Mark O’Dare was upset to the point the paramedics had debated taking him to Tampa General as well. He’d lost two friends in the Pulse Nightclub Massacre, and while he was better now, the sound of gunshots so close and seeing people die had brought it all back. He was staying with his dad while he was home from college.
His story was the same as the others though: he hadn’t noticed the SUV, and as it hadn’t stopped for gas or anything, he had no reason to look. He freely admitted to having his iPad open on the counter and reading a book for school. There had been a guy who had come in and bought gum just before Mrs. Perez, but he had left before the shooting.
Daniel absorbed that detail. “I understand you have CCTV?”
Mr. O’Dare brightened. “It’s not that modern, and I don’t have Wi-Fi, but it works fine.” He showed Daniel and Eli into the office at the back, and Daniel thanked them and said Mrs. Perez could go. He asked Officer Jenkins to arrange a ride home for her. The O’Dares lived above the store in an apartment and were allowed to go there while the Crime Scene Unit cleared the scene. Daniel listened to them talk for a moment and then asked if they could pay particular attention to the bullets. Mrs. O’Dare was away visiting her sister in Denver but was currently trying to get a flight home.
Agent Wright’s body had already been moved as they didn’t pronounce her dead until she got to Tampa General. She still had some output at the scene but didn’t make it. Daniel pulled out a chair, and a still-silent Eli sat down next to him. With a bit of a start, Daniel realized that the last hour with Eli hadn’t been awkward at all. He’d asked a couple of intelligent questions, and Mark O’Dare had responded better to him even with the scar.
Finn was right as usual. They had way less problems with kids and young people. Mrs. Perez had looked scared to death when she’d seen Eli, and Eli had seemed to know and kept his distance. If circumstances were different, they could have worked well as partners, balancing each other out.
They watched the recording from two hours before the shooting. Unfortunately, the recording only covered inside the store; the camera from outside hadn’t worked for some time. Daniel got on the phone and spoke to Gael, who was about to check traffic cams. There were three cars that were passing that had to swerve as the SUV took off like it was in the Indy 500, but no one saw any tags. The only other incident was five reports of a black SUV driving through red lights and nearly causing accidents.
Daniel watched the tape as a man in a hoodie walked to the candy section, picked up a couple of sticks of gum, then changed his mind, chose a different type, and quickly paid in cash. He was in and out in a few minutes.
The camera never showed his face.
“I wish we could see what car this guy got in. He comes in barely five minutes before the shooting. He might have seen something.” Daniel chewed the inside of his cheek, then peered at the screen. “Is he wearing gloves?”
“Why, you wanna check for fingerprints?” Eli said sarcastically.
Daniel shot him a look. “It’s like eighty degrees out there. I mean, the hoodie—some people wear them all year round, but gloves?”
Eli frowned. “We need to ask Mark what he can remember about him.”
It wasn’t much. Apparently, Mark had been studying and barely gave the man a glance. All he could definitely confirm was the man was a little older than him, so in his midtwenties he guessed, Caucasian, with a heavy black beard. Mark was sitting down and couldn’t guess at a height, but they could get that from the camera.
They wouldn’t have known what his skin color was unless Mark had told them, though, because he kept his face away from the camera. “It’s almost like he knew where the camera was,” mused Daniel.
Raymond O’Dare hadn’t seen the customer at the time and couldn’t say if he remembered him being in the store before.
“But he couldn’t have had anything to do with the shooting though,” Eli pointed out. “He was already here. If the shooters followed Lin and Wright from the field office, and they would have no idea they were gonna stop here.”
Daniel nodded. He knew. He just wanted to know what the man was doing wearing gloves. Even though there could have been a hundred innocent explanations from a skin condition to even an amputation, he didn’t like unanswered questions.
“We’ll take the tape back to the office and check and see if the possible witness came in before, although Mr. O’Dare only keeps two weeks’ worth of recordings before he records over them.”
“Does it have audio?”
Daniel shook his head. “Why?”
“Your baby brother,” Eli smirked, and Daniel acknowledged the thought with a head tip. Vance’s voice recognition skills were amazing, but Daniel didn’t know if he would be able to pick one voice out of a whole two weeks’ worth just to say if the guy had been in before. Besides which, Vance and Sam would have their hands full in the coming weeks.
Daniel’s phone rang, and it was Gael. “You’re on speaker, and I’m with Eli.”
“Did you get anything from the CCTV?”
Daniel held the disc in his hands. “The inside. Nothing startling. One customer that acted a little oddly, but it was before the shooting, so it was unlikely to be related. Nothing from outside. The owner says that camera hasn’t worked for a long time. I’m pretty sure you will have more chance with traffic cams if you caught any.” There were one or two red light cameras in the immediate area.
“That’s the problem,” Gael said. “We have eyewitness reports, places and times, but according to the tapes the red light wasn’t triggered.”
Daniel frowned. “But—”
“I know,” Gael agreed. “But as you know if a red light gets run, the cameras take a shot of the car, particularly the tag. According to the system, no red lights were run, therefore no pictures.”
Daniel could hear the disbelief in Gael’s tone. “You think they’ve been interfered with?”
“It looks like it, but it would have had to have been done remotely and within a few minutes, and there’s nothing to indicate that happened.” Gael was silent for a few seconds.
Daniel wondered if Gael was thinking the same as him. When Finn and Adam had been kidnapped from the hospital two years ago, there had been an enhanced involved who’d had the ability to change all CCTV record of it happening. He said he could manipulate recordings so no one could tell they had been altered. Gael also had ability with computers. If he couldn’t find anything, no one could.
Daniel hung up and glanced at Eli.
“Are you thinking enhanced are involved?”
“I’m trying not to jump to that conclusion every time something isn’t immediately explainable,” Daniel admitted. He held up the discs. “Let’s take these back and give them to Gael.”
They let themselves out of the office to find the crime scene guys photographing the entrance. Daniel could see Carmichael standing outside along with two other cops. He scanned the area, remembering what he had seen on the video, and walked down the candy aisle to where the customer with the gloves had stood. He gazed at the racks and looked up as he saw the last tech walk from the store and over to Carmichael. They were probably done. The gunmen never even got out of the car.