A/N: Non possiedo Chuck.
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It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Chuck finally asked everyone to come into the dining room and take a seat at the table. Pietro, Tony, Megan, Lou, Morgan, Major Volta, Casey, Sarah and Marie were all there. Chuck had been working steadily all day assembling what he wanted to tell them. Ginni Caron had made sure he was fed and caffeinated, but otherwise left him alone.
Before the conversation started, Pietro came to Chuck and said, quietly, "You repair computers."
"Yeah, I do," said Chuck.
"But that is not all you do...you and your team," he said, looking Chuck in the eyes with a serious expression.
Chuck hesitated a moment and shook his head 'no'.
"Morgan knows," said Pietro.
Chuck nodded once.
"Louisa does not," he said.
Chuck nodded again.
"And you don't want her to know," Pietro said.
"I don't want anyone to know," said Chuck, quietly.
"Alright. She will not learn anything from me or her father. But, if I may say...you are exceeding her expectations somewhat dramatically. And she's a smart woman."
Chuck shrugged with a small smile and said, "Don't really see any way around it, honestly."
Pietro nodded, grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "I like you, Chuck. You are a good man. I'm proud to be involved in this with you."
Chuck grinned back at the older man. "Thanks, Pietro. Right back atcha." It had been months ago that Chuck had first experienced the outright respect of other men, and, while he was no longer startled by it, he never took it for granted. It made him feel pretty good every single time.
Chuck got everyone started, standing in front of the assembly. "Thanks for coming, guys. I admit that I feel a little like one of those drawing room detectives that bring all the suspects together for the big reveal at the end of the story. I'm not, though. This is only a partial reveal. There's a lot more work to be done."
Volta raised a hand and said, "I checked on the other bodyguards. None of them ever took Grillo to that garage and the woman's cell phone number, at least the one that was with her when she died, was not on Grillo's phone. Either as a contact or in any call history. So, it looks like the pimp lied. Also, we found her Vespa near her apartment, so someone must have driven her to the garage."
"Thank you, Major. I'm not at all surprised by any of that news. Particularly with what I have to show you all this afternoon. So here goes. First off, Lou was absolutely right. Grillo did not kill Ms. Ricci. He was the victim of a very complex frame-up. Let's run the footage again. I cleaned it up so that the fuzz is gone and it's a higher quality...better focus." Chuck began to run the footage, but this time with a commentary. Lou smiled and held Morgan's hand. She mouthed the words 'told you so.'
"Here, he comes in and looks straight up into the camera. Weird, right? The guy's a prosecutor. He knows as well as anyone that this would be evidence. Note he's carrying the murder weapon in his right hand, even though we know from Lou that he's a lefty. Next, here he is walking across the garage to get to Ms. Ricci. See, light behind him, shadow in front." Chuck paused the footage. "Anything look weird to you? No? I had to watch this what seemed like hundreds of times before I figured it out. My buddy Morgan only had to watch it a few dozen before he saw it too. Way to go, Morgan." Morgan bowed his head in acknowledgement.
"Look at the shadow. See how long it is? It's the shadow of a tall man. Not a man 165 centimeters tall. Taller than that. Pietro took Morgan and me to the garage this morning with a tape measure." Chuck pushed a button on his computer and one of the other monitors came alive with two geometric diagrams of triangles with distances marked. "This one," Chuck said, pointing to the one on top, "is where the shadow would end if it were really Grillo in the garage." He pointed to the other one. "This one shows where the shadow actually ended. Through simple trigonometry, this is the height of the man who made that shadow. One hundred and ninety centimeters. About as tall as Casey and I. Way taller than Grillo."
"I don't understand," said Megan. "We are looking at Enzo. How can it be another person?"
"Someone altered the footage. Someone went in with a computer and substituted Grillo for the real killer and then put the altered footage at the garage for the Carabinieri to take and view."
"But who could do that?" asked Lou.
"I'll get to that. So, what we have so far is altered footage telling us that Grillo didn't do it. We still have to find out who did. Let's go back to the moment when Grillo is supposedly walking through the glass door to the garage. The garage is darker than the anteroom leading to it. That means there's a reflection in the glass of the man opening the door.
"It's almost ghostlike, it's so faint, and only there for an instant, but I managed to isolate it, clean it up and sharpen the image of the reflection. Took me a few hours this afternoon." Chuck put up a picture of a man with a dark pockmarked face.
"Bastard," hissed Sarah. "It's Franco, her pimp. And the son of a bitch is right handed, like the killer. I should have...Go on."
"And he just bought a brand new Alfa Romeo," said Marie. "Asshole. How much you want to bet that he drove her to the garage in the car he bought with the money for her murder?"
"But why would he kill her? And why frame Enzo?" asked Lou.
"I didn't know this was Franco, but it makes sense. Saves us a step in trying to ID the guy, anyway. Well, he killed her for money, I think," said Chuck. "Probably used it to buy the car, as Marie just said. And the man who paid him was intent on framing Grillo for the murder to get him out of the way. I'll get to that in a moment, though. I want to show how it was done. Look closely at Franco in this picture from the window reflection. What do you see?"
"His head is covered, like with a tight fitting hood," said Tony. "Like a wet suit hoodie. And he's got spots on his face … imperfections in the glass maybe?"
"No, not imperfections. He's wearing a motion capture suit. Mo-cap for short. It's something that computer graphic people use for the movies. They put an actor in one and run his performance through the computer once it's filmed. The computer puts onto the footage the monster, or gorilla, or whatever the character is supposed to be. Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies, is famous for it. The suit is top to bottom tight fitting with balls and spots on it as frame markers for the computer to lock onto."
Marie said, "'Why are you wearing that? You look ridiculous.' That's what Ricci said when she saw her killer."
With a nod, Chuck said, "Exactly. He came at her in a mo-cap suit and murdered her. Grillo was never even there."
"But his bodyguard..." said Volta.
"Yeah, we'll get to that. First things first, though. We know Franco killed Ms. Ricci, but who paid him to do it? Ok. Let's look at that. Who owns the garage? I looked into that. Through a whole collection of shell companies, all the way up the chain of ownership, it's owned by Leonardo Lupo." The picture on one of the monitors changed to a tough looking man with a cigarette and sunglasses. The picture had been taken from a distance on the street.
Volta swore under his breath and began to shake his head.
Chuck continued, "Lupo is reputed to be the right hand man of Andro Rosetti." The picture on the monitor changed again to show a man in his late sixties with a full head of white hair and a thick cigar. He was at an event or party and had a buxom woman on his arm and was gesturing with the cigar to make a point to someone outside the frame of the picture.
Chuck continued, "So, one of the first questions we asked was whether what had happened to Grillo had anything to do with the investigation he and Monte were running. Looks like it did."
"Damn it. We didn't see that," said Volta. "What made you check the ownership of the garage, Chuck?"
"No reason for the Carabinieri to check the ownership without knowing the footage was altered, so don't worry that your guys missed anything, Major. But, with this new information, think about how much coordination would be needed from the garage to pull this off. You'd have to have high speed movie cameras recording everything, not the crappy stuff you normally find in surveillance cameras. You wouldn't get very far with the computer to perform the CGI work with that sort of footage."
"What's CGI?" asked Megan.
"Computer generated imagery. It's what put Grillo in the footage. You'd have to position the movie cameras in a way that mimicked the regular security cameras and then hide them so she wouldn't notice."
"Or, just put up dummy security cameras after the fact to match the camera angles. No need for the cops to check if the cameras they saw were real or fake," said Casey. "Once they got the footage, they wouldn't check further."
"Yeah, that might work too, Case. Anyway, once the murder was done and filmed, someone would have to run back to a computer lab with it and produce the altered version with Grillo instead of Franco. And then mess it up to look like crappy video camera footage. And then run back to the garage as soon after the police had discovered the body, so that when asked, the altered footage could be handed over. Probably a pretty strenuous night for someone. If he'd had more time, maybe he would have fixed the shadow and erased the reflection. I don't know, but I think I know who did the work."
"Really?" asked Volta.
"Yeah. I don't know why Monte and Grillo were investigating Rosetti...I mean I'm sure you can tell me...but the open source stuff on the man is extensive. He has a number of business holdings. Warehouses, restaurants, a couple of shopping malls, a vineyard, and...drumroll, please...a movie production company."
"Shit," said Casey.
"Yeah, I know, right? The company is called Cinebrava and has offices and production facilities over in Tivoli, about a half hour drive outside Rome. Anyway, a few months ago, he hired this man..." The picture on the screen changed again, to show a blonde man in his late twenties or early thirties with a Hollywood smile on a sunny day. "This is Al Greco. Formerly a rising star at Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas' company famous for making visual effects for movies. Greco moved here to Rome to avoid the assault charges from beating up his girlfriend and putting her in the hospital in California. His dad was Italian so he has dual citizenship. Made it out of the States just in time. Rosetti hired him for Cinebrava. It was in all the papers. If I were Rosetti and wanted to hire someone for this job, Greco is the perfect choice."
"Wow," said Marie, with awe. "You are fucking amazing, Chuck. Fucking amazing." She looked at Sarah with wide eyes, who just grinned back at her.
Volta looked at Chuck for a few more moments and then turned to look at Casey. Volta raised his hands off his knees and let them drop, as if to say 'I don't know what to say.' Casey gave him a little smile and a bit of a shoulder shrug, as if to reply, 'yeah, that's my guy.'
Volta said, "Chuck, I can't believe the work you and your team have done here. Spectacular is an understatement. I will talk to my superiors and round up all these people at dawn. Thank you. With one phone call, I'll have Grillo released from jail."
"No, Major. Please don't do any of those things. First off, we are only surmising that Rosetti and Greco are the ones behind this. Without actual evidence it's all just a coincidence. I mean, let's face it, I paint a nice picture, but what if I'm wrong? If you start pulling people in for questioning, they will know that we know the footage is faked. Then we find Greco and Franco floating in the Tiber."
"Sounds good to me," said Casey. When Chuck gave him the look, he said, innocently, "What?"
"Secondly, and more importantly, we have to get the story on the Carabinieri bodyguard who put Grillo at the garage that night. We know he was lying, but why? We have to solve that piece too before we … I mean you...start to round up people. What's the story with that guy? He in debt? Gambler? Blackmailed? Just a bad guy? What? That one is still a mystery."
Volta said, with a sigh, "I don't like it when people tell me my job, but I like it less when they are right and I am wrong. Quite right, Chuck. How do you propose we proceed?"
"Let us see what we can find to confirm that Greco is the guy who did it. For the moment let's leave that to my team. In the meantime, get us the file on the Carabinieri bodyguard...what is his name?"
"Giacomo Puma. He's a young officer. Young wife. Toddler at home. Never had any trouble. I understand that he lied, but I cannot fathom why it might be so," said Volta.
"Well," said Chuck. "We'll look into it, but in the meantime, maybe it's a good idea to keep him occupied and under observation until we know more."
"I'll take care of that," said Volta. "How will you ascertain if Greco is the man who made the altered footage?"
"Major," said Chuck with a smile, "please don't ask me questions you don't want to know the answer to."
Volta laughed. "Ok. You win. Call me if anything develops. I'll get you the file on Puma as soon as I get back to my office."
"Thank you," said Chuck, shaking hands with the Carabinieri major.
"One more thing," said Volta. "As this operation has become a Rosetti investigation, you will need security here. The man is a maniac, as you have seen from the attack on Monte. I will send a dozen of my men to secure this Villa."
Pietro spoke up, "No, Major, please don't. It will only draw attention. I will take care of that with some...friends. We will be perfectly secure from Rosetti's men. Not a problem."
"All right, Mr. Caron. I'll take your word for it."
When Volta had left Sarah came to Chuck and gave him a kiss that said, 'you are mine and I'm damn proud.' As the kiss broke, Lou was standing right next to them and said, "You fix computers at the Buy More and you sell hot dogs."
They both looked at Lou innocently and nodded their heads. Lou said, "Nope. Try again."
With a quick glance at Chuck, Sarah said, "Well, you see, we used to work for the government..."
"The government?" said Lou, scoffing, but with a happy smile. "Like the Post Office? Like the FDA? What?"
"Yeah," said Chuck. "The FDA."
"Ok, then. That I can buy. You guys are ex-FDA agents. Now that makes sense," said Lou, then she stuck her tongue out at them and, laughing, walked away.
Giving Sarah one more kiss, he turned and called out, "Hey Case, Marie, got a minute?"
When the others had gathered, he said, with a smile, "Anybody in the mood for a field trip tonight?"
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Chuck, dressed all in black, sat on the floor of Al Greco's dark office in the Cinebrava production facility and waited for Sarah to finish opening the safe.
After a few minutes, Sarah opened the door to the safe. On the top of a stack of papers, cash and some small packets of white powder was a computer hard drive. Chuck took it and hooked it up to his own computer, opening the files. It was exactly what they were looking for. From his bag, he took another hard drive and copied the files from Greco's hard drive to the clean one. Then he went into Greco's hard drive and erased any evidence that he had been there or that the files had been copied.
The entire process took almost three quarters of an hour, as the files on Greco's hard drive were very large and took time to transfer. They spent the time in the quiet dark office cuddling, making Chuck once again happy that Casey had not been selected handle the inside work for this black bag job.
Once done, he and Sarah put the hard drive back in the safe where they had found it and left the office, leaving no trace or evidence that they had ever been there. Casey and Marie were waiting outside.
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A/N2: In researching the methods of forensic investigation of altered images and digital footage, I came to the unexpected and unwelcome discovery that computer scientists cannot easily or reliably determine if a sample has been altered. There are no telltale markers in the file itself. The technique I've shown here, where Chuck and Morgan found a shadow that didn't fit, is the identification of context clues and is the most reliable method. To my mind, that means that if the fabricator is skilled and careful enough, we may never know if the image or footage is real. I found that discovery disturbing enough that I reached out to the computer scientist half of Smatterchoo for confirmation. (Thanks, my friend.) And, yes, that is in fact the case. We approach the point where you literally cannot believe your eyes.
A/N3: So, Chuck's brilliance is on display for all to see. Let me know what you think. And stay safe everybody.
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