Page 93 of Feared

“Get out.” Mary rolled her chair closer to him. “Does it show Machiavelli? We think he killed John, or had him killed.”

“Oh Jeez, why?” Lou recoiled, his hooded eyes flaring.

“We found out that he owns the defendant in theLondon Technologiescase and we think he murdered John to get him out of the case.”

“That’s terrible. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“So what does the film show? Does it show him?”

“It could, you’ll see for yourself.”

“Oh my, really?” Judy grimaced. “I don’t know if I want to see it. Okay, maybe I do.”

Anne asked, “How did you get it, Lou?”

“And where was the camera?” Bennie leaned over the table, as did Roger and Isaac, while Lou pulled his phone out of his back pocket, and started scrolling, then handed it to Mary in exasperation.

“Mare, do it for me, will ya? I left my reading glasses in the car. Damn it!”

“What am I looking for?” Mary took the phone, not surprised to see the icons on the home screen magnified to the max.

“Go to my email. I got a video clip I sent to myself. You’ll see the angle ain’t great. The only camera I could find, and believe me, I knocked on the door of every bar, restaurant, gallery, and tattoo place in the area.”

“Hang on.” Mary scrolled to Lou’s email, opened the most recent one, and clicked the video attachment, waiting for it to upload.

Lou leaned over. “You can’t see much, especially not on the phone. We gotta send this to our guy, the one that does the trial exhibits for us. He prolly can blow it up and give us more detail.”

“I’m sure he can,” Anne said, leaning over the table.

Bennie interjected, “Lou, I asked you where the camera was. Where was the camera?”

“Okay, the angle is on a diagonal across the street from the little street that goes behind the apartments like John’s, where the yards are and the residents park.” Lou motioned with hishands, but that didn’t help explain anything. “And the angle is good but it’s, like, very sharp, likeacutebecause the camera was underneath a little roof that had a light above the front door.”

“The front door of what?” Bennie asked, exasperated.

“A massage parlor.”

Bennie recoiled. “Really?”

Roger smiled. “Did you go in, Lou?”

“Only to ask about the camera,” Lou answered, mock-huffy. “I’d rather fish.”

“Okay, gang, showtime.” Mary held the phone up so everybody could see it, and the video began to play.

They all fell silent as a grainy, black-and-white picture came onto the screen, showing tiny, shadowy silhouettes walking back and forth in front of the backstreet behind John’s apartment. The bottom of the screen read ENTRANCE MAIN and under that was the date and 21:03:00, a military clock changing numbers, in seconds.

Mary squinted at the video, feeling a bolt of excitement. “So that’s the relevant time period, right? That means three minutes after nine o’clock?”

“Yes,” Lou answered, pursing his lips.

Mary stayed glued to the video, and she could see lights on in several of the apartments if only because they were gray rectangles set lengthwise.

Bennie asked, “Which apartment is John’s?”

“This one.” Lou pointed at the window in the middle.

“Let me see if I can enlarge that.” Mary swiped over the middle window on the phone screen, and the view enlarged. The focus worsened, but the outline of a fire escape appeared, its heavy iron elements thin and spidery. “That’s John’s fire escape.”