Stepping back, Salter waved us into a series of windowless spaces. Behind a soundproof wall of glass, uniformed personnel monitored activities in and around the sprawling complex. Instead of leading us into that high-tech venue, we were ushered into a cramped room with concrete walls and unhappy green carpeting. A small fridge hummed in the corner, and a few ill-matched chairs were scattered about.
The only sign of advanced technology here was a small desk with a wide-screen monitor and a keyboard with bells and whistles I didn’t recognize. Kevin folded his massive frame onto a small chair (for him) and adjusted his position in front of the keyboard.
While Lori, Sue Ellen, Ruben Salter, and I pulled up chairs around him, Kevin cracked his big knuckles and opened a decidedly low-tech ring binder with a scuffed plastic cover.
“This is the master directory with the access codes for all the security cameras,” he explained while flipping through the binder. He squinted at an entry page while typing in a series of numbers.
The monitor came alive with a split screen image. On the left, I recognized the double doors for the Garden’s guests. On the right were those smaller, hidden service doors, the ones that led to the catering kitchen. A digital clock indicated this was real time.
“Let’s start by rewinding an hour or so,” Lori said, “to the moment when Cosi went outside and found the DOA.”
Kevin placed his hand on the mouse ball. As he spun it, the on-screen image wavered with the eerie retreat of time.
“Bingo!” Sue Ellen declared, pointing at the screen.
Kevin magnified the image. My face became more blurry, but there was no mistaking my identity.
“Go back further,” Lori said, excited now.
The split screen images wavered again. Speckles of rain hit the lens and vanished in the blink of an eye. A few times the picture shook from the wind buffeting the camera during the furious storm.
“Wait!” Lori cried. “Look at the other door, the one around the corner from the main entrance.”
“Those are the service doors,” Kevin said. “They lead to the kitchen.”
“Two people came through there.”
“I saw it, too,” Kevin agreed.
He enlarged the image of a man and woman. Though their faces were partially obscured by shadow, their activity was clear enough. Lips locked, their bodies seemed to meld together in the darkness.
I watched with mounting dread as Kevin slowed down the playback speed. Finally, he froze the image to give us all the opportunity to study every embarrassing detail.
“What the—” Sue Ellen’s eyes went wide. “Is that you, Cosi?”
Nineteen
“That’s her, all right.”
Lori Soles glanced at her partner, tried not to laugh. “But who’s the lucky guy? I can’t quite see his face. Do you think we have this mug’s mug shot?”
“We do,” Sue Ellen said, folding her arms. “From what I know, he’s on quite a few Most Wanted lists. The ladies of the Gold Shield Bachelor’s Watch for one.”
“What’s that?” Lori asked.
“A feisty little Yahoo! group I just discovered. Not sanctioned by the PD, you understand—”
Kevin loudly cleared his throat, zoomed past the image. “Let’s move along, shall we?”
Face burning, I remained silent.
Kevin glanced back at me, held my eyes. “This camera recorded without a human monitor. In real time, you had your privacy.”
“Thanks,” I said, willing to take my licks. “But we’re not in real time anymore.”
“Sorry, Cosi,” Lori said after a beat. “One of the drawbacks of any investigation: personal secrets get exposed.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Sue Ellen added, slapping my back. “There are plenty of straight females on the job who wouldn’t mind slipping away from a party with Quinn—”
“Oh, really?” I said, finding my spine. “And who would they be?”
“Ladies—” Lori said, then mouthed to her partner. “Let’s not go there.”
Sue Ellen twirled her finger at the monitor. “Rewind some more,” she told Kevin, suddenly eager to refocus on work. “Patrice stepped outside between nine thirty and ten. I’m sure we’ll spot our person of interest—”
“Person of interest?” Ruben Salter echoed. “I thought you were looking to track the deceased’s movements.”
“We’re looking for a murderer,” I said.
“Murderer!” Salter blurted so loudly we all tensed. He looked shocked a moment then seemed almost happy to hear it. “So this is a homicide investigation? Because I was led to believe this was about possible negligence.”
“The case for murder has yet to be proven,” Lori cautioned.
Kevin rewound to the moment Patrice came through the doors. My breathing stopped as he slowed the speed.
“Okay, here it is,” I said. “Go forward, one minute at a time.”
We watched as Patrice stood under the awning, waiting for the downpour to slow. Finally, she moved beyond the camera’s eye. Within a minute, a mysterious figure followed her through the Garden doors.
This should have been our eureka moment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The figure stalking Patrice was carrying a very large black umbrella—an umbrella that appeared to move with the person under it, strategically blocking the camera’s view.
Sue Ellen cursed.
“Hold on,” Lori said. “This person had to come back in again.”
Kevin toggled the ball until he found the very same black umbrella going back inside. Again, the person under it used the umbrella as a shield, carefully moving it to avoid being seen.
“The ID’s blown coming and going!”
“It looks like this person knew the camera was there,” I said.
Ruben Salter was more devastated than any of us. “All these cameras and a murderer gets away? How is it possible? Kevin, do we have any other footage of the Garden?” He lowered his voice. “The hidden lenses?”
Kevin checked his log, began punching the board. “I’m getting us rotating shots from two angles. I’m putting them up.”
We studied every image, but there was nothing showing the small canopied stage and podium area in the sprawling rooftop Garden at the exact time of Patrice’s death. Nothing gave us a glimpse of the killer—or even Patrice—in the brief seconds it took to move from the door to the crime scene.
“How long was that person in the Garden with Patrice?” I asked.
Lori glanced at her notebook. “From the time clock: between nine and ten minutes.”
“More than enough time to commit murder,” I said.
“If this is a homicide,” Lori cautioned. “It could be manslaughter. Or something else.”
“Ten minutes out there, right after the victim,” Sue Ellen declared. “Golf umbrella moved enough so we can’t make who it is? This looks wrong and you know it.”
“Kevin, would you go back and hold on that umbrella?” Lori asked. When he did, we all studied the frozen image.
“Look there,” I said. “Is that something printed on it?”
The letters were blurry. Kevin tried to magnify them, but they became even more pixilated.
“Two Ms?” Lori said. “M&Ms? Do they sell umbrellas at the M&M store in Times Square?”
“They’re Ns,” I said. “Double Ns—like a corporate or store logo.”
“Might be a club,” Sue Ellen said. “Neo Nirvana on the Lower East Side. Or Night Nosh, that new twenty-four-hour retro diner on Eighth.”
“What about the National Network?” Mr. Salter suggested. “It’s an online bank that focuses on secure Internet transactions.”
“I like the bank angle,” Lori said, scribbling in her notebook. “Banks are always giving away freebies. Umbrellas are a popular item to push their logo.” She swung around to face the lawyer. “Good call, Mr. Salter.”
Ruben beamed.
We reviewed the elevator cars to and from the Loft, but no one turned up with an umbrella during the appropriate times, and the few umbrellas we saw weren’t black.