by Matt Rogers
Chapter 25
They arrived back in Dallas at the worst possible time.
“My God! Does everyone get off work at the exact same moment?”
“It would appear so.”
They were sitting still on a freeway designed to handle vehicles driving upwards of seventy miles per hour. They were doing, at times, five.
“Well, we might as well go over what we’ve got so far” Smith said and Wesson agreed.
They were following their only lead but felt certain it was worth it. It was possible, they both surmised, Bob Simpson’s case would not lead them to the discovery of where Mr. Johnson was but they felt in their guts it would. It was too much a coincidence for the man to have been found in Johnny’s closet after previously being incarcerated in a prison owned and apparently run by the family he was associated with. It was an even further stretch to believe his future bride, Melissa LeTorque, would just happen to have been the presiding nurse over an isolation ward where the man found with his head on backwards was previously pronounced dead from Bird Flu.
“We go with what we’ve got” Smith replied after Wesson asked his opinion of what they should do.
They were traveling to the offices of Craft and Sons. They had already phoned ahead and Joshua was preparing the room for their arrival.
The advancement of imagery had grown by leaps alongside technology’s bounds since the time Bob Simpson had been arrested, tried and convicted for setting both his mother and the Reformatory for Wayward Youth afire in an attempt to capture the cash-cow of fuel generated from dead dinosaur carcasses.
What was once the end product of amazing captured footage was no longer the case. With the development of computing came a secondary flurry of imagination for what had once been the realm of only those in academia was now in the hands of dreamers. The minds which were changing the world were doing it so rapidly the very idea of something being truly groundbreaking was becoming laughable. Every day something came out which was newsworthy. There were so many amazing events the world was having a difficult time grasping the concept. They were like new-found infants who suddenly awoke and could comprehend discovery. Their eyes were opened to the possibility that all possibility was possible. Everything previously thought unobtainable was suddenly within reach. The digitalization of photography was one such achievement and it was its use the detectives were planning to employ in order to hopefully solve part of their mystery and maybe get a little closer to the end goal of indeterminate charges. If the LeTorque were going to provide them with the means then they were going to find the way of locating an individual who was both protected and wanted by the same people.
“Have we even moved?”
“I could walk faster than this.”
The freeway was anything but what its name described. It resembled the largest, skinniest parking lot in the world. Something must have happened to cause the problem for as they were sitting idling time and gas away they noticed the slowest response team on Earth attempting to navigate a river of metallic motorization. The ambulance had chosen the shoulder of the roadway as its most likely path to bring relief but was doing so at the rate of five to ten miles an hour. The problem was not with the driver of the boxy emergency vehicle but with the others; the ones who couldn’t stand doing what everyone else was doing and wait out the time-consuming delay. No, they were the ones who felt so privileged they could use the emergency lane in order to promote themselves ahead. The fact some were sometimes successful in their endeavor was further irritating to Smith who believed whole-heartedly in the notion of stationing snipers on the side of freeways during rush-hour traffic with the full ability and legal authority to shoot on sight any self-pompous, societal norm-ignoring blowhard attempting to bypass the waiting line of drivers not on the move.
“Hey, do you think I should call Nat?” Smith asked.
“What for?” Wesson responded.
“Maybe he’ll tell us who’s on the video. I mean, come on, there’s no way we’re the only ones who thought of using the technology of today to answer questions from the past.”
“Nice phrasing!”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Well, should I call him?”
“Can’t hurt to ask.”
So Smith pulled out his cellphone and did the democratically determined dreaded deed of dialing during driving. He could barely believe it when the man-servant turned Dallas detective answered the device.
“Nat?”
“Hello, Detective Smith. Any luck locating our missing Mr. Johnson?”
“Maybe. Hey, look, we’re taking the videotape down to our offices for enhancement.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah and uh… before we go through with the whole process we were wondering…?”
“Yes?”
“Well, do you think you could tell us what’s on the thing before we spend the time doing it?”
There was a pause on the line and Smith was hoping the man would tell him ‘fine’, that the person on the tape was so and so and they could therefore skip the digitalization of videotape and get on with what they were looking for; Mr. Johnny Johnson.
“No, I am afraid you are not yet privileged to that information.”
Smith knew it! He knew the guy was hiding something and he had a pretty good guess what or who it was.
“It’s Johnny Johnson, isn’t it?”
There was another pause and Smith began worrying he might be right, the person who set the flame was indeed the man they were looking for. If that happened the gig was up. They would be compelled to drop the case and the vacation he’d already paid for with his well-earned raise due to location of an individual for an unspecified but highly profitable endeavor would end.
“I am sorry, Detective, but I cannot answer your question at this time.”
Smith actually felt a little relieved. It was weird because the man was obviously withholding information but he still felt a slight ease of tension when he declined to answer the question. But his stubbornness wouldn’t let it end there.
“Look, Nat, we’re going to find out one way or another so why don’t you save us the trouble and just tell us who…”
“Good bye, Detective.”
He wanted to throw the thing out the window! He’d never been hung up on so many times by the same individual in his life. And he dealt with a lot of shady characters! It wasn’t so much the hanging up part but the mild and polite manner of the act. The guy’s voice remained the same the whole time and it was really starting to get on Smith’s nerves.
“He hung up on me again!”
Wesson didn’t reply because he was seriously considering getting out of the vehicle and walking the last mile to the detective agency. It wasn’t really all too far and he could definitely use the exercise. Besides, the chili-cheese nachos were starting to ripen and he was worried where he’d be when they decided to announce their presence to the world.
“Hey, what’re you doing?”
“I’m going to walk the rest of the way.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Smith didn’t know why not. He knew the logic behind people not walking along freeways when traffic was moving normally but not when it was at a virtual standstill. So he shut up, watched Wesson exit and the slowest moving race between man and motorized conveyance began.
They didn’t intentionally start the process, it happened in a gradual way. Wesson would walk and build a lead which would be cut by Smith whenever the traffic allowed him to move. For a while it was neck and neck. Wesson would lead and then Smith would make a giant leap forward and they’d be even. Neither man even realized they were in a contest for the first ten minutes but over time both became curious who would end up the winner. It got to the point where they were actually eyeballing each other. Wesson would look out the corner of his eye and see Smith staring at him with the intensity of an opponent trying to determine his
weakness. The odd part, the seemingly random part was the other drivers located in the same vicinity as Smith’s vehicle were also in the game. Everyone was using Wesson as a measuring stick to see if a man on foot could beat those on wheels. Wesson could actually feel the eyes on him. He could sense the hostility emanating from the drivers every time their flow ebbed and his remained even. He would stride along and they would sit behind their steering wheels in frustration as they watched their lead dwindle and eventually subside altogether. The fat guy was going to beat them! The guy wearing numerous flavors of convenience store purchase was going to win! He didn’t, of course, because the accident finally came into view and everyone could see what had caused them so much aggravation; a fender bender with the two foolish pilots waiting for law enforcement to come along and side with their version of events. The fact the police had no way to tell if one moron was less moronic than the other was irrelevant because both felt the other was in the wrong and were perfectly willing to indispose as many of their neighbors as necessary to prove their point to the insurance agencies who were so rich from gouging their customers they could’ve cared less who was at fault.
Smith beat Wesson by forty-four seconds.
“Joshua?” Wesson called out as he entered the offices of Craft and Sons on the fifteenth floor of the thirty-two floor building.
“In here, boss!” he heard from the furthest room down the hallway which didn’t particularly please him for he’d just finished his man-versus-machine drag-race on the slowest moving highway in the southern hemisphere.
The back room was the do-it-all location. It had no set purpose and was used for various investigative processes. They had it all to themselves because it was after five and the entire office was empty. Neither Craft nor Sons could stomach congestion so they’d set their business hours accordingly. In at five am, out by four, no exceptions. Except, obviously, if one was working for a client of incredible coin then the ‘no’ part of the exception rule was eliminated because money had the power to alter absolution.
The two detectives entered the room and found the over-worked intern sitting at a desk in front of a laptop which was wired to a machine which looked like something from a space odyssey movie.
“Whoa! When did we get that?” Smith asked.
“When we got a client without a credit limit” Joshua replied.
Smith smiled, handed the videotape over, Joshua fed it into the machine and they waited.
“What are we waiting for?” Wesson asked.
“The computer” Joshua replied.
Wesson was going to ask what in the computer they were waiting for but decided not to reveal he had absolutely no knowledge or understanding of the confounding devices. He didn’t like computers, didn’t trust them because he couldn’t quite grasp the concept of the magical machine running the brain-numbing number of programs using at its base nothing more than a one or a zero. Oh, he could conceptualize how a dot on the screen could be turned on or off with the command of a code but it was the command part he was worried about. Who wrote the command? What else did they write? Was the thing spying on him the whole time? Did it have a secret camera imbedded in the screen recording his every activity? He knew if he were in charge of building the devices he’d definitely want a back door into the arena. His suspicion was based on knowledge. He knew people were both good and bad at the same time. The good generally won but when the bad knocked on the door the consequences were usually earthshattering and life-ending. He didn’t like the bad. He hated the bad. It was why he’d become a detective. He’d tried to be a cop but had a slight problem with the physical demands of the occupation, namely the fitness part. He wasn’t a fit type of guy. He was more of a thinker than a doer. It worked out well because detective work was actually ninety percent thinking and ten percent doing. Doing involved footwork. He didn’t like footwork because it involved fitness thus he gave up his quest to thwart the bad through conventional law enforcement means and signed on as a detective in the employ of Craft and Sons. They’d hired him on the spot for the simple reason he questioned everything.
The test was actually based on a real life drama which unfolded with a train bombing. No one claimed responsibility and the cops were baffled but not beaten. They’d found the detonation device. On the device they located a partial fingerprint and fed it into the database. They received a hit and sent word to the local authorities to pick up the subject immediately. He was arrested, booked and in lock up when his lawyer arrived.
“You’d better confess.”
“I didn’t do it!”
“They’ve got your fingerprint and if you don’t admit your guilt they’re going to fry you.”
The man had an alibi but it wasn’t verifiable. He was alone when the bombing occurred. His lawyer informed him the authorities would take the death penalty off the table if he admitted to the crime. He further stated the evidence was overwhelming. Three fingerprint experts were ready to take the stand and testify they were one-hundred percent positive his print was an exact match. The man thought over what the lawyer said and while on the way to the courthouse to enter his guilty plea a development occurred and the real bomber was caught.
The test involved finding fault. Did the cops make a mistake? Was the database compromised? Were there two bombers instead of one?
Wesson solved it when he questioned the underlying theory of the case.
“Who said no two fingerprints are alike?”
The facts of the case proved everyone was doing their best with the information given. The detonation devise did have a print on it, the database was not compromised and the experts were telling the truth when they stated they were sure the print matched his. The problem was the process. The fingerprint found at the scene was a partial. It wasn’t whole but it was definitely enough to provide what was required. The process of fingerprint identification didn’t involve overlaying one print on another and verifying they were the same. No, the fingerprints were digitally entered into a computer where the loops and arcs of the prints were enhanced and recorded. From there the experts took over. They pinpointed places on the prints and when they looked at the suspect’s the references lined up. They had ten different points and all said the same thing; the suspect was the bomber. The only problem? They were right with what they were working with but wrong with their initial assumption. It turned out the two men, one innocent and one guilty, had eerily similar fingerprints. When they’d entered the prints into the database it looked around and found what it thought was the criminal. The fact the database held hundreds of thousands of prints was deemed irrelevant because the theory no two fingerprints were identical held sway. The second problem? The theory could very well have been true but they weren’t working with a program to identify identicalness, they were working with one identifying relativeness. The innocent man’s prints were so relative to the guilty one’s that one tragic event almost had three disastrous outcomes; death by bomb, imprisonment of the innocent and freedom for a mass-murderer.
“All right, it’s done” Joshua said.
Both detectives loomed over his shoulder as he hit the play button. It was still grainy so he touched a little of this, did a little of that and, voila’, digital reanimation of a video revealing a person in a poncho wearing a cowboy hat pouring liquid around the base of a building.
“That’s it?” Smith asked.
“Well, yeah. What did you expect?” the intern replied.
The image was clearer, cleaned up, enhanced, focused and utterly useless to the men.
“There’s… there’s no face” Smith said bewilderedly.
They watched it over and over but the screen revealed the same thing every time. When the match was struck no face was shown. It was as though a shadow wore hat and cloak.
“Is there any way you can focus in on the face?” Wesson asked.
Joshua nodded he could, moved mouse on pad to place curser on shadow and clicked.
“What the…?”
> The image held their attention for there could be no doubt. The flame from the match was center screen, the brim of hat at the top, but where a face should be only blackness emerged.
“Are we looking at a walking poncho?” Smith inquired.
“This is totally freaky!” Joshua exclaimed.
They ran it through many times to verify what they were seeing was true; an arsonist of walking threadware sporting a ten gallon cap and lighting liquefied fuel.
Smith was getting a headache, Wesson mild indigestion and Joshua was becoming intrigued.
“I’m going to get a cola” Smith said.
“I’m going to join you” Wesson said.
“I’m going to run this trippy video again!” Joshua said.
The two detectives left while the excited intern once again started anew his watching of walking western wear. The moved down the hallway toward the break room both in somewhat gloomy mode.
“I can’t believe it.”
“Me neither.”
They were both so sure they would get a break in the case when they enhanced the footage of the firebug.
“How can there not be a face?”
“I don’t know?”
They reached the small kitchen the company housed for snacks and sodas, Smith opened the refrigerator and got both a cola.
“Do you think the tape was altered somehow?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
They left the room, entered the hallway and proceeded to retrace their steps and confront the confounding evidence again. They reached the door, turned the handle and entered the room.
“I found something.”
Both sat as the intern explained what he’d done in the two minutes it took for the detectives to walk down a hallway twice.
“I zoomed out.”
The picture became clearer as the image became fuzzier for when the full content was taken in a small detail emerged.
“Do you see that?” he pointed.
The detectives were not employed for their un-observational skills.
“The shadow on the wall?”
“Yep.”
“What about it?”
“Watch as I slowly fast-forward.”
The picture moved but their eyes didn’t. They were waiting and watching when realization dawned.
“Are those…?”
“Yep.”
They hadn’t seen them before because video blurred what digital did not. As the match was lit a silhouette appeared on the wall behind the figure. It was the shadow of everything between it and the flame. Nothing in life is absolute and many times what one sees is what they wish for. In the case of the two investigators it was the opposite. The shadow flowed, it morphed and moved as the flame flickered while fact became crystal clear. It was not Johnny Johnson unless he had somehow, someway, developed female form.