New York Chief of Detectives by Gary Hastings Read Free Book Online

related. Nothing really stands out. It’s not that Tony was coasting, but he was tied up with the feds a lot in those pending cases, and he’d really not been assigned anything new. I’ll say this to everybody. Without exception, everyone has told us Tony was a fantastic cop.  Also, probably the most important thing we have is that a few minutes before I came in here, I received a call from Tech Services. They told me that after reviewing several video surveillance cameras near the body dump site, they found one camera that the suspects would have surely passed when the dump was made. The camera shoots right across the front of the lot, but not far enough to see where the body was located. At 0430 hours, an old jacked-up, early nineties Chevrolet Caprice pulled into the lot and left 45 seconds later. That would’ve been enough time to dump the body and run.”
    “I don’t suppose the camera caught the tag or pictures of its occupants.”
    “No, Captain, that would’ve been too easy. It’s actually a black and white camera and there’s some glare, so we can’t see much or determine the color or anything like that.”
    “See if Tech Services can get us some still photos from the video.  Let’s get them over to the Auto Theft Squad and see if we can get the year, make, and model narrowed down.”
    “We’ll get it done today, boss.”
    “Thanks, Mary, we’re starting to pick up some momentum.”   
    “Dennis, any luck with the computers?”
    “Captain, we’ve done a preliminary examination and found nothing unusual. Tony had a laptop but we can’t find it. I’m assuming it’s in his car. His desktop had a few sent messages on it from Friday, but they were mostly simple and not related to cases. Messages from the Detectives Endowment Association and a few training messages were about it. We’re looking for any hidden files, but I haven’t found any. When we find the laptop we may learn more.”
    “Thanks, Dennis, I like the ‘when’ we find it, better than ‘if’ we find it.”
    “Thanks, Captain. Also, Caroline Rodriguez gave us permission to examine their home computer. Tony was a music nut, and there were a lot of messages related to that, but nothing work-related.”
    “Thanks, Dennis.”
    “So what have our crime analysts been able to determine?”
    “Good morning, Captain and Chief O’Connor. I’m Polly Greenburg from the RTCC. I’ve looked for any activity city-wide involving Detective Rodriguez and have also looked for any unusual calls in the area where the body was found. I’ve identified a few car stops in the area, and will see if anything is close to the time that Chevy Caprice was in the lot. I’ll also search for older Caprices in the database. If you get an exact year, let me know and I‘ll run some searches in the state motor vehicle registry, as well as our NYPD databases.”
    “Thanks, Polly, anything will help.”
    Brian Flannery turned to Pat.
    “Do you have anything for us?” Flannery asked.
    “Thanks, I really appreciate all the work. I feel like finding Curtis Gee is our most likely way of getting to the bottom of what Tony was working on and maybe who killed him. We need to get out there as soon as possible and see what he has to say. Whatever you need, you have it from me. Keep me posted.”

     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 12
     
    Monday, April 5-Day 4
    Chief of Detectives’ Residence
    Borough of Manhattan, New York
    1700 Hours
     
     
    Dickie dropped Pat off at his condo.
    “Thanks, Dickie, I’ll see you about 1900 hours when you pick me up to go to the wake.”
    “Okay, Chief, are you going to wear your uniform?”
    “Not tonight, but I’ll wear the fancy bag tomorrow for the funeral.”
    “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
    “See you then.” 
    “Okay. Chief.”
    Pat took his tie off and got something cold to drink. He went over to his favorite chair and decided to pop in a brand-new, Latin jazz CD by a famous Cuban trumpet player.  He had met