Gage
“There.” I point to the monitor on Dan’s desk. We’re watching the footage from the elevator in Kara Becker’s building. “He’s the only one who entered via the elevator during the estimated time of death.”
“Yeah, but who is he? It’s impossible to tell thanks to the black trench coat and big hat. We can’t see shit,” grumbles Dan. “Was it raining that day?”
I shake my head. “It was chilly but no rain.” I watch the footage again.
Finch points. “Who wears that kind of coat these days? And that hat. It looks like something from an old black-and-white movie. What do they call those?”
“A fedora,” Dan replies .
“A fedora?” Finch sounds perplexed. “Seriously. Who wears a hat like that?” Snapping his fingers, he holds one up. “An old guy. That’s who.”
Looking down at the screen, I see it’s stopped. “Play it again.”
Dan starts the video again, and all three of us lean closer. “He’s got on dress shoes too.”
“It’s grainy, but you can tell they’re shiny.”
Finch mumbles something about old guys and shiny shoes, but I ignore it. The truth is, he’s right. Those are two things an older man would wear.
“Shit.” I push up to full height. “You can’t see his face. Hell, you can’t even tell what color his hair is.”
“I’d guess he’s at least six feet tall.”
Dan glares at Finch. “How are you getting that? We’re looking at this guy from above.” Because the camera is mounted in the top corner of the elevator, our point of view is a little skewed.
Finch shrugs and points to the top of our guy’s head. “I could go measure the elevator and see if I’m right.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Anything would help.” Dan states absently as he fiddles with the controls trying to make the picture clearer.
We watch it one more time, but nothing jumps out to identify the mystery man.
“So that was a whole lot of nothing,” I mutter angrily. “I had hopes for that.” I point at the screen. The one good thing it does is give Tayler Sorenson a better defense. If it came to it, she could show there were other possible suspects, which means there’s reasonable doubt.
Turning to Finch, I ask, “Did you get in touch with Falco?”
“Yeah. Finally.” He sighs. “He called me back last night.”
“And?”
“He claims he hadn’t seen our vic for several months. I asked him to come down today so we can print him and talk to him in person.”
“Good.” I nod.Smart thinking, rookie. I want to get a look at this guy too. “What time’s he gonna be here?”
“He didn’t say. I’ll follow up with him, though.”
“Good.”
“What about the grades, Dan?”
The detective sighs. “ISU won’t release any information about Dr. Buchanan’s grades. They’re confidential, and I think we’d have a hard time convincing a judge for a warrant because our reason for wanting them is flimsy as fuck.”
He’s right, and it’s probably nothing, anyway. I mean, Dr. Dorian Gray Buchanan is very well respected.
“Hey… wait.” I reach for the folder we took on our trip to Stuart yesterday. Opening it, I search for the notes from Kara’s journal. “DG.” Looking at Dan, I ask, “Did you ever figure out who DG was?”
“Nope.”
