INSOMNIAC: ALAN SMITH #2 (Alan Smith series) (26 page)

They were tired too, and like any other day they sat under the fan and regretted not having a AC in the apartment. Ryan went to the fridge, took out two cokes, and offered one to Kevin. ‘Want some?’

‘Sure’ he said and drank it. ‘So it was a long day wasn’t it ?’

‘Yeah...’ said Ryan. ‘And you see from when Alan joined the squad our work went a lot smoother’

‘I don’t know. He seems to be pretty intelligent about everything’

‘Yes, and quite tall and slim too’

‘I think Henderson did the right thing, letting him join the squad’

‘Well he had to anyway’ said Kevin as he threw away the can over the table. ‘This man Alan was a former member of the homicide squad so when he comes back he had to let him in’

‘But what’s wrong with Alicia?’

‘Yeah...she doesn’t seem to like him’1

‘She always takes up some time before opening up to someone new’

‘True’ said Ryan and digged into a sausage. ‘And what about the pen drive?’

‘Yeah, what about it?’

‘What do think about it?’

‘No idea as of now’ said Kevin. ‘But I too think that yes there might be some information’

‘Some pictures maybe that he transferred from the camera to the pen drive before smashing the camera’

‘Or maybe some articles from NY Times’

‘Why would that be so valuable?’

‘I don’t know’

‘Well, we will check that tomorrow, better not predict it now’ Ryan ate some chips.

‘But even if something valuable is there in the pen drive, what was Jade Carter killed for? I think there is also somethin’ else going on here’

‘Right, but as they both worked as partners in NY Times, the killer must have thought that it’s better to kill them both’

‘Hmm. Got to be’

They soon stopped their discussion, retired to the bed, and fell asleep within a minute.

* * * * *

It was another clear and hot morning when they reached the precinct. The temperature was high as usual but it was a windy day, so that was a relief. It was 8 in the morning, Ryan and Kevin both drank some coffee and ate some snacks before entering the precinct. The weather was slightly uncomfortable, but they could survive, or so they thought.

The street in the morning generally remains clear, and today was no special, it was all the same. The traffic was less, but the jams would increase in some streets for sure as the day progresses. The parking lot outside the precinct was also a lot empty, which suggests that most of the uniforms were yet to come, save the few official cop cars.

As they entered, they found the ground floor a lot less noisy and nearly empty. They found a group of cops and a SWAT member between them drinking Pepsi and talking among themselves, but surely that was not about anything important.

They made their way inside the lift and soon reached the 2
nd
floor. And it was also empty except Trevor who was still typing something in the computer .Kevin checked Henderson’s room and found that he was there, making some phone calls and ignored them as they came inside his room.

He, after a minute banged the receiver of the land phone down and said ‘What?’

‘Where’s Alan and Alicia?’ asked Ryan as modestly as he could. He was not sure about Henderson’s mood today.

‘How the hell do you expect me to know that?’ he nearly yelled out.

‘Okay’ said Ryan and they both came out silently understanding that it was not the best time to ask him questions.

Kevin sat on the chair playing with a paperweight and said ‘What’s wrong with everyone today?’

‘No idea’

‘What idea?’

They turned back and saw that Alan first, then Alicia both of them entered the room with a file in her hand which she kept on the table in a manner like it was too heavy.

‘Where were you both?’ Ryan asked with a suspicious face.

‘To the morgue, what were you thinking?’ answered Alan.

‘Nothing’ replied Ryan.

‘And these are the autopsy reports’ said Alicia.

‘Oh I see’ said Ryan ‘umm...anything worth telling us?’

‘Nothing much, just that they have recovered the bullet that was inside our victims head’

‘What bullet was it?’

‘It’s said to be from a M99 sniper rifle’

‘And that’s all?’ asked Kevin.

‘Yes, other than that everything is normal and the autopsy doesn’t suggest much’

Alan’s I phone suddenly vibrated. He took it out, unlocked it and said ‘It’s a message from Luke’

‘What did he say?’

‘He just got confirmed with the room from where the sniper shot our guy’ said Alan. ‘He’s asking us to come and check it out’

‘Then’ Ryan stood taking the paperweight form Kevin’s hand and keeping it nicely on the table. ‘Let’s go’

‘Sure’

The next few minutes or so, saw them driving though the Madison Ave in order to reach the Broadway. It didn’t take much time as stated earlier that the roads were empty and they could zoom past the streets without any problem. They soon reached the Broadway and parked the car on the right side. Most of the shops here were still not open yet.

They came down all, Alan looked around for one time, that was a habit of him checking the area first before entering the main scene, then they all went inside the opposite building of the Plaza.

‘It’s mainly a residential complex’ said Ryan. ‘And parts of it are also used as storing things. The upper floor that is’

The room Luke found was in the 6
th
floor and unfortunately the elevator was out of service. So they were bound to take up the stairs thus losing all the energy so early in the morning .They, eventually after a lot of effort reached the second last floor and Luke met them there.

‘Just found out the room’ said Luke who was also breathing hard, must be the effect of the stairs. ‘The room is the 5
th
one from the left’

He led the way and walked straight past the other vast rooms, which were also too small, but empty, save some crates or large boxes in some of them.

‘Here’ he said and turned right. They followed him inside.

The room was small, empty with rough cement floor and walls with the colour that was blurry and coming off. There was no table nothing, not even a ceiling fan.

‘What is this room?’ asked Alicia looking around. The front wall had a large space, which was too large to call it a window. Actually, there was no border at the front, it was all empty and anyone could fall directly on the street if you push them of the edge. But it does give you a 360 degree view of the front building that was the Broadway Plaza. Some amount of sunlight fell on the Broadway Plaza, which made it looked more glittering and much better than what they saw yesterday. The sunrays looked cool but it was too hot, you couldn’t stand for more than 10 minutes at a stretch in the sun.

Alan tried to check the room, all the corners, everything, but there was hardly anything there to be checked.

Luke saw their faces and started explaining. ‘Well this room is empty because this is not a bedroom or something like that, all these rooms’ he pointed outside at all the other rooms ‘are used for storage. You may find some crates or boxes but other than that, it’s empty. Because it’s been cleared out yesterday. And I believe as far as the shooting angle is concerned, this is from where the shooter took the shot’

‘So this room was emptied last night?’ asked Alan.

‘I don’t know. They usually clear away the rooms and then again fill it. It goes on like this. But about this room, I asked everyone here not to enter it, so I think this room is just like it was’

‘I see’ said Alan, but still looked sceptic ‘And you’re sure this was from where the shooter took the shot?’

‘Yes I checked out all the angles and the laser beam was also quite helpful.  This is definitely the room, no doubt about that’

He then called two other uniforms and they gave Luke a large long box.

‘What’s this?’ asked Ryan.

‘A sniper rifle’ Luke made everyone surprised. ‘The one I used for a test.’

Then he took the large sniper rifle out and placed it on the stand. He made it ready, loaded it, cocked and then took the aim at the other building. He took the position so that the muzzle of the rifle faces the particular room or Paul Brown’s window. The window was open, he took the aim, pulled the trigger, and the bullet flew out. It went straight inside the Paul Brown’s room and hit somewhere on the bed.

‘It’s a non lethal bullet’ said Luke ‘I used it to test. You saw that, the bullet bounced of the bed but had anyone sat there, the bullet would have hit right in his temple’

Luke pointed at the windows, now folding the rifle again. ‘This’s the right room’

‘Okay’ Alan nodded and came forward to the window and checked its edges first. Then he looked down at the both sides of the street. He saw cars and people moving around oblivious to whatever was going on above them.

Then he looked straight at the window of the Broadway Plaza. It was half-open and the angle was forcing the sunrays to visit his retina.

He felt the angle was right, this was the room. So he turned back at Luke and said ‘Do you have anything more to say about the shooter?’

‘Well...’ Luke thought. ‘No nothing’ he said after a long time. Then he added ‘CSU checked the hotel room last night and found nothing more than that broken camera, and it was destroyed completely so the techs could not recover the files.’

‘Naturally’ Alan smiled at himself.

‘So about this shooter’ said Alicia. ‘Did anyone see him coming inside the building that night?’

‘No, I mean actually the security guards here are not quite sure about that’

‘And?’

‘Well I talked to the security guy who was in charge of this particular floor. He said that he saw a man coming here with a large rectangular bag or box kind of thing with him.’

‘Didn’t he ask the man what was in the box?’

‘Yes, he asked him that what business did he have here, the man said that he needed to replace a crate here. And as this thing, replacing crates and boxes goes on here, he didn’t mind much and let him go’

‘So he didn’t get a name’ said Alan.

‘Obviously not. He was sleepy at that time so he couldn’t even give a proper description of that man’

‘Huh’ Alan smiled again. ‘Did he hear any sound? A sniper rifle usually makes some noise when it’s fired’

‘He must have dozed off at that time’

‘Oh, terrific’ remarked Alan. ‘What time was it when the man came, did he remember that?’

‘It was half past 8 on Tuesday; yes that’s what he said.’ Luke said hesitatingly and thought hard again; just to be sure, what he was saying was correct.

‘That’s about the right time’ said Kevin. ‘It’s about 24 hours before we discovered the body, maybe a little more than 24 hours’

‘So that was a killer’ said Alan confidently, ‘He was right here’

‘Well...’ said Ryan.

‘Yes?’

‘If there’s nothing more here’ said Ryan. ‘We should go back to the precinct now and check the contents of the Pen Drive’

‘Right’ said Kevin.

‘Okay then let us go back’ said Alan.

They started walking back but Luke called them back again. He gave the mobile of Jade Carter to Ryan and said ‘Hey you wanted me make sure the mobile works. So I inserted a new battery in it and I think the baby is gonna be fine for some time now’

Ryan pocketed it and said ‘Thank you’

TWENTY SIX

It took an hour to come back, as they reached the 13
th
precinct and headed straight to the 2
nd
floor.  Ryan unbuttoned his blazer and threw it on the desk, then he grabbed the nearest chair available, rolled it to his own table, sat down logging in the computer.

‘The mobile, is it working fine?’ asked Alicia.

‘Yes, he said so’ Ryan replied.

‘Let me see it’ said Kevin and opened the outer back cover of the phone. Then he checked the contents and remarked ‘So a new 2000MH lithion battery. Impressive’

‘Just hope it works’

‘Yes I think it will, it’s compatible with this model’

‘That’s good’

‘I will see it right away’ said Kevin, held the red button and unlocked the phone. ‘There you go, it’s working’ Kevin handed the mobile back to Ryan.

‘Right’ Ryan waited for the home screen to come into view.

The screen blinked twice, made a sound they didn’t recognize then resumed itself to the home screen with a blank grey wallpaper as the background.

Alan also came in and joined them.

‘You got something?’ he asked.

‘Just opened it’ said Ryan. ‘It’s working fine, but it’s also lagging a little’