Detective Tara Collins is called to the scene of a grisly and brutal multiple homicide. There were thousands of people around but no witnesses. A poorly positioned security cam shows three teens, who may be her only chance to solve the murders.

Bobbi’s Run 3

by

Paula Dillon

Detective Tara Collins got the call for a grisly multiple homicide. The report she received was there were 4 DB’s (dead bodies) there. Her partner Sam Logan was off on a personal day so she picked up the unit’s newest detective Brian Williams to go with her.

Tara was a four-year veteran in this department’s Homicide Unit. She had worked hard to earn a slot here. She had to admit it wasn’t as hard for her as it was for the women who came before her, but there was still a glass ceiling for many well-qualified females who deserved a gold shield.

Sam, her first and only partner, had really taught her the ropes well in homicide. He didn’t seem to mind that she was a woman and treated her as an equal. Together they had worked many homicides and had a very good cases solved ratio to their names.

Tara arrived and took in the scene. She liked to work the outside, before working her way to the scene, and then work her way back out. The Newsies were already there and their antenna poles were up high in the air. Camera operators and their reporters were running around out side the crime scene tape looking for witnesses to interview. Tara chuckled to herself as she thought about what their crime lab people had said, ‘flies were often the first insect to reach a corpse’. These reporters must be flies then.

The crime scene was located next to Westbrook Mall, right on Carson Blvd. Police had closed off all four lanes to traffic, she noticed as she walked the perimeter of the crime scene tape.

“Brian, I want you to go to all the businesses a block up and down from here and check for surveillance camera tapes. I will check up on our crime lab and start interviewing witnesses.”

“Got it Tara.”

Tara saw the officer charged with preserving the crime scene and signed in on the clipboard. She saw three investigators from their crime lab and a coroner working the scene.

“Hey Robert! Whatcha got for me?”

“Hello Tara, did you draw this mess?”

“Yep, sure did.”

“Well let’s see. We have four dead bodies, all male, all of them died of gunshot wounds. So far we have recovered twenty-eight cases nine mil and forty-five. We are still coming up with shell cases so that number can go up. We have recovered three firearms, one Colt 1911A1 and two Taurus pt 100’s nine mils. I don’t know if we will be able to recover any slugs but we will try. We will also try to print all of our shell cases. Two of the DB’s are over beside that Mini-Mart, shot at close range according to gunshot residue and two over here by the road, shot at a distance greater than ten feet. These two by the road took double taps to the chest center mass. The shooter had to be a very good shoot that is for sure. The two over by the Mini-Mart also took two each but not in as good a pattern. We will know more after autopsy.

We have blood pools here at the road, by the Mini-Mart, and a trail of blood leading to there. A shooter from beside the store might have gotten hit and trailed his blood to where he got into a car on the passenger side. We have a partial shoe print here in blood. We will run DNA samples in each places and eliminate the vics from the shooter or shooters if possible.”

“This area is known for being a place to go to pick up your favorite recreational drug. I hear,” Tara said.

“That is what I hear. Tim Watson was the first officer on the scene; he is over by the Mini-Mart talking to the employees there.”

“Ok, fill me in when you have your report completed.”

Tara walked over to Officer Watson. She saw him talking to the storeowner, who appeared to be of Asian Descent.

“Hello Officer Watson, whatcha got?”

“Well Det. Collins, We have four DB’s shot in a high traffic area during a busy part of the day, and no witnesses if you can believe that. It went down at 1620 and the first 911 call was received at 1622.”

“Sure, witnesses just get in the way and make things easier. There were probably five maybe ten thousand people within a quarter mile of here when it went down, why should there be witnesses.”

“Right, Ok, I know two of the DB’s both were runners for the North Side Lost Boys. I assume the other two are with them as well, they are flying the same colors, but I don’t know them.”

“Does Mini-Mart have a security cam?”

“Yep, here is the tape. The store owner just handed it over to me.” Tim handed an obviously old dusty VHS tape cartridge to Tara.

Tara signed for the tape and went over to the crime lab van. She inserted it into the tape player and checked the monitor as she rewound the tape. When she hit play she saw that the camera wasn’t pointed at what happened; in fact it wasn’t pointed in any direction that could be of use. She stopped the tape and looked for the camera. She saw the camera up on top of the store. She would bet her paycheck that it had been re-aimed intentionally.

“Hey Robert! Get someone on top of that store to print that camera.”

Robert looked up where Tara was pointing and waved back at her.

Tara turned her attention back to the monitor and forwarded the tape till the time stamp read four fifteen pm, before running it at normal speed. The video was horrible and it was only in black and white. She figured the tape had been reused so many times that the ferric oxide was probably worn thin or non existent in many places, and the tape heads probably hadn’t been cleaned since it was first installed. The recorder was one of those that took two seconds of video every 6 seconds. In the tape she saw three teens, two girls, and one boy, maybe three girls she couldn’t tell, approach the bus stop across the road and sit on a bench there. At 4:19:35 one of them pushed the other two of them off the bench and covered them with his/her own body. That one was probably a boy, but maybe not. She punched the tape out and carried it over to Robert.

“This is the tape from that cam,” she said pointing to the one on top of the Mini-Mart. “It doesn’t show the crime scene but it could show three possible witnesses. See if your people can clean it up for me, I couldn’t recognize my own mother on that tape.”

Robert took the tape from Tara and looked at it with disgust, “Shit! I don’t understand why these people can’t invest a few bucks a month on new tapes,” he said, “This tape looks old enough to drink whiskey. I will do what I can but don’t expect miracles.”

Brian came up to Tara and said, “I checked for security cams, none were pointed in the right direction, but two of them showed traffic up and down Carson, I got the tapes from those. They weren’t pointed in this direction. They could have been repositioned.”

“I think they might have been. Do me a favor and go to the mall and check any security cams that might have been pointed in this direction. It probably won’t show the crime but there may have been witnesses on the bench by the bus stop at the time,” Tara said as they crossed the road.

She walked over to the bench where the kids had been sitting. She looked closely at the bench. She saw a hole in the back and upon closer inspection she saw a slug in the hole. It looked to be either a .44 or .45 caliber slug lodged into the wooden back. She took out her phone and called Robert. “Hey Robert, I found a .44 or .45 slug in the bench at the bus stop. It looks fairly fresh, might be related to our shoot out.”

“Ok we will get to it.”

Tara looked around the perimeter of the crime scene, trying to see if the people gathered there rang a bell. She didn’t think the shooter would show back up at the scene so soon but it wasn’t unheard of. Before the bodies were placed in body bags Tara got a chance to got through their effects. If they were dealers or runners where were their drugs, she thought. She found no ID’s but she did find the keys for a Porsche 911, along with three thousand four hundred twenty four dollars and thirty five cents on one.

She kept busy checking on one thing or another till the meat wagon left for the Medical Examiners office. The ME was waiting for these bodies. Tara didn’t look forward to four autopsies but it was just part of the job. She wouldn’t pass on it because the guys she worked with wouldn’t pass on it.

After Tara collected, tagged, delivered and logged the evidence into HQ it was late so she just called it a day. This was one murder that wasn’t going away she felt.

(to be continued)