“And you’re sure there was nothing on the tapes.”
“No, swear to God. It was the same boring thing night after night. People coming and going until closing, a few workers leaving after that, then Tiago, then nothing but a dog or a cat showing up every now and then. You know how stakeouts are, lots and lots of the same boring nothing happening. At least with these I could fast-forward.”
“They all looked the same, huh?”
“Yeah, you know how it is.”
I thought about it for a while before saying, “I think I do. I’ve got to make another visit to the perp.”
Victor nodded sagely, though I’d used the word as a joke.
“Gonna go back and have a little sit-down with Tiago D.?” he asked.
“Tiago? No, Victor, not even close.”
“You holding Vo’s shotgun, Vo?”
She opened the door, frowning up at my caution. But I noticed that the Remington was within easy reach.
The coffee pot was just beginning to perk, so she must have seen me from her front window. I sat at her table, and she brought a plate covered with a white cloth which she whipped off like a magician, showing freshly baked raisin squares beneath.
“You sent a tape to Tiago D. Costa, didn’t you, Vo?” I said, feeling so guilty to be accusing her that I ignored the raisin squares, though I knew she’d made them as a kind of payoff for me.
“Gilbert! What on earth are you talking about?” she said. Her white brows were knit with confusion, but beneath them her dark eyes gave her away. Now that I knew my guess had been right, and it was just a matter of time, I felt okay taking a raisin square.
“I think you know,” I said. “It had to be you. Tiago mentioned a tape, not tapes, like he’d already seen one. Victor had no clue how Tiago found out he was being taped. In fact, all the tapes Victor saw were worthless, nothing for Tiago to get upset about. That leaves you, Vo.”
“But why would I do that?” she said.
“Actually,” I said around bites of juicy raisins, “that’s the question I really want answered.”
I probably should have also told her that Tiago was willing to back off Victor, but that might take away what little leverage I had.
I watched my grandmother get up, walk over to the back window, and head cocked to one side, stare down toward the Bathtub Mary in the far corner of her yard, then over to the left, toward the cross on the top of Our Lady of Fatima.
“When did you get him on tape?” I said quietly.
“The second night,” she whispered, her eyes fixed, her confession aimed toward her church. “It was clear as day, Gilbert, those lowlifes bringing packages into the Ace at three fifteen in the morning.”
“But Victor never saw that tape.”
She shook her head, but the corner of her mouth was turned up in a small, satisfied smile.
“You ran the first night’s tape again and told him it was from the second night?”
He had actually given me the answer himself when he said the nothing-happening tapes had all looked the same.
“I love Victor,” she said, shaking her head as she added, “but sometimes I think he’s not cut out for that job. He didn’t even notice the date on the tape was the same.”
“You made a copy of the tape you sent Tiago D., right?”
“See?” she said, a big smile lighting her face as she turned to look at me. “Now you, querido, are in the right profession!”
“Where is it, Vo?”
But she was already heading for her spare bedroom. I heard her kneel down and slide out one of the storage boxes she keeps under the bed. I’d taken this morning’s nap right over the damned tape she now brought out. She inserted it in her player and fast-forwarded through five hours and fifteen minutes. Then at three eighteen by the timer Victor had set, a panel truck pulled into the back lot of the Ace. Two guys in dark jackets got out as Tiago opened his back door and waited there while they carried in a dozen large cardboard containers. Then he handed one of them an envelope and they got back into their truck and drove away. Any halfway decent technician could get good blowups of the two men’s faces, bring up the license plate on their truck, and help build a case for a warrant. Shouldn’t be a problem with fruit of the poisoned tree, either, since the video had been taken by a private detective working on a totally separate case. But that had been a few days ago. Once Tiago D. Costa saw the tape my grandmother sent him, he sure as hell wouldn’t be keeping the goods stored in the back room of the Ace.
“This tape can’t prove anything now, Vo,” I said. From her shrug, I realized I wasn’t giving her new information.
“Will Victor be all right with Tiago D.?” she said.
“Yeah, though I should give Tiago your copy of the tape too. Tell him there aren’t others. And that there won’t be any others from Victor.”
She nodded, ejected the tape, and handed it to me.
“I didn’t want to get Victor in any trouble, Gilbert. I just... didn’t think that far ahead.”
“But why did you do it? Why send the tape to Tiago in the first place?”
It was the one thing I wanted to know, and I knew she wasn’t about to answer. Her lips were a thin firm line even before she began shaking her head. No way would I want to get that lady in an interrogation room.
We had a cup of coffee together, and I had another square.
“Take the rest, Gilbert,” she said, wrapping them carefully in wax paper even while I was telling her no. “Your Ashley and Jason like them, no?”
She knew Sondra didn’t approve of anything that sweet for the kids. Maybe I’d just keep the squares in my car, snack my way through them in a day or two.
“And you gonna come down and see me with the family soon?” she said at the door as she put the videotapes carefully on top of the package of squares. “Bring my great-grandchildren here to see me?”
“You’re not gonna make Jason dress up in that costume for the shrine, are you?”
She shook her head and laughed as she said, “You made such a handsome shepherd boy, Gilbert. There was such, I don’t know, such holiness shining in your eyes. Y’know, I still got a lot of copies of that picture around. Maybe I’ll send one to your family, if I don’t get to see them soon.”
“We’ll come down this weekend, Vo. And I’ve got to tell you, blackmail is against the law.”
“Blackmail, Gilbert? Showing my great-grandchildren a picture of their father is blackmail?”
“We’ll be down, Vo. I’ll call first, but, please, no pictures. Huh?”
“Okay, Gilbert,” she said, rising on tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek, her small, strong fingers digging into my arms. “Thank you for squaring it about Victor and Tiago D.”
I nodded and started down the stairs when it hit me. Of course, it was the same thing she’d just done to me!
Still nobody in the Ace, though it was a little after noon and they advertised a lunch special.
The tall, pale shadow came out of the back room again, but this time just waved me in there. Tiago looked as if he hadn’t moved an inch since I’d last spoken to him.
“Here’s the only other copy of the tape my grandmother had,” I said, dropping it on his desk. “And Victor had nothing to do with sending the first one to you.”
Tiago was hard to read, but he didn’t seem surprised.