DAY FORTY EIGHT

The sky had some scattered clouds but no rain.  It was chilly but they needed to get on with their work.  They located the places Deb Stough, Jack Sands and Samantha Keys were shot.  This time they went out with evidence handling equipment.  They found a high trestle in the alley near where Deb was shot, a corner of the building where Jack was shot and a low dumpster where Samantha was shot.  Again Penny drew some lines on the map and was able to negotiate the way between the first two locations without being easily seen in seven minutes.  She tried the second one and ran into a fence that made such a trip impossible.  A dead end, they had assumed the shooter made his way on foot slipping between places in alleys.   He must have some other way of traveling.

They went back to the station, started going through the files.  Barb soon found the paper she was hunting, the name of a night clerk at the city parking garage.  If someone had not gone through the alley they would have had to go through the area near the garage.  She called the attendant he was adamant that he had seen nobody on that night.  Sure he noted, someone could have slipped past, however, they could more easily have gone through the alley.  Barb mentioned the fence that had frustrated Penny, with it the shooter had to go past the city garage.  The attendant laughed, “I told the guy that talked to me that he went through the alley.  He didn’t believe me.”

“How could he have gotten through the alley with the fence?”

“Because the fence had a panel that was down the day of the shooting.  It was put back up the next day.  By the time they got to talk to me they had decided it was there all the time.  They didn’t pay attention.  I told them it was down the day of the shooting.”

“Who owns the fence?  We believe you but this is important enough that we want to check for sure.  Your information puts a new light on this, but you understand we need to be sure.”

“Call across the street, the City Department of Works put it back up.  You cops should know.  You asked to have it put up last year.”