Page 114 of Dead Fall

“And?”

“Nothing. At least not coming or going from the lobby. But the day of Burman’s death, there’s video of Nistal’s car pulling into the garage.”

“Could you see anybody else in there with him?”

Fields shook her head. “Looks like it was just him. But something piqued my interest, so I reached out to the building manager and asked if she’d be kind enough to upload some additional footage.”

“What kind of additional footage?”

“I asked for everything she had since we’d been there. I wanted to see what had been taking place.”

“Tell me you found something.”

“I did,” said Fields. “A day after Burman’s death, Nistal drives out of the garage and then returns about a half hour later. Take a look at these three screenshots. This first is the vehicle driving in on the day Burman dies and then driving out and returning the day after. What do you see?”

Carolan leaned over her desk to get a better look at the screencaptures. “They all look the same to me—Nistal in his white Sentra coming and going. It doesn’t look like anyone else is in the car with him.”

“Look closer,” she instructed as she picked up a pen and pointed to where she wanted him to focus. “Specifically at the rear tires.”

It took the FBI man a moment, but then he saw it, too. “Coming in, on the day Burman dies and then going back out again the next day, he’s got something heavy,reallyheavy, in the trunk.”

“Bingo. Then when he comes back, in the third shot, the car is riding much higher above the rear tires.”

“He dumped whatever, or whoever, he was carrying.”

“That’s what we need to figure out.”

Carolan stood up and headed for the door. “Get a hold of Detective Greer at D.C. Metro. Tell him we need to see him right away, in his office.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to shave and put on a clean shirt. Be ready to roll in ten minutes.”

Because it was a Sunday, it took less time to drive from FBI headquarters to Greer’s office than it did for Carolan to shave, change, and get his car out of the garage.

When they arrived, the detective was waiting for them. Fields had given him the broad brushstrokes on Joe Nistal, his vehicle, and what they were looking for.

Offering the FBI agents a seat in his conference room, he attached his laptop to a cable and a series of traffic camera feeds from across D.C. appeared on the monitor at the front of the room. Next, he picked up the phone and told his tech to start rolling the footage.

The ALPR, or automated license plate reader, was a computer-controlled system of cameras mounted on streetlights, on traffic lights, on overpasses, and at other locations throughout D.C. that automatically captured each license plate as it drove past. A picture of the vehicle andthe driver was also taken as the time, date, and geolocation of the plate was entered into a central database.

Within seconds, Metro PD had not only found Nistal’s car, but had tracked its route.

“It looks like your suspect was looking to get right with the Lord,” said Greer.

Carolan peered at the screen. “What are you talking about?”

“He drove into the garage at the Washington National Cathedral. That’s the feed in the upper left-hand corner.”

The two FBI agents watched and moments later Nistal exited the garage and headed back toward Burman’s building.

“Can you back it up?” asked Fields.

“Sure,” Greer answered. “How far?”

“Just so we can get a profile of the vehicle.”

The detective relayed the request to his tech, who not only backed the footage up but increased the size of the image to fit full screen.

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