Page 162 of Pride High 3: Yellow

The video played to the end, which didn’t take long, static filling the screen.

“Could I have that back please?” the detective asked.

“Sure,” Omar said, ejecting the tape and handing it to him.

“Jafari is an unusual name in this town,” Detective Truman commented when accepting it. “Hey, I don’t suppose you have a camcorder?”

Omar glanced at Mamani, whose eyebrows were raised above a concerned expression. He couldn’t lie. Not in front of her. Even if she held her tongue on his behalf, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

“Of course,” Omar said. “I’m the one who filmed this.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” the detective said, not seeming the least bit surprised. “What kind do you have?”

“It’s a Sony Handycam,” Omar mumbled.

“Oh, nice! I have a Panasonic at home, but I don’t think it’s much different. I love filming home movies of my family. Although the blank tapes aren’t cheap. We usually fill them up as much as possible. Which makes it stand out that this one has… what? A minute of footage at most? When it would normally fit a couple hours?”

“Depends on the recording speed,” Omar replied vaguely.

“Which makes me think it isn’t the master tape. Am I getting the terminology right?”

He merely shrugged in response.

“The young man we just saw was identified this morning, by the victims, as Diego Gomez. You know each other, if I’m not mistaken.”

Omar shrugged. “Sort of.”

“Did you help him?” Detective Truman pressed. “Were you there the night your friend set fire to the house?”

Mamani cleared her throat. “My grandson hasn’t been friends with that boy for a very long time. I would know. I keep a close eye on him.”

“And yet they clearly spent some time together recently,” the detective said. “Long enough to film this.”

Omar opened his mouth, but his grandmother got there first. “Perhaps we should have a lawyer present before we continue this discussion.”

Truman smiled at her. “Big fan ofMatlock, are ya?”

“I preferMurder She Wrote,” Mamani said evenly.

“Fair enough.” The detective exhaled, as if weary. “You certainly could hire a lawyer. And I could come back here with a warrant and seize every tape and camera in the house. But I have a feeling we all want the same thing.” He turned to Omar. “Don’t we, bud? Wouldn’t you rather get on with your weekend, instead of playing this game and upsetting your grandma further?”

“Do I look upset?” Mamani asked, fixing a stony gaze on the detective.

“My apologies, ma’am,” Truman said. “I simply hate disturbing people at home. In a situation like this, I have to follow every lead, and at the moment, I need to determine how involved your grandson was. I have a feeling the raw footage would clear that up.”

Mamani turned wizened eyes on him, and instead of accusation, he saw a hint of fear in them. “Is this true?” she asked. “Would it help?”

Omar swallowed. What could he do? Lie to his grandma? “Maybe,” he said, heading for the stairs. “I’ll go get it.”

“You’re making the right decision,” Detective Truman called after him.

“Go fuck yourself,” Omar murmured under his breath. But not loud enough to be overheard.

He returned downstairs with the tape. The detective was right. He normally used every minute of available space, which meant fast-forwarding through all sorts of footage. He saw a gut-wrenching sequence of Silvia reading aloud from the school newspaper—one of Anthony’s reviews, which made it even better, but really it was the cute way she crinkled her forehead when concentrating that he’d wanted to capture. He blew past some footage of the basketball team before reaching the right spot.

They watched a replay of the same sequence as earlier, except toward the end, Ricky shoved his way on screen.

“I did it too!”he declared.