Page 129 of Nobody's Fool

“Exactly,” Marty says. “It’s all just a little too convenient.”

Now they both look down at me. I say nothing.

“One of my most respected colleagues represents Tad Grayson. She worked hard to get his conviction overturned. She wouldn’t do that unless she truly believes someone is innocent.”

They both look at me again and wait.

“I have to go,” I say, and then I get in the passenger seat of Gary’s car.

CHAPTER THIRTY

We are ten minutes into the drive when Gary says, “There is something else you need to know. It came in while we were waiting on the police.”

“What?”

“Open up my iPad.”

I lift it out of the slot in the console between us and turn it on. When it comes to life, I recognize the old black-and-white still frame from the CCTV video of Victoria Belmond leaving McCabe’s Pub at 11:17 p.m. on December 31, 1999, the night she vanished.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“So we did a deeper dive into that old video footage.”

“Okay.”

“I know the FBI and other investigators did too back in the day, but the world is different now. Anyway, you see Victoria on the sidewalk, right?”

“Right.”

“When you hit play, you’ll see the next eight seconds after Victoria Belmond walks by. That’s all we have, but that’s all we need. There are other people on the street, of course. I think we counted fourteen. Not a surprise. Typical New York City street on New Year’s Eve. But eight seconds after Victoria walks by, you’ll see another woman hurrying in the same direction. Like she’s trying to catch her. Coming fromthe left, she’s the third woman to appear after Victoria Belmond. The screen will stop on her. Go ahead. Hit play.”

I do as he says and tap the play arrow with my index finger. Again the black-and-white images are blurry and shot from above and you mostly get Victoria’s back. I’ve seen this video before, of course, but something about it is bothering me this time. I can’t put my finger on it. But I don’t focus on that right now—no time—and now another girl walks by, moving quickly as though, as Gary pointed out, maybe she’s trying to catch up to Victoria.

The video freezes.

I squint. I use my fingers to zoom in, but that just makes the image blurrier. I can see the girl has blond hair and a ponytail, but like with Victoria Belmond, you really can’t see her face.

“So,” Gary continues, “like I said, there are fourteen people in this video. The Pink Panthers tried a new way to identify them.”

“How?” I ask.

“They took the high school yearbook and scanned every photo of girls in the same graduating class as Victoria into some kind of new AI image search program. It’s pretty beta and not precise yet, but it could tell, for example, what girls would match the general description and hairstyle.”

“I assume they found a match?”

“Only one,” Gary says, his eyes on the road. “Just this girl.”

“So who is she?”

“According to the AI program, there’s ninety-eight point seven percent likelihood that it’s Caroline Burkett.”

I fall back in my seat.

“Do you want to talk this out?” Gary asks.

“Not right now.”

I close my eyes and try to find the connections. Victoria Belmond leaves the party she’s throwing. Caroline Burkett, her cohostess, follows her.