Eye of the Witch by Dana Donovan

curiosity back to Burke. “Why do you say that?”
    “ Well, forget that it was one of three suicides in as many weeks. That alone is strange. But everyone knows how badly that guy, Rivera, wanted the promotion that she got.”
    I agreed, adding, “That’s why we have the tape. We want to take a closer look at it ourselves. What do you know about the other suicides?”
    “ Ha! Funny you should ask. I know that Karen’s death occurred in precinct one’s jurisdiction, but as you know, we all work out of the same building now. The precincts are all going to melt back into one super-precinct soon anyway.”
    “ I heard that,” I said, “but continue.”
    “ My buddy, Mike, got the call: a woman jumper. He recognized the address as Karen’s. He phoned me on my cell and alerted me right away. We arrived at the scene together. I took one look at the woman. We found her face-down, but neither Mike nor I had any doubts.”
    “ Did you go up into her apartment?”
    “ Yes. About then two more units rolled up. They secured the scene while Mike and I went upstairs. A man identifying himself as the building super approached us. He recognized Karen’s body, too, and offered to let us into her apartment.”
    “ The door was locked from the inside?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ So he unlocked it and you went inside.”
    “ He unlocked it, but Karen had the security chain latched. I had to throw my shoulder into it—busted the doorjamb all to pieces.”
    “ Guess that answers that,” said Carlos.
    “ What?”
    “ We were wondering whether someone could have broken in, forced Karen off the balcony and then locked the deadbolt behind him when he left. But if that chain was already in place when you arrived….”
    “ Oh, it was on there, sturdy too. I got the bruises on my shoulder to prove it.”
    “ Then there couldn’t have been anyone in the apartment when she jumped,” I said.
    “ Not unless he went over the balcony after her.”
    “ And that’s impossible,” Carlos added. “The kids out in the street who saw Karen jump would have seen someone climbing down behind her.”
    “ Maybe the kids did it!” Spinelli offered. God love him for trying.
    “ Yeah, and maybe Karen just jumped,” I said. “You know, cops do have one of the highest suicide rates in the country.” I reached out and shook Burke’s hand. “Thanks for the info, Bruce. It’s good seeing you. Give my regards to the misses, will you?” He promised he would, and then said his goodbyes to Carlos and Spinelli.
    I had been on cases before that offered high hopes, but delivered dead ends. This one was different. This one offered no high hopes, only the dead ends. At the risk of setting ourselves up for another fall, I suggested we look at the videotape. Carlos told me about a room down the hall where they set up all the latest in audio-video technology. It was a good thing, too, because the videotape I expected wasn’t videotape at all. It was a memory cartridge, of sorts, with digital video imprints copied from a hard drive down at the Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli building. The concept proved completely foreign to me. It’s not that I’m opposed to new technologies, but things like that make me glad I retired from detective work when I did. Carlos claims to understand it all, and probably does, somewhat, but it was Spinelli who wheeled total command over the complex high-tech equipment there.
    “ They gave us a lot of footage,” he said. “But I’ve got a queue-up number here, so it’ll get us right to the target point in no time.”
    I turned to Carlos. “Do you understand what he just said?”
    He nodded and made a face designed to make me feel stupid. “It’s child’s play, Tony. Anyone can figure it out.”
    “ Sure,” I said. I had him figured out. And I figured I’d see him pay for dinner before the night was through.
    In a matter of seconds we were watching high resolution colored video of Bridget Dean working behind her desk