“Wow, you look like hell.”
I flipped Rue the bird. “Thanks. I feel like hell, too, since I literally got four hours of sleep.”
He chuckled. “That isn’t the first time you went with hardly any sleep. You must be getting old.”
I flipped him two birds and plopped down at my desk. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
“Don’t do that for too long. You’ll be snoring before you know it.”
“How do you do it, Rue?”
“Do what?”
“Sleep at night instead of lying awake thinking about the case.”
“I compartmentalize.”
I snickered. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. I drink a couple of beers while I watch the news, then I give myself a half hour to review the case in my mind. I write down things that I may have to discuss with you or the group the next day. That cleans my slate, so to speak. After that, I down a melatonin tablet, hit the hay, and sleep like a baby.”
I groaned. “That saying is ridiculous. Babies don’t sleep worth a shit.”
“Says the bachelor.”
“I have two sisters who loved to complain about the lack of sleep they got when the kids were babies.”
Devon laughed. “Guess you didn’t fall far from the sibling tree.”
I shook my head. “Touché.”
“So, nothing from Tim Hein?”
“Nope. I’ll give him an hour or so, then I’ll call the security office myself.”
“Well, briefing is in ten. I’d suggest you grab a coffee so you don’t sleep through it.”
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.”
We headed down the hallway and bought our coffees. After taking a few sips to make more room in my cup, I bought an espresso, too, and poured it into my coffee.
Rue grinned. “You good?”
“I should be, but elbow me if I start nodding off.”
“Will do. Come on. Let’s head down.”
By the time we settled into our seats, the briefing was about to begin. Since Royce hadn’t pulled us aside to tell us anything urgent when we arrived that morning, I figured the meeting would be brief and uneventful. I was right. No murders were committed overnight, or at least no bodies were discovered yet, and that was a plus. Our day was starting in a somewhat normal manner. Royce mentioned the possibility of having a local FBI profiler go over the police reports we’d put together on Valerie and LeAnn’s murders to see if they could shed some light on who we were looking for. Short of sitting on Jacob’s house, which wasn’t yet warranted, we had no suspects or hard leads. We didn’t even have anything to air on the news. My only hope for moving the case along was to get something from that camera at the mall entrance.
I was anxious to get to my office and couldn’t wait for the meeting to end. It concluded in under fifteen minutes, and thankfully, there weren’t many questions. Other than the profiler suggestion, Royce had mentioned something about starting over and interviewing everyone again, beginning with the people Valerie knew. I was barely listening. I just wanted to speak with Tim Hein. If that camera couldn’t help us, we truly would be starting from scratch.
By 8:50, I was seated at my desk, and the light on my phone wasn’t flashing—no messages.
“Mitch, just call him. You’re going to drive yourself nuts if you don’t find out what that camera does or doesn’t show.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Enough waiting.” I woke up my laptop, found the 800 number for the mall, and dialed it. I imagined it would take me to an answering service, which would then transfer me to the department I needed.
“Southgate Mall.”
“Hello, I need to be connected to the security department.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but the mall doesn’t open until nine o’clock. The only businesses that are open are the ones with outdoor access like restaurants.”
I hung up and grumbled with seven more minutes to wait. I left my desk and went to the lunchroom. I needed another coffee to go with the aspirin I was about to take. Stress and lack of sleep were giving me a headache.
After I returned to my desk and sat down, I tried the call again and was immediately connected to the security department. I sighed in relief.
“Getting through?”
I gave Rue a thumbs-up. “Yep. Now to find out why Tim didn’t call back yesterday.”
The call was answered by a man whose voice didn’t sound familiar. I told him who I was and asked for Tim.
“Sorry, Detective Cannon, but Tim had to leave town. His wife was involved in a car accident while visiting family in Wisconsin.”
“Oh no. Will she be okay?”
“We haven’t heard from him yet, so I couldn’t say, but I sure hope so. They’ve been married for over twenty years. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes. I was working with Tim yesterday on parking lot footage from the night before. What we had didn’t extend to the outer lots, so he suggested looking at the mall marquee camera to see if any questionable vehicles passed by. Tim was going to check with the supervisor to see if the time in question could be segregated from the rest of the footage and emailed to me.”
“I’m the supervisor, Larry Grant, and Tim never mentioned it, but he was pretty shaken up as soon as he learned about Janet’s accident.”
“And rightfully so. I completely understand. I thought there was a problem with the footage or possibly that the camera didn’t catch anything worthwhile.”
“Well, I’ll take a look myself, and yes, I can pull out a certain part of the recording. Got a time in mind?”
“I do. From nine thirty to eleven thirty night before last.”
“Okay, I need your email address, and I’ll send it right over.”
I was relieved that I would finally have that camera footage in front of me. I needed it to prove that the van in the grainy image from the frontage road footage was Jacob’s van. At least then, the likelihood of getting a warrant would go up exponentially. I thanked Larry and hung up.
“The supervisor is emailing the footage to me in a few minutes. We need something off that van that can substantiate my theory of it being Jacob’s.”
Rue shook his head. “Don’t become overly confident. That’s usually when the letdowns happen.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.” I waited on pins and needles. I was sure it would take at least a half hour before the video attachment arrived in my in-box. “Hand me that picture Tech enhanced.”
Rue handed it across our desks. “What are you looking for?”
“Something, anything, that could match up with Jacob’s van.”
“We don’t even have a picture of his van. We only know that it’s an Econoline, and if we don’t catch that badge on the new footage, it’s not going to help us at all.”
I rubbed my eyes. “You do have a point. Maybe after we review the video that faces the mall marquee sign, we should take a trip out to Jacob’s place again and discreetly snap off a few pictures. The parking lot is a public area.”
Rue chuckled. “Now you’re splitting hairs. It’s part of the apartment complex property.”
I waved off his comment. “I’ll be careful. Nobody will even know I’m taking pictures. If I have to, I’ll take pictures from the sidewalk.”
“First things first. Let’s look at the footage.”
I glanced at my emails, and a new one had just come in. “Here we go. Scoot on over, and let’s see what we’ve got.” I waited as Rue wheeled his chair to the side of my desk. “Are you ready?”
He nodded. “Whenever you are.”
Larry’s email had come in with the video. He confirmed the time and date I’d asked for. “Looks like everything is a go.” I clicked on the full-screen icon then hit Play. We were staring at the backlit marquee, which showed the store names on that side of the mall. I focused on the video, and the street began to lighten up. I pointed at the screen. “That has to be from headlights coming toward the exit. Any minute now.” I leaned in closer. We would watch it in real time then in slow motion. I was sure that over the next few minutes, we’d back it up a dozen times. A white blur sped past the camera, and another blur came right behind it.
“Wait a minute. What the hell was that?” Rue asked.
“Those two vehicles, but I had no idea the camera was mounted that close to the driveway. It’s literally ten feet from the vehicles. How are we going to see the entire size and shape of that van or even know if the other car is LeAnn’s?” My disappointment was contagious.
Devon groaned. “Back it up and go ahead in slow motion. Maybe slowing down the footage will show us something. Plus, all we’re seeing is the top third of the van.”
“Tim did say the camera sat above eye level.”
Rue huffed. “It’s got to be damn near the top of the sign, meaning we’ll catch the drivers’ foreheads at the most.”
My hopes for that video helping us were gone. I backed up the footage, watched it at a half-dozen speeds, and even took screen shots. All I got was a close-up of a big blurry vehicle passing by.
“Even if we did take pictures of Jacob’s van, it isn’t going to help. We can’t make out shit from the camera to compare anything to,” Rue said.
“We could put a tracking device under Jacob’s van,” I said.
Devon laughed. “Tell me that was a joke.”
I grumbled. “Yeah, legally, it’s a joke, but if I had any say in it—”
“But you don’t.” Rue rolled his eyes. “Do you think Royce is really going to have a profiler come in?”
I shrugged. “Sounds like a waste of time and money to me. We don’t even have a type of person for them to profile. They take unnecessary risks. There. I just profiled the person or people involved, and it took two seconds.”
“Has anyone looked up how many 2011 white Econoline vans are in the city?”
“I don’t think so, but we can get on that ourselves.” I tapped my pen against the desk.
Rue grinned. “Looks like something is percolating in your mind.”
“It is, but we’ll have to do it after dark.”