Author Note:
Welcome back guys! I hope you enjoy my latest chapter. As promised, i updated as soon as i finished it.
Juliet and Shawn stood silently looking through the one way mirror to see Lassiter and Lucinda questioning the manager. Shawn studied the manager. He was probably under average height for a guy. He was dressed in plain black smart trousers and a dark blue shirt with patterned spirals. Shawn then pressed the button on the side wall so they were able to listen in on their conversation.
"What was the blood from in the security room Mr Hodge?" Lassiter barked. The manager looked at him a little intimidated.
"We were delivered a package of knives the other day, my assistant Miss Parkinson cut herself badly on one of her knives. It was very messy"
Lassiter and Lucinda shared a glance.
"Where is Miss Parkinson now?" Lucinda asked.
"She's at the Santa Barbra hospital" Mr Hodge replied.
"I'll get on to that" Lucinda murmured to Lassiter whilst jotting it down on her note pad. Lassiter nodded.
"Were you witness to the crime that happened? You were in the security room when it happened weren't you"
"I… Yes I was. I didn't see anything though. Those walls are really thick, can't hear anything through them. That's why I like that room, it's so peaceful"
"You have a D.D Pro in the security room, is that correct?" Lassiter questioned folding his arms.
"Yes, we are very lucky to have one" the man replied thoughtfully.
"Where did you get the money to buy one? They are incredibly expensive" Lassiter asked again.
"It comes from external funds" the man waved a hand. "I believe Miss Parkinson thought it necessary to have one. No idea why though. We are only a small store"
"Would this Miss Parkinson happen to have a first name?" Lucinda asked, notepad in hand to she could contact the hospital.
"Sarah" the man told her.
Shawn and Juliet had remained silent the entire time and it looked as if the interrogation had finished, as Lucinda put her notepad away.
"Wait!" Shawn announced as he burst into the room. All eyes turned to him in that instant and he raised his hand to his head, held it for a few seconds.
"I am sensing cameras" he spoke. "You have a hidden camera linked to the system don't you? By the entrance of the store?"
"How did you?" the man started. Shawn smiled at him.
"I'm psychic" Shawn explained. "Is that how you knew something had happened and rung the police?"
"Yes, I saw the footage and ran out. I rang the police straight away" Mr Hodge told them.
"How many camera's do you have Mr Hodge?" Lassiter asked.
"There are two cameras in total. One at the entrance and one outside the security room…Sarah insisted on that one as she wanted her technology protected"
"Can we have access to those tapes Mr Hodge?" Lassiter asked.
"Of course. They are passcode protected though, I will need to give you the code"
"Ok, go" Lucinda said, waiting for him to say the password.
"It's too long for me to just say to you and involves symbols that are hard to describe" the man said bemused. "Can I borrow that white board pen?"
Lassiter reached in his belt and took out the red white board pen and handed it to him. Mr Hodge then stood up and walked over to the mirror before writing a long sequence of numbers and symbols. It looked like a long list of equations to which Lassiter's jaw almost dropped off.
"That's not a password" Lassiter stated.
"No you're right lassie. A pass code is a completely different thing." Shawn smiled.
"Come Jules" Shawn said leaving the room. Juliet had reached to get a pen so she could carefully copy down the sequence gave a pleading look to Lassiter who sighed and started copying it down. Juliet smiled great fully at him then rushed out the room to find Shawn.
Shawn was waiting for her round the corner and Juliet almost crashed into him.
"Shawn!" Juliet gasped before composing herself.
"We need to get that code!"
Shawn laughed at her.
"Don't worry Jules, I got it!" he replied tapping his forehead.
"Really? All that?"
Shawn nodded smiling. "Let's go" and they started to walk towards the exit. "We need to make a stop first"
20 minutes later at the crime scene
The group arrived at the crime scene at the same time. A man with a suitcase came escorted by Lassiter.
"This is Mr Illingsworth. He is a specialist with D.D Pro's" Lassiter introduced him.
"Nice to meet you" Shawn greeted him. "Shawn Spencer, head psychic of the SBPD"
"head psychic?" Juliet questioned. Shawn nodded seriously.
"right…" the man started coming forwards. "What is it that you are looking for?"
"Footage from yesterday around 3:30"
Mr Illingsworth got to work quickly. It took him moments to find the activation pad, as how every system it was located in a slightly different place, and the system burst to life. He pulled the chair from the nearby desk and started typing away at the keyboard.
"I thought it was DNA activated" Lucinda remarked in astonishment.
"It's quite hard to set that up. Not many people can do it, the instructions for that are on page 93 of the manual. No one is ever bothered to go that far. The people of today's society are way too impatient" Shawn interrupted
"Can you hurry up and get the footage" she barked. Point proven thought Shawn.
"I assume you have a passcode?" he said standing up and gesturing the seat. Lassiter nodded in acknowledgement and proceeded to empty his pocket to find the piece of paper where he had carefully copied it. He found it seconds later but when he looked up, Shawn was sat in the seat, typing furiously at the keyboard.
Here's no way he could have got that! There's no way- The monitor blinked again,
PASS CODE ACCEPTED
Lucinda looked at Shawn in astonishment. Juliet smiled. He had done it.
Shawn would have been happy to click on the footage link himself but Mr Illingsworth was standing right next to him.
"That's my seat, young man"
"Whoah! Alright" Shawn said smiling and returned to his place by Juliet.
"Here we go" the man said, the lights in the room turned off as the screen began to play the footage.
The screen flickered and showed a grainy footage of the front entrance. Shawn watched closely as Maggey and Buzz entered and marked the time stamp 3:15. The entrance way remained motionless until Maggey came running out at 3:30, with her hands covered in blood, crying.
"Oh My God" Juliet announced.
"I think we just got the evidence we need to put this girl behind bars" Lucinda remarked.
"Can we get a copy?" Lassiter asked politely. Mr Illingsworth looked unsettled.
"The system isn't designed to make copies… you can send it to another computer but the file isn't in a format that is compatible with an external disc" the man told him.
"Then what is the point of a super fancy system?" Lucinda whispered to Lassiter who smiled.
"Well thank you for your help, Mr Illingsworth" Lassiter told him and he bowed his head slightly. Mr Illingsworth stood up and grabbed his briefcase before walking over to them.
"Are you sure you don't want me to send it?" he asked Lassiter.
"That's alright. We can do that" Shawn replied butting in.
"Alright then," Mr Illingsworth said, "The pleasure has been all mine. Good day". He then left the room and made his way out of the crime scene.
"Shawn!" Juliet reprimanded.
"What?" Shawn asked confused.
"That was kind of rude!" she told him gushing slightly.
Shawn started to grin before getting out his own bag with the equipment he made Juliet stop for on the way there.
"What are you doing Spencer?" Lassiter asked.
"He said 'the file isn't in a format that is compatible with an external disc'. I do not agree. You just have to change the format." He supplied. Plugging in a series of cables and wires in to the machine and pulling out a laptop from the draws in the desk of the room. When the others looked at him, eyebrows raised at the laptop he simply said, "Evidence".
"If you could have changed the format, Spencer. Mr Illingsworth would have done so" she said dryly.
"Yeah, well. He's not as experienced as me when it comes to computers" Shawn replied snootily.
They watched as Shawn connected more wires and hacked away at the keyboard for several minutes. Shawn downloaded the film onto that laptop and then used the laptop to transfer it into the correct file type. Shawn watched as the video converted frame by frame and he spotted a dark shadow moments after Maggey fled the scene. It looked like a shadow of someone standing up though he could not be sure. He supposed it was Buzz, about to fall. Trusting his instincts, he searched the D.D Pro for any other footage. The only other footage showed the manager in this very room. He seemed to stay there for most of the tape but left part way through. The conversion took about 30 seconds due to the speed of the computer and Shawn then sent the file back to the original mainframe. All he needed to do then was insert the blank disc and copy the file over. The thing that really annoyed him was that the manager wasn't on tape anywhere leaving the building. Yet, he was sure that the manager wasn't there when he was brought in for questioning. Didn't he say that he excited the room when he saw the footage then rang the police?
Distracting Shawn from his chain of thought, a shuddering grinding sound started and the video popped out of the machine.
"Done" Shawn announced proudly and Juliet reached down to retrieve the tape. Lassiter held out an evidence bag and Juliet dropped the tape in.
"Good work" Lassiter said, not directly praising Shawn or Juliet or Lucinda. Shawn then cleared up all of his equipment. At first he tried to fold the wires so they fit in the bag efficiently but gave up after the first wire that decided to bend in a different direction and so he ended up just stuffing it in the bag.
"Lassie, where was Mr Hodge when you picked him up for questioning" Shawn asked as they made their way out the building.
"His apartment, where else!" Lucinda asserted in annoyance. Where was Shawn expecting him to be?
Shawn remained silent, ignoring the concerned glance Juliet sent him.
SO... what does that tell you?
Please let me know what you thought? and who you think has killed Buzz. I love hearing all your theories!
My aim at the moment, regarding this story is to get more reviews that my other fanfiction "The Ultimate Weapon". That's my aim! Please review! let me know what you thought! Will update when I can!