Jeremy’s eyes lit up at the mention of the Big Apple, then immediately lowered as Leo handed him a still photograph from the Grand Victoria surveillance video. Laurie could tell that he recognized himself. There was no doubt in her mind: Jeremy was the man she had spotted walking behind Amanda at five-thirty the night she disappeared.
“This is from the Grand Victoria Hotel,” Leo stated. “See the date stamp at the bottom of the picture? Do you remember that night?”
Jeremy nodded slowly. He wasn’t denying being the man in the security video.
“Ray Walker, the photographer who hired you, told us that the two of you had finished taking pictures at five o’clock. But you were still there a half hour later, with your camera. And when you saw Amanda, you changed your direction to follow her. We have the whole thing on film.”
“I don’t understand. Who are you?”
Laurie decided that it might be best to let Jeremy experience a bit more fear and told him they were from Under Suspicion, investigating Amanda Pierce’s disappearance. “Can we come in?” She stepped inside without waiting for a response, and Leo followed her. She was no longer afraid. This man was a coward, finding power in the shadows, behind a camera. He was not going to lash out with her father around.
“Why didn’t you tell the police that you saw Amanda after you and Walker finished taking pictures?” Leo demanded.
“Because nobody asked me if I’d seen her. And I knew if I told them, they’d suspect me. Everybody always suspects me.”
“You like taking pictures when people aren’t looking.” Laurie gestured to all the photographs strewn around his house. Even at a superficial glance, she could tell that most were taken with long-distance lenses, their subjects unaware of the stranger watching them.
“It’s my art. I don’t photograph flowers or landscapes. I photograph people, and not when they are posed and artificial. I capture their reality. Isn’t that what everyone really wants? Look at all the selfies posted all over the Internet. People love having their picture taken.”
“Even your neighbors?” Leo said. “They didn’t seem happy with your art.”
“That was all a misunderstanding. I tried to explain. Once I realized they were offended, I got rid of all my images of them. It wasn’t right to keep them.”
“What about Amanda?” Laurie asked. “Do you have pictures of her? Ones she didn’t know about?” Laurie walked to the dining room and began rifling through the photographs spread across the table.
“Stop it!” Jeremy’s voice was booming. Leo lunged in Laurie’s direction, placing himself between her and Jeremy. “Please,” Jeremy said, lowering his voice, “you need to go now. You have no right to be here. You’re trespassing. Get out.”
Laurie looked to her father for guidance.
“I’ll call the police if you don’t leave,” Jeremy threatened.
Leo took Laurie’s hand and led her to the front door. They had no choice.
“Dad,” she said once they were safe in the car, “he has photographs of Amanda. I could feel it. He’s going to destroy them now.”
“No he won’t,” Leo said grimly as he started the engine. “They mean too much to him. They’re his mementos.”
40
Alex embraced Laurie when she walked into his suite.
“I didn’t want you to know how worried I was, but thank God you’re both back in one piece. How did it go? What was he like?”
Laurie sat on the sofa and pressed her hands to her face. “Scary.”
“Major creep,” Leo said. “Seriously off.”
“He’s living like a hoarder,” Laurie explained. “Floor-to-ceiling photographs everywhere. It was like something out of a horror movie. When I pressed him about whether he had pictures of Amanda, he threw us out of the house. Dad, should we call the police now?”
“And tell them what?” Leo said. “We don’t have any evidence. But I’m telling you: he’s the guy, the one the police missed all those years ago. Tying him to the case is a big breakthrough.”
“I don’t understand,” Alex said. “You just said you don’t have any evidence. How can you be so sure he’s guilty?”
Leo shook his head. “Sometimes I forget you’re a defense attorney. Trust me, we were the ones who were there. Jeremy Carroll knows something.”
“Leo, with all due respect, that doesn’t mean he’s guilty. I see clients all the time who get railroaded by police simply because they were nervous, or were trying to protect some harmless secret.”
“No one’s railroading anyone-”
“Okay, please, don’t argue,” Laurie pleaded. “Alex, Dad’s right. You weren’t in that house. There’s no question that Jeremy’s-” She paused, searching for the word. “A weirdo. And he didn’t even deny being the man in that video. He turned around to follow Amanda, and he’s been convicted of stalking people.”
“But you’re suggesting he did something far worse,” Alex pointed out.
Laurie turned to her father. “Dad, Alex is right that until we have solid evidence, we shouldn’t leap to conclusions.”
“So what do you want to do?” Alex asked. “It’s up to you.”
“Dad,” Laurie began slowly. “Based on your experience, you don’t think Jeremy will make a run for it or destroy evidence if we don’t move against him right now?”
Leo shrugged. “You never know, but if the guy can’t throw out old newspapers, I don’t think he’ll dump pictures he’s been holding on to for more than five years. And that house is probably his only asset. He’s not the type who can hop on a jet and live a fugitive lifestyle on the other side of the world.”
“And keep in mind,” Alex said, “just because he might know something about Amanda’s disappearance doesn’t mean he was involved.”
Laurie nodded. “What do you think about this? Jerry can call him and try to smooth things over. He can say that we’re reaching out to everyone who was at the Grand Victoria that weekend and didn’t mean to invade his privacy. That might calm his nerves.”
“Good idea,” Alex said.
“And Alex, none of us want to rush to judgment. We’ll keep an open mind for now, but that makes it all the more important that we hold everyone else’s feet to the fire. Don’t go easy on anyone.”
“I have no intention of going easy on anyone.” There was a glint in Alex’s eyes.
“Next up is Meghan. I can’t wait to hear how she wound up marrying her best friend’s fiancé,” Laurie said as she stood up and headed for the door.
41
“Are you almost ready, Ms. White? We have the cameras set up with the current light, and the shadows can change quickly outside.”
Meghan White held up one finger. She would have finished by now if she could have gotten a better phone signal. When she told Jeff that she would be part of this awful show, she assumed they’d have plenty of notice to make arrangements with work. Instead, they’d been hauled down here on the spur of the moment, as if Meghan could put her entire caseload on hold with the push of a button.
She was doing her best to telecommute, but hotel Wi-Fi connections were infamously insecure, so she had created her own using her cell phone’s hotspot. She watched the progress bar move slowly on the download of this appellate brief. The production assistant-was his name Jerry?-was obviously getting antsy. She wanted to tell him that if time was of the essence, they should have filmed inside. “Just another second, I promise.”
When the download was finally complete, Meghan closed her laptop and followed Jerry to the set of rattan furniture Laurie Moran had arranged on the promenade behind the main building. She resisted the temptation to wipe all the makeup off her face. The woman who caked it on had promised her that she would look natural on camera, but to Meghan, it felt as though she were wearing a layer of mud. She had stopped arguing when the makeup artist said, “You don’t want to look washed out on the screen. It makes people look scared.”