Final Exam: A Legal Thriller (21 page)

Powell took his hand and replied, “I know who you are, counselor.
 
I’ve seen you on TV.
 
What can I do for you?”
 

“I was wondering if your boss is around.
 
I’d like to speak to him.”
 

A few minutes later, Roger Tierney emerged from around the corner and Ben greeted him with a handshake.
 
A moment later, the two men were off to Greenfield’s office on the elevator.
 

“Tell me about your security system,” Ben asked as they got off on Greenfield’s floor.
 

“Sure,” Tierney said.
 
“You were a student here, right?”
 
Ben nodded.
 
“Well, if you were a student here, things haven’t changed much.
 
Down on the first floor, there are only two entrances, one in the front and one in the back.
 
People can enter and exit the building through the circular doors at the front on the Adams side.
 
There’s another entrance in the back of the building, but you can only leave through that door.
 
It’s locked if you try to get in from the outside.”
 

“Unless, of course, you happen to come up when someone else is leaving and they let you in that way,” Ben said.
 

“Yes, I suppose that’s true too.
 
Other than that, there’s no other way to get in or out of the building.
 
As you know, there are ten stories to the building, plus the concourse on the lower level.
 
There’s no outside entrance or exit from any location other than those I’ve just described.
 
Other than the loading dock, of course, but there’s no real public access to that.”
 

“But you have security cameras,” Ben said.
 
“What do those cover?”
 

“As you may have noticed,” Tierney said, “we have cameras posted at each entrance/exit, outside the elevators on every floor and at various locations on every floor of the building.”
 

They reached Greenfield’s office and stopped outside the door.
 

“Would there be a way to get to this office without being seen on one of those security cameras?” Ben asked.
 

“No, I don’t think so, but I know what you’re thinking, and the police have thought about it too, and the cameras don’t help you.”
 

“Why not?”
 

“Because, unfortunately, the cameras recycle in a seventy-two-hour timeframe, and the police have concluded, I guess in conjunction with the medical examiner, that Professor Greenfield was killed more than seventy-two hours before the discovery of the body and our accessing of the security tapes.”
 

“In other words,” Ben said with a grimace, “at any given point in time, the security cameras only have the last seventy-two hours of material on them?”
 

Tierney nodded.
 
“That’s right.
 
As you recall, Professor Greenfield was found on January 2nd in the late morning.
 
That means the security tapes only go back to that same time period on December
30th.
 
By that time, the building was already closed for New Year’s.
 
Any video taken prior to that time was already taped over.”
 

“Shit,” Ben said.
 
“Is that common knowledge?
 
I mean, does everybody know that the security tapes only get the last seventy-two hours?”
 

“Don’t think so.
 
I’m not sure it ever came up before this.
 
You see, security cameras are only designed for a kind of real time look at what’s going on in the building.
 
Also, we use it to try and protect against the theft of materials from the library.
 
To tell you the truth, that’s probably the primary concern.
 
You don’t expect much violence in a law school with a bunch of law students around.”
 

“No, I suppose not,” Ben said with sigh.
 
“Still, it would have been nice.
 
Like I said though, how many people would have known about the specifics of the security cameras?”
 

“Not very many, I wouldn’t think.
 
The security guards probably all know, but I’m not sure anybody else really does unless they happen to inquire about it.
 
I think we had an issue several years ago when they thought they had some volumes missing from the library, but that was quite a while back.
 
Nobody really suggested that we take any steps to change the cameras or anything,” Tierney said defensively.

“Has anybody ever asked you about it?
 
About how many hours of tape are stored in the cameras?”
 

“No, I don’t think so.
 
Like I said, it may have come up when we had the problem in the library, but I’m not even sure it came up then.
 
I can’t remember anybody asking me about it since then.
 
Of course, that doesn’t mean somebody didn’t ask one of the guards on duty.
 
I don’t spend that much time sitting at the security desk downstairs.
 
You might want to check with them.”
 

“I’ll do that,” Ben said.
 
“I just wonder if the killer got lucky or if he knew that by the time anybody found the body, the tapes of him or her getting on this floor would be taped over.”
 

“That’s a good question,” Tierney said.
 

“Tell me about the locks on the doors,” Ben said.
 
“I seem to recall something going on with them.”
 

“Well, as you may remember, the offices on the 6
^th
, 7
^th
and 8
^th
floors of the building are on the outside perimeter of the building with the library on the interior.
 
The professors can access the library through the doors on either end of the hallway, but students in the library can’t get out to those floors.
 
They have to go back out and leave through the main entrance to the library on the 9
^th
floor.”
 

“So basically,” Ben said, “the professors can get in and out of the library without having to go up to the 9
^th
floor, but the students can’t get out without going to the 9
^th
floor.”
 

“Exactly.”
 

“I assume the professors have a key of some sort to go from the library to the office part of those floors?”
 

“Yes, they do.
 
Here, let’s walk around to the door around the corner here and I’ll show you,” Tierney said.
 
The two men walked around the corner to a door that accessed the library.
 

“Of course,” Ben said, “just like the main entrance, if somebody let you in from the library to the office, then you wouldn’t need the key.”
 

“No, you wouldn’t.
 
No system is perfect, I guess.
 
The main principle is, again, that we’re trying to keep a handle on materials leaving the library and make sure that they come and go through the main entrance on the 9
^th
floor.”
 

“Unless, of course, a professor takes them?”
 

“Yes, unless a professor takes them,” Tierney said.
 

Ben looked around and surveyed the area.
 
“So which camera would cover this entranceway?”
 

Tierney looked around for a moment as well, then pointed to the far end of the corridor.
 
“I believe the one down there at the end of the hallway.”
 

“Way down there?
 
I wouldn’t think you could get much of a view of this location from way down there.”
 

“Of course,” Tierney said, “there are additional cameras by the elevators as well.”
 

“Yeah, but if you went back and forth through this doorway, say with a key card, there wouldn’t appear to be much of a view of you coming and going.”
 

“I’m not sure.
 
We would have to go downstairs and see what kind of view there is.”
 

Ben nodded.
 
“Okay, then, let’s do that.”
 

The two men returned to the first floor, where they found Charles Powell sitting at his station.
 
“Charles, let me slip in here for a second, will you?” Tierney said.
 
Powell got up and stepped aside as Tierney sat down and began punching a few codes on the keyboard.
 
“Here it is, right here,” he said pointing to the screen at the far right of the panel.
 
“This is the view down the hallway from that camera.”
 

Ben leaned over Tierney’s shoulder and studied the screen.
 
“That’s not much of a view is it?” he said.
 
“Sure, you get a view of the doorway right in front, but the one at the end of the hall, the one closest to Greenfield’s office, you can’t really tell much of anything.
 
I’m not sure you could tell whether someone went in or out of that door.
 
Plus it’s so close to the corner that you could be in or out of it and around the corner in just an instant.”
 

Tierney didn’t like the implication that the security system was flawed, but he couldn’t disagree with Ben’s logic.
 
“You may be right,” he said finally, “but it really doesn’t matter anyhow since the camera only goes back seventy-two hours, and we don’t have a shot of whoever may have done it.
 
Whether it was your client or not,” he said trying to put Ben back on the defensive.
 

“It wasn’t my client,” Ben said, “but just because we don’t have a picture doesn’t mean that the killer knew we weren’t going to have a picture.
 
You could probably get in or out of that door and around the corner in less than what, a second or two?
 
Unless Charles here, or whoever was on duty, was looking at that exact picture at just the right moment, he would have missed it.
 
Not that he could tell much from that view even if he had been looking at it.”
 

“Maybe not,” Tierney said, “but the fact remains we don’t have a picture.”
 

“No, no we don’t,” Ben said scratching his head.
 
The two men spoke for another couple of minutes before a call on Tierney’s radio took him back upstairs to the library, leaving Ben alone with Charles Powell.
 
Ben studied the screen for another minute and then stood and stepped out from behind the kiosk.
 
“Charles, let me ask you something.
 
You’ve seen my client on television, I take it?”
 

“Yes sir, I have.”
 

“Had you seen her before you saw her on television?”
 

“I think so.”
 

“What do you mean?”
 

“I think I saw her here in the building.
 
I’m pretty sure I did.”
 

“I understand.
 
When do you think you saw her?”
 

“I think it was around Christmastime, right around the time the Professor was killed or maybe a little bit before.”
 

“How many times did you see her?”
 

Powell thought about it for a few seconds.
 
“Oh, I would say twice, maybe three times at the most,” he said.

“What makes you think it was her?”
 

“Well, for starters, it looks like her.
 
Another thing, she didn’t look like a student.
 
You tend to notice when someone comes in here and doesn’t look like a student or isn’t one of the professors.
 
Plus, she didn’t come in here during one of the between class times when it’s all crowded and everything.”
 

“Okay, so you say you think you saw her coming in the building.
  
Did you ever see her leave?”
 

“Yeah, I did, at least once.
 
She went around to the elevators and came back just a few minutes later.”
 

“So she wasn’t upstairs very long at all.”
 

“Nope.”
 

“Now, again, how many times do you think you saw her, Charles?”
 

“I would say twice coming and once going, sir.
 
I don’t remember seeing her leave the second time.”
 

“So the first time you saw
her, that
was the short visit?”
 

“Yes, I think so.”
 

Ben nodded.
 
“Okay, Charles, that’s fair enough.
 
Let me ask you something else.
 
Did she ever stop here at the desk and look at any of these video screens?”