The Eustice Murders (Complete)

*Chapter 29*

Back at the station, the guys were getting a strong sensation of deja vu. They had already investigated A.T.D cleaners once, but now due to their earlier sighting, they were stuck doing it once more. Again, as it did on the previous occasion, the company had shown up as being wholly owned, registered, and operated by one man and one man alone with absolutely no records of any employees anywhere. Sam and Hank had discussed the idea that maybe Drummond had hired someone as a subcontractor. After all, he himself was still on the payroll at Apex so maybe this was his way of growing his own company perhaps?

This theory had soon been dismissed, though, due to the van itself. A subcontractor would have been self-employed themselves so why would they have been given a sign-written van? In a much larger organization with plenty of resources, this may well have been the case but for a one-man company with a rather modest workload, this seemed very unlikely. No, both detectives had become convinced something devious was going on here.

As the hours went on, they both became more and more frustrated which in turn only served to make them even more determined to find out who this man was and what he was doing.

"It doesn't look like either of us is getting much luck on this one," Sam offered, with a slight hint of resignation in his voice.

"Not so far, no," Hank agreed. "Why? What are you thinking?"

"Maybe it's time we took agent Masters up on his offer to contact him if we had any questions." Hank pondered this suggestion for a moment. As much as he disliked the idea of reaching out for help, and especially to the feds, he knew that Sam was right.

Neither of them had any idea as to who this man was, and he had the feeling that no leads or clues were even close to opening up. If the F.B.I had been watching Drummond as closely, and for as long as they had claimed they had, then there would have been a good chance they would have also encountered the same person. And with extra resources and personnel to pull on, there was a much better chance they would have discovered the identity of this mystery man.

"We have nothing to lose I guess," Hank finally answered. "It's worth asking the question at least."

Sam nodded silently before rising from his chair. "He left his number with captain Beesley if I remember right?"

"I believe so, yes," Hank responded. They were both hesitant and even reluctant to ask but they both knew that right now, as things stood, it represented the best, if not the, only way they would get any answers.

Hank's cell phone began to ring, so while he dealt with that, Sam collected a few notes and headed off to see the captain. He returned just as Hank was hanging up, and he was looking very pleased, which got Sam's hopes up that some kind of breakthrough or maybe even some good news might have just been delivered.

"Find something?" he asked hopefully.

"Sorry, no that was Beverly," Hank responded. "She's planning her next visit. Looking at coming over next month sometime, although this time she wants to stay for a week."

"Oh, that will be nice, should be some decent weather for her by then. Give her that beach visit she wants," Sam smiled.

"Yeah, that's pretty much her plan I think," Hank told him. "Anyway, how was your luck? Everything sorted?"

"Not exactly. Captain was nowhere to be seen. His office was all locked up and his car was gone from the parking lot so I'm guessing he's finished for the day," Sam suggested.

"Oh," Hank added, looking rather thoughtful. "That will have to wait until tomorrow then," he paused, appearing to be still in thought before he continued the conversation. "Sam, have you got the paperwork there? From when we signed the body over to the coroner earlier?" he asked.

"Sure, why? What are you after?" Sam queried curiously.

"What time did we sign the body over?"

"About one-thirty I think," Sam suggested while shuffling through the papers on his desk. "Ah yeah, here we go," he added finding the form he was after. "One thirty-five. Oh, I was close," he chuckled.

"Ok good. So, we would have been at the cafe around two pm ish then," Hank pondered.

"Sounds about right, I would guess. What are you thinking?" Sam asked, still not sure where Hank was leading with all of this.

"Well, it wasn't far from the town center, now that I think about it. So, there's a pretty good chance it would have been covered by traffic cameras. I want to get hold of the City Department of Transport, and see if we can pull some footage from them. Should at least tell us where he came from or where he went afterward. Give us some kind of clue as to what sort of route he was following. Hell, if we're really lucky, we might get some sort of image of the driver. Something we can cross-check with the database."

"Oh, yes, nice one," Sam replied, wondering why they hadn't come up with that earlier. He pulled his computer up to find a phone number for them to start tracking someone down they could talk to. A few minutes later, he handed Hank a piece of paper with a name for him to call.

"All done," Hank claimed as he put the phone down, "got an appointment with them in the morning," he said. "They're going to pull up all the footage from a five-mile radius between one thirty and three thirty and it will be ready for us to review when we arrive and then we can expand on that as needed and when required."

"Great stuff. Should get something out of that," Sam smiled. "And that sounds like the perfect time to call it a day I think,"

"Couldn't agree more," Hank nodded. "After a day like that, I think we could both do with a quiet evening!"