Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

“Second floor balcony.” Top right.

“Parking lot entrance.” Bottom left.

“And parking lot.” Bottom right.

McNulty scrutinised each segment. The reception camera was in the corner above the front door, pointing toward the check-in desk. Anybody coming in or out would have to pass through its field of view. Any trouble at the counter would be caught on camera, therefore preventing trouble before it started. Good positioning. Sensible precaution. Protect the receptionist, mainly at night when rowdy behaviur was more prevalent.

The balcony camera was at the far end and angled to cover its entire length. Access to the upstairs rooms was from this balcony, meaning there was no entry at the front. There was some collateral view above the balcony, but only treetops and distant buildings. Anyone coming up the stairwell would get a close-up, but from the middle stairs to the other end the figures would be grainy shadows.

The parking lot entrance had the best camera. There was no barrier. Any vehicles using the narrow lot at the back of the motel would be caught coming in or driving out. Whether it caught the driver would depend on how close they sat to the windshield, but it would certainly capture the license number.

The parking lot camera was about as much use as the one on the balcony, the far corner giving a long view away from the motel. It caught an angle of wall but mostly aimed at the parking slots in case anyone broke into guests’ vehicles. As with the balcony, any figures would be small and distant unless they walked directly under the camera.

“Can you make these bigger?”

“Sure thing.”

A couple of taps on the keyboard and the individual views became full screen. The first one up was the reception area, larger and more detailed, but it wasn’t the one McNulty wanted to see.

“The balcony?”

The operator switched cameras and the balcony view filled the screen. Again, more detail but not close enough to Randy Severino’s room. Next he checked the full screen views of the parking lot and the entrance. Having gotten his bearings it was time to push to the next level. He glanced at the base unit under the monitor, then rested a hand on the young man’s shoulder and put added friendliness into his voice.

“So, how long do you keep the recordings?”

Strictly speaking the police can’t view recordings without a court order or a search warrant. There are rules of evidence that have to be observed for any CCTV to be admissible in court. But McNulty wasn’t seizing evidence for court and he wasn’t a cop. He was a celebrity asking a favor of a young man with the promise of giving him a favor in return—a walk-on part in a Hollywood movie. Well, a Boston-based Titanic Productions movie, anyway. The young man cued the recording to the relevant times and showed McNulty how to switch between cameras, then he had to go deal with a rash of guests who were checking in.

McNulty settled into the chair and watched the day unfold, beginning from an hour before he’d come to search Severino’s room. He watched in multi-screen mode first so he could see what each camera showed, then viewed the individual camera views for more detail. What he came up with was this:

Forty-five minutes before McNulty had arrived, the red van pulled into the parking lot. It passed through the entrance and showed its arse to the camera. There was no signage on the back doors. The license plate had been smeared with mud. Once it was in the parking lot, it spun around and parked against the back of the motel, facing away from the distant camera. It sat there for a few minutes before a man got out of the passenger door. The van was too close to the wall for the driver’s door to open. The figure went around the front of the van and disappeared.

A few minutes later a man came up the end stairs farthest from the balcony camera and began checking room numbers. When he found the one he wanted, he didn’t hesitate; he simply shouldered the door open and went inside.

There was a long segment where nothing happened, then somebody came out from the middle stairwell and walked away from the camera. McNulty recognized himself, but his figure was so indistinct on the video that you couldn’t stand up in court and swear to it. A little later, McNulty is shown doing his thing with the key card, then slipping the latch, helped by the door having already been forced. He went inside and closed the door.

More time passed. Not long. Then the first man burst from the room and raced toward the camera. White male. Medium height. Medium build. After a few seconds, McNulty followed and gave chase. In desperate flight now, the first man approached the camera, but before his image could become clear, a uniformed cop appeared from out of the stairwell, blocking the view of the camera. The cop drew his weapon. The fleeing man went over the balcony railing and slid off the roof of the red van.

Now it was time to check multiple angles. The balcony. The parking lot. The entrance camera. The fleeing man ran across the parking lot and disappeared onto the riverside walk. McNulty bounced off the van roof and tumbled to the ground. He got to his feet facing the wrong way, then followed. They were both lost from view. The cop fired a warning shot from the balcony and spoke into his shoulder mic. Fast words. Urgent gestures. Then he went back down the stairs.

Peace. Tranquillity. No movement. Until the red van eased out of its parking bay and heads for the exit. It didn’t drive fast. It didn’t draw attention to itself. It drove calmly and quietly around the end of the motel and along the exit lane. Right under the camera. The angle was too high to see the driver’s face, but he was shorter and