Page 59 of The Grave Artist
This particular search would not raise any Fourth Amendment issues with Sanchez. It was completely legal. The procedure involved using both public and private security cameras in commercial stores along Harrison Street—unlike his illegal hacks earlier.
This time, merchants had willingly—with a little pressure from police—given access to their videos. Most were aimed at tills and counters, meant to capture the bad guys during a stickup, or employees trying to palm cash from the register. But a few were angled in such a way that they caught small swaths of the street and sidewalk.
Still, the algorithm was having no luck finding a tall woman in funeral black, face obscured by an old-fashioned veil and hat and wearing stylish shoes—described simply as “black mid-height heeled shoes featuring a bright-red stripe down the heel.” He had decided to omit in the search the term “kick-ass” on the theory that the phrase was a bit too human for even the worldliest bot.
Chapter 28
“He’s moving on someone again.”
Carmen was looking at the digital murder board on the wall of the Garage, though her focus was elsewhere.
“A hunch. But . . .”
She rocked back and forth in the springy office chair.
“And?” Heron asked, attentive.
In the time they’d spent working together, he’d clearly realized her intuition paid off most of the time.
“Total organized offender. HK. Unusually high impulse control, but with a ritualistic MO. Some behaviors he can’t ignore. Even if they mean creating detectable patterns for us to find.”
Heron said, “Assault with a blunt object, drowning. Not the most efficient way to kill but he’s sticking to it.”
“What if he’s controlled by the schedule? Two murders in Italy that weren’t far apart in time. Then none, and then he starts up again here.”
“So you think he won’t go to ground.”
“No, not yet.”
“He almost killed Frank. And he used a totally different MO.”
“That’s the key. He needed to throw up a hurdle. Slow us down.”
Heron too studied the board. “While he attacks somebody else.”
“Declan?”
On the screen:Yes, Carmen?
When the words appeared, the murder board automatically minimized. It was irritating. “Declan, can you turn on voice function?”
Somewhat startlingly, they heard: “Voice function is now activated. I was going to suggest doing so myself. It is a more logical way of communicating with you. Is this voice acceptable?”
It was a man’s low tenor with the neutral pronunciation referred to as the General American Accent.
She glanced at Heron, who shrugged.
“Yes, it’s fine.”
“Jake and Carmen. I can tell you’re both present. I would like to ask a question.”
“Go ahead,” Heron said.
“I have recently become aware of a study in which humans who interact with computers prefer the responses to be more vernacular and less computerese. I have been tailoring my responses to include contractions. Do you prefer that, or should I avoid them?”
Heron and Carmen shared yet another glance. She thought it was good Declan could not see them, as an eye roll was involved. She said, “Contractions are fine.”
“All right. I’ll log that and modify my default template accordingly. What about slang?”
