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13
MARK
Sojer more orless took over the meeting as soon as it started, explaining all the connections he believes exist between the two psychiatrists—Dr. Lap and Dr. Kline—and I have to admit it’s all even more compelling than it sounded last night over beer.
There is still this defensive air about him as he speaks and his eyes are darting from one to another of us, stopping most often on me and Eva. I do not like the look in his eyes when he fixes them on her.
But on the whole, he sounds like a very able police officer.
“And we just got back from the youth center where Ana spent most of her time for the last ten years or so,” Eva says. “The two Franciscan brothers we spoke to are also worth taking a closer look at. One of them told us he enjoys taking nighttime walks by the river.”
Simon groans and sighs, while Brina and Dino look down at their notes and don’t meet her eyes as she gives a summary of what we learned this morning.
“We are working on getting a list of people who came to the youth center, or who had contact with Father Ignatius on one of his lectures elsewhere,” she concludes.
The silence that follows is pretty thick and into it walks Rok, our forensic tech specialist. His dark, unruly hair is sticking up all over the place, and both his hoodie and washed out grey jeans are crumpled from sitting in the same hunched over position too long. Even when he stands, he can’t quite straighten his back, and that’s a problem he should start addressing sooner rather than later.
He stops dead inside the glass door that leads to his computer lab just beyond the main space of the office as we all turn to him.
“I think I found the man in the coat,” he says, stuttering badly like he always does when he’s nervous.
Brina and Dino both stand up to follow him to the back, but he shakes his head and comes the rest of the way to the touch screen above the conference table. “I’ll show it here.”
Unsurprisingly, he’s the only one of us who can reliably work the thing, and after a few clicks and swipes, we’re looking at the grainy nighttime footage of the main avenue that runs over the river in the spot where Ana was found.
A tall, wide man in an oversized dark coat jogs over the street, barely avoiding a black car that speeds away in the direction of the apartment buildings near the church. The time stamp reads thirteen minutes past midnight. So, about an hour before Ana was killed.
“Can we get a better look at his face?” I ask. Rok grimaces and shakes his head.
“I tried,” he says. “But this is the best I can do…”
A few more clicks and swipes and he brings up a noisy, pixilated image of the man’s head and shoulders just as he turns towards the car speeding towards him. It’s just a blur of white and light grey.
“I did manage to spot him a few other times as well,” Rok says and calls up a few more grainy video stills, some lighter than others. He arranges them on the screen side by side. In none of them can you see the man’s face—it seems he keeps it covered with a scarf—but he is wearing the same long, stiff coat in all of them.
“So that witness, Mr. Vidmar, he wasn’t just making this man up,” Eva says, looking at me pointedly.
“Clearly not,” I reply. The time and date stamps on the stills are all over the place, some in the morning, some in the afternoon and only the single one at night.
I turn to Rok. “This is a good find. Can you get access to the camera feeds from the other crime scenes and see if you can spot a similar man hanging about?”
He shakes his head, but it’s Brina who says, “We already tried that, but they don’t keep traffic cam recordings past sixty days.”
“What about private property cameras?” I ask.
She nods. “I’ll try that next.”
“Or we can simply scan the recent footage of the paths along the river,” Eva suggests. “Starting with the sixty days before Ana was killed?”
“That’s a good idea,” I say and Brina says she’ll get on top of it right away.
“Can we get a license plate of the car that almost ran him over?” I ask Rok and he nods.
“Dino, I want you to track down the owner and ask if they remember seeing the guy,” I say. “Judging by the car, it’s probably not someone who’s eager to speak to the police, so do the best you can. A description would go a long way. A sketch even further.”
Dino nods. “I’ll get the info, don’t worry, Boss.”
Sojer is quietly seething in his seat by the side of the screen, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest and his shoulders hunched.
