Innocent Conspiracy_A Sam Prichard Mystery

by David Archer

  “Holy cow,” Sam said. “It was done by remote control? We need to find out who has access to those cameras. The arena must have a maintenance crew that takes care of things like that, right?”

  “They do,” Karen said. “I have a list of all of their employees. It’s on my computer, back in your office. Do you honestly think one of them is the shooter?”

  “Not particularly, but I can’t rule it out. What we need to find out is how long it’s been since this camera was actually serviced. Then we can start scanning security videos since that time to see who might have been up here to install the gun.”

  “What amazes me,” Karen said, “is that it might have been there for weeks. Unless somebody got up to that camera the way Walter did, that gun would be invisible. Who would ever think to check up there?”

  “The Secret Service, maybe, if the president was going to be here. Other than that, probably nobody, but I can tell you who will always check things like that in the future.”

  Karen grinned at him. “Windlass Security?”

  “You bet your ass. I’ve dealt with remotely controlled robots before, and we know that we live in an age where remotely controlled weapons are a distinct possibility. Absolutely anything that might have a line of sight toward somebody we’re protecting will have to be checked out in the future.”

  “You know,” Karen said, “the shooter might not have been here at all. If it’s remotely controlled, he could have been just about anywhere.”

  “No,” Walter said. “The whole roof is a metal grid work. That would block almost any signal that came through, unless it was connected to an antenna outside the roof. The controller had to be here inside the building, under that roof, or it wouldn’t have worked. It was probably just something on a smartphone, or on a tablet.”

  Sam nodded. “He’s right,” he said. “That roof would almost act like a Faraday cage. The signal to control the aiming mechanism and fire the gun would have almost had to come from inside the building.” He looked around at where Dolby was making his way back to them across the catwalk. “We need to get our technicians in here to take that gun down. I want it taken out to our tech labs, so Q can figure it out. It’s even possible we can find some kind of digital signature that might lead back to whoever built it.”

  Dolby looked at him. “Q?”

  Sam grinned. “His name is really Fred, but he comes up with such fantastic gizmos and gadgets that everybody calls him Q, like in the James Bond movies. He and his technicians can do just about anything when it comes to gadgetry and electronics.”

  Dolby shook his head. “I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so,” he said, “but it sounds like you have way too much fun. I don’t suppose you’re doing any hiring, are you?”

  “Back off, buddy,” Karen said. “I’ve already got first dibs on any job openings Sam has.”

  “Oh, well,” Dolby said. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?”

  “Sure I can,” Karen said. “Watch me.”

  Sam had taken out his phone and called their headquarters. “Jenna, I need you to get Q and a couple of his people out to the Canterbury Arena, with tools. Tell Ron I said they need to hurry.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jenna said. “I’m on it.”

  The phone went dead and Sam put it back into his pocket, then turned to Karen. “Well, that explains why you never saw anything that could have been a rifle on the security cameras. It was already here, probably long before it was needed. Its placement tells me that the shooter knew well in advance where the winner would come out from behind the curtain. I wonder if that was the camera that was focused on Max when it happened.”

  “I’d bet on it,” Steve said. “I mean, that would make sense. Mount it on the camera that’s already going to be pointed in the right direction, and you would only have to make minor adjustments with the aiming mechanism. And it isn’t like an actual sniper shot, there’s no wind or weather concerns. How far is it from here to where the kid was hit?”

  “Approximately one hundred and ninety-six feet,” Walter said.

  “See?” Steve said. “That’s an easy shot, even without fancy electronic gizmos.”

  Karen sent Dolby down to wait for the technicians while the rest of them stayed on the catwalk. “I don’t know about you,” she said to Sam, “but I don’t want to let this puppy out of my sight. As screwy as this case is, I wouldn’t put it past the realm of possibility for that gun to disappear if we take our eyes off it.”

  “I doubt it,” Sam said. “Maybe it’s just been the heavy police presence, but no one has tried to get it out yet. I can’t imagine they’d try it after we’d found it.” He grinned. “At the same time, I want to make sure Q gets it without any problems, and I want a clear chain of custody on it. We’ll run ballistics on it just to confirm that it’s the weapon that fired the round that hit Max, but I’m a lot more interested in what those electronics might have to say. I learned a lot about smart electronics lately, and different designers do things different ways. It’s quite possible our shooter left a signature of some kind.”

  The four of them stood around and talked about possible scenarios around the shooting, killing time until Q and his team arrived forty minutes later. Q was a short, stocky man, and he turned out to be too short to see over the top of the camera. Luckily, one of his technicians—a man named Cooley—stood almost six foot four. With Q holding onto his legs to brace them, he stood on the railing the way Walter had and removed the screws that held the articulated tripod onto the top of the camera. Wearing rubber gloves so that he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints or skin oils, he finally lifted the rifle down and passed it to Vicki Freeman, the other technician who had come with them.

  “This is a class 2 Bluetooth setup,” Vicki said. “The shooter had to have been within ten meters of it when it was fired.” She scowled. “Well, under most circumstances, anyway. It’s possible he might’ve used a Linksys dongle modified with an external antenna. That would let him have a range of up to a hundred meters.”

  Q shook his head. “That would require a class 1 device, like a laptop. Even a tablet would only have class 2, so I don’t think that’s a viable scenario.” He looked at Sam. “I think she was right the first time. The shooter had to be within ten meters, about thirty three feet.” He looked over the rail to the seats below. “I don’t know if it’s going to help anything,” he said, “but it’s almost twenty feet down to the seats below us. If you start at the one directly below and draw a radius out about twelve feet, then make a circle at that radius, your shooter was sitting within that circle somewhere.” He looked up at Sam. “Of course, that’s assuming the camera was right here when the gun was fired. If we can get a copy of the video footage from this camera at the time the victim was shot, we should be able to determine exactly where the camera was at that moment. That would let you know for sure where the shooter had been sitting.”

  “That gives us something to work with, anyway,” Sam said. “What about the electronics on the gun? Any chance you can find any kind of leads back to the shooter from them?”

  “Remote controlled guns aren’t nearly as uncommon as you might think,” Q said. “What’s really different in this case is the fact that they used Bluetooth. Radio control or cell signal is most common, but somebody went to the trouble of creating an app and wiring up a Bluetooth transceiver to both the aiming and trigger mechanisms. You can find a dozen articles and videos online about how to use Bluetooth to make remote control cars, things like that. Somebody finally decided to adapt it to something a little more sinister.”

  “So just about anybody can learn how to do it?” Sam asked.

  “I’m afraid so, Sam,” Q said. “But that doesn’t mean they didn’t leave some Easter eggs for us. We can find out where and when this rifle was built, which will lead us to where it was sold. The Bluetooth device should be able to tell us what phone or tablet it was paired with, which will almost certainly be one of the prepaid variety, but that will giv
e us the ability to identify where it was purchased and how the activation was paid. That information might lead to identifying the person who bought it and used it.”

  Sam grinned. “Q,” he said, “that’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

  *

  “News Seven, this is Production.”

  Harvey picked up the microphone. “Go ahead, Production.”

  “News Seven, you’re closest to Canterbury Arena. Police scanner says they found the weapon used in the shooting Saturday night, get over there and get the story.”

  “Roger, on the way,” Harvey said. He hung up the microphone and looked at Wendy. “Get ready, we’re getting in on the biggest news story of the week.”

  “Well, get us there,” Wendy said. She took a compact out of her purse and looked in the mirror, then pulled out a brush and ran it through her hair.

  They pulled up in front of the arena a couple of minutes later, and Harvey got her wired up quickly. He grabbed his camera and followed her into the building, where Wendy spotted Detective Karen Parks and several other people, including the locally famous Sam Prichard.

  “Detective Parks,” she said, holding out her microphone, “we’ve been told that you found the weapon that was used in the recent shooting. Can you comment on this for me?”

  Karen frowned, but turned to face the camera. “Yes, Wendy,” she said. “An investigator from Windlass Security examined the crime scene and found a rifle that had been modified to operate by remote control. The rifle was mounted on one of the overhead trolley cameras, and is being removed for further examination. That’s all we know at the moment.”

  “Detective, why is Windlass Security examining the crime scene?”

  “The mayor has authorized Denver PD to work with Windlass investigators on this case,” Karen said. “Web Wide Awards has hired Windlass to handle all future security arrangements, and to investigate the shooting itself. Sam Prichard is their lead investigator, and the mayor has the utmost confidence in his abilities and leadership.”

  Wendy turned and held the microphone out to Sam. “Mr. Prichard, since you seem to be in charge, can you tell us any more about what’s going on?”

  Sam smiled at the camera. “At this point, we’re planning to keep some of the details under our hats, but as Detective Parks has said, we did find a remotely controlled rifle mounted on one of the cameras. Ballistics will have to confirm it, but at this point we believe this is the rifle that fired the shot that struck Mr. Petrelli.”

  “And do you have any leads on who might have been behind this?” Wendy asked.

  “At this point, Wendy, all I can say is that we’re exploring different possibilities. Hopefully, finding the weapon will help us to narrow down our search.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Prichard, and Detective Parks,” Wendy said. She turned up to the camera. “This is Wendy Dawson at the Canterbury Arena, for Channel 6 news.”

  Sam and Karen walked away as Harvey kept the camera pointed at Wendy. “Production, how’s that?”

  “Very good, News Seven,” said the voice in his headset. “Excellent work.”

  Harvey turned off the camera and nodded at Wendy, who relaxed. “I think that’s the first update they’ve given out on this case,” Wendy said. “And we got it! Harvey, this could be a big break for us.”

  “Yeah,” Harvey said. “This is turning out to one helluva first day on the job.”

  4

  As a precaution, and with the agreement of the Denver Police Department, Sam ordered a thorough search of all the equipment in the Canterbury Arena, including all the other cameras, the booms, sound equipment, and everything. No other weapons were found, but the searchers developed a maintenance regimen that would keep better track of every possible location where a remotely controlled weapon could be hidden.

  “I want copies of all security video for the last ninety days,” Sam told Dolby. “Everything, every bit of video from anywhere inside that building. Our shooter got in there at some point when there was no one else likely to interfere with what he was doing. I’m going to put someone on scanning through that video and see if we can figure out when that happened.”

  “All their security video is stored on a remote server,” Dolby said. “They already provided access to it, so I’ll get the login and password and send them to you.”

  “That’s even better. Any idea how far back they go?”

  “Yeah, they hold a year’s worth of video, just in case they need to go back and look for something.”

  “Perfect,” Sam said. “Give me that information as soon as possible.”

  Sam thanked him, and then he, Karen, Steve, and Walter got into the SUV and headed back to Sam’s office.

  “Walter,” Sam said as he was driving, “what made you suspect remote control?”

  “The catwalks,” Walter said. “They only use those for maintenance on the equipment. Nobody would be up there during the show, and when we walked onto it, little bits of dirt and stuff were falling off our shoes onto the seats below. When the police interviewed everybody after the shooting, somebody would most likely have mentioned dirt falling from overhead. When you said nobody noticed anything unusual, that’s when I started thinking that it had to be something remote, and the cameras were the most likely place to put the gun.”

  Karen looked at Sam. “And you send this guy out to consult, right? How much do you charge? I want him looking at every crime scene of mine in the future.”

  Sam chuckled. “I don’t know how much they charge for Walter’s services,” he said, “but it’s enough that he only gets called in on a case when nobody else can figure it out.”

  “Sometimes we do it for free,” Walter said.

  “That’s true,” Steve said. “We’ve gone out a few times on pro bono, for small departments that need our kind of help. I’m not sure Denver PD would qualify, though.”

  Karen laughed. “And I’d probably never get them to pay up. Our city is run by a bunch of cheap bastards.”

  They got back to the office a few minutes later, and Jenna handed Sam a small stack of messages. Jade Miller had met once again with John Morton and Annie Porter, and would be introduced to the company staff the following morning as Annie’s new assistant. She had gone home early to start planning her wardrobe and work on a cover story.

  Summer Raines had gotten a list of Web Wide Awards employees from Morton and Porter, and asked Darren Beecher to help her go over them. She was looking for employees who might be considered unhappy or disgruntled, and they were poring over the records in search of complaints and reprimands. They had already identified seven potential suspects, all but one of whom were male. Summer would start working on them as early as that evening.

  Denny Cortlandt, after hearing that the weapon used was a very professional remotely controlled rifle, was reaching out to contacts in the intelligence community, looking for any leads on professional assassins or hit men who might have been in the area when the shooting occurred. He didn’t expect to get any results before the following day, but promised to keep Sam in the loop.

  Sam checked his emails when he got into his office and found that Detective Dolby had sent him the login information for the Canterbury’s security video server. He grinned, then picked up his phone and called his wife, Indie.

  “Hey, good lookin’,” he said when she answered. “How’s your day going?”

  “Pretty good,” she said with a smile in her voice. “Kenzie and Bo have been playing all day, and now they’re both so worn out that they’re sleeping. How’s yours?”

  “We got called in on the Web Wide Awards shooting,” Sam said. “Denver PD wasn’t getting anywhere, so the company hired us to investigate, and the mayor agreed to let us take the lead. He assigned Karen to work with us.”

  “Cool,” Indie said. “We haven’t seen much of her lately, tell her she needs to come to dinner one evening soon. Any word on the boy who was shot?”

  “It looks like he’s going to pull
through, which is good. Listen, I took Walter out to the arena a while ago, and as usual, it only took him a couple of minutes to figure out what was going on. Turns out the rifle was mounted on top of one of the big cameras that run on cables overhead, and was set up to operate by remote control. I’ve got the access information for the server that stores all the security video for the arena; we need to search through it to find out when the gun was mounted, and who did it. Is that something Herman might be able to help with?”

  “Hmm,” she said. “I’d need to know which security cameras to look at, which ones could actually spot that camera. Oh, and I’d need to know what camera it is the gun was mounted on.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “I’m sending you the access information, and the phone number for Detective Dolby. He’s out at the arena heading up the on-site part of the investigation. Tell him who you are, and he’ll get you all that information. Don’t forget to log your time, so you can bill for it.”

  “Oh, I won’t forget,” she said, chuckling. “I like getting a little extra money I can play with. I’ll call Dolby now, and get Herman started. Love you.”

  “Love you more,” Sam replied. The call ended and he leaned back in his chair.

  Karen had made a stop at the ladies room, and came in just at that moment. “So, what’s next?” she asked.

  “I just sent the security video information to Indie,” Sam said. “She’s going to put Herman on it, so we should know something about when the gun was installed by tomorrow at the latest. You said you had a list of employees for Web Wide Awards? Summer and Darren went over it, looking for disgruntled employees who might have a grudge against the company, and they found a few potentials. Summer will be working on them, but another angle we want to look at is whether any of them might be vulnerable to blackmail. Sometimes, people can be forced into acting as accomplices; we need to get some sort of an idea about what skeletons might be rattling around these people’s closets.”