was almost limitless.
I cycled through the data quickly, submerging myself in the last two days’ worth of activities at the hotel. As Latimer had said, there were no recordings of activities on the floors with the exec suites. However, Shelly and I had sifted through investigations like this before.
First, I sorted out the people that had ascended to the exec floors. That immediately gave me a smaller group to work with. I separated the people in that group further by splitting them into two separate pools: those still at the hotel and those now gone.
I initiated a search protocol for those now gone after the time of the murder through travel agencies, the Beanstalk, the airport, the trains, and the hopper grid. The search program began verifying the whereabouts of those people at the time of Richard Smith’s murder while I turned my attention elsewhere.
I focused on the group of guests still at the hotel, thirty-three people in all. Many I eliminated quickly because I verified that they were in their rooms or elsewhere within the hotel at the time of the murder. That left me with four people that were on the exec levels at the time of the murder. Those we would have to contact.
Then, I went through the service personnel, food handlers, masseuses, personal trainers, stylists, and all the other hotel employees, as well as the subcontractors. I checked their whereabouts with the e-cards they carried. An employee e-card had a panic button built into it that would immediately connect them with hotel security. None of them had been used.
Gradually, the list of guests that had left the hotel was eliminated. All were accounted for.
I also noticed an anomaly. As an investigator, you looked for those. Sometimes, they only created distractions and false leads, but many times, they were the things that broke the case wide open.
My search had turned up three faces I couldn’t account for. I isolated the best images of the men and filed them in my hot suspect folder. Those images I emailed directly to Shelly’s PAD. I also started them through another facial recognition program.
I kept working.
According to the hotel’s tracking program, the three men were ductwork cleaners that normally serviced the hotel. I pulled up the hotel’s account records and discovered that the duct cleaning service had rescheduled two days ago, shortly after Richard Smith’s arrival at the hotel, and that they’d been rescheduled for seventeen days from now.
I flagged the emails between the service and the hotel manager, then sent those to Shelly as well.
After a quick search through the Net, I located the address for the duct cleaner. Given that their work usually took place after hours, I thought there was a good possibility that someone would be there to answer the comm.
I stepped back into real-time for a moment and launched a comm sequence on my PAD. The connection was made within three seconds.
“Quality Duct Cleaning, how may I help you?” The man’s voice was flat and bored. I heard a ficvid playing in the background.
“I am Detective Drake with the New Angeles Police Department.”
“Go to vid.”
I did, opening up my PAD’s video component, which popped out of my ear and settled in front of me. Almost immediately, the image of the small man at the other end of the link appeared on my screen. He wore a grey Quality Duct Cleaning coverall. His was balding and his dark hair was in disarray.
He regarded me suspiciously. “You’re not human.”
“No.”
“Is someone human in charge?”
Shelly didn’t like it when I dodged the prejudice. She’d told me that handing people like this off to her wasn’t holding up my end of our partnership.
“Mr. Gerber, I see that you manage the division in this part of the city.” I spoke calmly, without rancor. “I am the investigating detective on this part of the background check. If I don’t get answers regarding your corporation’s relationship with the L’Engle Hotel,
I cycled through the data quickly, submerging myself in the last two days’ worth of activities at the hotel. As Latimer had said, there were no recordings of activities on the floors with the exec suites. However, Shelly and I had sifted through investigations like this before.
First, I sorted out the people that had ascended to the exec floors. That immediately gave me a smaller group to work with. I separated the people in that group further by splitting them into two separate pools: those still at the hotel and those now gone.
I initiated a search protocol for those now gone after the time of the murder through travel agencies, the Beanstalk, the airport, the trains, and the hopper grid. The search program began verifying the whereabouts of those people at the time of Richard Smith’s murder while I turned my attention elsewhere.
I focused on the group of guests still at the hotel, thirty-three people in all. Many I eliminated quickly because I verified that they were in their rooms or elsewhere within the hotel at the time of the murder. That left me with four people that were on the exec levels at the time of the murder. Those we would have to contact.
Then, I went through the service personnel, food handlers, masseuses, personal trainers, stylists, and all the other hotel employees, as well as the subcontractors. I checked their whereabouts with the e-cards they carried. An employee e-card had a panic button built into it that would immediately connect them with hotel security. None of them had been used.
Gradually, the list of guests that had left the hotel was eliminated. All were accounted for.
I also noticed an anomaly. As an investigator, you looked for those. Sometimes, they only created distractions and false leads, but many times, they were the things that broke the case wide open.
My search had turned up three faces I couldn’t account for. I isolated the best images of the men and filed them in my hot suspect folder. Those images I emailed directly to Shelly’s PAD. I also started them through another facial recognition program.
I kept working.
According to the hotel’s tracking program, the three men were ductwork cleaners that normally serviced the hotel. I pulled up the hotel’s account records and discovered that the duct cleaning service had rescheduled two days ago, shortly after Richard Smith’s arrival at the hotel, and that they’d been rescheduled for seventeen days from now.
I flagged the emails between the service and the hotel manager, then sent those to Shelly as well.
After a quick search through the Net, I located the address for the duct cleaner. Given that their work usually took place after hours, I thought there was a good possibility that someone would be there to answer the comm.
I stepped back into real-time for a moment and launched a comm sequence on my PAD. The connection was made within three seconds.
“Quality Duct Cleaning, how may I help you?” The man’s voice was flat and bored. I heard a ficvid playing in the background.
“I am Detective Drake with the New Angeles Police Department.”
“Go to vid.”
I did, opening up my PAD’s video component, which popped out of my ear and settled in front of me. Almost immediately, the image of the small man at the other end of the link appeared on my screen. He wore a grey Quality Duct Cleaning coverall. His was balding and his dark hair was in disarray.
He regarded me suspiciously. “You’re not human.”
“No.”
“Is someone human in charge?”
Shelly didn’t like it when I dodged the prejudice. She’d told me that handing people like this off to her wasn’t holding up my end of our partnership.
“Mr. Gerber, I see that you manage the division in this part of the city.” I spoke calmly, without rancor. “I am the investigating detective on this part of the background check. If I don’t get answers regarding your corporation’s relationship with the L’Engle Hotel,
Similar Books
