On the screen, the camera remained stationary. Steam emerged from above the shower curtain, slightly blurring the top quarter of the picture with condensation.
Then, suddenly, the bathroom door opened and a figure entered. The slender person appeared to be an elderly woman with gray hair pulled back into a bun. She wore a flower-print calf-length housedress and a dark cardigan sweater. She held a large butcher knife. The woman's face was not visible. The woman had a man's shoulders, a man's deportment and bearing.
After a few seconds' hesitation the figure drew back the curtain, and it became clear that there was a naked young woman in the shower, but the angle was too steep, and the picture quality too poor, to even begin to ascertain what she looked like. From this vantage, all that could be determined was that the young woman was white and probably in her twenties.
Instantly the reality of what they were watching settled upon Jessica like a pall. Before she could react, the knife held by the shadowy figure descended upon the woman in the shower over and over, ripping at her flesh, slicing her chest, arms, stomach. The woman screamed. Blood spouted, splashing the tile. Gobbets of torn tissue and muscle slapped the walls. The figure continued to viciously stab the young woman, over and over and over, until she slumped to the floor of the tub, her body a horrible crosshatch of deep, gaping wounds.
Then, as quickly as it began, it was over.
The old woman ran from the room. The showerhead washed the blood down the drain. The young woman didn't move. A few seconds later there was a second crash edit, and the original movie resumed. The new image was the extreme close-up of Janet Leigh's right eye as the camera began to turn and move backward. The film's original soundtrack soon returned to Anthony Perkins's chilling scream from the Bates house:
Mother! Oh God Mother! Blood! Blood!
When Ike Buchanan shut off the tape, silence embraced the small room for nearly a full minute.
They had just witnessed a murder.
Someone had videotaped a brutal, savage killing and inserted it into the precise place in Psycho where the shower scene murder occurred. They had all seen enough true carnage to know that this was not some special-effects footage. Jessica said it out loud.
"This is real."
Buchanan nodded. "It sure looks like it. What we just watched is a dubbed copy. AV is going over the original tape now. It's of a little better quality, but not much."
"Is there any more of this on the tape?" Cahill asked.
"Nothing," Buchanan said. "Just the original movie."
"Where is this tape from?"
"It was rented at a small video store on Aramingo," Buchanan said.
"Who brought it in?" Byrne asked.
"He's in A."
The young man sitting in Interview Room A was the color of sour milk. He was in his early twenties, had close-cropped dark hair, pale amber eyes, fine features. He wore a lime-green Polo shirt and black jeans. His 229-a brief report detailing his name, address, place of employment- revealed that he was a student at Drexel University and worked two part-time jobs. He lived in the Fairmount section of North Philadelphia. His name was Adam Kaslov. The only prints on the videotape were his.
Jessica entered the room, introduced herself. Kevin Byrne and Terry Cahill observed through the two-way mirror.
"Can I get you anything?" Jessica asked.
Adam Kaslov offered a thin, bleak smile. "I'm okay," he said. There was a pair of empty Sprite cans on the scarred table in front of him. He had a piece of red cardboard in his hands, twisting it and untwisting it.
Jessica placed the Psycho videocassette box on the table. It was still in a clear plastic evidence bag. "When did you rent this?"
"Yesterday afternoon," Adam said, his voice a little shaky. He had no police record and this was, perhaps, the first time he had ever been in a police station. A Homicide Unit interrogation room no less. Jessica had made sure to leave the door open. "Maybe three o'clock or so."
Jessica glanced at the label on the tape housing. "And you got this at The Reel Deal on Aramingo?"
"Yes."
"How did you pay for this?" Excuse me?
"Did you put this on a credit card? Pay cash? Have a coupon?"
"Oh," he said. "I paid cash."
"Did you keep the receipt?"
"No. Sorry."
"Are you a regular there?"
"Kind of."
"How often do you rent movies at that location?"
"I don't know. Maybe twice a week."
Jessica glanced at the 229 report. One of Adam's part-time jobs was at a Rite Aid on Market Street. The other was at the Cinemagic 3 at Penn, the movie theater near the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. "Can I ask why you go to that store?"
"What do you mean?"
"You live only half a block from a Blockbuster."
Adam shrugged. "I guess it's because they have more foreign and independent films than the big chains."
"You like foreign films, Adam?" Jessica's tone was friendly, conversational. Adam brightened slightly.
"Yeah."
"I like Cinema Paradiso a lot," Jessica said. "One of my favorite movies of all times. Ever see that one?"
"Sure," Adam said. Even brighter, now. "Giuseppe Tornatore is great. Maybe even the heir apparent to Fellini."
Adam was beginning to relax somewhat. He had been twisting that piece of cardboard into a tight spiral, which he now put down. It looked stiff enough to be a swizzle stick. Jessica sat in the battered metal chair opposite him. Just two people talking, now. Talking about a vicious homicide someone had videotaped.
"Did you watch this alone?" Jessica asked.
"Yeah." There was a morsel of melancholy in his answer, as if he had recently broken off a relationship and was accustomed to watching videos with a partner.
"When did you watch it?"
Adam picked up the cardboard swizzle stick again. "Well, I get off work at my second job at midnight, I get home around twelve thirty. I usually take a shower and eat something. I guess I started it around one or one thirty. Maybe two."
"Did you watch it straight through?"
"No," Adam said. "I watched up until Janet Leigh gets to the motel."
"Then what?"
"Then I shut it off and went to bed. I watched… the rest this morning. Before I left for school. Or, before I was going to leave for school. When I saw the… you know, I called the cops. Police. I called the police."
"Did anyone else see this?"
Adam shook his head.
"Did you tell anybody about it?"
"No."
"Was this tape in your possession the whole time?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"From the time you rented it until the time you called the police, did you have possession of the tape?" "Yes."
"You didn't leave it in your car for a while, leave it with a friend, leave it in a backpack or a book bag that you hung on a coatrack somewhere public?"
"No," Adam said. "Nothing like that. I rented it, took it home, and put it on top of the TV."
"And you live alone."
Another grimace. He had just broken up with someone. "Yes."
"Was anyone in your apartment when you were at work yesterday evening?"
"I don't think so," Adam said. "No. I really doubt it."
"No one else has a key?"
"Just the landlord. And I've been trying to get him to fix my shower for, like, a year. I doubt he would come around without me being there."
Jessica made a few notes. "Have you ever rented this movie from The Reel Deal before?"
Adam looked at the floor for a few moments, thinking. "The movie or this particular tape?"
"Either."
"I think I rented the DVD of Psycho from them last year."
"Why did you rent the VHS version this time?"
"My DVD player is broken. I have an optical drive in my laptop, but I don't really like watching movies on a computer. The sound kind of sucks."