Exponential

by JM Addison

  Chapter 24

  Dell and Randy took a good look around the scene. The chain lock was apparently broken with some feeble attempt to make it look useable, at least a first glance, to deter attention away from any belief of foul play. The evidence gathering didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. They got some good prints, from their spacing apparently female. And who knew how well these places were cleaned. Prints generally became unusable after a month or so, but in the days preceding Mara’s rental of the room, they would have to investigate who else may have stayed here. The same with gathering hair and skin remains for DNA identification.

  The room didn’t look right. Dell had seen enough crime scenes to know when things were deliberately ‘put back’. This definitely had that look. The broken lock probably indicated a forced entry. She would have opened the door enough to look out and WHAM! The intruder could easily have splintered the wood anchoring the base of the lock. Then he imagined a struggle where she would be overpowered and subdued. The good thing was, no apparent blood at the scene. There were a couple of minor stains which could have been recent, or perhaps not so recent. But if she had been knifed or shot or something, there would be a lot of evidence.

  The fact that the little car was missing was perplexing. Could it be that she wasn’t keeping it here? Could the intruder have used it to get away? Sure. If he wanted it to seem like she had packed up and left, that's exactly what he would do. He ordered the tags on all the cars in the lot and all those parked on nearby streets within walking distance checked. Perhaps he came in one car and then left in hers. If that were the case, that would be a good lead if he were dumb enough to leave a stolen car behind. He would likely come back to retrieve it, but it had to be checked anyway. If it were found, the car would hopefully be able to supply more evidence.

  Eventually, it was the forensics that revealed the story. Sure enough, one of the cars parked nearby in the street was stolen. The guy had been dumb enough to leave it (or unable to retrieve it). The forensic investigators were able to match both hair as well as garment fibers from the stolen car with some of those found in Mara’s room. The area from which the car was stolen from was not far from the Russell Field Tee station where an incident occurred the other day between a transit authority cop and a Hispanic looking smallish man who had assaulted the officer with surprising skill and apparently made his escape on foot down the tracks. The car he left behind was stolen and indeed matching forensic evidence was found there as well.

  Now they had a description of the guy and a sketch made up. Good work for such a short period of time. The sketch and the description of Dell’s sports car were broadcast to local the agencies. They held back involving anyone from state just yet.

  With everyone searching for the bad guy, for Mara and for the car, Dell hoped that something good would turn up. However, he couldn’t help feeling near panic at the thought of the almost assured fact that Mara was likely beyond hope. Being a police officer for a few years meant you learned to emotionally distance yourself from most of the victims. You had to. If you didn’t, you suffered along with them. How long could you live like that? So you learned to be a little bit hard. A little detached. It was the only way you could do your job.

  But right now, that was difficult. He would continue to work the case, but he couldn’t stop the feeling of being eaten from the inside out. Why hadn’t he seen the danger before! He should never have left her on her own! He knew he had to stop these proverbial ‘if only’s’ or he would suffer a breakdown. He had to stay focused on the task at hand – that of finding out who was behind this. They would probably find the person who was responsible for actually committing the crime against Mara, but he wanted the ones pulling the strings. This guy was probably just another hired puppet.

  At this point the answer lay back somewhere inside Viiradium. He knew he was supposed to lay low and not raise any suspicions with them to keep them from putting pressure on the department through political channels to back off. Going through phone records, visitor logs and security camera tapes would be tedious and would likely yield some type of leads, however minimal they might be. But, Viiradium was not simply going to hand them over. He had to be careful going about this.

  If he went as the “police” he wondered how far he would make it before word made it to those involved that the police were investigating in spite of their efforts to derail them. If he went as himself, any clue he found might not be able to be used as evidence to incriminate them later. He debated the point a while and, in the end, decided to not go as the police. If he did find anything there, he could always take note and return later if need be.

  As he pulled into the lot, he knew what he was doing was a bit reckless, but he could not simply sit and wait until the car, or worse, Mara’s body, showed up. He had to do something. He noted the vacant security guard station as he drove along the drive that ended at the employee lot. He parked his car some distance from the employee entrance and casually walked over to the guard booth. There was one of those railroad arm style barriers to prevent people from entering the facility without checking in, but apparently was not used during normal business hours since it was simply in the “up” position allowing people to come and go freely. At first it seemed somewhat strange, but then he considered what he would do if he were to break in. The employee entrance was locked and only opened to a valid security card holder. Plus there were cameras mounted above the lot and he realized he was likely under surveillance right now. Although it was more likely that the video recorders were simply recording the camera views and the guard inside the main building probably paid little attention to the monitors.

  He walked casually back toward the main entrance. As he approached, an employee was just about to enter by using his security card. Would he be able to just breeze right through behind the employee? As he drew closer, the employee even held the door for him probably realizing what a needless pain using the security card reader was. He sort of grunted a greeting and thanks to the employee for his hospitality. This was pretty funny to Dell. Having someone hold the door for you when you had no business being there! But it was probably pretty typical of most businesses especially those large enough to have so many employees that you wouldn’t recognize all of the people that work there.

  Once inside, he maintained his casual appearance and eventually found the security guard station. It was attached just around the corner from the main reception area. From the standpoint of a visitor using the front door, the guard station was out of site. Entering through the employee entrance meant coming in from behind and it was easier to spot. He entered the cramped room and found a middle aged woman sitting among a row of four monitors and an impressive looking telephone console. She was wearing a headset and the phone seemed to be in constant use. It would give a single low chime and an indicator would begin flashing to mean that an incoming call was being made. He stood for a moment and listened to the woman field calls. She seemed pretty robotic, “Good Morning, Viiradium, How may I direct your call?…” Then after a push of a button, she would say “Thank you…” and start over. He realized the pretty receptionist out front was there to simply deal with clients that made visits in person and that the phone calls were handled right here by the telephone receptionist behind the scenes.

  After a moment, the phone become silent and she noticed him there. She politely asked, “May I help you?”

  “Oh, yes.” Dell began. “That seems like it keeps you pretty busy.” He motioned toward the large phone key set.

  “It’s not so bad really, years ago before there was the automated attendant and voicemail, it would never stop!”

  He noticed her name was Jean Dunnhill from the name plaque on the counter. “So you must be the ‘Jean’ I hear occasionally when you forward calls to me. I work in the HR department up on the fourth floor,” He lied.

  “Yep, that would be me… Oh, excuse me! Good Morning Viiradium, How may I direct your call?” Button click sound
. “Thank You…” Click. “Sorry about that. Can I help you with anything?”

  “Yes, I didn’t mean to interrupt or anything. It seems like we have a little dispute with an employee’s claim to hours worked. I wonder if you know where the log book for the security guard booth out in the employee parking entrance might be. I just want to verify that he came in when he claims to have.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation she slid her keyboard near and started tapping keys. She was working the mouse while occasionally glancing at the row of video monitors. At the same time, there was a low chime and Jean continued right on fielding calls. On her computer monitor appeared what looked like scanned images of logbook time entries. Dell look on as she scrolled through the pages of the log. They eventually arrived at the log of the previous Tuesday and noticed that Chris Chandler did indeed sign in that night. However, nowhere did he sign out. So, did that mean he was kidnapped right here on the job or was the security guard lax in filling in the log as Chris left. It looked like the ‘time out’ field on most entries of the form were typically filled in by the person who signed in. That meant that it must be policy to sign out yourself when you leave and not let the guard sign for you. After signing out, the guard would probably push the button to lift the parking lot barrier so the exiting employee could drive through.

  Dell didn’t find anything else noticeable in the log, but knowing that the kidnapping likely took place right here was noteworthy. Not exactly evidence, but perhaps useful. Security surveillance recordings might show more. However, if there was foul play and Viiradium was responsible, they would likely have made sure any recorded crime was quickly erased.

  Jean turned to look at him and offered the suggestion, “Why not just look at the badge logs?”

  He started to say, “Badge Logs?” when it dawned on him that she meant the logs of when the security badges were swiped to gain access to the building or areas within the building. He replied, “I looked into it. Too many opportunities for someone to ‘tailgate’ through a door by following the person ahead of him.” He was thinking of his own experience moments ago that he used to gain access to the site himself. “Thanks, Jean. This helps. We will settle up with the guy ourselves.”