A Case of Revenge Ch. 02

Back at her office at 1:00am, she got the first piece of bad news.

"Ma'am, it would appear these ninja-wannabees climbed down to the floor below Mrs. Oldeeds's room." said the pretty blonde Scandinavian woman. She was Detective Inga Gunddottar, having come back to the Campus Police after a stint with the TCPD as a patrolwoman. She'd been Britt's right-hand-woman while a student, and now as a young Detective.

"The cameras on that floor were rigged to re-record an empty hallway for several hours beforehand. Our I.T. guy wants to contact the TCPD's Myron Milton, to see how the criminals did that. It was a very sophisticated setup." continued Inga.

"Not yet." said Britt. "Mrs. Oldeeds doesn't want them involved if at all possible, and I have to say I agree with her on this one... at least for now. Anything else?"

"A housekeeping passkey was used to access the east stairwell, but the cameras in the stairwell show no one going up or down. The equipment is working fine, ma'am, so I cannot understand this."

"Oh, shit." Britt said, then after a pause continued: "No, they wouldn't show up, Inga. Don't ask why not. What I do need you to do is ask the people at the Tower Condos next door to the University Hotel for all of their video footage up to the present time. Tell our officers to extend their watch of the area to include the Tower Condos."

Inga left to fulfill her orders as Britt allowed her memory to flow: Fifteen years before, the University Hotel and the Tower Condos had originally been built by the University, but they were luxury dorms at the time, and the dorm fees were higher than the other dorms. The experiment was nearly a disaster: students would tear up rooms, costing the School a lot of money in maintenance and repair, and it got where the dorms were not filled as students did not want to pay the premium prices, apartments being available in Town for much cheaper rates.

So the University converted the dorm nearest the north-south highway into the University Hotel, and that had been a smash hit and big money-maker since. The University still owned the Hotel and it was on Campus property; therefore, it was on State property and under Britt's jurisdiction, not the County's.

The Tower Condos next door had been sold off, the money used to convert the University Hotel to a hotel. The Condos were then renovated by Acme Contractors, a wholly owned subsidiary of Acme Consolidated... which meant Henry R. Wargrave was behind it... and then sold as condos, again successfully.

At the time of the construction, a Town Police Lieutenant named Griswold had given the School and builders an idea: in the event criminals attempted to take hostages, or if there were a fire or other problem, a secret second set of stairwells was built in the east stairwells of the University Hotel and west stairs of the Tower Condos. Anyone who on rare occasion used those stairwells would see the gray metal doors on each floor going seemingly to the outside wall of the building, not knowing that those doors led to a twin set of stairs. And the big secret, known only to a few people, was that an underground corridor connected the buildings, and was accessible only from within the secret stairwells.

These two rapists had somehow known about the secret stairwells, had used them, and likely had left via the Condos. Britt knew in her soul that now-Chief Griswold would not be involved with this, and she did not know if the Iron Crowbar was even privy to the secret. But someone was, and the sophistication of the camera sabotage showed that these were no ordinary rapists that had attacked the wealthy Mrs. Jonas Oldeeds. Britt decided not to share this case with the TCPD, at least not yet. She proceeded to give instructions to her officers and lab team to keep this one tightly under wraps...

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The two men did indeed use the underground tunnel, which was surprisingly clean and free of dust, to go to the Tower Condos. They went up the secret stairs and to the floor where an apartment had been made available to them. They knew they might have to stay here for as long as 24 hours, until the hubbub died down.

As they cleaned up and changed clothes, one of the young men said "Dude, my condom broke while I was fucking the bitch. You might want to stay away from me for a while after we get out of here. If they get a DNA match, I'll take the hit; you just stay away."

"Aw, man..." said the other man. "Well, maybe they won't find anything. I'll let the boss know if anything does happen..." The revenge upon Mrs. Oldeeds for Mike's murder had not been fully administered, and now one of them might have been compromised in the process of delivering their brand of Justice...

To be continued.