novelraw Chapter 1395 - 754: Making an Arrest
Chapter 1395 - 754: Making an Arrest
Jimmy discovered a new suspicious clue, and Mark and Wright weren't idle either. They quickly reviewed the surveillance footage from when the yacht docked and undocked, noting the time markers of people entering and exiting and activities at the dock. Afterward, they would precisely extract the necessary footage for personnel and material analysis.
The island had just hosted a party before the incident, with many people coming and going. Even though the port only had three berths, recording personnel and time markers wasn't easy. The scenarios in movies where you freeze a frame to locate a target in the surveillance rarely happen. Each individual needed identification, making the workload significant.
However, after the preliminary processing and recording by agents Mark and Wright, identifying specific locations for people to recognize later became easier, significantly reducing the workload for the island's butler and security personnel.
The clues Jimmy obtained were also crucial, but four or five days had passed. On such a small island, tracking the direction of people climbing up, any traces left, footprints, or other clues was challenging. The simplest and most convenient method was still what Jimmy requested: reviewing all the surveillance footage.
Wealthy people are indeed different. Although the island was small, as a privacy-conscious rich man, surveillance cameras were installed not only around his villa complex and harbor but in other locations as well. This led Jimmy to immediately summon backup upon seeing the sheer number of cameras. It would take too long for the three of them to check everything, and he needed to investigate the most important matters on the island without wasting all his time here.
Personnel arrangement was obviously contacted by Agent Wright. To be safe, Jimmy asked him to call in two or three technical experts with portable workstations, allowing for direct video enhancement, which would facilitate later recognition of surveillance footage.
When the Security Chief accompanied Jimmy back to the villa area, he left immediately. He needed to inform the butler about the situation and Jimmy's demand for all surveillance, which the butler needed to discuss with the lady of the house—it wasn't his decision to make.
Jimmy took a glance along the way. The people in the basement were still free to move, but they hadn't come out, indicating that their activities were likely confined to the basement. Perhaps it was because the FBI's presence restricted them, or maybe they were never allowed out at all. Unfortunately, Jimmy couldn't access the main building now.
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In the villa's private cinema room, Wright connected his laptop to the projector, displaying the enlarged footage on the screen. Jimmy, the butler, and the Security Chief sat on the sofa, watching the surveillance footage. Based on the time markers noted by Wright and Mark, the footage was paused for them to identify personnel appearing in the video, and Mark and Wright recorded the details of each person's appearance.
Jimmy hadn't fully reviewed all the footage before, so mainly Mark and Wright handled it. But when he saw a sped-up scene, Jimmy noticed something unusual and immediately shouted, "Pause! Rewind slowly! A little slower... OK, play it in slow motion."
Bit by bit, Jimmy guided Wright to adjust the footage until he saw what he was looking for, "Look here, earlier there were three people delivering items onto the boat, but in this frame, only two left the yacht. One person is missing. Record the time, continue playback."
People delivering to the yacht didn't always leave simultaneously, and their return times varied. Perhaps when watching earlier, they hadn't noticed, but indeed, one person stayed on the yacht significantly longer than the others by over ten minutes.
Wright looked at Jimmy in surprise, wondering how he noticed details he and Mark had overlooked just from a first-time observation of the footage. Such observational and memory skills were astonishing.
This was the third day's surveillance footage. They had fast-forwarded through two consecutive days previously, and their mental focus was frazzled, making missed details inevitable. However, Jimmy watched it with the butler and the Security Chief, yet how did he record the absence of the person leaving the yacht?
Wright quickly played the subsequent segment of footage, finding the scene where the person left the yacht, "Who is this person?"
The butler frowned at the screen. Due to the poor clarity of the surveillance, they couldn't fully see the person's face, but often features like body shape, face structure, and hairstyle would help identify someone, especially when it was someone local. However, the person in the footage looked familiar but was not one of them, only dressed in a security uniform.
He looked at the Security Chief, who shook his head, "Not our person. Just when the party was ongoing, our people were scattered around the island..."
Jimmy: "OK, record the time. I need surveillance from all locations at this time mark and after."
The butler showed a troubled expression. Although he had discussed it with the lady of the house earlier, for certain confidentiality reasons, she refused to provide all the requested surveillance footage.