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

fluttered in the breeze. The gurney was wheeled up the embankment onto level ground.

McNulty looked toward the motel and retraced an imaginary route that wasn’t imaginary at all. Motel parking lot to the riverside walk. Riverside walk to midway across the bridge. Then a sweeping curve on the river and a continuation along the north shore until the hump of land where Nova Biomedical narrowed the channel. Where the leisure boat had to steer left before continuing to its home base. He looked back at the gurney being wheeled toward the ambulance and replayed what little he knew.

Shooter at the movie set.

White male. Medium height and medium build.

Intruder at the Crescent Motel.

White male. Medium height and medium build.

Body in the river.

White male. Possibly medium height and medium build.

It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots but McNulty was cautious about drawing conclusions with insufficient evidence. That’s where TV news and investigating officers differed. The press loved to draw conclusions. The police only wanted the facts.

The plain Crown Vic eased across the parking lot and pulled up behind the ambulance. The helicopter drifted closer, looking for the money shot. A close-up of the body when it was transferred to the ambulance. They were about to get a whole lot more than that.

A detective got out of the Crown Vic. McNulty slipped away from the crowd and ducked under the crime scene tape. The paramedics reached the back of the ambulance and opened the doors. McNulty came around one side. Detective Jon Harris came around the other and waved for the paramedics to stop. He unzipped the body bag to get his first look at the deceased. McNulty stepped past the paramedic to get a look himself.

White male. Medium height and medium build.

McNulty blinked back his surprise when he looked at the face. It wasn’t the man he’d chased from Randy Severino’s motel room. It was Randy Severino.

PART TWO

“Seems like we’ve got a lot more to talk about.”

—Jon Harris

SEVENTEEN

McNulty knew he shouldn’t have, but he did exactly the wrong thing. The shock of seeing Severino’s pasty, dead face forced a kneejerk reaction. He spun on his heels and tried to dash around the side of the ambulance. Harris saw him. A uniformed cop wrestled him to the ground. And Fox 25 caught it all on camera.

“Seems like we’ve got a lot more to talk about.”

Jon Harris closed the interview room door and sat opposite McNulty. The sun was long gone by the time McNulty had been searched and documented. He had been read his rights this time. He was under arrest. The interview room didn’t have a window overlooking the parking lot. There was no coffee machine.

“I’ve never understood why they return to the scene of the crime.”

McNulty didn’t speak. Harris straightened a manila folder on the table and tried to get comfortable in his chair, which was bolted to the floor, along with the table. The walls were soundproofed for better recordings. The recorder wasn’t on. Not yet. The detective mimed taking photos.

“Always a good idea to take pictures of the crowd.” He lowered his hands. “What I don’t understand, you being you, why run?”

McNulty shifted in his seat. “I didn’t run. I was going to be sick.”

Harris looked at him. “Because you’ve never seen a dead body before. Right?”

McNulty shook his head. “Not somebody I knew. It was a shock.”

That part was true. McNulty had seen plenty of bodies but it made a surprising difference when the face staring back at you was somebody you knew. When the light goes out behind the eyes it changes everything. The face stops being an extension of the personality and becomes a dead blank canvas. Nothing behind it. A waxwork of whomever it had once been. Randy Severino might have been new to Titanic Productions, but McNulty had worked with him and shared time in the cafeteria. Seeing him dead was almost as bad as seeing the shooting victims.

Harris opened the folder and leafed through the papers inside. “Ah yes, the missing cameraman.” He shuffled them together and straightened the pile. “The guy whose room you were searching.”

McNulty jerked a thumb to one side. “It was the other guy searching it. I chased him off.”

Harris leaned back in his chair. “Unless the guy you chased off was…” He checked the name in the file. “Severino.”

McNulty kept steady eyes on the detective. “Why would he be searching his own room?”

Harris returned the stare. “Exactly. But if you were doing the searching and he disturbed you…”

“Then he’d be chasing me.”

Harris shook his head. “Medium height. Medium build.” He sized up McNulty. “How big are you?”

McNulty gave a blank look. “Not medium.”

Harris raised his eyebrows. “No you’re not, are you? So when Mr. Medium disturbs Mr. Big, who d’you think’s going to chase whom?”

McNulty sighed. “It wasn’t him.”

Harris smiled. “Yeah. And you didn’t make a run for it, either.”

McNulty crossed his heart and held a hand up. “I swear by Almighty God.”

Harris stopped smiling. “You can swear all you want. When we check the motel CCTV.”

McNulty shrugged. “Good luck with that.”

Harris sat still and looked at the Yorkshireman. “Meaning?”

McNulty turned sideways and crossed his legs. “Meaning the camera’s too far away to see shit.”

“And you know that how?”

McNulty knew he’d have to admit to this sooner or later. “Because I’ve already seen it.”

There are rules and guidelines for conducting an effective interview. There’s a specific way to structure your questions so the subject has to expand on his answers instead of simply answering yes or no. Open questions. Not, did you do it, but rather, what did you do? Good interviews are mapped out before the prisoner is even in the room. Each area is compartmentalized.

Before the crime.

During commission of the crime.

After the crime.

Get the subject to describe what they did before the relevant time. What they were doing at the time of the offense. And what they did afterward. Use the four Ws. What? Where? Why?