I Am Tired Of Being A Hero-Chapter 215: Surveillance

"How is the surveillance?" Arlen asked as he sat down. Draco closed the first two buttons of his shirt like he was about to do a presentation for the president.

"Captain, the first store we went to, directly opposite the sidewalk, one of the witnesses had no surveillance. No, they have a surveillance system but the front camera has been dead for over a week. The second store had a large cart dropped over yesterday and it directly blocks the crime scene. We could not see anything worthwhile. We checked a lot of surveillance but the victim did not appear on the frame at any time." Draco bit his lips like he was enduring some extra kind of torture, "But Officer West noticed that the street signboard had an old camera. We checked it. It is the old black-and-white type. Even when we zoomed it, it was very hard to make out the figures but we happened to get this."

He tapped the button and the projector lit up, it was a very poor resolution but they could see a gray Honda Civic drive by, stopping for barely two seconds before it moved. The surveillance was from an angle so they could not see the entire sidewalk, Draco paused it and zoomed in, it was a woman’s head.

"She was alive." Arlen drummed his fingers, the sidewalk was not the primary crime scene, she had been stabbed somewhere else and transported there.

"This does not seem random at all," Sarah noted and Arlen nodded his head.

"Her finances?"Arlen asked Lisa. He had asked her to check on the victim’s finances after they had returned from the apartment.

"She is debt-free. She has two accounts, one has 300 dollars and the other one, a fixed saving account has 2400 dollars in it. Her accounts have not been flagged for any suspicious activities. They are both clean." She reported.

"So we should rule out money as a motive?" Draco asked.

"Can you check if she has applied for a student loan?"

"I am not sure?"

"I can.." Ravi said, taking the laptop from Lisa. He looked at Arlen a little curious about what was going through Arlen’s head, "Why are we checking this?"

"There were fliers on her board for Davenport Community College and she has been studying seriously. I think she is planning to go to college this fall. 2400 dollars would barely cover half of her college fees."

"Captain, are you saying that you think she was blackmailing someone?" There was something in Lisa’s voice as she asked this, Arlen could not decipher completely.

"I think we should investigate thoroughly before rolling out money motives for this." Arlen’s voice was low but clear. "The surveillance has confirmed that this indeed is a homicide. We owe it to her to find her killer. The Honda Civic, have you run the plates from Officer Brown?"

"Yes, Captain." Draco nodded, "The plates come back registered to a shell company but Officer West is running a deeper search."

"Ra...Officer West, can you simultaneously complete both tasks?"

Ravi nodded. He could do the two of them at the same time. The two laptops were in front of him, a small rotating circle showing that the search was still ongoing. He picked up the phone to check with the Federal Student Aid Office. They might have a record of a loan application.

"Officer Johnson and Officer Brown, the two of you should work on gathering every information on the Shell company. Officer Adams, check on the ViN."

"Yes, Captain."

Ravi could just see the sweet old days of clocking off work by 4 p.m. With even the night staff here to help, it would seem quite inhuman of him to do this, the most important matter was that his boyfriend was still here so he could only look at the clock’s hand moving from 4 pm to 4;01 p.m. Even though the said boyfriend was not even here.

Arlen had gone out an hour ago and he had not returned since. It must have something to do with the equipment that he was talking about on the phone. It was just setting a drone off, it would not cause any danger, would it?

He looked at the green circle that was still searching and he sighed. He would have very much liked to go with Arlen instead. Even though he knew his lover could take care of himself, he was still a little worried.

"Are you done?" Lisa hurried over to the Captain’s officer where Ravi was working with the desk covered with computers.

"I got a reply back from the Federal Student Financial Aid Officer. Emily had applied for a loan last year, she said that it is still pending."

"Oh! That means that the money motivation is out of the window then. Why do you think she was killed? Was it a premeditated conspiracy?" Lisa asked. She liked to do this, run to him and ask him to talk about the case with her, even though she had been warned several times that it might cloud her judgment while she was investigating, Lisa did not seem to put the warning to mind.

"Isn’t it too early to begin speculating? The Forensic Results are not here, her workplace has not yet been interviewed. There are not enough to hazard a guess, Lisa. Are you okay, though?"

"You have been off since the case. Is it hitting too close to home?" Ravi asked her, he had been privy to some of Lisa’s background information. He knew she was raised by her mother who dealt drugs so Lisa had to fend for herself a lot when she was young. She was taken out of her mother’s custody for a year and her mother did her best to stay clean and clear before fighting for custody back.

"No. I am okay. It is just...You could see it, the room, you could feel just how hard she was working to leave that place and yet...she is dead. It is just hard to think about."

Ravi wanted to tell her that Arlen would understand if she wanted to take a leave or something but he knew Lisa would not like that. She was the kind to face everything head-on.

He reached out to pat her hand and she suddenly smiled, "Ravi, you have really changed."

What is going on about now?