Tracy lowered the volume on the radio as she made her way across town to Police Headquarters. She contemplated a scenario in which the tape had been edited to eliminate someone coming in and out of the building. She could think of two immediate problems.

  First, whom could she tell?

  She couldn’t go to Stanley. Stanley had provided Tracy with the tape, and could, somehow, be involved in editing its contents. Tracy also couldn’t call up the security officer who produced the tape because, again, he could have been the person who did the editing, maybe on his own, maybe at someone’s request. She also couldn’t go to Leah Battles or Brian Cho because either—on their own or on someone’s order—could have been the person who went into the building, stole the tape, and hid in the office until the janitor left. Both knew where to find the tape as well as the evidentiary significance of it. Working in the building, they both also likely knew the court reporter’s schedule and would have known that he had already gone home that evening. They also knew the janitor’s schedule. It didn’t, however, explain how they could have edited the security feed, unless they were working for or with others—which meant maybe there was something more to the rumors that the Navy was involved in a cover-up. About the only thing the tape did was eliminate the janitor.