“She’s lying,” I told Izzy in the hallway, as soon as the door had shut behind us.
“I know,” he said.
35
We stood in the corridor.
“Now what?” Tiffany asked. I looked at Izzy and Phil.
“The security video,” said Izzy, looking meaningfully at our guardian EPS agent, whose name was Thatcher.
The agent got on his radio to call his boss.
“I want to look at Chesterfield’s room again,” I said, as we waited. “Are the Crime Scene guys done there yet?”
“Yeah,” said Phil. “They’re going up to start on the fifteenth floor rooms.”
Thatcher spoke on his radio again, and then turned to Izzy. “They’re almost ready with the surveillance video. You need to go to the security office near the lobby.”
“Video first, rooms after,” Izzy said to me.
Tiffany and I followed Izzy, Phil and Karl Bundt to the elevator. Downstairs we crossed the lobby, surrounded by flashing lights and screaming reporters. A crowd of my colleagues were penned behind NYPD barriers. I spotted Ginny Mac and Sparky in the crush of press. We ignored the unintelligible questions and crammed into the security office. There was standing room only and a wall of big video screens above a long counter with computers and phones, manned by several uniformed security guards. Live feed flashed backwards and forwards on the screens above them.
“Can we do this?” a very cranky Karl Bundt snapped. He tapped the shoulder of one of the seated security guys at the control panel, and three large screens, each showing four different camera playback views, began rolling. We watched armed delegates, security personnel, and hotel workers walk up and down hallways and enter and leave rooms.
“On the left screen, we have the views outside Speaker Chesterfield’s room,” Bundt explained. “The middle screen has the cameras outside Senator Blanchette and Congressman Hatfield’s rooms. The one on the right has the other two rooms, of course, victims four and five, Congressman—”
“What time is this?” Izzy interrupted.
“I had them start all playbacks twelve hours before we found the first body,” Bundt replied.
We?
I shook my head but said nothing. Izzy snorted in derision. “Are you fucking kidding me? You think we’re going to spend hours watching this shit while the killers leave town? Start with the discovery of the body and rewind from there.”
“We will fast forward, of course,” Bundt said, flustered. “I thought we would—”
“You will do what I just told you to do or you will get your ass out of this room,” Izzy fired back. “You, security guy. What’s your name?”
“Indogo,” he answered.
“Okay, Indogo, the first body was found about eight this morning. Punch in oh-eight-hundred and hit play on all of these now. Please.”
The security guard didn’t even look at Bundt. The screens wiped, went to black, and new images of the same halls appeared.
“Eight o’clock,” Indogo announced. “Running forward.”
Nothing happened. A man and a woman walked down the hall and up the hall outside Chesterfield’s room; the coming and going illusion caused by cameras at opposite ends of the hall. Everyone leaned forward, tense. The couple vanished from the screens. A hotel employee, pushing a breakfast tray, appeared and then vanished on the right screen. More people passed on the middle screen. No one opened any doors. Then Tiffany appeared on the left screen. She knocked on Chesterfield’s door and waited. Her mouth was moving but there was no sound. She produced a room card, inserted it in the door slot and opened the door. She vanished inside. Nothing happened.
“Hold them all, Indogo,” Izzy ordered. “That’s you, right, Miss Mauser?”
“Yes,” she sniffed. “That’s when I… found him.”
“Okay.” Izzy paused. “Wait. You found him alone? I thought you were with Shepherd?”
“Umm… I was… that is, he came… shortly after that.”
Izzy looked at me but let it go.
“All right. Indogo, please rewind at regular speed please.”
Everything started moving backwards. No one went in or out of any of the target hotel rooms. It got boring. After twenty minutes, Izzy ordered fast rewind. Nothing began happening backwards again—but faster. I located the time counter in the lower left of each frame to keep track. It was in military time: hours, minutes, seconds and hundreds of seconds. 07:49:43:12… 07:30:22:59… 07:00:00:00… 06:45:21:04… 06:12:10:05… 06:00:00:00…
“You have to watch carefully on fast rewind,” Indogo warned. “Keep your eyes on the doors. You might miss something.”
We didn’t miss it.
All three screens exploded into snow. Backwards snow.
“What the hell is that?” Izzy demanded.
“I don’t know,” Indogo said. “Pressing play.”
The snow didn’t look much different at normal speed, just slower.
“Something is wrong,” Indogo said. “I have never seen this before.”
“How much of this is there?” Izzy asked.
Indogo did a very fast rewind and jotted numbers down on a pad. Then he used a separate keyboard to access some kind of software with logs and lists and menus. He said angry words in a language I didn’t know. I assumed they were curses.
“Nine hours,” he concluded. “And not just on these cameras. On all cameras.”
“Someone erased the data?” Bundt asked.
“No. Not erased. The cameras never recorded. They were shut off at nine p.m. last night. In real-time, from the outside. Only came back on again at six this morning. We’ve been hacked.”
This time it was an exasperated Izzy who cursed, in Spanish. “Cuanto mas remueves la mierda, peor huele,” he sighed.
Tiffany, apparently a Spanish speaker, nodded in agreement. I looked to her for a translation.
“The more you tromp on a turd, the wider it gets.”
36
The convention started while we were in the security office. We realized it when Indogo restored the live camera feeds, including the ones in the huge convention auditorium. The armed delegates were pledging allegiance to the flag. Or at least some of them pledged allegiance to Old Glory. Almost one out of four delegates pointedly did not take part.
“Boy, that really pisses me off,” Phil said. “If they don’t believe those words, what the hell are they doing in the government?”
“Makes you wonder,” Izzy agreed.
“They don’t like the fact that it says ‘and to the Republic, for which it stands.’ Also they object to the word ‘indivisible,’” Tiffany said. “Some of them are secessionists.”
“Not to mention the part about ‘Liberty and Justice for all,’” I added.
“This is just the opening,” Tiffany said. “First the pledge, then a prayer by the chaplain, and after that the Sergeant at Arms will make a motion to adjourn to committee until later.”
A minister appeared at the podium, saying a prayer “for the victims of evil in our midst,” and asking for heavenly guidance for their deliberations.
“This will be over in a minute,” Tiffany began, “and we will have meetings because I have no idea what the hell is going to…”
Tiffany froze. The padre was gone and Senator Katharine Carroll, slim, dignified, with fire in her eyes, her now-loaded rifle hanging at her side, was at the podium.
“Wait,” Tiffany said. “That’s not right. What is she doing up there? She’s not scheduled to speak until… Can we have audio please?”
Indogo flipped a switch.
“…Speaker Chesterfield and the others were, indeed, cut down by an evil in our midst—foreign or domestic,” Carroll declared darkly. “I have been told I was also targeted by the killers. I cannot yet tell you whether they are traitors among us or enemy combatants. Either way, can we allow the assassin in the night to hijack our sacred American democracy?”
“NO!” the crowd thundered, on its feet.
“Do you have the courage to battle this cowardly enemy and restore freedom to our country?”
“YES!” they cried.
“I am not afraid,” Carroll said, parking the butt of her rifle akimbo on her hip. “Will you fight with me?” She reached out her hand to the throng, as if to take theirs.
“YES!”
“Will we honor these men—who fell in the cause of Liberty, our God-given cause?”
“YES!”
“Percy Chesterfield had a dream that he could reunite this broken land and restore respect and confidence to a tarnished White House,” she told the crowd. “I share his dream, as I know you do. That dream must not fail, cannot fail—if our great nation is to prosper. But first, we must honor the memories of our martyrs. My fellow delegates, as a gesture of support and a memorial for these great men, I move that this convention—by acclamation—vote Speaker Percy Chesterfield as our honorary interim nominee for president of the United States, until this convention chooses another candidate.”
“What the fuck?” Izzy laughed.
“She can’t do this!” Tiffany shrieked.
“She’s doing it,” I pointed out.
“Second the motion!” someone shouted from the floor, followed by many others.
“All in favor?” the senator shouted.
There was a massive showing of hands and sign-waving.
“Opposed?” she shouted over the din. A vocal minority were shouted down. “Motion carried!” Carroll concluded, producing a wooden gavel. “God bless you and God bless the United States of America! This convention stands in recess until two o’clock this afternoon.”
She banged the gavel on the podium dramatically and threw both hands into the air, hoisting her weapon high. The crowd went berserk, clapping, stomping and yelling. “God Bless America” blasted out from hidden speakers.
“What just happened?” Izzy asked. “They’re putting a dead guy up for president?”
“Only temporarily,” I pointed out. “I think the senator has someone still living in mind for the spot. All presidential candidates say ‘God bless you and God bless America.’”
“The senator who is lying to us—the only one who wasn’t blown away last night—just hijacked the convention,” Phil said. “Interesting. She’s got my vote.”
“I can’t believe this,” Tiffany groaned. “She had no right. How did she do this?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I told her. “She must have seen her chance and rushed to the podium right after we left her room. This just went out over the TV networks live, right?”
“Oh, my God, yes,” she agreed.
“I think it’s safe to say Senator Carroll is now officially running for president and isn’t waiting for an invitation,” I said. “At two o’clock, my guess is she will be nominated.”
“That was… like a keynote speech,” Tiffany said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was incredible, but how could she be so cold?”
“Not cold,” I told her. “Cool. If she was a guy, we’d be saying she’s got guts, balls—a hell of a leader.”
“No,” Tiffany said. “I meant cold about the Speaker— trying to take his place so soon after his death. They were close. Are you questioning my feminism, Shepherd?”
“No,” I answered. “The questions are why she didn’t get popped along with the others, why she’s lying to us and whether that rousing speech we just saw was improvised or written in advance.”
“Well,” Izzy said, “she’s either a hell of a politician or a hell of a psychopath. Maybe both.”
37
Tiffany rushed out of the security office to meet with her “Chesterfield for America” team in her room. That would not be a happy get-together. Their presidential candidate was dead, they were jobless, and one of his pals was elbowing onto his place on the ballot. On the video screens, the convention floor was chaotic, a lot of yelling and screaming. Several fistfights broke out over control of the podium and microphone. People began pointing their weapons at each other but no shots were heard. Democracy in action.
I followed Izzy and Phil back up to Chesterfield’s room, where the crime scene crew was still bagging and tagging. By phone, Izzy delivered the bad news to One Police Plaza and to City Hall that hacking had robbed them of a record of the killing and that he was exactly nowhere. Of course, he didn’t say that.
“Yes, Commissioner, I understand. Please tell him we have numerous good leads and we are actively in the process of including and eliminating suspects as we speak, sir.”
Phil turned to me and silently mouthed the word “Bullshit.”
“Yessir, we will absolutely catch the shooter. Well… it’s very early in the case. Of course the APN cell are at the top of the list and they are still in the wind. With current manpower, it will take us twenty-four hours just to… Yessir, that would be helpful. Right away. Thank you, sir,” Izzy said, disengaging.
“You tell him we have dozens of armed suspects and no fucking clue?” Phil asked.
“Not in those words,” Izzy smirked. “He’s sending us assistance.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Everybody,” Izzy replied. “We’ve got twelve hours to close this out.”
We all laughed.
“It’ll take weeks just to interview all these assholes,” Phil pointed out.
“I know,” Izzy agreed. “Everything is fast-tracked. As soon as the troops arrive, detectives from our squad and every homicide squad in the city, we’ll assign them and observe the autopsy of Chesterfield at the ME’s office. Then we come back and do re-interviews, lock up our suspect and have a beer.”
After Izzy and Phil made a few more calls, about fifty suits arrived, with more on the way. We went to a meeting room downstairs and Izzy and Phil set up a command structure to interview suspects and lock them into alibis and timelines, for later comparison with evidence that either confirmed or contradicted them.
Phil gave the assembled detectives a short version of the murders, including victims’ names, estimated times of death, wounds, possible weapons and the situation concerning the smoke alarm and video shutoffs. He emphasized that the murdered appeared to be the result of an organized, premeditated conspiracy, probably carried out by multiple suspects, all of whom were to be considered armed and dangerous.
“We will be gathering evidence from each and every suspect’s hand and clothing worn at the time of the homicides for a GSR test, to determine if they recently fired a weapon,” Izzy added. A hand shot up and Izzy pointed to the detective, a chubby, silver-haired veteran with his tie askew.
“Lieutenant, as you know, GSR testing is only good for maybe four hours and they can wash it off or clean their clothes.”
“Yes, I know that but many of our subjects may not. Also, it can’t tell if they fired a gun or were just near a gunshot. Doesn’t matter. It’s like asking a suspect to submit to a polygraph exam—the most important result may be that he refuses, displaying consciousness of guilt. If a suspect refuses to submit to a GSR test or surrender their clothing or weapon, they will go to the top of our suspect list and we will bird-dog with warrants. Call it in to our field office here.”
He explained that there were more than four thousand delegates to the convention, and so, as a practical matter, they would start questioning those who threatened or opposed Chesterfield. The first inner circle would include former governor Miranda Dodge and the blogger Clayton Littleton. Izzy said that the next group in the expanding circle would be elimination interviews and tests on those who had access to Chesterfield and the other victims, including staff. He estimated that was at least fifty subjects. Full departmental paperwork would be completed later. The Manhattan DA’s office would expedite subpoenas and search warrants for the gunshot residue tests, room searches and firearm ballistics testing. Phil handed out assignments to teams of investigators, who received a computer printout of their subject, with photo, state, name and room number.
“You�
��re first,” Izzy told me.
“What?”
“You have the right to remain silent,” Phil said.
“Oh, okay. Right,” I said, sitting down.
They asked me my whereabouts between six p.m. last night and nine a.m. this morning. I told them everything. Almost.
“So, you came to the Knickerbocker Convention Center for the second time last night,” Phil said. “You’d already had a conference about Chesterfield’s safety earlier in the day?”
“Yup.”
“Then the smoke alarm went off and you went to Chesterfield’s room, saw them get disconnected, then had dinner?”
“Correct.”
“How did he seem?” Izzy asked.
“The same as before. Nothing unusual.”
“How did she seem?”
“Who?”
“Tiffany.”
“The same. She was a little annoyed with Chesterfield over the smoke alarm thing. He pulled the same shit in Washington.”
“How annoyed?” Phil asked.
“Not enough to blow a hole in his chest… I feel bad for her.”
“Yeah,” said Izzy, turning toward me. “Nice kid. Wait a second… who did you have dinner with?”
“You know, the GOP people.”
“Like Tiffany?” Phil asked, as they both edged in closer, smelling a half-lie.
“Yeah.”
“Anybody other than her?” Izzy demanded.
“Nope, just us,” I admitted.
“After this alarm rhubarb, you spent the night in the hotel?” Phil asked.
“I was there all night. I left early.”
“He didn’t ask you when you left,” Izzy said. “Where did you sleep?”
“Who says I slept in a room?”
“Are you… Shepherd, are you and Tiffany…?”
“What?” I asked, as innocently as possible.
“You’re my hero, Shepherd,” Phil added.
“You guys are nuts. Give me a break.”
Sometimes hanging out with detectives was a pain in the ass.
“So Tiffany is your alibi and vice-versa?” Phil asked.
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