Until Death by James L. Thane
Author:James L. Thane
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective, Fiction, Literary, Suspense, Thrillers, Crime
ISBN: 9781477849460
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00
38
We finished processing the scene of the Robinson homicide a little after three o’clock in the morning. I said good night to Maggie, and she caught a ride back to her own car with the evidence techs. Thirty minutes later, I pulled into my garage, watched the door roll back down behind me, and then retrieved Robinson’s video recordings, which I had slipped into the trunk of my car while getting some evidence bags. I knew, certainly, that I should just take the recordings into the department and have them booked as evidence. But what were they evidence of?
Obviously, Gary Robinson was not our killer—not unless he had murdered the first four victims and a copycat had then murdered him, shooting him in exactly the same pattern as Meyers, Holmes, and Ridge had been shot. But that seemed virtually impossible. We had not revealed the details of the way in which the victims had been shot, and only a handful of people close to the investigation knew that the killer had shot each of the victims twice in the chest and once in the forehead, each time with uncanny accuracy.
Assuming, then, that Robinson had not been involved in any of the murders, it seemed that he was guilty only of installing a recording system so that he could spy on Gina Gallagher. And he was now well beyond the reach of the law for that offense.
If I did log in the recordings, what purpose would it serve then, other than to humiliate Gallagher? At some point, someone would have to review the material, and certainly I was not naive enough to believe that her privacy would be respected.
Rumors would circulate. “Interested parties,” many with only the most tentative connection to the case, would insist that they had to see the recordings—for “official” reasons of course. Copies might be made easily and surreptitiously, then passed from hand to hand. Most likely, copies would then be made from copies and the videos could ultimately wind up almost anywhere.
It struck me that Gallagher had probably already suffered enough as a result of this business. She didn’t need to be punished further by having pornographic videos of herself circulating through the community and perhaps beyond, especially when she hadn’t consented to the making of the recordings in the first place.
I did need to be certain, though, that there was nothing on the recordings that could assist us in the investigation. I had virtually promised Gallagher that I would not look at the recordings myself, but I saw no other alternative. I couldn’t ask Maggie to involve herself in what might well be a criminal act.
I stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, thinking through the situation. Then, when no other viable idea suggested itself, I picked up the recordings and walked down the hall to my home office. I booted the computer, and once it was ready to go, I slipped the disc marked “J-1” into the machine. A few seconds later the silent video began playing on the screen in front of me.
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