Detective Fog and the Mission Pigeon

Chapter 4. Detective Versus Inspector

November 1, 2015

The officers froze, appeared to read each other's minds again without looking at each other, and turned back around. "There's no security footage," said Dianthea. Leander crossed his arms over his chest and glared Jimmy down in silent agreement.

"Detective Fog doesn't keep a security camera in her office?" said Jimmy. He gave Cassandra a look that said best officers in the force.

Dianthea and Leander finally exchanged glances as well. Leander took his turn as the mouthpiece. "There's no footage in any of these disappearing body cases. The murderer's too smart for that. If there was a camera in Detective Fog's office, the crime never would have been committed there."

A monumental shrug from Jimmy said he didn't give a hoot about the officer's reasoning, and he elaborated on that, "Why don't we take a look and see?" He waved the officers to come back around the desk to watch with him and called up the security footage on his thin-screen monitor. It took a second to load, during which time he added, "I don't know how you ever made inspector, Inspector. Don't feel so bad, though; Officer Savalas asked me for a copy. I hope they give her your job. Now that's real police."

Everyone fell quiet as the footage began to play, Dianthea and Leander looking over one each of Jimmy's shoulders, Dianthea somewhat pushing Cassandra out of the way.

They were looking at the inner office from the top right corner opposite the window, and it was empty. Impatient, Jimmy scanned the image until there was movement, two figures, one dressed light and one dark, but he went too far and backed up to watch them enter the room. The woman came in first, dressed in a sky blue peplum suit jacket and a white fedora, at gunpoint; the killer, in a black suit and black fedora, followed.

Not much was visible except a slim, straight up and down form. Not so much as a shadowed chin was visible. Even as the perp came into the center of the office, their face was invisible to the camera under the hat brim. The awkward head turn almost suggested that they already knew where the camera was. The counter at the bottom of the video player reeled off a total of five seconds between the killer following Athena Rex into the room and pulling the trigger, firing, as Leander had pointed out, one to the head and one to the chest.

The shots rang out of the tinny computer speaker like a low-budget low-fi film school clip and Dianthea started even though it wasn't loud. "That was with audio?" she said as the killer walked out before the body hit the floor, not rushing but fast, head low below the hat brim. There hadn't been a single sound up until the report of the compact Beretta.

"Play that again," said Dianthea. Jimmy obliged, once, twice, three times. Every time it played out like a silent movie until the cacophony of bad quality audio that marked the firing of the gun. "You're telling me he didn't say anything? No instructions, no final words?"

"He?" Cassandra responded right away. "Did you see that Beretta? That's a ladies' gun. Looked like a woman to me."

The other three turned to look at her as one, but no one dignified her with a reply.

Instead Jimmy responded to Dianthea's question. "You heard it just like the rest of us. No dialogue. I don't know what to tell you."

"It almost sounds like you added that gunshot after."

"Me?" said Jimmy, covering his heart with his hands in the picture of offense.

"Yeah, you," said Dianthea. "Step away from the computer, Jimmy, I'm taking this with me."

"I can send you the files, officer."

"Not a chance, slick. I'm taking the whole computer. I'd just take the hard drive or whatever if I knew what the heck that was."