It was evening by the time they all returned to the police station. Tracy followed John and Patricia to the lab, where the evidence related to the case was being processed. The satellite images requested by Patricia had already arrived, so while she busied herself in setting up the simulation, Tracy and John began reviewing the footage.
It was as the newspapers had described. The getaway car pulled up in front of the gate at three minutes past six. It was parked at some distance from the gate, so that only the general shape and colour could be captured by the surveillance camera. At five minutes past six, the figure of Francis could be seen coming out of the gate and getting into the car. The car then left sped along the road going towards the Dobsons' house.
"So that's what made you suspect Mary's involvement." said Tracy as the clip ended.
"Yes." replied John.
"Where is the car now?" asked Tracy.
"It is in our impound yard. Our team has searched it thoroughly but have not found anything. Here are the details of the search.", he said, handing a file to Tracy.
As Tracy looked at the photo of the car in the file he had a growing suspicion that something was not right. There was something that they were not seeing. He expressed his doubts to John and the two decided to look at the footage a little more closely.
"See where the driver parks the getaway car." began Tracy. "Why does he park it that much away from the gate?"
"Probably to stay out of the camera's range." reasoned John.
"But then why park there? You remember there is a small bend in the road further down, which would have served as their purpose better. And it would never have been caught on camera."
"Maybe they thought it was too far off, and they felt Francis might get caught before he made it to the car."
"Maybe. But I am not convinced. I mean, they had accounted for all the factors. They knew that no one in the house would be up by that time. They knew that the response time of the police would be close to ten minutes, once the alarm had been triggered. They had also knew that around six, there would be a shift change at the guard room which was monitoring the camera feeds. So, they could have accounted for parking the car further away in their plan."
"What if that was somehow a part of their plan?", hazarded John.
"But why? Unless they wanted the car to be captured on camera for some reason."
With this in their minds, Tracy and John began reviewing the surveillance footage, frame by frame. Their hard work paid off, when they got a clue towards the end.
"Did you see that faint glitter on the lower portion of the trunk?", asked John.
"Yes." replied Tracy. "I think it's probably some light getting reflected from the car's surface."
"But there are no streetlamps there. Could it be light from headlamps of some other passing car?"
"I think it might be the early morning sunlight, given the fact that the car is moving in a westerly direction." chimed in Patricia, who had joined them a little earlier after starting the simulation.
"But I don't think that's possible." began Tracy slowly.
"You mean it could not be sunlight?" questioned Patricia.
"No, no. You are probably correct. I meant this doesn't agree with the car we have in impound."
"I think you are right." agreed John, beginning to slowly understand what Tracy was hinting at.
"Could you two please explain to me what exactly does this mean?" asked a slightly confused Patricia.
"Here. Read this." said Tracy, handing her the file.
With a puzzled look on her face, Patricia took the file from John and started reading. Slowly the look on her face was replaced with one of understanding.
"It's the paint, isn't it?!" she exclaimed excitedly. "The description here says that the car we captured them in had solid paint on the body. But only a metallic or pearl finish type of paint would have caused the type of sparkle we saw on tape."
"Exactly. That also means that there were two cars involved." concluded Tracy.
"And the other one was probably a rental." said John. "I will check out all the rental agencies whether any cars like the getaway vehicle were rented during that time.
"And I will update my simulation to account for this additional car. That way we can find out where they made the switch." said Patricia, hurrying towards her workstation.
And two hours later, they had obtained their first promising breakthrough in the case.
John had found out the car rental service to which the other car belonged. There was surveillance footage of the customer, who was undoubtedly Mary. As if that were not enough, the person who ran the rental service, sensing the urgency in her voice had quoted a higher price, forcing her to use her credit card for making the payment. Meanwhile, the results of Patricia's simulation had been used to identify the possible places where the change of cars had taken place and a team was on the way to search and examine the area.
Once Mary's involvement was established, the police had no difficulty in securing a search warrant. A search of her house began late that evening to find any whereabouts of the necklace. But half an hour into the search, they were still without any results.
It was then that Tracy's eyes fell on Mary's personal computer. He noticed that the area on the table surrounding the left speaker looked a little cleaner than the right one. A closer inspection of the speaker lead to the discovery of a loose screw, and ultimately to the finding of the necklace concealed within.
When Francis was interrogated again with this newly found evidence, he gave a full confession. The plan was to have Francis and his accomplice get arrested. Mary was to keep the necklace with her and sell it when the investigation had died down. This was supposed to be their 'first and last' job, as the necklace was bound to bring enough money to last them quite a few years.
The case was finally solved.
As usual, there was a lot of coverage about in the newspapers, with the police taking most of the credit. Tracy got a fleeting mention as one of the department consultants who had assisted the investigation, despite his efforts to ensure otherwise.
Three days later, John visited Tracy's office, with a file under his arm.
"A new case?" inquired Tracy.
"Yes. We have to leave now. I will brief you on the way."
"Okay. Let's go." Tracy grabbed his bag and started towards the door.
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