“We’ll certainly pursue that theory,” O’Brien said. “We’re looking at every possible lead.”
“The gated community doesn’t have cameras right at the entry?” Leo asked.
“You’d think, but those places really don’t have any major crime. The walls themselves act as their own kind of deterrent, and the guards at the gate have a dog and pony show, but they also wave a lot of people through if they seem to belong.”
Leo had been hoping that O’Brien would have gotten further in his investigation since they last spoke, but he knew how slowly things could move when no clear suspects have emerged. “So what you’re saying is that your footage from the road outside could be a search for a needle in a haystack.”
“You got it.”
“Any chance you could use the assistance of a retired cop from New York to wade through that list of drivers?”
“Could I use it? I’ll pay you back in whiskey at the first opportunity.”
“Sounds like a deal.”
After a quick discussion that Leo didn’t entirely understand involving digitization, file size, and data compression, Detective O’Brien estimated that he could get everything to him by e-mail tomorrow morning.
“I’ll probably have to get my grandson to help me open them,” he said before hanging up.
Sifting through images of cars on a busy street would indeed be searching for a needle in a haystack, but if Leo happened to find the same needle in two different haystacks on opposite ends of the state, he might just have himself a lead.
49
Four and a half miles away in Westwood, Dwight Cook was pacing at the foot of his bed.
He flashed back to a long-forgotten memory of his father screaming at him in what must have been the eighth grade. Stop pacing. Just stop. You’re driving me crazy. And it’s weird. Maggie, tell your son how nervous he makes people when he acts that way.
His mother grabbed his father’s arm and whispered: Stop yelling, David. You know loud noises make Dwight jumpy. He paces when he’s jumpy. And don’t call your son weird.
Dwight had trained himself to control the obsessive pacing in high school by sitting on his hands instead. He learned that remaining still, focusing on the feeling of his weight on the back of his hands, didn’t make people nervous the way his pacing had. But he was alone in his bungalow now, so he didn’t need to worry about affecting anyone else. And he had tried and tried to sit on his hands, but the racing in his head-the jumpiness-wouldn’t stop.
He momentarily paused at the center of his bed to hit REWIND and then PLAY once again on his laptop.
Dwight had been speed-watching footage of the empty house when the man first appeared on the screen, walking directly through the unlocked front door with a ski mask over his face. Twenty-three minutes. That was the amount of time Jerry had been gone, returning to the house with a bag from In-N-Out Burger. Had he eaten his fast food in the kitchen, maybe the masked man would have snuck out through the front door undetected.
But Jerry hadn’t taken his lunch to the kitchen. He walked directly into the den, where the masked man was rifling through the documents Jerry had left scattered across the coffee table.
Dwight continued to pace, clenching his eyes shut as each blow found its target. The weapon was the engraved crystal plaque Dwight had received from UCLA when he donated his first hundred thousand dollars upon graduation.
Dwight watched as the assault ended and the masked man turned to run out of the den, his arms filled with two banker boxes.
He had to make a decision.
If Dwight did not turn over this video, the people investigating the attack would not have it as evidence. If he did, he would reveal the fact that he’d been monitoring the activities of Under Suspicion. He could be ruined professionally, not to mention the possibility of criminal charges. More important, he would lose all access to the production team and be cut out of the case.
It was a cost-benefit analysis, a matter of statistics. What had a higher likelihood of being helpfuclass="underline" the videotape of this assault or his continued surveillance of the Bel Air house?
He hit REWIND and then paused on the clearest still image of the masked man. Dwight stared once again at the insignia on the left side of the man’s white polo shirt. Even with Dwight’s ability to manipulate computer images and search for information on the Internet, the quality of the video simply wasn’t detailed enough to make out the logo. The attacker was lean, muscular, obviously very strong, but there was no way to identify him.
This video was useless. But if he kept monitoring the television show’s production, he still had a chance of figuring out who killed Susan.
He flipped the laptop closed and stopped pacing. He had made his decision. Now he had to make sure that the gamble paid off.
50
Laurie was finally ready to call it a night when she noticed light glowing beneath her father’s bedroom door. She tapped gently on the door and cracked it open.
He was beneath his covers, reading a copy of Sports Illustrated.
“Sorry, I saw the light.”
He set the magazine down and waved her in. “You holding up okay, baby girl?”
If she had any doubt that she looked like she’d aged a decade in a day, his question sealed the deal. She plopped herself horizontally at the foot of the king bed, her head resting on his blanketed shins. She couldn’t think of a more comfortable place at that moment. “I used to hate it when you called me that. And then somewhere down the road, it became music to my ears.”
“Sometimes dads do know best.”
“Not always. Remember when you tried to push Petey Vandermon on me?”
“I’m not sure I’d agree with that wording, but I’ll concede that my matchmaking effort was what Timmy would call a fail.”
“Petey was the worst,” Laurie continued with a laugh. “You convinced me to go to that stupid carnival out in Long Island with him. He got terrified in a mirror maze and ran out screaming. He left me bumping around in there for twenty minutes in search of a way out.”
Leo chuckled at the memory. “You stormed into the living room, swearing you would never speak to me again if I ever tried to play Cupid. Then I got another lecture from your mother that night before I could go to sleep.”
“You had good intentions, though.”
“If I recall correctly, Petey was supposed to distract you from that Scott whoever-he-was.”
“Mr. Future President. Intern to a congressman. Carried a briefcase to high school.”
“I didn’t like him. He was… weaselly.”
“I don’t think I ever told you this. He became a lawyer and got indicted for embezzling client funds.”
Her father flipped back the covers with excitement. “See? Daddy does know what’s best.”
“Sometimes I think no one knows best. Look at how I met Greg.” The word “met” was an overstatement given that she’d been unconscious at the time. She’d been hit by a cab on Park Avenue, and Greg was the ER doctor on duty. At the time, Laurie’s parents-and eventually Laurie-had been grateful for the reassuring treatment, but she wound up engaged to him three months later. Then Laurie’s mother had died a year after that, and Greg had been there for everyone.
Her father sat up and stroked her hair. “You only reminisce like this when something’s troubling you. I know you’re worried about Jerry. He’s going to be fine.”
Laurie took a deep breath. She couldn’t cry again today. “Not to mention, I just got off the phone with Brett. I swear that man might be a vampire-I don’t think he sleeps at night. I was the one who had to beg him to cover the Cinderella Murder, and now that someone’s coming after the show, he’s dead set against canceling it. Part of me is relieved I don’t have to make the decision, but he won’t even delay the production schedule. He gave me a big song and dance about how Jerry would want us to keep working, but I know it’s all about the bottom line.”