Leak Justice

The video on the TV screen was stark and shocking. An un-armed man stands beside his damaged vehicle - one of those expensive, fruity-looking jeeps that people with too much money tend to buy. The back is all pushed-in. A bulldozer blade can be seen in the background. The un-armed man seems upset. He is gesticulating wildly and yelling at two other men. One, a good-looking management type and the other, an obese guy wearing filthy cover-alls. There is no audio, but you can tell that the driver is pretty hot about something.
Suddenly, the good looking one pulls out a pistol and points it at the un-armed assho - er, citizen. But, the fucker just will not shut up. Bang.
The hand-held camera jitters as if the person holding it has started to shake involuntarily at the horror and brutality of the killing. But the video continues to record the scene unblinkingly.
The two men move quickly, as if acting out their roles in a play. The fat one loads the body back into the driver's seat of the jeep. The good-looking one gets a pail of sawdust or something like it from the small shack nearby, and spreads it on the ground where the dead guy was lying. The fat one disappears for a few minutes while this is going on. When he returns he is driving a large front-end loader. He scoops up the jeep with the dead guy inside and drives off to the left off-screen.
The TV goes off. I'm blinking and rubbing my eyes when the bright lights are turned on.
"So," says the detective, "What do you think about that little piece of footage?" He is looking at me like a snake, eyes focused intently, but he had a big toothy grin on his face.
I took a minute to compose my thoughts.
"Interesting. But, a bit amateurish, jiggley, no audio…."
"Yeah, high school kid, doing a video project about recycling at the dump. He took the video." He explained.
"What's this gonna cost me?" I asked.
"A lot." He smiled

It seemed that someone important had some material that needed to go into a landfill. Several thousand fifty gallon drums of waterproofing agent that is supposed to be used to reinforce tunnel membranes when the tunnel is under a saltwater aquifer. The detective - a good friend of mine - has a brother-in-law who was in charge of the Big Dig tunnel work. Apparently, his Microsoft Project spreadsheet had mysteriously deleted the task that said "Pump water-proofing agent around tunnel membrane before filling in the ditch." The newspapers were full of Big Dig tunnel leaks. There were scandals in the wind and fingers were pointing wildly.

The long and short of it: Evidence needed to be lost. I was in an agreeable mood.

Later, we shook hands and he handed over the video.
"It's the only copy." He assured me."