I could see a slice of the studio parking lot. “That’s it,” I said. I touched the corner of the screen. “That’s part of the back wall of the building.”
She nodded. “There is the edge of the door. Those are the first three parking spots.” She turned to me. “Which one is Ruby’s?”
“Two,” I said. I turned to Brandon, who seemed to be trying not to look bored. “Brandon, were you recording last Wednesday night?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Is there any way to look at what you recorded?”
He gave me that pitying look that computer-savvy kids give to adults like me. “Sure. What time?”
Agatha had died sometime between two and three a.m. Eric had met Justin about ten.
“Try nine thirty,” I said. Brandon started hitting keys again.
Lita gave me a smile and held up two crossed fingers.
“Okay, here is Wednesday night at nine thirty.”
Lita and I exchanged glances and I looked at the screen. There it was. Ruby’s truck, or at least the back end, in the bottom corner of the image.
“Can you fast forward that?” I asked.
“You mean advance the time?” Brandon said.
I nodded.
“Where to?”
“Fifteen minutes ahead.”
“Sure,” he said, but I caught the eye roll as he ducked his head over the keyboard.
Ruby’s truck was still there at the forty-five-minute mark. I felt a flicker of excitement. “Show me ten thirty, please,” I said.
The quality of the image from ten thirty wasn’t as clear, and it cut out for a minute.
“We’ve been having problems with the Wi-Fi signal,” Brandon explained.
“How about two a.m.?”
The truck was still in the spot.
“Two thirty, please,” I said. I could feel my heartbeat thumping in the hollow at the base of my throat.
Brandon looked up at me. “Sorry, no two thirty. The signal cut out.”
“What about three?”
He turned back to the keyboard. If he was curious about what we were looking at in his footage, he wasn’t asking. At three o’clock the truck was still in that spot. I stepped away from the computer, trying to sort things out in my head.
Lita stood silently, hands clasped in front of her. Ruby’s truck hadn’t moved. There were gaps in the footage, but it sure looked to me like reasonable doubt. I turned to leave. “Lita, could you do something for me?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Call Ruby’s lawyer and Detective Gordon. Please tell them what we found.”
Brandon’s head snapped up. “ ‘Detective,’ as in ‘police’?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lita said.
His eyes darted from Lita to me. Then he shrugged. “Cool.” He turned back to the computer.
I headed for the door. “You’re not staying?” Lita asked.
“There’s something I have to do,” I said. “I’ll see you this afternoon or I’ll call you, or something.”
I hurried out to the truck. My mind was jumping from thought to thought faster than I could sort them into anything that made sense. But overriding everything was the thought that Ruby’s truck hadn’t moved. It hadn’t moved. Which meant there was another truck.
All I had to do was find it.
28
Hercules was sitting on the bench in the porch, almost as though waiting for me. Which he probably was.
“There’s another truck,” I said kicking off my boots and unlocking the kitchen door at the same time. I dropped my bag and jacket on a chair and raced into the living room. Hercules followed. “What did I do with the brochure Justin gave me about the camp?” I asked the cat.
It wasn’t on the table next to the phone. I took the stairs two at a time and burst into the bedroom, almost giving Owen, who was stretched out on the chair by the window, a kitty coronary.
He jumped down and hung his head. “I don’t have time to yell at you,” I said. “So we’ll all just pretend I didn’t see you.”
I went through the papers next to my computer. Nothing. The brochure wasn’t in the drawer, either.
“There’s another truck,” I said to Owen. “I don’t care what Roma found out. Justin didn’t drive Ruby’s truck. So there has to be another truck. And he has it.” I sat on the edge of the armchair. “Harry said that Sam’s old truck was junk. But what if it wasn’t? Or what if somehow Justin ended up with it?”
Owen seemed to be thinking about what I was saying.
I stood up and walked around the bed. “If Justin had or has the missing truck, it’s not in town. Maybe it’s out at the campsite. That would be the perfect place to hide an old truck. I just need to find that brochure so I can figure out where the camp is.”
I turned to pace back around the bed, and Hercules was standing in the doorway with a piece of paper in his mouth.
“You found it?” I said.
He walked over and dropped the folded paper at my feet. I bent down, cupped his black-and-white face in my hands and kissed the top of his furry head. “You’re a genius. Thank you.” He stretched forward and licked my chin.
The paper smelled of garlic and tomato. Clearly I’d stuck it in the recycling bin.
I scanned the brochure for the camp’s location. It was there in the last paragraph of the last page, “several acres on Hardwood Ridge.”
Where the heck was Hardwood Ridge?
I had a map of the area in the drawer. I pulled it out and spread it on top of my laptop. There was no Hardwood Ridge on the map.
I smacked the top of my head with my open hand in frustration.
This was one of the idiosyncrasies of Mayville Heights. Like having two different Main Streets. It seemed charming until you were trying to get directions to somewhere. Just because the place was called Hardwood Ridge didn’t mean it was going to show up on the map under that name.
“I’m going to have to call Maggie,” I said. Owen immediately looked at the phone. I wasn’t sure if she was home, at the studio or at tai chi. So I called her cell.
“Hello,” she said, sounding out of breath.
“Hi,” I said. “Did I take you away from something important?”
“Just burpees. What’s up?”
“Do you know where Hardwood Ridge is?”
“Yes.” She still sounded a bit breathless. She was probably working out and talking to me at the same time. “Remember there was a road just this side of the Drink? Well, you just—” She suddenly stopped. “Why do you want to know? Does this have anything to do with you wanting to know about security lights on the studio?”
“I was looking at the proposal Justin gave me and I wondered where the camp was going to be.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said. “You figured something out. You should call Marcus.”
“I did figure something out. One of the kids from the co-op program has a webcam at Everett’s offices. It picked up part of the parking lot down at the studio building. And it doesn’t look like Ruby’s truck moved at all the night Agatha was killed.”
“That’s wonderful. Did you tell Marcus?”
“Lita did.”
“So why do you want to know where Hardwood Ridge is?”
“I’m just curious. It’s no big deal. Forget it.”
“Kath, you can’t walk that far.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “Go back to your burpees. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Promise me you won’t try to walk way up there.”
“I promise I won’t walk up to Hardwood Ridge,” I said solemnly.
“Fine. I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up the phone. Two furry faces were at my feet glaring at me. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “I told Maggie the truth. I’m not going to walk up to Hardwood Ridge.” I gave them the Mr. Spock eyebrow. “I’m going to drive.”
Both cats followed me downstairs. Ruby had said Justin was going to be in Minneapolis for a couple of days. Now was my chance to look for the truck.
I got my old jacket and snow pants from the closet, pulled on an extra pair of heavy socks and got my big boots. As I put on the snow pants I looked up to see both cats standing by the messenger bag.