Present...
Sunny glared at the computer screen, his eyes were fixated on the screen, searching for information that could give closure to what he was looking for. Suddenly, he gave a quizzed look at what his eyes came across, he moved his head towards the screen and reacted shockingly.
"Unbelievable!" He exclaimed, and let out a small laugh. "No wonder!" He continued and said, "So this why the trails kept getting cold during the investigation. Son of a bitch!" He cursed through his teeth. He realized that one of the suspects involved in the hit-and-run accident was the son of Senator Badejobi Atkins, a gubernatorial candidate in the upcoming election and his longtime foe. On the screen, a profile display of Tommy's picture and his biography showed on the computer screen;
Thomas Atkins; a nineteen-year-old
A basketball player at Wilmour's High Academy
Father; Badejobi Atkins. Mother; Patricia Atkins
Sunny looked with distress on his face, he turned to rest his head on the armchair for a while. Now that he has identified the one who has been pulling the strings all along, he knew he couldn't let go of the case, there was no way he could accept defeat after knowing of the Senator's involvement. However; upon Sunny's efforts, it was not evident enough. According to the law; it was no longer sufficient for him as a police officer to determine that a crime had been committed and to simply identify Tommy and his colleagues and arrest them as suspects, all he had was speculations. He realized he needed to be able to demonstrate the circumstances involved in the hit-and-run incident by utilizing physical evidence from the individuals involved and then the crime scene to support the criminal charges.
Sunny got up from his desk, it was already past nine in the evening. He headed towards the evidence locker room, he searched intently for the footage cam of the scene of the accident, he wanted to know if there was something he might have missed during the investigation earlier. He pulled a folder from a locker with a case number written on the front and grabbed a small envelope that was kept hidden in it. Inside the envelope was a flash drive that contained the video of the accident from the CCTV footage of the highway on the day of the accident. He went further to insert the drive into a central programming unit (CPU), and a folder section appeared on the screen, Sunny clicked on the file, and a recorded video started to play. He watched carefully, he watched the video over and over again about six times before he noticed something. He pressed the playback button twice to confirm what he noticed.
In the video, immediately after the black jeep ran over the two victims, the vehicle came to a halt. The windows were tinted, and there was no way to identify the driver. On the other side of the vehicle the passenger side, the door was slightly opened and it was immediately shut closed. It was a difficult angle to detect because of the position of the vehicle from the CCTV camera, it doesn't matter how much you zoom in, it would still not be easily visible for the eye to see unless it was something one was looking to observe in the first instance. However, the moment the door to the passenger side beside the driver's seat slightly opened, the CCTV was able to caption the reflection of a figure through the side mirror. It was not at all obvious, because it was an idea that popped up in Sunny's mind considering the angle to which the vehicle was situated in front of the CCTV camera a few meters across from the navigation board of the intersection of the highway. A figure reflected through the mirror, but it was very blurry and hard to see. Sunny thought the digital experts should be able to analyze the caption and run facial recognition to determine who the figure was on the passenger side of the vehicle on the night of the incident. Although facial recognition had already been done on the plates of the vehicle and it was revealed to be registered to Thomas Atkins, Sunny got furious that the court issued an order for the suspects to be granted bail, the court claimed that circumstantial evidence alone such as the vehicle of assault belonging to the owner is not enough to warrant a trial after the arrest of the suspects, as a result, no physical evidence.
A young man walked in a few moments later, Sunny gave him the flash drive and he inserted it into a laptop and began to run data analysis on the video. "Here, check this out" The young man in his early twenties spoke with a low voice. Sunny moved closer and stood next to him leaning over his shoulder.
"So, I ran a trajectory focus on the side mirror from a different angle, once I increased the saturation of the rest of the background, it would single out the side mirror and reduce the blurry line. That way, we can detect the reflection of the figure clearly for facial recognition." He explained.
"Okay. Good work." Sunny appreciated him.
The whole process didn't take longer than ten minutes. The blurry part of the video became less blurry, and the reflection in the mirror was enhanced and visible to see. According to the facial recognition system, the figure at the passenger side who tried to open the door was a male figure who happened to be Peter Kingsley. He was one of the suspects that Sunny had brought in earlier for questioning,
"Yes!" Sunny explained. "Thank you! Thank you very much" he said and brought out some cash from his wallet and handed them over to the digital experts.
It was a busy day at Wilmour's High, the school was having its art exhibition launch program at the multipurpose hall. Most of the parents and the school staff were all gathered there during the program. Tommy and his associates were absent in the hall, they were somewhere around in one of the janitor's closets at the end of the hallway. Usually, Tommy would skip classes with his four friends whenever they felt like, it to have a smoke in one of the janitor's rooms after giving the janitor some cash as a bribe for not disclosing their wayward activities on the school premises.
"God! This shit hits differently." A female voice said among them. She had a beautiful set of eyes that made her exceptionally attractive. She was neatly dressed in her uniform and a pair of black stockings, underneath her short skirt. A light smoke came out of her mouth and it made the red lipstick on her curvy lips dry.
"Try this," Tommy said. He took the blunt from her hand and dragged it slowly into his mouth, he moved towards her and gently placed his mouth on her lips and then exhaled into her mouth deeply. She blew out a cloud of thick smoke and let out a small giggle. "See!" Tommy said again with a smile on his lips.
"Ugh! Gross. Why don't you both get a room for this nonsense." Another female voice said from behind them, her uniform slightly unbuttoned from her top exposing her cleavage.
"Shut up Venny!" You're just jealous because you're miserably lonely. Why don't you just hook up with Pete already so you can both put yourselves out of your miseries" he said jokingly.
"Fuck you!" Peter cursed at Tommy.
"What! You know you like her" Tommy said.
"No, I don't" Pete denied.
"What are you both rambling on about?" Veronica Samuels asked looking in Pete's direction. Pete managed to dodge her fierce stare.
"Oh! You don't know!" Tommy jokingly said again with a small laugh.
"Tommy, Stop!" Grace said while she also laughed.
"What is wrong with you people!" Veronica exclaimed. "Would you all just stop talking nonsense before you spoil my high"
"Oh okay! Shall we?" Tommy jokingly said looking at Grace while they both laughed again. Peter angrily grabbed the blunt from Tommy's hand and dragged the smoke, a hard puff blew away from his mouth.
"Okay! Loverboy" Tommy laughed again, and so did Grace.
"Alright guys, let's get out of here before someone finds us" Grace added.
They all walked out of the room suspiciously through the hallway into the multipurpose hall where the exhibition program was taking place. They sneaked into the hall and found their way to a few empty seats in the middle of the applauding crowd sitting in the large hall. Just as they were about to sit down comfortably. Four policemen in uniforms barged into the hall and towards their direction. They all turned around at the sudden movements approaching them. The crowd was still applauding at the ongoing exhibition. Only a few noticed what was happening at the back. Inspector Sunny and the three policemen stopped right in front of Pete and his friends.
"Peter Kingsley! You are under arrest for conspiracy on aggravated assault and murder. Anything you say shall be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to remain silent until further review. Officers! Arrest him" Inspector Sunny ordered. Two policemen grabbed Pete by his arms to put handcuffs on his hands and dragged him away, the rest of the crowd was left discombobulated by the sudden commotion as whispers filled the hall room.