Bailey parked and we walked up to one of the officers guarding the perimeter and identified ourselves.
He lifted the crime scene tape for us and we ducked under. “Officer Bander’s handling the scene. He’s right over there.” He pointed to a short man who was standing near the trunk of the car.
When we got closer, I saw that he was much younger than his voice had sounded on the phone. Bailey and I introduced ourselves again and she asked whether he’d seen anything inside. He handed her his flashlight-one of those super-heavy big black ones that double as a weapon-and I watched as she played the light around the interior of the car.
“I don’t see anything,” I said. “You?”
Bailey shook her head, and I stepped back to give her room as she circled the car with the flashlight. She paused and trained her beam on the trunk area. Still focused on the trunk, she asked, “Who found the car?”
“I did,” Officer Bander said. “I started with the closest lots and worked my way out.”
That was one hell of a lot of canvassing. There were a ton of parking lots. Just covering the closest lots at the terminal would’ve taken a couple of hours.
“And did you stay here after you found it?” Bailey asked.
She was making sure the scene hadn’t been contaminated-at least since Bander had found the car.
“Yeah. I called you right away and had the area cordoned off, just like you said. I’m the only one who’s been this close to the car since I saw it.”
Bailey looked around the lot. “How long since you called for a criminalist?” she asked me.
“About thirty minutes.”
“Did you try the doors?” she asked Officer Bander.
“No.”
Bailey bent down and shined the flashlight under the car. I was about to move in closer and join her, but just then, a beat-up Cadillac pulled up close to the tape. The driver rolled his belly out first, and when he approached us, I recognized the ruddy complexion, heavy cheeks, and small blue eyes of criminalist Ben Glosky. Bailey and I had him on a previous case involving a pedophile who’d done us all the favor of shuffling off this mortal coil. Ben wasn’t Dorian, but he was pretty good.
Ben flashed his ID and struggled under the tape. “Dorian said to tell you she’ll be here in a few and not to pull the same crap you usually do. She also figured you’d need someone who could unlock the doors without damaging anything.”
“You’re a locksmith?” I asked.
“Before I joined SID.”
I guess it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. It’s not like he’d said he used to train poodles for TV commercials.
