An Unladylike Murder, page 12
part #1 of Jessica Sloan Mystery Series
I hope Brook doesn’t marry him.
“When we go through the academy, we’re taught how to fight and arrest men, when we have to.”
“How about your fellow officers, how do they feel about having to watch out for you and protect you?”
“There are many more skills required to be a detective than arresting a man that is stupid enough to try to resist us.”
Brooklyn jumped in. “Did you faint when you saw the dead body?”
Jessica was happy her sister had changed the topic. “Fortunately I didn’t.”
“So what did your victim die from?”
“I really shouldn’t discuss the case with you.”
“Ah, come on, it’s just me and Brad. We won’t tell anyone.”
“If you do I’ll never tell you anything ever again.”
“Brad and I promise, right Brad?”
“Sure.”
“It was air.”
“Huh?”
Jessica explained.
“Any suspects yet?”
“Not yet. Now that we know how she was killed, we’re waiting for the facial recognition results identifying everyone who left the theatre and a sketch from a potential witness. They are the keys that might help us.”
“I thought you told me that most homicides are committed by family members.”
“Well it’s true. Ninety percent of all homicides are solved because they are committed by family members or someone who knows them and has an obvious motive like passion or money.”
“Waaagh.”
Brad looked at Brooklyn.
“The couple next door just brought home their newborn.”
Brad frowned and tried to ignore the noise. “How many hours do you have to work a week?”
“I’m supposed to work four ten-hour shifts per week. Trouble is, when detectives get a case, we have to strike while things are hot and people are available to be interviewed. The end result is a lot of overtime.”
Brooklyn said, “I thought we worked long hours in tech startups. You don’t get paid enough to work the hours you do.”
“I knew what I was getting myself into. When we get a murder case, time is of the essence.”
Brad stood up. “I’d better get going. I need to do some stuff to get ready for a job interview tomorrow morning.”
Jessica was surprised. “Are you thinking of switching startups?”
“I’m thinking of going to work at that new electric scooter startup. They even offer pet leave so new pet parents can work from home and when your pet dies they allow bereavement time off. That’s in addition to free lunch and dinners as well as full gym memberships.”
“But you don’t have a pet.”
“Technically you’re correct, but Brooklyn and I are thinking of getting one.”
As soon as Brad left, Jessica turned to her sister. “Have you talked to Brad about having children yet?”
“Hell no. I don’t want to scare him away. But I’ve planted the seed by talking about pets.”
“You do realize that day care runs over two thousand a month in San Francisco?”
“Holy Cannoli!”
“I heard one of the other detectives say he was thinking of taking his latest newborn back to the stork store for credit.”
“I hope he was joking.”
“After seeing what I’ve seen in the past twenty-four hours, I can understand why they develop a crust to dull their feelings.”
“How is it going, being a detective and all?”
“I think solving murders will be rewarding. However, I do need to get used to seeing dead bodies at crime scenes and then attending their autopsies.”
“A minute ago you said something about ninety percent of homicides are committed by family members. Isn’t that profiling and isn’t that against the law?”
“Profiling is illegal, but only if it’s based on race.”
“What about some rogue cop who decides he hates me and starts to hassle me by searching my car and apartment?”
“That’s why cops need to get a search warrant from a judge who decides probable cause in order to conduct a search.”
“Has your crime lab found lots of clues for you?”
“I wish. Since we don’t have much in the way of physical evidence or eyewitness descriptions, we’re taking educated guesses. For example, if a serial murderer has been killing the female employees of a law firm, who might you think the suspect is?”
“A man?”
“Which man?”
“A current or ex male employee.”
“Anyone else?”
“Perhaps a male client of the firm who feels a woman screwed up his case?”
“There you go. Now you’re a profiler.”
“You’re saying that when you have no idea of who the killer might be, you start guessing.”
“We use logic since it gives us a place to start.”
“Is that new database that you were trained on actually speeding up the process of finding the bad guys?”
“Ask me that tomorrow night. We should start seeing results by then.”
Chapter 30
Thursday
iPoirot is being more of a roadblock than a highway to information at this point. Hopefully that changes today.
Jessica turned on the television. The morning commute girl stood in front of a map of the Bay Area. She was saying that all the major highways were reporting accidents. “Drive carefully and take extra time to get wherever you’re going today.”
It had been at least six months since the Bay area had received any rain. And this was summer.
It never rains in the summer.
Not a good omen.
Spoiled with sunshine most of the year, its residents tended to forget that rain made for slippery roads.
Jessica checked the weather app on her phone.
Hmm. Morning showers. Clearing by 9 a.m.
Jessica chose a plastic rain slicker over a camel hair jacket with a maroon sweater and dark brown pants.
Ready for whatever the day threw at her, Jessica decided to avoid the roads and take BART into the city.
By the time Jessica arrived at her stop, the rain had become a mist. She walked the short distance to the Hall of Justice and the Homicide Department.
She used the time to scan the morning news.
Sloan found Cutter already in the murder room. “Did you see or hear about the latest protests?”
Cutter smirked. “Nope. Show me.”
Sloan showed John a tweet on her phone screen.
‘One down – Who’s next?’
“Here’s another one.”
‘Leave or you could be next.’
Jessica pointed at the screen. “They were posted by someone called, IWantSFBack.”
“Why do you waste your time on the internet Sloan? Aren’t all those apps against policy anyway?”
“All my accounts are under a phony name. I never follow anyone back and I don’t post anything except the odd kitten or puppy photo. The only reason I have the accounts is so that I can follow anyone who concerns me or to look up interesting suspects. I told Brown that I would do it.”
“How do you use them?”
“I search the local blogs and use apps to see who is posting about technology issues. Sure enough, there are a bunch of people posting or reposting false revelations that are designed to rile up San Francisco residents about the tech companies.”
Cutter rubbed his chin. “Do you think it’s just one of those activists taking advantage of the situation or what?”
“From my point of view, we don’t have enough data yet. You’re the one with all the experience, what does your gut tell you?”
“I’ll get a warrant today to have Twitter tell us who the tweeter twit really is. Then we add him or her to our list of potential suspects.”
“What’s with that three ring binder?”
Cutter had an open black binder with plastic pages where pictures or documents could be inserted. “It’s called a Murder Book.”
“Oh, I’ve heard about how the old time detectives used those back in the stone ages to keep photographs of dinosaurs.”
Cutter cracked a grin. “I still like using them. Call me old fashioned, but I still like a hard copy in a binder. I don’t need an internet connection and I find it much easier to jump around looking for things. By the time we’re finished investigating this case, it’ll consist of several thick binders.”
“By having all the data in a secure cloud, I can access it from anywhere and I can crunch huge quantities of data quickly.”
“Hmm. If everything goes into this database cloud of yours, what happens if there is a power failure or a security breach? I could lose everything I’ve discovered relating to this case. That’s why I want a hardcopy backup in my Murder Book. Once iPoirot has proven itself, then maybe I’ll trust it.”
“But what if you’re in the field and want to look something up on your iPad.”
“That’s why I have you as a partner. I can get you to look it up on your iPad.”
He doesn’t get it yet.
“What are you worried about?”
“Who knows? I for one don’t want to get sidetracked looking into other teams cases.”
“But you can’t do that even if you wanted to. The new system keeps everything for each case separate so that the case we’re working is only available to us, and Brown. In the course that I took, it said that using the digital version would be the anchor of our case. Every move made, interview taken, piece of evidence or potential evidence gathered would never become lost. They claimed it could save hundreds of hours in a case like ours. We’d get instant access 24 hours a day from wherever we are. And bonus -- no more photocopying, screwing around with protective plastic pages or getting paper cuts. And it saves space.”
There was a knock on the door.
Brown stood in the doorway. “Just so you know, the videos from the Orpheum Theatre have finally been fed into the iPoirot system and I was told it should have everyone identified within an hour.”
Cutter was curious. “I thought the video was fed in right after it was taken?”
“It was, but it wasn’t accepted or something. They tell me that it will be shortly.”
“How can it possibly identify over two thousand people so quickly?”
Sloan knew, in theory anyway. “It has complete access to everyone’s driver’s license photograph, FastTrack data, booking photos and social media accounts profile pictures, then starts the process.”
“Yeah, but how good is it if it isn’t working perfectly?”
“Certain federal agencies who shall remain unnamed are already using it to track people of interest in real time. I’ve heard they can identify up to a hundred faces in a crowd in real time. They tell me that we should be able to get a ninety nine to a hundred percent rate from videos within an hour.”
Cutter wasn’t sold. “I’m surprised that the civil rights organizations aren’t trying to stop it on the basis of privacy concerns.”
Brown said, “Don’t worry, we won’t arrest anyone based on a photo match alone. That’s where you come in, Cutter. We still need you to help put the case together.”
Sloan jumped in. “Our quality of life would be much worse today if we outlawed new technology simply because some person could potentially choose to abuse the technology.”
Brown said, “Don’t wander away you two; as I said, the results should be available soon.”
Five minutes later Garcia and Lee walked in.
Jose Garcia stood next to Cutter. “I spent most of last night researching where and how many people could buy a 200cc syringe.”
Cutter asked, “What d’ya find out?”
“Anyone can easily buy a 200cc syringe on the internet for around ten bucks from mucho sources.”
Lee said, “I ran murder, plus syringe, plus air bubble through various law enforcement data bases and came up empty. It must be an unusual method to kill anyone.”
“It would appear that way. Find out anything else?”
“Over six billion syringes are used in the United States each year. Half of those are used outside of health care settings. In fact, hospitals are only twenty-nine percent of the market. By the way, happy birthday, Cutter.”
Sloan watched as Cutter blushed. “How old are you today?”
Lee chirped in. “He’s so old he’s still using leeches to cure his hemorrhoids.”
Garcia and Lee laughed.
Cutter’s face looked like he’d just licked gasoline.
Lee added, “Why is it that women over 40 are called cougars while men as old as Cutter are called creeps?”
Garcia had a line as well. “If Cutter has a birthday cake there will be so many candles on it the EPA would claim it’s a cause of climate change.”
Cutter sat and took the good-natured comments.
When the wise cracking stopped, he answered Sloan in a hushed tone. “Fifty and going strong.”
A moment later Cutter stood up. “I hate to be a party pooper, but Sloan and I have an interview to do.”
Garcia said, “Before you go, I made the calls you gave me. Jill’s lawyer confirmed that her parents inherit her estate and that her parents are already well off. Her doctor said Jill was in good health. Oh, and one last thing. I verified Coyne’s alibi. From 7 P.M. until past 10 P.M., he was at the restaurant with his partners and support staff celebrating one of their birthdays.”
Sloan grunted. “Hmm.”
“I checked on VICAP, but there’s never been a case where an empty syringe was the murder weapon.” Lee added, “I was told that Ben Lopez didn’t show up for his meeting with our sketch artist.”
Sloan said, “Damn. I’ll call him and see what his problem is.”
“Later.” Cutter waved to Sloan to follow him.
Chapter 31
“Is every case this hard to solve?” Sloan asked Cutter, as they entered the elevator.
“Sometimes solving murders is like driving in the fog. You go slowly until the fog lifts a little and you can finally start to see the road in front of you. Oh, and by the way, Jill’s father left me a phone message that his daughter’s funeral is this coming Monday.”
“Is it common practice to go to a victim’s funeral?”
“Normally I don’t. However, since we don’t have a prime suspect yet, my gut is telling me we should go to this one to see who shows up. You don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
“Sure, I’ll join you.”
As the elevator door opened, Cutter asked, “Do you know how the CCTV camera system works here in San Francisco?”
“No. Should I assume you’re going to show me?”
“I am. Let’s go.”
Pulling out of the secure parking garage, Cutter asked, “What do you think of the new Mayor?”
“I try to stay out of political and religious conversations, why?”
“Well, the new Mayor was elected by claiming he would clean the sidewalks by relocating the homeless and other creeps into a new shiny island of hope.”
“I saw that on his campaign signs.”
“Well, I’ve been around long enough to know that neighborhoods around so-called islands of hope become high crime areas to buy drugs and sex, and nearby homes are constantly broken into.”
“You’re a real optimist, aren’t you? Tell me, did you vote for him?”
“Since he can affect our jobs, I’d better not tell ya.”
“Are you a California native, Cutter?”
“I was born in Pennsylvania, why?”
“It’s just that I’ve noticed that you tend to say ya instead of you sometimes and when
I searched for that online, it said that people who speak like you are most likely from parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio where there’s a Germanic influence.”
Cutter said, “Actually, that makes sense. When my ancestors arrived at Ellis Island, the official changed our name to Cutter from Kotter, which is German.”
“Got it.”
In the Mission District, they parked behind a two story private business with a large steel garage door and smaller steel entrance door. “This place sells the video equipment and supplies the staff to monitor the CCTV videos for the SFPD.”
Sloan noticed the overhead cameras.
Cutter pounded on the rear alley door. Ten seconds later he pounded again.
They heard metal scrape as the door swung open.
A man is his sixties, sporting a short beard and a Grateful Dead t-shirt, greeted them. “Detective Cutter, come in.”
Sloan couldn’t help but stare at the floor-to-ceiling racks filled with blade computers.
“Stan Bishop is the lead technician here.” Cutter made the introductions. “Stan, this is my new partner, Detective Jessica Sloan.”
Stan seemed happy for the interruption. “How can I help you today?”
Cutter told them the location and time of the protest he was interested in. “We need a photo of the lead protesters or better yet, their names.”
Stan talked as he sorted through the hundreds of video feeds. “None of the videos are monitored in real time, but we do store everything for thirty days before they’re erased just for occasions like this.”
Sloan was curious. “Which crimes are they normally used for?”
“The first thing you need to understand is that our network of cameras is really a quilt. In fact, most of the cameras are owned and maintained privately. The city still owns less than the private sector does. We only use the cameras for serious crimes so we don’t normally watch any of the quality of life instances that happen on the street, which is what a protest is. However, since you may have a serious crime connected to the protest, I’ll pull the footage for you.”
Sloan asked, “Do people complain about having their privacy invaded?”
“Since the cameras are all on public streets and sidewalks, the courts have ruled that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Within twenty minutes, Sloan and Cutter were watching the protest that blocked Jill’s limo unfold.
As the tape rolled, Stan pointed out a few of the images he knew. “The guy handing out signs is Simon Ratner.”
“When we go through the academy, we’re taught how to fight and arrest men, when we have to.”
“How about your fellow officers, how do they feel about having to watch out for you and protect you?”
“There are many more skills required to be a detective than arresting a man that is stupid enough to try to resist us.”
Brooklyn jumped in. “Did you faint when you saw the dead body?”
Jessica was happy her sister had changed the topic. “Fortunately I didn’t.”
“So what did your victim die from?”
“I really shouldn’t discuss the case with you.”
“Ah, come on, it’s just me and Brad. We won’t tell anyone.”
“If you do I’ll never tell you anything ever again.”
“Brad and I promise, right Brad?”
“Sure.”
“It was air.”
“Huh?”
Jessica explained.
“Any suspects yet?”
“Not yet. Now that we know how she was killed, we’re waiting for the facial recognition results identifying everyone who left the theatre and a sketch from a potential witness. They are the keys that might help us.”
“I thought you told me that most homicides are committed by family members.”
“Well it’s true. Ninety percent of all homicides are solved because they are committed by family members or someone who knows them and has an obvious motive like passion or money.”
“Waaagh.”
Brad looked at Brooklyn.
“The couple next door just brought home their newborn.”
Brad frowned and tried to ignore the noise. “How many hours do you have to work a week?”
“I’m supposed to work four ten-hour shifts per week. Trouble is, when detectives get a case, we have to strike while things are hot and people are available to be interviewed. The end result is a lot of overtime.”
Brooklyn said, “I thought we worked long hours in tech startups. You don’t get paid enough to work the hours you do.”
“I knew what I was getting myself into. When we get a murder case, time is of the essence.”
Brad stood up. “I’d better get going. I need to do some stuff to get ready for a job interview tomorrow morning.”
Jessica was surprised. “Are you thinking of switching startups?”
“I’m thinking of going to work at that new electric scooter startup. They even offer pet leave so new pet parents can work from home and when your pet dies they allow bereavement time off. That’s in addition to free lunch and dinners as well as full gym memberships.”
“But you don’t have a pet.”
“Technically you’re correct, but Brooklyn and I are thinking of getting one.”
As soon as Brad left, Jessica turned to her sister. “Have you talked to Brad about having children yet?”
“Hell no. I don’t want to scare him away. But I’ve planted the seed by talking about pets.”
“You do realize that day care runs over two thousand a month in San Francisco?”
“Holy Cannoli!”
“I heard one of the other detectives say he was thinking of taking his latest newborn back to the stork store for credit.”
“I hope he was joking.”
“After seeing what I’ve seen in the past twenty-four hours, I can understand why they develop a crust to dull their feelings.”
“How is it going, being a detective and all?”
“I think solving murders will be rewarding. However, I do need to get used to seeing dead bodies at crime scenes and then attending their autopsies.”
“A minute ago you said something about ninety percent of homicides are committed by family members. Isn’t that profiling and isn’t that against the law?”
“Profiling is illegal, but only if it’s based on race.”
“What about some rogue cop who decides he hates me and starts to hassle me by searching my car and apartment?”
“That’s why cops need to get a search warrant from a judge who decides probable cause in order to conduct a search.”
“Has your crime lab found lots of clues for you?”
“I wish. Since we don’t have much in the way of physical evidence or eyewitness descriptions, we’re taking educated guesses. For example, if a serial murderer has been killing the female employees of a law firm, who might you think the suspect is?”
“A man?”
“Which man?”
“A current or ex male employee.”
“Anyone else?”
“Perhaps a male client of the firm who feels a woman screwed up his case?”
“There you go. Now you’re a profiler.”
“You’re saying that when you have no idea of who the killer might be, you start guessing.”
“We use logic since it gives us a place to start.”
“Is that new database that you were trained on actually speeding up the process of finding the bad guys?”
“Ask me that tomorrow night. We should start seeing results by then.”
Chapter 30
Thursday
iPoirot is being more of a roadblock than a highway to information at this point. Hopefully that changes today.
Jessica turned on the television. The morning commute girl stood in front of a map of the Bay Area. She was saying that all the major highways were reporting accidents. “Drive carefully and take extra time to get wherever you’re going today.”
It had been at least six months since the Bay area had received any rain. And this was summer.
It never rains in the summer.
Not a good omen.
Spoiled with sunshine most of the year, its residents tended to forget that rain made for slippery roads.
Jessica checked the weather app on her phone.
Hmm. Morning showers. Clearing by 9 a.m.
Jessica chose a plastic rain slicker over a camel hair jacket with a maroon sweater and dark brown pants.
Ready for whatever the day threw at her, Jessica decided to avoid the roads and take BART into the city.
By the time Jessica arrived at her stop, the rain had become a mist. She walked the short distance to the Hall of Justice and the Homicide Department.
She used the time to scan the morning news.
Sloan found Cutter already in the murder room. “Did you see or hear about the latest protests?”
Cutter smirked. “Nope. Show me.”
Sloan showed John a tweet on her phone screen.
‘One down – Who’s next?’
“Here’s another one.”
‘Leave or you could be next.’
Jessica pointed at the screen. “They were posted by someone called, IWantSFBack.”
“Why do you waste your time on the internet Sloan? Aren’t all those apps against policy anyway?”
“All my accounts are under a phony name. I never follow anyone back and I don’t post anything except the odd kitten or puppy photo. The only reason I have the accounts is so that I can follow anyone who concerns me or to look up interesting suspects. I told Brown that I would do it.”
“How do you use them?”
“I search the local blogs and use apps to see who is posting about technology issues. Sure enough, there are a bunch of people posting or reposting false revelations that are designed to rile up San Francisco residents about the tech companies.”
Cutter rubbed his chin. “Do you think it’s just one of those activists taking advantage of the situation or what?”
“From my point of view, we don’t have enough data yet. You’re the one with all the experience, what does your gut tell you?”
“I’ll get a warrant today to have Twitter tell us who the tweeter twit really is. Then we add him or her to our list of potential suspects.”
“What’s with that three ring binder?”
Cutter had an open black binder with plastic pages where pictures or documents could be inserted. “It’s called a Murder Book.”
“Oh, I’ve heard about how the old time detectives used those back in the stone ages to keep photographs of dinosaurs.”
Cutter cracked a grin. “I still like using them. Call me old fashioned, but I still like a hard copy in a binder. I don’t need an internet connection and I find it much easier to jump around looking for things. By the time we’re finished investigating this case, it’ll consist of several thick binders.”
“By having all the data in a secure cloud, I can access it from anywhere and I can crunch huge quantities of data quickly.”
“Hmm. If everything goes into this database cloud of yours, what happens if there is a power failure or a security breach? I could lose everything I’ve discovered relating to this case. That’s why I want a hardcopy backup in my Murder Book. Once iPoirot has proven itself, then maybe I’ll trust it.”
“But what if you’re in the field and want to look something up on your iPad.”
“That’s why I have you as a partner. I can get you to look it up on your iPad.”
He doesn’t get it yet.
“What are you worried about?”
“Who knows? I for one don’t want to get sidetracked looking into other teams cases.”
“But you can’t do that even if you wanted to. The new system keeps everything for each case separate so that the case we’re working is only available to us, and Brown. In the course that I took, it said that using the digital version would be the anchor of our case. Every move made, interview taken, piece of evidence or potential evidence gathered would never become lost. They claimed it could save hundreds of hours in a case like ours. We’d get instant access 24 hours a day from wherever we are. And bonus -- no more photocopying, screwing around with protective plastic pages or getting paper cuts. And it saves space.”
There was a knock on the door.
Brown stood in the doorway. “Just so you know, the videos from the Orpheum Theatre have finally been fed into the iPoirot system and I was told it should have everyone identified within an hour.”
Cutter was curious. “I thought the video was fed in right after it was taken?”
“It was, but it wasn’t accepted or something. They tell me that it will be shortly.”
“How can it possibly identify over two thousand people so quickly?”
Sloan knew, in theory anyway. “It has complete access to everyone’s driver’s license photograph, FastTrack data, booking photos and social media accounts profile pictures, then starts the process.”
“Yeah, but how good is it if it isn’t working perfectly?”
“Certain federal agencies who shall remain unnamed are already using it to track people of interest in real time. I’ve heard they can identify up to a hundred faces in a crowd in real time. They tell me that we should be able to get a ninety nine to a hundred percent rate from videos within an hour.”
Cutter wasn’t sold. “I’m surprised that the civil rights organizations aren’t trying to stop it on the basis of privacy concerns.”
Brown said, “Don’t worry, we won’t arrest anyone based on a photo match alone. That’s where you come in, Cutter. We still need you to help put the case together.”
Sloan jumped in. “Our quality of life would be much worse today if we outlawed new technology simply because some person could potentially choose to abuse the technology.”
Brown said, “Don’t wander away you two; as I said, the results should be available soon.”
Five minutes later Garcia and Lee walked in.
Jose Garcia stood next to Cutter. “I spent most of last night researching where and how many people could buy a 200cc syringe.”
Cutter asked, “What d’ya find out?”
“Anyone can easily buy a 200cc syringe on the internet for around ten bucks from mucho sources.”
Lee said, “I ran murder, plus syringe, plus air bubble through various law enforcement data bases and came up empty. It must be an unusual method to kill anyone.”
“It would appear that way. Find out anything else?”
“Over six billion syringes are used in the United States each year. Half of those are used outside of health care settings. In fact, hospitals are only twenty-nine percent of the market. By the way, happy birthday, Cutter.”
Sloan watched as Cutter blushed. “How old are you today?”
Lee chirped in. “He’s so old he’s still using leeches to cure his hemorrhoids.”
Garcia and Lee laughed.
Cutter’s face looked like he’d just licked gasoline.
Lee added, “Why is it that women over 40 are called cougars while men as old as Cutter are called creeps?”
Garcia had a line as well. “If Cutter has a birthday cake there will be so many candles on it the EPA would claim it’s a cause of climate change.”
Cutter sat and took the good-natured comments.
When the wise cracking stopped, he answered Sloan in a hushed tone. “Fifty and going strong.”
A moment later Cutter stood up. “I hate to be a party pooper, but Sloan and I have an interview to do.”
Garcia said, “Before you go, I made the calls you gave me. Jill’s lawyer confirmed that her parents inherit her estate and that her parents are already well off. Her doctor said Jill was in good health. Oh, and one last thing. I verified Coyne’s alibi. From 7 P.M. until past 10 P.M., he was at the restaurant with his partners and support staff celebrating one of their birthdays.”
Sloan grunted. “Hmm.”
“I checked on VICAP, but there’s never been a case where an empty syringe was the murder weapon.” Lee added, “I was told that Ben Lopez didn’t show up for his meeting with our sketch artist.”
Sloan said, “Damn. I’ll call him and see what his problem is.”
“Later.” Cutter waved to Sloan to follow him.
Chapter 31
“Is every case this hard to solve?” Sloan asked Cutter, as they entered the elevator.
“Sometimes solving murders is like driving in the fog. You go slowly until the fog lifts a little and you can finally start to see the road in front of you. Oh, and by the way, Jill’s father left me a phone message that his daughter’s funeral is this coming Monday.”
“Is it common practice to go to a victim’s funeral?”
“Normally I don’t. However, since we don’t have a prime suspect yet, my gut is telling me we should go to this one to see who shows up. You don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
“Sure, I’ll join you.”
As the elevator door opened, Cutter asked, “Do you know how the CCTV camera system works here in San Francisco?”
“No. Should I assume you’re going to show me?”
“I am. Let’s go.”
Pulling out of the secure parking garage, Cutter asked, “What do you think of the new Mayor?”
“I try to stay out of political and religious conversations, why?”
“Well, the new Mayor was elected by claiming he would clean the sidewalks by relocating the homeless and other creeps into a new shiny island of hope.”
“I saw that on his campaign signs.”
“Well, I’ve been around long enough to know that neighborhoods around so-called islands of hope become high crime areas to buy drugs and sex, and nearby homes are constantly broken into.”
“You’re a real optimist, aren’t you? Tell me, did you vote for him?”
“Since he can affect our jobs, I’d better not tell ya.”
“Are you a California native, Cutter?”
“I was born in Pennsylvania, why?”
“It’s just that I’ve noticed that you tend to say ya instead of you sometimes and when
I searched for that online, it said that people who speak like you are most likely from parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio where there’s a Germanic influence.”
Cutter said, “Actually, that makes sense. When my ancestors arrived at Ellis Island, the official changed our name to Cutter from Kotter, which is German.”
“Got it.”
In the Mission District, they parked behind a two story private business with a large steel garage door and smaller steel entrance door. “This place sells the video equipment and supplies the staff to monitor the CCTV videos for the SFPD.”
Sloan noticed the overhead cameras.
Cutter pounded on the rear alley door. Ten seconds later he pounded again.
They heard metal scrape as the door swung open.
A man is his sixties, sporting a short beard and a Grateful Dead t-shirt, greeted them. “Detective Cutter, come in.”
Sloan couldn’t help but stare at the floor-to-ceiling racks filled with blade computers.
“Stan Bishop is the lead technician here.” Cutter made the introductions. “Stan, this is my new partner, Detective Jessica Sloan.”
Stan seemed happy for the interruption. “How can I help you today?”
Cutter told them the location and time of the protest he was interested in. “We need a photo of the lead protesters or better yet, their names.”
Stan talked as he sorted through the hundreds of video feeds. “None of the videos are monitored in real time, but we do store everything for thirty days before they’re erased just for occasions like this.”
Sloan was curious. “Which crimes are they normally used for?”
“The first thing you need to understand is that our network of cameras is really a quilt. In fact, most of the cameras are owned and maintained privately. The city still owns less than the private sector does. We only use the cameras for serious crimes so we don’t normally watch any of the quality of life instances that happen on the street, which is what a protest is. However, since you may have a serious crime connected to the protest, I’ll pull the footage for you.”
Sloan asked, “Do people complain about having their privacy invaded?”
“Since the cameras are all on public streets and sidewalks, the courts have ruled that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Within twenty minutes, Sloan and Cutter were watching the protest that blocked Jill’s limo unfold.
As the tape rolled, Stan pointed out a few of the images he knew. “The guy handing out signs is Simon Ratner.”
