INSOMNIAC: ALAN SMITH #2 (Alan Smith series) (24 page)

‘Okay so I am more or less done here’ said Dr. Taylor as he stood up. 'I’ll now give you the opportunity to check the room. The CSU guys have an amazing amount of patience I see’

‘Mind if I check the body a little?’ said Alan.

‘No problem as long as you make it fast’ said Dr. Taylor.

Alan nodded and bent down again looking at the body thoroughly. ‘The wound has an angle the bullet went in, so for sure it’s a master job of a sniper. And the body...dressed in normal shirt and pants...cotton shirt, not a expensive brand...the hair...dry...too dry..doesn’t take a bath every other day...a few pollen grains and a meagre amount of grass in it...went to a park this week.’ Then Alan stopped amazing them with his deductions and kept the rest of the clues if he had found any, to himself. Then he stood up. ‘I’m done too. Get the body out now’

Dr. Taylor gestured the staffs as two of them came, rigid, with a narrow stretcher and pulled the body on it. The next two minutes saw the body going outside.

‘So I’ll keep you updated’ said Dr. Taylor ‘If I find anything. Anything that’s new and notable’

‘Sure Dr. Taylor’ said Alan as the doctor departed.

Everyone went out and now there was no one else in the room other than Ryan, Alan and Alicia. Kevin was standing at the door so he would not be counted. The official security guards of the building were asked to remain in the floor and to keep the public at bay in case anyone enters this row, even by mistake.

As everyone left, now Alan shifted his attention inside and focused on scanning the whole room. Beside the bed was a side table, the night lamp was hanging there awkwardly and there seemed to be a glass of water too, there were some pieces of glass on the floor, maybe that’s because the glass fell and broke when the victim’s head hit the table.

He turned his gaze to the opposite side. He saw a four-door wardrobe and a dressing table just by the side of it. There was nothing else there except some stylish wall decors and an artistic clock with an awful design, fixed on the wall.

There were also some photos and paintings fixed on the wall above the bed, it was also a part of the wall decors.

He looked up and found a golden colour plated ceiling fan and a large LED light with a few night bulbs on the side of it.

‘Glasses?’ Ryan said as he bent down and found some pieces there, there was also some blood mixed with mineral water. He held one piece of glass in his hand and said ‘Thin glasses. Must be from the water glass that was on the table.’

‘Yes right’ said Kevin as Alan was busy surveying the room, while Alicia was observing the window.

‘But...no .There are other glasses here too’ said Ryan a minute later.

‘What other glasses?’ asked Kevin.

Ryan pointed to the floor.  There were some small, thin pieces of glass mixed with some large hard chunks of glass. It was hard to distinguish between them if you don’t watch them thoroughly.

‘You’re right’ said Alan, took a piece in his hand, and felt it.

‘This is hard and more solid’ he said turning it over in his hand carefully avoiding the sharp protruding edges.

‘This one is from the glass surely, and these pieces came from somewhere else’ said Alan.

‘Then it must be from the windows’ said Alicia. ‘The glass of window panes is more solid, it must be those glasses that got mixed with the thin pieces’

‘The window is broken?’ asked Ryan.

‘Why didn’t you even notice all this time?’ said Alicia. ‘It’s here all this time. Look’

Alicia pointed at the half broken frames of the window with remaining glasses that had the edges sharp enough to kill a human if you stab anyone with it.

‘The window was closed when the sniper shot at it’

‘And the bullet had more force to hit the glass and still hit our Vic’s head?’

‘What kind of bullet was it?’ asked Kevin. ‘I don’t hear often that a bullet is hitting the glass still landing inside the medulla of the victim?’

‘Whoever took the shot was quite professional, I think’ said Alan. ‘He knows what kind of bullet he should use in order to break a window and still hit the target’

‘Well the bullet is still inside the body’ said Ryan. ‘Dr. Taylor will surely give us the bullet and we will be able to see what kind of bullet it was’

‘Yes but we can do another thing in the meantime’ said Alan.

Alicia didn’t ask what, she just said ‘Yes, you can check that from which building did the sniper choose to shoot from’

‘Correct’ said Alan. He trudged near the window avoiding the glass pieces that lay haywire on the floor. Now that the blood was clotting up, more and more sharp pieces were becoming visible. He came and looked outside. The street was full of cars, pollution and unwanted high-pitched noises from large cars and trucks. He shook his head and looked at the front building . It was quite dark so he could not make out if it was a residential complex, shopping mall or an office building.

The building was large and wide. He turned back at them and said ‘The sniper must have shot from this building’

‘We need to know the particular place from where the shot was taken. We need to get the epicentre of the shot’ said Alicia.

‘Yeah, the position of the bullets from where it hit the window’ Ryan added.

‘Let’s see the pieces’ said Alan and took some more perpendicular pieces of glass in his hand and started scrutinising them in minute detail. Then at last, he found one of them and showed it to others.  ‘See, it contains a whitish scratch on the edges.’

‘Yes, there is’ Ryan agreed.

‘So the bullet must have, here’ he pointed at a particular angle. ‘From this position. Yes yes...this side of the window.’

Kevin came forward and took the pieces from Alan’s hand. ‘Where will this piece fit?’ he made a face and looked at the square window.

‘It’s a large piece’ said Alan ‘It’ll be easy to find the position of the piece.’

‘Yes, and see it have some faint designs on it’ said Ryan.

Kevin stared back at the piece. ‘Is there? Man they’re hardly visible’

‘Yeah, well I think it’s here, yes yes...just move it slightly towards the left side. Does it fit?’

‘It’ll not fit in the middle, the bullet hit the middle portion, so it will be as Ryan said, slightly above the left side.’ 

‘Okay then’ Kevin held the chunk at that position. ‘So here’s where the bullet hit. And the sharp edges and the whitish hue on them shows that the bullet hit the frame at an angle. So from which angle?’

‘Hang on’ they turned back and saw Luke, who just entered the room. ‘I have something that might help you calculate that’ He brought the CSU here with him.

‘What?’ asked Ryan.

‘Here’ he took out a narrow and short torch kind of thing and said ‘Take it’

‘What’s this?’

Luke clicked a switch, that was on its back and a ray of light, a narrow reddish colour came out. The light was like a narrow pipe or something narrower than that.

‘A laser beam?’

‘Yes’

‘But are you sure it will reach the other building?’

‘It will reach anything which is within a thousand metres from it. It’s a high quality laser beam , this narrow piece of light will reach anywhere’ he said and came to the window and held it in the middle , at the point where the bullet hit letting the point of source reach a particular place on the opposite side.

Then he moved it totally, so that now the point of the light source came inside. He hit straight at the bed.

‘Okay, so the victim was sitting right here when he was shot’ said Luke pointing at the edge of the bed.  Kevin went and sat down in the middle of the bed and the laser beam, the point of the laser beam ended up straight on his forehead.

‘Gotcha’ exclaimed Ryan. ‘We got the position of our victim’

‘Yes, now if we know the angle it’ll be more easier to get the position of the shooter’ said Luke as he now held the laser beam near Kevin’s forehead turning it over so that the laser beam now fell on the other sides, on the street, then on the other building. The beam went up straight at a 60 degree angle and soon it hit one of the dark rooms of the other building.

‘There it is’ said Luke joyfully. ‘That’s from where the shot was taken.’ He stood up not letting the point go away. ‘This might still be not the exact point but the sniper was certainly on that floor in one of those two rooms’

‘We need to check that before we can be certain about it’

‘Oh, sure’ said Luke.

‘So what’re we gonna do now?’ asked Ryan to no one in particular.

‘Now that we got the shooters position, let’s check the room more closely before letting the CSU comb the room’ said Alan and went directly to the wardrobe, and pulled open a door. He found nothing, just some formal cotton striped suits with two shirts and t-shirts, a pair of trousers on the lower rack. The trousers seemed to be made of some synthetic materials not the usual cotton ones. They all hang side by side. Alan moved one of the blazers to see the backside, just in case something was hidden there, but he was disappointed. There wasn’t anything. It was all blank at the back.

He stooped to check one of the lower chambers as he pulled open another small door this time of a rectangular shape and found some papers, paperweight, a gum tube, sharpener and this kind of things. Nothing of value here too. Still he was desperate to move those things aside and push his hand inside, he was expecting another blank region but this time the tip of his fingers hit something hard and more solid inside.  He moved the other things at the front and pulled out the black colour thing from inside with a little amount of difficulty.

‘What is it?’ asked Ryan.

‘A camera’ said Alan standing up.

‘So we got a camera?’ Kevin became a little delighted with it.

‘Yeah just like we should have’ said Alan. ‘But unfortunately it’s destroyed.’

‘What?’

‘Yes’

He held the camera in his hands and started checking the details as usual. It was a canon DSLR with 19mm lens attached to it already. But the camera was broken, maybe he threw it and banged it against a wall deliberately .Also the lens were smashed. The front and the main screen was full of scratches, and cracks forming over the corners. The buttons were all coming out, and most of them were damaged, and sure, it would not work even if you push it.

‘Looks like everything is damaged today’ said Alan and showed it to everyone.

Alan still tried clicking the on off button but as everyone expected it didn’t work. The camera didn’t respond, it was dead as usual. The button instead became looser, and another push would have made it come out.

‘He destroyed it intentionally’ said Alan turning over the camera in his hands then he handed it over to Ryan who was eager to check it. ‘Paul Brown, it must be he who did this thing’

‘And looks like he succeeded didn’t he?’ said Alicia.

‘This will not be of much use’ said Alan. ‘It’s doesn’t even have any memory card in it’

‘But why would he do this? What good will he get by damaging his own camera?’ inquired Ryan.

‘Beats me’ said Kevin who was still sitting in place of Paul Brown.

‘Maybe our killer did this’

‘No, our killer was not in this room. He just shot him from another building’

‘Oh, right. Then he did it himself’

‘That’s what I’m saying’

‘But why on earth would he want to destroy such a nice and...expensive camera?’ asked Ryan.

‘Yeah that’s what I’m wondering about’ said Kevin. ‘He could have sold it to me’

‘You guys remember, someone threatening him for something’ said Alan gravely ‘perhaps this camera was the key. Maybe the killer wanted this camera. So Paul Brown did the thing he could. He destroyed it so that the killer would never be able to get it. Even if he gets it, it’ll be of no use.’

‘And when the killer understood that he’s never getting the camera, he shot our Vic down and silenced him forever’ said Alicia.

‘Exactly’

‘It’s clear now’ said Ryan to himself. ‘The explanation is probable. Hmm...so that’s what happened’

‘But what was in this camera that was so valuable that even the killer wanted it?’ Asked Luke.

‘Well we will never know that, I guess’ responded Alicia.

‘Yes that’s the thing. We will never know what was there in it’

‘But we should carry on looking for the killer’

‘Of course’

‘Hey you wanna check out the building from where the killer shot him?’ asked Luke.

‘Tomorrow maybe’ said  Kevin. ‘It’s late today, need some rest first’

‘Okay no hurry. As you wish’ said Luke ‘Perhaps I can check it myself and finalize the place.’

‘Good, you do that’

‘No sir you can’t go in there right now’ they heard the security guys arguing with someone outside.

‘No sir...it’s a crime scene...sir?’ someone said again.

A second later, a man burst inside.

‘I just heard there’s been a murder here?’ the man said panting heavily for breath.