Lock In (Lock In, #1)(13)

“I think we’ve got an explanation for the arterial spurts,” I said. “That’s a hell of a cut.”

Vann nodded but was silent.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m thinking,” Vann said. “Give me a minute.”

While she was thinking I looked at the corpse’s face. “Is he Hispanic?” I asked. Vann ignored me, still thinking. I looked over to Diaz, who pulled up the face by itself to examine it.

“Maybe,” he said, after a minute. “Maybe Mexican or Central American, not Puerto Rican or Cuban, I’d guess. He looks like he might have a lot of Mestizo in him. Or he might be Native American.”

“What tribe?”

“No clue,” Diaz said. “Ethnic typing’s not actually my gig.”

By this time Vann had gone over to the image of the corpse and was looking at the hands. “Diaz,” Vann said. “Do we have a broken glass in evidence?”

“Yes,” Diaz said, after checking.

“Shane got an image of it from under the bed. Pull it up for me, please.”

The image of the room spun wildly as Diaz yanked it around, pulling us all under the bed and looming the image of the shattered, bloody glass over us.

“Fingerprints,” Vann said, pointing. “Do we have any idea whose they are?”

“Nothing yet,” Diaz said.

“What are you thinking?” I asked Vann.

She ignored me again. “You have the feed from Officer Timmons?” she asked Diaz.

“Yeah, but it’s pretty crappy and low res,” Diaz said.

“Goddamn it, I told Trinh I wanted everything,” Vann said.

“She might not be holding out on you,” Diaz said. “Metro cops these days let their feeds run their whole shift sometimes. If they do that they use a low-res setting because it lets them record longer.”

“Whatever,” Vann said, still clearly annoyed. “Put it up for me and overlay it onto Shane’s room shot.”

The room wheeled around again and went back to its real-world dimensions. “Feed coming up,” Diaz said. “It’s going to be in bas-relief because of Timmons’s position. I cleaned up the jerkiness.”

On the bed, Bell appeared, hands up. The feed started running in real time.

“Wait,” Vann said. “Pause it.”

“Done,” Diaz said.

“Can you get a clearer image of Bell’s hands?”

“Not really,” Diaz said. “I can blow it up, but it’s a low-res feed. It’s got inherent limitations.”

“Blow it up,” Vann said. Bell jerked and grew large, his hands racing toward us like a giant trying to play patty-cake.

“Shane,” Vann said. “Tell me what you see.”

I looked at the hands for a couple of moments, not seeing whatever it was that I was supposed to be seeing. Then it occurred to me that not seeing a thing was what Vann was going for.

“No blood,” I said.

“Right,” Vann said. She pointed. “He’s got blood on his shirt and his face but none on his hands. The broken glass has bloody finger marks all over it. Diaz, pull back out.” The image zoomed out again, and Vann went over to the corpse. “This guy, though, has blood all over his hands.”

“This dude cut his own throat?” I asked.

“Possible,” Vann said.

“That’s genuinely bizarre,” I said. “Then this isn’t a murder. It’s a suicide. Which would get Bell off the hook.”

“Maybe,” Vann said. “Give me other options.”

“Bell could have done it and cleaned up before hotel security got there,” I said.

“There’s still the bloody glass,” Vann said. “We’ve got Bell’s fingerprints on file. He had to give them when he became a licensed Integrator.”

“Maybe he was interrupted,” I said.

“Maybe,” Vann said. She didn’t sound convinced.

An idea popped into my brain. “Diaz,” I said. “I’m sending over a file. Pop it up as soon as you get it, please.”

“Got it,” Diaz said, a couple of seconds later. Two seconds after that the scene shifted to outside of the Watergate, to the hurled love seat and the crushed car.

“What are we looking for?” Vann asked.

“It’s what we’re not looking for,” I said. “It’s the same thing we weren’t looking for on Bell’s hands.”

“Blood,” Vann said, and looked closely at the love seat. “There’s no blood on the love seat.”

“Not that I can see,” I said. “So there’s a good chance the love seat went out the window before our corpse cut his own throat.”

“It’s a theory,” Vann said. “But why?” She pointed to the corpse. “This guy contracts with Bell to integrate, and then when Bell gets there he throws a love seat out the window and then commits bloody suicide in front of him? Why?”

“Throwing a love seat out of a seventh-story window is a pretty good way to get the attention of the hotel security staff,” I said. “He wanted to frame Bell for his murder and this was a way to make sure security would already be on their way before he killed himself.”