Broken Angels

46

"I'm Detective Balzano."

The man waiting for Jessica in the lobby was in his mid-fifties-rust flannel shirt, tan Levi's, duck boots. He had thick fingers, bushy eyebrows, a complexion that complained of too many Philly Decembers.

"My name is Frank Pustelnik," he said, extending a callused hand. Jessica shook it. "I own a restaurant supply business on Flat Rock Road."

"What can I do for you, Mr. Pustelnik?"

"I've been reading about what happened at the old warehouse. And then of course I've seen all the activity over there." He held up a video- cassette. "I have a surveillance camera on my lot. The lot that faces the building where… you know."

"That's a surveillance tape?"

"Yes."

"What's on it, exactly?" Jessica asked.

"I'm not really sure, but I think there's something you may want to see."

"When was the tape recorded?"

Frank Pustelnik handed Jessica the cassette. "It's from the day the body was found."

They stood behind Mateo Fuentes in the editing bay of the AV Unit. Jessica, Byrne, and Frank Pustelnik.

Mateo popped the tape into a time-lapse VCR. He forwarded the tape. The images sped by. Most surveillance video machines recorded at a much slower speed than a regular VCR, so when they were played back on a consumer machine they were far too fast to watch.

The static, nightimages rolled. Finally the picture got a little lighter.

"Right about there," Pustelnik said.

Mateo stopped the tape, hit PLAY. It was a high-angle shot. The time code indicated 7:00 AM.

In the far background was the parking lot of the crime-scene warehouse. The image was fuzzy, sparsely lighted. On the left side of the screen, near the top, was a small, light-colored blur near the area where the parking lot sloped down to the river. The image sent a shiver through Jessica. The blur was Kristina Jakos.

At the 7:07 AM mark, across the top of the screen, a car entered the parking lot. It moved right to left. It was impossible to tell the color, let alone the make or model. The car pulled around the back of the building. They lost sight of it. A few moments later a shadow lurched across the top of the screen. It appeared that someone was crossing the lot, heading toward the river, toward Kristina Jakos's body. Soon after, the dark shape blended into the darkness of the trees.

Then the shadow detached from the background, moved again. This time, quickly. Jessica deduced that whoever had driven in had crossed the lot, spotted Kristina Jakos's body, and then returned to his or her vehicle at a run. Seconds later, the car circled out from behind the building and sped for the exit onto Flat Rock Road. Then the surveillance video returned to its static status. Just the small light-colored smear near the river, the smudge that had once been a human life.

Mateo rewound the tape until the point just before the car drove away. He hit PLAY and let it run until they had a good angle on the rear of the automobile as it turned onto Flat Rock Road. He froze the image.

"Can you tell what kind of car that is?" Byrne asked Jessica. Her years in the Auto Unit made her the resident automobile expert. Although she didn't know some of the 2006 and 2007 models, she was good with luxury cars over the past decade. The auto unit dealt with a lot of stolen luxury cars.

"Looks like a BMW," Jessica said.

"Can we move in on that?" Byrne asked.

"Does ursus americanus defecate in its natural habitat?" Mateo asked.

Byrne glanced at Jessica, shrugged. Neither of them had any idea what Mateo was talking about. "I suppose it does," Byrne said. Sometimes you had to humor Officer Fuentes.

Mateo worked his dials. The image increased in size, but did not become significantly clearer. It was definitely the BMW logo on the car's trunk.

"Can you tell what model that is?" Byrne asked.

"It looks like a 525i," Jessica said.

"What about the plate?"

Mateo shifted the image, pulled back some. The image was just a whitish gray rectangle of a smear, and there was only half of it at that.

"That's it?" Byrne asked.

Mateo glowered at him. "What do you think we do down here, Detective?"

"I've never been quite sure," Byrne said.

"You need to stand back to see it."

"How far back?" Byrne asked. "Camden?"

Mateo centered the image on the screen, zoomed in. Jessica and Byrne took a few steps back, squinted at the resulting image. Nothing. A few more steps. They were now out in the hallway.

"What do you think?" Jessica asked.

"I don't see anything," Byrne said.

They moved back as far as they could. The image on the screen was highly pixilated, but it was starting to take shape. It looked like the first two letters were HO. HO.

HORNEE1, Jessica thought. She tossed a glance at Byrne, who said aloud what she was thinking:

"Son of a bitch."