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

The police hadn’t viewed the CCTV yet. As far as they were concerned, a petty thief was stealing from motel rooms. They seemed undecided as to whether the culprit was the running man or McNulty. As for McNulty himself, before watching the recording, he had thought the running man was simply somebody searching for the Zapruder film, possibly the gunman himself. He certainly fit the vague description that witnesses had given. White male. Medium height. Medium build. That was before he’d seen the red van that had once been grey.

Viewing the CCTV changed everything. Now it wasn’t just about the man burgling Severino’s room. Now there were two culprits. This had turned into a grassy knoll situation, because now it wasn’t a lone gunman.

Just then there was some commotion behind the check-in desk. McNulty looked through the door and saw the receptionist go outside and peer around the corner. McNulty got up and looked through the side window. Blue lights were flashing across the river where McNulty had seen the fishermen earlier. McNulty squinted through the dying sun, then stood up straight. Over by the industrial complex a police launch was pulling something out of the water.

SIXTEEN

Nova Biomedical was practically opposite the Crescent Motel, but McNulty had to cross the bridge then walk along the Charles River Greenway to reach the empty parking lot. It wasn’t empty anymore. There were emergency vehicles, blue flashing lights and men in uniform. He wasn’t sure what had sent the shiver down his spine. He’d seen dead people before. Even some that had been dragged from the river. Given his vantage point from the motel, there was nothing to suggest he might know who it was.

Except it was across the river from the motel.

And upstream from the bridge.

Right along the route the leisure boat had taken after turning around.

The police launch had hoisted the body aboard by the time McNulty reached the crowd of onlookers. White male. Hard to tell but somewhere around medium height and medium build. The crew hadn’t wasted time trying to revive him. There are people who look dead and there are people who look like there’s a fifty-fifty chance you can save them. This guy was dead and he wasn’t coming back. He was tangled in weeds and river skank. Judging by the angle of the head, his neck was broken.

“Back up. There’s nothing to see here.”

The uniformed cop held his arms wide and urged the crowd back while one of his colleagues strung crime-scene tape across the footpath. A paramedic clambered up a gangplank to examine the casualty. It wasn’t long before he announced what the cops already knew: The guy was dead. His neck was broken. Everything else would be determined by autopsy and the medical examiner.

McNulty turned his attention to the onlookers. He didn’t consider himself to be one of them because deep down inside he still felt like a cop. It amazed him how quickly people gathered around disasters and tragedies. Even motorists driving past an accident became rubberneckers. The difference between an accident and a crime scene was that sometimes perpetrators came back to view their handiwork. McNulty scanned the crowd to see if anyone looked like they’d broken this fella’s neck.

An ambulance backed into the edge of the parking lot and a second paramedic wheeled out a gurney. The victim might already be dead, but removal was still their responsibility. Another police unit arrived and blocked the entrance to the parking lot. A cop got out and stood with a clipboard to start a scene log, recording the name of anyone who attended the crime scene. He came across and got the names of the officers who were already there, then returned to the entrance.

A helicopter thudded overhead. It hung back toward the bridge then slowly swung downriver to get the scenic angle with sun reflecting off the water—TV news with a cinematic bent. McNulty didn’t bother looking to see which network was covering the breaking news. He concentrated on the crowd to see if anybody was avoiding being caught on camera, anyone who didn’t want to be connected to the crime scene. Nobody scurried away. Nobody hid their face.

He turned his attention to the riverside, checking for CCTV cameras. He already knew what the Crescent Motel cameras covered, but he scanned the south bank opposite the industrial complex. There were a couple of small businesses but most of the buildings were private houses. Riverside property was always a premium location. He checked the north shore next. Back along the footpath the Greenway wound its way through the Riverwalk Park alongside the Fitchburg Line, the rail service into Boston. There was nothing with CCTV until the Francis Cabot Lowell Mill beyond the bridge. The only thing near the crime scene was Nova Biomedical, which owned the long flat industrial buildings at the far end of the parking lot. They would probably have security cameras. The question was, which way were they pointing? No doubt Waltham PD would check them once the scene had been cleared.

Raised voices drew McNulty’s attention back to the police launch. The paramedics had almost dropped the gurney over the side as they carried the body down the gangplank. There was no winch and tackle; this was a manual transfer. One of the boat crew grabbed the gurney and helped steady the balance. The three men crabbed their way to dry land then lowered the wheels. The paramedics adjusted the corpse and tightened the straps.

A plain Crown Vic pulled into the parking lot and the cop at the entrance jotted something on the scene log. There was a brief conversation through the open window. The helicopter drifted south and west to get a fresh angle on the first responders and the riverside death. The crowd refused to disperse despite more commands from the uniformed cop. The blue and white tape