CHAPTER 11
That evening, Dan gave all the surveillance crews the night off figuring he and Ron would check the computer results after the commercial had been substituted and viewed. The observers welcomed the break and would report back in the morning. Sure enough, Slate’s focus had changed from the background to the product. New word phrases used to describe the hair spray also seemed to get his attention. Of the thirty seconds of the commercial, Slate was connected to the content for a full twenty-five seconds, his attention just waning slightly at the end. Dan and Ron looked at each other and smiled. They knew they had a winner and that Borley would be jumping for joy. It wouldn’t take long for the news to get out and contracts to start rolling in. Andrew Slate was a goldmine just waiting to be tapped.
“Are you going to shut down the surveillance entirely?’ Ron asked, hinting that he’d like to go home.
“No,” Dan answered. “You take off; I’ll stick around for awhile until he goes to sleep then I might leave him alone for a few hours until the next shift comes on. Nice job tonight. Get some rest.”
Ron exited quickly before Dan changed his mind. Dan sat back in the comfortable chair and looked as Slate continued to watch television. After awhile, he got up, clicked off the lights and left the room. The night vision cameras clicked into play as he ascended the stairs to his bedroom, feeling his way along the walls by the dim glow of night lights. He snapped on the light in the room and went to his dresser where he reached into the second drawer and pulled out an object Dan wasn’t able to see clearly even by zooming in. Slate then went to the bedroom door, shut off the lights, and made his way carefully down the stairs and out to the kitchen where he put on the lights again. He reached into a drawer near the sink and took out what appeared to be a corkscrew which he slipped into his pants’ pocket. He shut off the light and exited through the back door.
Dan sat upright in the chair as an outside monitored picked Slate up as he walked in the darkness to the garage. This was totally out of his regular pattern of behavior. He entered through a side door and a few seconds later the large garage double doors swung open causing the automatic light inside to come on. Slate immediately backed his car out of the garage and into the quiet street. He proceeded to go north.
Dan clicked on the in-car camera and could see Slate staring straight ahead with an intense look on his face. The camera was fixed in a permanent position just inside one of the heater vents so its view was severely limited. The GPS under the hood told Dan that Slate was traveling northeast toward the suburbs of the city. Grabbing his electronic tablet so he could continue to monitor Slate, Dan raced from the building and into the parking garage where he got into his own car. Maybe Slate was going to a pharmacy to pick up some medicine or a late night snack, he thought. If that were the case, Slate’s selection would prove invaluable in their research.
Taking side streets, Dan tried to intersect Slate’s route; but Andrew’s car appeared to stop before Dan could catch up. According to the GPS reading on the tablet, the vehicle was located in the parking lot of an all-night supermarket, but the indicators in Slate’s shoes showed he had left the car and was proceeding on foot…however, it wasn’t into the market but down the street.
Finally, Dan drove into the parking lot and saw Slate’s car. Leaving his a discrete distance away and taking his tablet, he began to follow Slate’s trail as he wound his way down side streets and across empty lots. For awhile, it appeared he was just rambling, but then his movement stopped long enough for Dan to make visual contact. Hiding behind some bushes, he could see Slate standing behind a tree looking in the direction of a house at the end of a cul de sac. There was a light on in a second floor room. Slate just stood there keeping himself hidden from the view of any passerby, watching the house as if he were waiting for something to happen. After an hour, the light went out in the room; and Slate continued to wait until at least a half hour more went by. Then, looking around, he slipped out from behind the tree and cautiously made his way across the street and into some bushes on the side of the house. Dan was afraid to go any further for fear he might be seen, so he waited in his position. Fifteen minutes went by and he was about to step out from his cover when he saw Slate reappear and run across the street toward him. Ducking low behind his bushy hiding place so as not to be seen, he was close enough to notice that Slate was now wearing rubber gloves which he was pealing off as he raced past him.
Following at a safe distance, he watched as Slate returned to his car and pulled out of the lot heading in the direction of home. Keeping a focus on Slate’s movements with the tablet, Dan was not too far behind. He parked down the street as Slate pulled into his garage. When Slate re-entered his house, Dan sped off to the big rooms where the bank of monitors made tracking Slate’s movements in his house easier. By the time Dan got to his destination, Slate had already disposed of the clothes he had been wearing and was lying in bed.
Dan rewound the tape back to when Slate had entered the house, then he played it back. Slate had entered in only his t-shirt and shorts. His pants, shirt, socks, and shoes were missing. He had gone to the sink and had taken out a bottle of bleach which he poured into one of the wells. He took the corkscrew out of his pocket and threw it and the rubber gloves into the bleach stirring them around in the liquid with a long handled wooden spoon. After a few minutes, he released the stopper and rinsed off the three items. Then he put the corkscrew back into the drawer and walked down stairs to the cellar. He stuck the rubber gloves into an old looking wood burning stove and put newspaper around them. Then he squirted some charcoal lighter fluid on the paper and threw in a match before closing the door. He picked up a large canvas bag and went back upstairs and out the kitchen door. In a minute he returned lugging the bag which now had something in it. Once again, he went into the cellar and, using a barbeque fork, opened the door of the stove. The fire was starting to sputter when he crammed the bag inside. More squirts of lighter fluid and another match caused an instant flame. Dan could only guess that Slate’s clothes and shoes were in that bag. Pushing the door of the stove shut with the other end of the barbeque fork, Slate went back upstairs to his bedroom where the monitors showed he was lying right now.
Dan erased that portion of the tape and continued to live monitor Slate who had now fallen fast asleep. The rest of the night dragged on until the morning crew arrived to relieve him. The members were surprised to see Dan there, but he dismissed their concerns by telling them he got stood up on a date and just wanted to be alone. Ordinarily, he might have believed that Slate was having an affair with a married woman, although nothing in his extensive profile indicated that to be the case. Another possible scenario might be that he was pulling a prank on an unsuspecting colleague…but neither of these two events could explain the bleach and the rubber gloves.
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