Victor Matawicz entered the scene of the crime at 12:22 a.m. Their report said that they exited the room, touching nothing, and guarded the scene while they waited for a homicide team.
The night manager’s statement backed them up. The door was locked when they arrived, and no one touched anything in the room from the time the door was unlocked until the homicide team was on scene.
I ran the sequence of events through my head, trying to get things to click. At about eight minutes after midnight on the fifteenth of April, Michael Winter shot himself in the head. The video camera continued to record for four minutes after he was dead. Ten minutes later, or fourteen minutes after the gunshot, two uniformed cops arrived to secure the scene.
Where had the cigarettes gone? In the ten minutes from the end of the video recording to the arrival of the police, someone had removed that package of cigarettes from Michael Winter’s left breast shirt pocket.
It could have been Brock or Matawicz, but why would they chance it? Why would one or both of them risk ending their careers and possible felony charges for a pack of cigarettes? Besides, the night manager, William C. Holtzclaw, stated that neither officer had touched anything in the room.
By the time the homicide team arrived, it would be impossible for anyone to snag something out of the pocket of the corpse without being seen by a dozen people.
The conclusion was unmistakable; in the ten minutes from the end of that video recording to the entrance of Officers Brock and Matawicz, someone else had been in that hotel room.
I decided to carry my thinking one step farther. According to the clock, it was a little after midnight. Too bad. I punched up Sonja Winter’s number.
She answered on the third ring. Her face wasn’t puffy and her hair was perfect. She hadn’t been asleep. Somehow I found that annoying.
“Ms. Winter, was your brother a smoker?”
She shook her head.
“Never? Are you certain?”
“I’m positive. Michael hated cigarette smoke. He thought it was disgusting.” Her tone told me that she agreed with him.
“Thank you.” I reached to terminate the connection.
“Wait.” She looked puzzled. “Why is that important? Have you discovered something?”
“Nothing concrete. Just a notion I’m kicking around.”
“Does this mean you’re on the case?”
“It does not mean that I’m on the case. It means I’m giving your request fair consideration, as promised. Goodnight Ms. Winter, or rather, good morning.”
“Good morning.” The look of puzzlement on her face deepened as I terminated the call.
The autopsy report on Michael Winter confirmed it. Except for some evidence of scarring from childhood asthma, his lungs had been clean. He was a non-smoker.
Who would break into a hotel room and rifle a corpse’s pockets to steal a pack of cigarettes? Or had they broken into the room at all? Someone might have already been in the room, outside of the camera’s field of view. In the bathroom, perhaps.
I exited the autopsy file and stood up and stretched. It was time. I had been putting it off for long enough; I had to look at the crime scene footage.
I found my simulator gear in the top of the hall closet: a pair of Nakamichi wraparound data-shades molded from iridescent high-impact plastic, and two gray Kevlar data-gloves, each studded with tiny octagonal sensors. A long thread of ribbon cable with a three-way splitter on one end connected the gloves to the data-shades. The free end of the cable was wound several times around the entire package. I pulled the bundle down, began unwinding the cable, and walked back into the den.
Technically, it was an arcade setup, designed for kid’s games, but the graphics resolution was excellent and the audio was state-of-the-art, a VRX bone-conduction rig with active noise reduction.
The connector on the end of the cable looked clean.
The night manager’s statement backed them up. The door was locked when they arrived, and no one touched anything in the room from the time the door was unlocked until the homicide team was on scene.
I ran the sequence of events through my head, trying to get things to click. At about eight minutes after midnight on the fifteenth of April, Michael Winter shot himself in the head. The video camera continued to record for four minutes after he was dead. Ten minutes later, or fourteen minutes after the gunshot, two uniformed cops arrived to secure the scene.
Where had the cigarettes gone? In the ten minutes from the end of the video recording to the arrival of the police, someone had removed that package of cigarettes from Michael Winter’s left breast shirt pocket.
It could have been Brock or Matawicz, but why would they chance it? Why would one or both of them risk ending their careers and possible felony charges for a pack of cigarettes? Besides, the night manager, William C. Holtzclaw, stated that neither officer had touched anything in the room.
By the time the homicide team arrived, it would be impossible for anyone to snag something out of the pocket of the corpse without being seen by a dozen people.
The conclusion was unmistakable; in the ten minutes from the end of that video recording to the entrance of Officers Brock and Matawicz, someone else had been in that hotel room.
I decided to carry my thinking one step farther. According to the clock, it was a little after midnight. Too bad. I punched up Sonja Winter’s number.
She answered on the third ring. Her face wasn’t puffy and her hair was perfect. She hadn’t been asleep. Somehow I found that annoying.
“Ms. Winter, was your brother a smoker?”
She shook her head.
“Never? Are you certain?”
“I’m positive. Michael hated cigarette smoke. He thought it was disgusting.” Her tone told me that she agreed with him.
“Thank you.” I reached to terminate the connection.
“Wait.” She looked puzzled. “Why is that important? Have you discovered something?”
“Nothing concrete. Just a notion I’m kicking around.”
“Does this mean you’re on the case?”
“It does not mean that I’m on the case. It means I’m giving your request fair consideration, as promised. Goodnight Ms. Winter, or rather, good morning.”
“Good morning.” The look of puzzlement on her face deepened as I terminated the call.
The autopsy report on Michael Winter confirmed it. Except for some evidence of scarring from childhood asthma, his lungs had been clean. He was a non-smoker.
Who would break into a hotel room and rifle a corpse’s pockets to steal a pack of cigarettes? Or had they broken into the room at all? Someone might have already been in the room, outside of the camera’s field of view. In the bathroom, perhaps.
I exited the autopsy file and stood up and stretched. It was time. I had been putting it off for long enough; I had to look at the crime scene footage.
I found my simulator gear in the top of the hall closet: a pair of Nakamichi wraparound data-shades molded from iridescent high-impact plastic, and two gray Kevlar data-gloves, each studded with tiny octagonal sensors. A long thread of ribbon cable with a three-way splitter on one end connected the gloves to the data-shades. The free end of the cable was wound several times around the entire package. I pulled the bundle down, began unwinding the cable, and walked back into the den.
Technically, it was an arcade setup, designed for kid’s games, but the graphics resolution was excellent and the audio was state-of-the-art, a VRX bone-conduction rig with active noise reduction.
The connector on the end of the cable looked clean.
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