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Sergeant Dwayne Phillips parked his cruiser in the small parking lot off Mountain Road in Greenfield. He got out of the SUV, paused, and listened to the sounds of the night. It was cold out and very quiet, except for the occasional rustle of leaves. Probably mice, he thought. Phillips took a hard-case out of the back seat and set up a small drone and its remote controller. This drone had infrared imaging and he had tested it once at night, but he hadn’t yet used it in the field. On such a quiet night, he was concerned that he might spook the object of his surveillance. He decided to fly it at an altitude of 400 feet to minimize the noise and maximize the view.
He launched the drone straight up into the air and, when it was up to altitude, he could barely hear it. He moved it slowly north, toward Cheryl Needham’s house, as he scrutinized the image on the controller. He lowered it to 300 feet over her house and looked more closely. Nothing. He raised it back up to 400 feet and moved it slowly to the west, toward Pond and Oak Streets. There! He saw a hint of red by the woods on Oak Street. He hovered over it and lowered the drone to 300 feet. A fox.
Phillips raised the drone back up to 400 feet and moved it slowly to the east, back toward his parking lot. There! A person in the woods just east of Parkway Street. He grabbed the radio mic from his shoulder and said, “This is Phillips. I’m doing drone surveillance on Mountain Rd. I need a unit to Parkway Street, halfway between Crescent Street and Highland Pond, quiet approach. I’m observing one suspect on the hill to the east of the road. Suspected to be involved in the tunneling caper. Suspect not expected to be armed or dangerous.”
After a few seconds, Russ at dispatch said, “I have unit four headed over with Voorhees and Gorski. They should be there in a couple of minutes.”
A minute later, Phillips observed the cruiser approaching slowly from the north, the wrong way down Parkway, which was a one-way dirt road. They had their spotlight on. “Unit four, Phillips. Suspect is about thirty more yards on the left, about twenty yards into the woods.” Suddenly, the suspect took off. “Unit four, suspect is running to the north. Behind you now. I lost visual. There he is. He just crossed Parkway and is headed west toward Chestnut Hill.”
“This is Voorhees, I sent Gorski into the woods. I’m driving over to Chestnut Hill.”
Phillips watched Gorski run into the woods toward Chestnut Hill. He lowered the drone for a better view, but he lost the suspect. He increased the drone’s altitude, but still couldn’t see him. He observed the cruiser heading up Chestnut Hill. The cruiser reached the street’s dead end. Voorhees jumped out of the vehicle and headed into the woods. A minute later, the two officers met in the woods and searched the area. Shortly thereafter, they ran back toward the cruiser. “We lost him. He’s not here.
“I don’t see him on the drone, either.”
The officers left the woods. “Ouch!” said Gorski. He shined his light at this feet, revealing that he’d kicked a storm drain grate that had been moved from its basin. “I think he went into the sewer.”
“You need to drive around to find where he comes out,” said Phillips. “I’m coming down to help search.”
Phillips retrieved the drone, put the equipment back into his cruiser, and drove to the patrol unit. Voorhees and Gorski found two more grates out of place on Highland Avenue. “I think we lost him,” said Gorski. “Whoever he is, he’s pretty clever.”
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PHILLIPS PHONED KAREN. “I’m pretty sure this guy got away by now. I’ll just have patrol make sure all the storm drains are covered.”
“In the morning, we’ll look at your drone footage and the storm-drain map again,” said Karen. “Maybe we can figure out what he was doing.”
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KAREN AND GIL WERE drinking coffee and staring at the storm-drain map in the conference room. Karen pointed at the map and said, “According to Dwayne, they found a grate removed from here on Chestnut Hill, and two over here on Highland Avenue,” said Karen. Why do you have a confused look on your face?”
“There’s something strange about the drain system arrangement. Mostly, the storm drain piping follows the roads, which I’d expect. But then there are some places where there are extra pipes, extra manholes, and some pipes that directly cross properties at unexpected angles. I’m wondering why. I almost seem to remember something about that. I’ll ask the engineer, Rona Polo. Do you have her number?”
Gil made a quick call to Rona, who she said she’d find out and get back to him.
“I’m going to have someone search the area along Parkway Street with a metal detector and see if we can find anything,” said Karen.
“Lili suggested that we search the new tunnels more closely and look for evidence,” said Gil. “Let’s start with the one on Oak Street.”
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GIL SET UP DANICA AND steered her down the manhole at the end of Oak Street. He guided the robot, slowly moving her in a zig-zag path to carefully search the entire floor of the tunnel. At first, the tunnel’s floor was dense clay, and very rocky. After a while, there was a transition to soft soil with only a few rocks. He thought it must be construction backfill from laying the sewer pipes, as the mining professor had mentioned. He steered Danica all the way to the cellar wall at the Arch Street Salon. Nothing. He inspected the dead-end tunnels as well. As he steered the robot back toward the entrance, Karen called out, “Wait, stop. What’s that?” Danica moved forward a few feet and turned to one side. “It looks like a stone, but it’s greenish.”
Gil fumbled around a bit trying to grasp the stone with the robot’s arm, and he finally got it. He had the robot release the item in a small plastic bin he’d installed. He steered Danica back out to the manhole and lifted her out. “It looks like an old piece of metal,” he said. “We’ll have to clean it up and see what it is.”
Karen put on a rubber glove, snatched the item out of Gil’s hand, and dropped it into an evidence bag. “I’ll send it to the crime lab.”