“No problem,” I said.
Cisco turned the computer around on the table so the rest of us could see the screen.
“I used the computer’s basic editing program and put the various angles together in one continuous take in real time. We can track her the whole time she was there.”
“Then play it, Scorsese.”
He hit the play button and we started watching. The playback was in black and white and had no sound. It was grainy but not to the point that faces were obscured or unidentifiable. It began with an overhead view of the hotel’s lobby. A time stamp at the top said it was 9:44 p.m. Though the lobby was busy with late check-ins and other people coming and going, Gloria/Giselle was easy enough to spot as she strolled through the lobby toward the elevator alcove. She was dressed in a knee-length black dress, nothing too risqué, and looked totally at ease and at home. She carried a shopping bag from Saks that helped her sell the image of someone who belonged.
“Is that her?” Jennifer asked, pointing to a woman sitting on a circular divan and showing a lot of leg.
“Too obvious,” I said. “Her.”
I pointed to the right of the screen and tracked Gloria. She smiled at a security man who stood at the entrance to the elevator alcove and passed him without hesitation.
Soon the angle changed and we looked down from the ceiling of the elevator alcove. Gloria checked her phone for e-mail while she waited. Soon enough an elevator arrived and she got on.
The next camera angle was from inside the elevator. Gloria got on and pushed the 8 button. As she rode up, she raised the bag and looked inside it. The view we had did not allow us to see the contents.
When she arrived at the eighth floor, she stepped off the elevator and the screen went black.
“Okay, this is where we go dark,” Cisco said. “No cameras on the guest floors.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“They told me it was a privacy issue. Recording who goes into what room can be more trouble than it’s worth when it comes to divorce cases and subpoenas and all of that stuff.”
I nodded. The explanation seemed valid.
The screen came back to life again, showing Gloria riding the elevator down. I noted on the time stamp that five minutes had gone by, meaning that Gloria had apparently knocked on the door and waited in the hallway outside room 837 for a significant period of time.
“Is there a house phone up there on the eighth floor?” I asked. “Did she spend all that time knocking on the door or did she call down to the desk to ask about the room?”
“No phone,” Cisco said. “Just watch.”
Once back on the ground floor, Gloria stepped out of the elevator and went to a house phone that was on a table against the wall. She made a call and soon was speaking to someone.
“This is her asking to be connected to the room,” Cisco said. “She is told by the operator that there is no Daniel Price registered in the hotel and no one in eight thirty-seven.”
Gloria hung up the phone, and I could tell by her body language that she was annoyed, frustrated. Her trip had been wasted. She headed back through the lobby, moving at a faster clip than when she had arrived.
“Now watch this,” Cisco said.
Gloria was halfway across the lobby when a man entered the screen thirty feet behind her. He was wearing a fedora and had his head down, looking at the screen of his phone. He appeared to be heading toward the main doors as well, and there was nothing suspicious about him other than that his features were obscured by the hat and the downward pose of his face.
Gloria suddenly changed directions and headed toward the front desk. This caused the man behind her to awkwardly change his direction as well. He turned and went to the circular divan and sat down.
“He’s following her?” Lorna asked.
“Wait for it,” Cisco said.
On the screen, Gloria went to the desk, waited while a guest ahead of her was taken care of, then asked the deskman a question. He typed something on a keyboard, looked at a screen, and shook his head. He was obviously telling her that there was no Daniel Price registered as a guest in the hotel. All the while, the man in the hat sat with his head tilted down and the brim of his hat hiding his face. He was looking at his phone but not doing anything with it.
“That guy’s not even typing,” Jennifer said. “He’s just staring at his phone.”
“He’s looking at Gloria,” I said. “Not the phone.”
It was impossible to tell for sure because of the hat, but it seemed clear that Gloria had a follower. Finished at the front desk, she turned and once more headed toward the front doors of the lobby. She pulled a cell phone out of her handbag and hit a speed dial. Before she got to the doors, she said something quickly into the phone and then dropped it into her bag. She then exited the hotel.
Before she was gone, the man in the hat was up and crossing the lobby behind her. He picked up his step once she was through the doors, and this seemed to confirm that Gloria’s impromptu turn to the front desk had exposed a tail.
After the man in the hat left the lobby, the camera angle jumped to the outside curb, where a black Town Car like my own had pulled up in front of Gloria at the valet stand. She opened the back door, threw the Saks bag in, and then got in after it. The car pulled away and out of the frame. The man in the hat crossed the valet lanes and left the picture as well, never once raising his head enough for even his nose to be seen.
The playback ended and everyone was silent for a long moment while they reviewed it in their heads.
“So?” Cisco finally asked.
“So she was followed,” I said. “I take it you asked about the guy at the hotel?”
“I did and he doesn’t work there. They had nobody working undercover security that night. That guy — whoever he is — was an outsider.”
I nodded and thought some more about what I had seen.
“He didn’t follow her in,” I said. “Does that mean he was already there?”
“I’ve got a loop on him, too,” Cisco said.
He turned the computer back to him and punched in more commands, bringing up a second video. He turned the screen back to us and hit play. Cisco provided narration.
“All right, this is him sitting in the lobby at nine thirty. He was there before her. He stays like that until she gets there. I have a side-by-side of that.”
He spun the computer back and then set up the side-by-side videos before turning it to us again. The images from separate cameras were synced on the time stamps and we were able to watch Gloria cross the lobby and the man in the hat track her, his hat turning as she passed on the other side of the room. He then waited for her to come back down from the eighth floor and followed her out, after her sudden stop at the front desk.
Show over, Cisco closed his computer.
“Okay, so who is he?” I asked.
Cisco spread his hands, a wing span of nearly seven feet.
“All I can tell you is that he doesn’t work for the hotel,” he said.
I stood up and started pacing behind the table. I was feeling jazzed. The man in the hat was a mystery, and mysteries always played to the defense’s side. Mysteries were question marks, which led to reasonable doubt.
“Do you know if the police have been over to the hotel yet?” I asked.
“As of last night, no,” Cisco said. “They’ve already made their case to the DA. They probably don’t care what she was doing in the hours before the murder.”
I shook my head. It was foolish to underestimate the state.
“Don’t worry, they will.”
“Could he have been working for Gloria?” Jennifer asked. “You know, like her security or something?”
I nodded.
“Good question. I’ll ask the client when I see him before first appearance. I’ll also ask about the Town Car that picked her up. See if she had a regular driver. But there’s something about this… this video that is off. It doesn’t fit with this guy working for her. It’s like he knew there were cameras and he kept his hat on and his head down. He didn’t want to be seen on camera.”