He checked his watch. He’d give it twenty minutes, then he’d retrieve his bag from his room and find another place to stay. He picked up one of the complimentary newspapers off a nearby table, then took a seat in a wingback chair that afforded him a view of both the hotel entrance and reception. He was just finishing up the front section when the cop made his appearance.
Durrie was surprised to see that Oliver was now dressed in a police uniform. It certainly explained the delay in his arrival, but why wear it now when he wasn’t wearing it at the scene? Then the answer, so obvious, hit him.
Authority. People responded to it, and the uniform reeked of it.
For a split second, Durrie wondered if the cop was actually here officially with the full knowledge of his superiors, but quickly dismissed the thought. If that had been the case, Oliver would have turned over the matchbook to the investigators at the scene. Instead, he’d slipped it into his pocket and driven off.
No, this visit wasn’t official. Durrie was sure of that. This was a wannabe detective trying to make a mark, and give his fledgling career an early boost. Durrie imagined that Oliver was hoping to gain some respect and maybe even a commendation. Maybe he even had ideas of becoming the youngest detective in Phoenix PD history. But the cop was young still, and didn’t quite know how the world worked. Initiative wasn’t always rewarded, especially if you looked like you were trying to show up someone else.
The argument, though, was purely academic. If Oliver’s little side investigation took him any further, he’d have bigger problems to worry about than the bruised egos of those above him on the force.
As soon as the cop passed by his position, Durrie got up and moved to an open seat on the other side of the lobby, closer to reception. It was angled away from the desk so he didn’t have much of a view, but he could hear well enough as Oliver told the woman at the desk he wished to speak to the head of security.
“If you’d like to wait over there, he’ll be with you in a moment,” she replied.
Durrie could then hear the unmistakable sound of the cop walking toward him, the uniform’s leather belt and attachments squeaking with each step. When Oliver finally stopped, he was just two chairs over from Durrie’s position.
Close enough to kill.
Durrie frowned at the thought. It was his dark voice, one that he seldom heard. But when he did, it was always throwing out ridiculous things like that. Easy to ignore, but disturbing nonetheless.
The truth was he might have to kill Oliver, but there would be none of the satisfaction the voice seemed to imply. In fact, there would be nothing at all. It would be part of the job. Unfortunate, maybe, but necessary.
When the hotel manager and the security man came out, Durrie listened closely to the conversation. He couldn’t help being impressed by the rookie cop’s resourcefulness. Using the cover of the robberies was excellent. It played right to the hotel’s biggest concern — the safety of its guests. Though he couldn’t see the kid’s face, Durrie could sense no hesitation or uncertainty in Oliver’s voice. It was as if the cop truly believed what he was saying. Durrie knew veteran operatives who wouldn’t have been able to pull off the deception as well as the kid did.
By the end, the cop had talked himself into a free look at the hotel’s security tapes without the need of a warrant or even confirmation from someone higher up in the force. Brilliant.
Also a potential problem.
There was no doubt that Durrie, Larson and Timmons — the two ops team members who’d also been staying at the Lawrence — would be on those tapes. But chances were slim at best that Oliver would peg any of them as people of interest. Like always, standard procedures had been in place, and the three men had acted as if they didn’t know each other while at the hotel.
No way the cop would spot them, but damn if Oliver wasn’t clever to get this far.
Durrie would give him a day. That would be more than enough to make sure the kid wasn’t a threat. And if, for some reason, it turned out he was, Durrie would undoubtedly be ordered to eliminate him.
There was a third possibility, but that barely even registered on the cleaner’s radar.
Slowly he stood up and lifted his arms, a man stretching after sitting for too long. He twisted at the waist, working out those last creaking muscles that weren’t actually bothering him, and took a look around. As he knew they would be, Oliver and the two hotel employees were gone. As for the others still in the lobby, none were looking in his direction.
Durrie was just another anonymous business traveler, here today, gone tomorrow. Or, in his case, here right now, gone in thirty minutes.
He went up to his room to get his bag.
9
There was a digital clock in the middle of the wall of monitors. Its numbers were red and impossible to miss, a quick reference for security guards tasked with keeping an eye on the feeds from the hotel cameras.
The monitor room wasn’t particularly large, but it was big enough for two to sit behind the laminated desk set back several feet from the monitor wall. There were eleven screens in alclass="underline" a large one in the center, with ten smaller units surrounding it.
Jake was in the chair nearest the door. Beside him was a guard named Parker. After making introductions and giving Parker a quick rundown, Evans had left them alone, with a simple, “If you need anything else, Parker can find me.”
The guard had then routed the archived footage feed to the small monitor in the lower left corner, closest to Jake.
“We have everything on hard drive,” Parker explained.
“That must take up a lot of space,” Jake said. Most systems he’d come across still relied on tape backups, or DVDs.
“It does. Each day gets its own set of disks.” It was obvious Parker was enjoying his role as police assistant. “We have sixty sets in all, so basically we keep footage for sixty days before the set gets used again. The way the system works is that there are six disk ports. One contains today’s disks, four contain the last four days’, and the last one contains the disks from two months ago that will be used tomorrow.”
“Got it,” Jake said. “So the days I need to look at are still connected to the system.”
“Yep.”
Parker showed him how to access the older footage, then Jake got to work.
The hotel had thirty-six different cameras throughout the property, mainly covering the lobby, elevators, outside exits, and employee-only areas.
Even just skimming through the last forty-eight hours, it would take him forever to go through all the different feeds. So his first task was to narrow things down.
Two of the lobby cameras acted as overviews, covering large portions of the space. What one didn’t see, the other did. Deciding to concentrate on those first, Jake brought up one of the feeds, and began whipping through it as fast as he could manage and still make out what was going on.
The biggest problem was he didn’t know who he was looking for. Had the person who’d dropped the matchbook been a guest? Someone just passing through the lobby? Someone who worked there? Man? Woman? Old? Young?
He hadn’t been at it long before he realized how ridiculous this was. What the hell did he actually expect to see? The murderer walking through the frame wearing a T-shirt that said I DID IT?
Unfortunately, he couldn’t just get up and walk out. That would raise more questions than his request to view the footage had. Enough, most likely, to provoke Evans or Conway to call the department and ask what was up.
Jake definitely didn’t need that.
Having no choice, he focused on the screen.
It took nearly an hour to get through one day of one camera. Not surprisingly, no one stood out to him. He increased the pace, and got through the second twenty-four hours in only thirty-two minutes.