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When I finished, I had a leftover video box. A quick scan of the entertainment center came up empty; no extra tape. I turned on the VCR, and the little symbol that lit up informed me that Albert had left the tape in the machine, something he did quite often. I pushed the EJECT button, and out it slid to be popped into its container after I checked that it had been rewound. If it hadn't been, I would have left it in the machine on the off chance Albert hadn't finished watching it.
As I opened the cabinet door in the entertainment center to shelve the movies, I had a thought so interesting that I put the movies away with no conscious effort. Maybe that was where the missing tape was—the tape of Becca that she'd left in Deedra's apartment. Maybe it was in Deedra's VCR. As far as I knew, no one had turned the machine on since Deedra had been found dead.
That would be the last tape Deedra had watched. I am not superstitious, especially not about modern machinery, but something about that thought—maybe the mere fact that I'd had it—gave me the creeps. I remembered my dream all too vividly.
What it probably was, I figured as I folded Albert Ta
I wondered if Lacey would want me back anytime soon to finish packing Deedra's things. I could check then.
The key was in my pocket.
I could check now.
I'd been so virtuous and self-protective in turning in my copy of Deedra's key to the police, but here was another key that had almost literally dropped into my hands.
Would it be wrong to use it? Lacey had given me the videos, so there should be no problem with me taking one out of the machine, presumably. The problem lay in using this set of keys to enter.
It would be better to have a witness.
I went home to eat a late-ish lunch and observed through my kitchen window that Claude was stopping in at his apartment. I watched his car turn in to the back of the building. That solved my problem, I figured; what more respectable witness could there be than the chief of police?
Claude was opening his door as I raised my hand to knock fifteen minutes later.
He jumped a little, startled, and I apologized.
"How was the trip?" I asked.
Claude smiled. "It was great to get away for a few days, and we tried a different restaurant every meal. Unfortunately, my stomach's been upset ever since." He grimaced as he spoke.
After we'd talked about Hot Springs and the hotel where he and Carrie had stayed, and about how much of his stuff he had left to pack up to move into her house, I explained my errand while Claude absently rubbed his stomach. He listened with half his usual attention.
"So," Claude rumbled in his slow, deep voice, "you think this tape is the one Becca is missing?"
"Might be. And she and her brother are leaving on vacation tomorrow, I guess after the funeral. Would you mind just going in the apartment with me to see?"
Claude pondered that, then shrugged. "I guess that'd be okay. All you're doing is getting the one tape. If there isn't anything in the machine?"
"Then I'll shut the door behind me and take these keys to the sheriff."
Claude glanced at his watch. "I told Jump I'd be in sometime this afternoon, but I wasn't real specific. Let's go."
As we went to the stairs, through the narrow glass panes on either side of the back door, I saw the Whitleys getting out of Becca's car. They'd been to the gym, I figured from their clothes. Becca's hair was braided. The brother and sister were talking earnestly.
By the time I heard them coming in the back door, we had unlocked Deedra's apartment and stepped in.
Half-dismantled, dusty and disordered, the apartment was silent and dim.
While Claude fidgeted behind me, I turned on the television and the VCR. The voice of the man on the Weather Cha
The tiny icon lit up. There was a tape in the machine. I pressed the REWIND button. Within a second or two, the reverse arrow went dark, and I pushed PLAY.
John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, filled the screen. I nodded to myself. This was one of the shows Deadra always taped. In his painfully earnest way, Walsh was talking about the evening's roundup of criminals wanted and criminals caught, of the things he would show us that would make us mad.
Well. I was already mad. I started to pop the cassette out and give up on my search for Becca's tape, but instead I thought I'd fast-forward through the commercials and see if there was something else on the recording.
Ads went by at top speed. Then we were back into America's Most Wanted, and John Walsh was standing in front of mug shots of a man and a woman. Walsh shook his head darkly and jerkily, and the film of a crime reenactment began to play. I hit another button to watch this segment.
"... arson," Walsh said with finality. In the reenactment clip, an attractive brunette woman with hawklike features, who somewhat resembled one of the mug shots, rang a doorbell. An elderly man answered, and the young reenactment actress said, "I'm from TexasTech Car Insurance. Your car was named by one of our insurers as being involved in an accident that dented his car. Could you tell me about that?"
The elderly man, looking confused, gestured the young woman into his living room. He had a nice home, big and formal.
The actor playing the older man began to protest that his car hadn't been involved in any accident, and when the young woman asked him if she could have an associate examine the car, he readily handed over his keys.
He was a fool, I thought.
So was I.
On the screen, the young woman tossed the keys out to her "associate," a large, blond young man with impressive shoulders. He strode off, presumably in the direction of the homeowner's garage, but the camera stayed inside the house while the owner continued expostulating with the woman. To show us how shifty this woman was, the camera dwelled on her eyes flicking around the attractive room while the homeowner rattled on. She drifted closer and closer, and when the man a
I was barely conscious of a shuffling of feet behind me.
"Excuse me, Lily," Claude said abruptly. "I'll be in the bathroom."
I didn't respond. I was too shocked.
Now the camera showed the man lying limp. He was probably meant to be dead.
"While their victim lay on his own living-room floor, breathing his last, Sherry Crumpler and David Messinger systematically looted his house. They didn't leave until they had it all: money, jewelry, and car. They even took Harvey Jenkins's rare-coin collection."
Show the mug shots again.
As John Walsh went on to detail the couple's string of similar crimes, and urged viewers to bring these two murderers to justice, their heads filled the screen once more.
I peered at the face of the woman. I paused the picture. I put my hands on either side of her face. In my imagination I painted all the colors in brightly.
"I thought I heard someone up here," Becca Whitley said from the doorway.