Page 57 of Simply Perfection
“No, sir. Trevor doesn’t really have many material possessions. His biggest pride and joy was that television,” Niall said, pointing to the corpse of technology.
Detective Mark’s winced, “Is that one of those new OLED sets?” He whistled softly. “That one’s going to hurt. Wait, are those—” He walked over and flicked on his flashlight. The beam shot through the thin screen onto the wall behind the TV.
Niall had been so focused on the screen itself that he didn’t think to look any further. Someone rapped at the front door, and Logan opened it.
“Hey Gale, thanks for taking the call.” Logan gestured for Niall to join him. “Niall, this is Gale Benner. She’s one of the CSIs Trevor and I work with.”
Niall offered his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Detective Marks waved the CSI over toward him. “Gale! Priority one. Get these bullets out of the wall and over to the lab.Have—” Marks looked back over his shoulder at Logan. “Well shit, you’re here.”
Logan went over to the wall and peered through the hole. “I’m going with them. It’s the best way I can help Trevor right now. This one appears to be intact. It looks like the stud prevented any damage to the round. Now that’s a one in a billion shot.”
“Um, guys? If you move, I can do my job, and we get this evidence processed.”
Both men stepped away, and Niall turned to see Captain Fredericks still looking at the newspaper clipping. “What do you think, Captain?”
“Your theory is plausible. The part that sucks is normally I would give this to Trevor to enhance so we can try to identify exactly where this house is located.”
“I might be able to help you with that, Captain.”
“What? How?”
“I’m a photographer. I have a complete digital lab set up in my studio.”
“No shit? What are we waiting for then? Callen!” Fredericks waited until Logan looked over at him. “You good?”
“Good, sir. I’m taking this slug back to the lab to see if I get a hit in IBIS. I’ll call you and Marks the second I know anything either way.”
“Mr. Roberge, let’s go see if you can wave your magic wand the same way Mitchell can.”
Niall clicked the scan button, and a digital image of the newspaper clipping slowly appeared on the large monitor in his studio. He’d increased the resolution of the scan so they could enlarge the image, selecting only that portion with the photo of the house. He opened his Adobe Lightroom program and imported the photo.
Fredericks looked over Niall’s shoulder. “Hey that’s not bad.”
Niall moved his mouse over the screen and set the pixel ratio to one-to-one—this essentially zoomed the photo in the active window. They could now move around and focus on any part of the picture they wanted to.
“That makes things easier on my old eyes,” Fredericks joked.
Next, Niall increased the exposure one-third of a stop, which lightened the image to combat the yellowing of the newspaper. He then clicked on the development tab and played with the temperature, tint, contrast, and noise reduction. Not his most refined work, but sufficient for their needs.
“All right, let’s see what we’ve got.” Niall set the ratio back so they could view the entire image on the active screen. What appeared was a picture as it probably looked the day it was shot.
Fredericks slapped Niall on the back. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Can you zoom in on the house number?”
Niall did, but they couldn’t read it because of a large shadow. He selected his spot brush and did some more manipulation with the exposure and sharpness. The number nineteen appeared in clear contrast to the surrounding image. Niall’s heart raced as the digit leapt from the screen.
Fredericks pumped his fist. “Yes! Now, nineteen what?”
Niall moved the mouse all over the image, but there was no sign of a street name anywhere. “Sir, you see that truck? If I can get you a license plate, can you pull up the DMV file for the registered owner? It might give us a street name.”
“Good thinking.” He removed the radio from his belt. “Dispatch, this is three-one-two.”
“Go ahead, three-one-two.”
“I need you to run a plate for me…” Fredericks looked down at the screen to see the spot Niall had enhanced. “One-Six-Charlie-Victor-two-five.”
Seconds passed until the disembodied female voice echoed through the tiny speaker, “One-Six-Charlie-Victor-two-five. No wants, no warrants. Registered to A. Edelman, number twenty Haynes, East Boston.”
