Page 69 of Shadow of Doubt

The building that housed the DGSI was sleek and modern. The lobby was lined with polished granite and expensive seating areas. All the staff moved with purpose. No one dawdled. There were no T-shirts or shirt sleeves. No neckties had been loosened. No upper shirt collar buttons unbuttoned. Everyone was dressed in perfectly pressed business attire. It looked more like the headquarters of a fancy international investment bank than a domestic security agency. It was also a far cry from the cramped, centuries-old building that housed the Brigade Criminelle.

“Want anything from the café?” Brunelle asked as she signed Gibert in and led him toward the elevators.

“Are you buying?” he asked.

“Seeing as how you made the drive, sure.”

They ordered two coffees to go, during which Gibert joked about the DGSI being the only law enforcement department where the employees didn’t make their own.

When he added that they probably didn’t clean their own guns either, Brunelle responded, “Of course not. That’s why we have armorers.”

He couldn’t tell if she was joking, as he couldn’t see her face. She had already picked up her coffee and was headed toward the elevator.

Upstairs, she invited Gibert to leave his bag in her office as they tookthe portable hard drive with the security camera footage from the garage down to MoMo.

“No coffee for me?” the young man asked as Brunelle arrived at his desk and set the drive down.

She ignored his remark and introduced her guest. “MoMo, Inspector Gibert. La Crim. Vincent, this is Mohammed Motii. He’s a digital forensic specialist for our Computer Analysis Response Team.”

The two men shook hands. Then, looking at the drive, MoMo asked, “What do you need?”

“Our man with the limp. The one who disappeared down an airshaft shortly after leaving the National Archives. We think someone was waiting for him in a nearby parking garage and helped smuggle him out. The drive has the garage’s CCTV footage,” she replied, tapping it. “We want to see what it captured.”

“That’s it?”

“For the moment.”

“Plug and play,” he stated, attaching a cable to the drive. “This’ll be the easiest thing I do all day.”

The drive whirred to life and on one of his monitors, MoMo displayed a security grid with the garage’s multiple camera feeds.

“Where do you want to start?” he asked.

“Let’s start with vehicles exiting the garage shortly after our man disappeared,” she replied, giving him a time frame to search.

“Busy morning yesterday,” MoMo stated as he scrolled through footage of at least fifteen cars leaving. “Any parameters to help narrow it down?”

Brunelle thought for a moment. “Get rid of any hatchbacks. They would have hidden him in a trunk.”

“Okay,” he replied. “That takes out two, which means we’re left with thirteen vehicles.”

Gibert leaned in closer. “Do any of the cameras provide more of a profile view? Having someone in the trunk might cause the car we’re looking for to ride lower.”

MoMo shook his head. “What you see on the screen is what we’ve got.”

“Maybe we should take a closer look at the comings and goings of the drivers themselves. It’ll take a while to match them to their cars, but I don’t see that we have much choice.”

The young man looked at Brunelle. “Hypothetically, there might be a faster way.”

Brunelle nodded. “Do it.”

“Do what?” Gibert asked.

“You’ll see,” she responded.

Within moments, MoMo had used the AI software to match the drivers with their vehicles and to pinpoint when they had parked and walked out of the garage on foot, and when they had come back.

Brunelle then said, “Jadot was murdered Sunday evening. How many of the cars arrived during that day and then left on Monday morning?”

---