“Let’s get into Fred Lobbrecht,” said Heat. “Inez, you covered the accident report, right?”
“Yes. I made friends with a clerk at the DMV in Albany who overnighted a photocopy of the MV-104 and Trooper Lobbrecht’s notes, diagrams, and photo documentation of the scene.” The detective moved to the side of the room and brought up front a bulletin board on which she had posted enlargements for the meeting. “I’ll walk you through a couple of items of note. First, this accident scene didn’t fall in Trooper Lobbrecht’s jurisdiction, which was Troop NYC, posted in Richmond County which, as you know, is Staten Island, a long way from Peekskill. When he called in the crash, he said he happened to be in transit on that road and observed the victim’s car smashed into the tree.”
“Already hinky,” said Rhymer.
“Agreed. It was the middle of the night, just after three A.M., and he told dispatch at Troop K that, as long as he was there, he’d run point on the investigation, and they agreed. Why not?” She moved from the Westchester County map to a one-sheet printout of a report. “I pulled this page from the Forensic Science Lab findings. Most cars these days have sophisticated computer systems.”
“No kidding,” said Heat, leading to a burst of laughter.
When it settled, Inez continued, “Among the things onboard this victim’s car was the black box, which records a loop of twenty-five seconds of data for steering, acceleration, and braking. It lets Forensics examine the pre-impact actions of the driver. Like, was the driver slamming on the brakes or swerving to avoid something?” She tapped the page. “Forensics found that the black box was clean.”
“Clean how?” asked Rook.
“Simple trick. Ask anyone in the motor pool or traffic detail,” said Detective Feller. “All somebody would have to do—and by somebody, I’m thinking Trooper Fred—all he had to do is go up to the victim’s car, reach in, turn the key off, then turn it back on, count to twenty-five, and you have now recorded over whatever was on the EPROM chip and replaced it with a bunch of nada. So the data weren’t erased, just replaced by nothing. It’s a crude but effective way to create erroneous data after an accident.”
“That’s why it’s procedure to pull all keys after a fatal, to prevent that from happening,” said Aguinaldo.
“It’s also procedure when there’s a decedent to canvass all body shops and tow services in the vicinity for the phantom vehicle.” Opie shook his head in scorn. “I guess our friendly trooper who was in charge of the investigation made sure that one got overlooked, too.”
Nikki, who had been making her own notes, set her pen down. “Let me get a picture of this. If the victim swerved or braked to, say, avoid Nathan Levy coming the other way in his Bimmer, that would leave skid marks.”
Ochoa raised a hand. “It did. Even now, Raley and I could see scuff patches on the road. We haven’t had much snow since then, so they didn’t get totally plowed off.”
“Not according to this.” Detective Aguinaldo indicated some photo blowups of the crash scene. Everyone rose and gathered around for a better look. The pictures showed the familiar Forensics spray-paint markings on the victim’s tires and on the ground beneath each one. But the official photo documentation of the roadway itself was devoid of any skid marks.
Raley took out his cell phone. “Compare that with the shots I took yesterday.” He had shot an angle of the road similar to one on Inez’s board and held it up side by side. Same road, two conflicting images: tire scuff marks on Raley’s; none on Trooper Lobbrecht’s.
Ochoa rapped a knuckle on the Forensics print. “This sucker’s been Photoshopped.”