Part 10 (2/2)
That would fit hat I knew of the Subra their rosebushes out of the lawn and taken theed the few bucks it required to install a professional surveillance systeed into an outlet so it would continuously charge,” Labeck said ”The videotape was netic and the recorder mechanis triggered its sensors Theoretically, you could record for years Who else knew about the nanny caht have told some of her friends And of course the Subramattis knew, but they moved to California”
”If it's not you in that video, then who is it?”
I nudged away et at et past that If it wasn't me, as it-ht be a shape shi+fter or so-but no matter how much she hated me, she would never have hurt Kip”
”What about whatsherna debutante?”
”Prentice? Why would she want to kill Kip? She was probably going to be the next Mrs Vonnerjohn Anyway, she had an alibi for that night I forget exactly what-she was shaving her celery sticks or flogging the servants or sootten hold of the story, they'd run with it in their teeth, vilifying Prentice as The Other Woe True, Mazie Maguire had shot her husband in cold blood, a very bad thing to do, but Prentice Stodge on with a in while Prentice, relentlessly pursued by the media, had been forced to sneak around town in a head scarf and sunglasses
”Enemies?” Labeck asked
I shook ate that angle”
”What about the people your husband worked with? Maybe he stole someone's
client”
”Kip never did any work, so he probably never stepped on anyone's toes”
”How'd he keep his job?”
”Nepotisrant”
”Maybe so insider trading?”
”I don't think Kip would have picked up on that He didn't know a debenture from a denture”
Labeck polished off his sandwich and stuffed the wrappings back in the bag, then returned to the video and started doing so on the co my own sandwich, I cras to absorb the bathwater When I turned out ie of otten about it
I pulled out the bills The bag had leaked and the h the cash,as dales, wrapped around a square of stiff, glossy paper It was a snapshot, I saw, rolled to fit inside the bills I picked it up and studied it
The photo looked as though it had been taken with a cheap flashcube caital days A boy of about fifteen and a man sat side by side on a sofa Some of the color had leached out of the photo, but it was possible to see that the boy was dark-Mexican or Puerto Rican-and the th blond hair too yellow to be natural He was shi+rtless, wearing Hawaiian print shorts and nothing else He was slu up to half-conceal his face Impossible to tell his eye color; they were the devilish red produced by cheap flash No telling where the photo had been taken-it was an anonyy room with liquor bottles lined up on a sill
The back of the photo had a scrawled name, Luis, and a phone nu I turned the photo over again Was the boy in the snapshot Luis? He wore only navy running shorts with striped sides, the kind of shorts that double as swim trunks for poor kids He had unruly black hair, an undercut jaw, and the scrawny arry The man, by contrast, was beefy and uely faled at the back of my mind
”Hey-check this out!” Labeck sounded excited He pointed at the screen He'd rolled the videotape back to the beginning, to where Kip is sitting in his office He zooain, angling in on the botto and blurred, then jumped into focus
”Notice the date?” Labeck asked
9/22
But Kip had been killed on September twenty-fifth
I stared at the nuraet hold of his co even weirder Watch” He rewound Black screen, then Kip appeared, sitting in his office Labeck stopped the video ”What did you see?”
I shrugged ”Nothing”
”Exactly! The ca when it sensedblack stretch oftwo minutes forty seconds in real time before thewhen Kip entered the room and sat down? This video is like a movie set, where so Where's the day-to-day stuff that went on in that room? Where's the film of the last owners, the ones who installed the nanny cam in the first place?”
He fast-forwarded The woain The la the roo that happened You see the tape activate when the bug guys enter the roo your pajamas Here's where the EMTs arrive, here's the police Everything gets recorded right up to the point where-”
Vanessa arrives, starts shrieking, flings herself on Kip's body, jabs a finger toward the video camera A police officer clirowing large in the lens A hand blurs the screen, there's a sooes black as the camera is shut off
”And check this out!” Labeck rewound to where the wo in, he froze the iliest fe, misshapen toes and tufty hairs on the knuckles
”I've seen your feet,” Labeck said ”Those are not your feet”
”That's not the rest ofto feel excited
”Is that your nightgown?”
”Yeah But I never wore it My cousin gave it to ushy thank-you, then I stuffed it away in a closet”
Labeck banged his fist down on the table I jurowled ”I can't believe you were convicted on the basis of this piece of shi+t!”
The door rattled, , and Bob called from outside the door ”You jerkin' off in there or what, Labeck? gangbanger shootout at Twenty-ninth and Center-gotta roll”
”Be right out,” Labeck called
Turning toin his pants pocket, handed o Take my car-it's the blue Volks in the lot-and drive back to ripped ?”
Mazie So noere on a first-name basis?
”Wait at my place Keep the door locked Don't try to drive to Illinois or run around hunting for clues or act on whatever other harebrained ie Jurip ”I can trust you, right?”