Timothy
My old partner, Hitch, used to complain about how so much of detective work has become digital, how once upon a time it was
all knocking on doors, stakeouts, and following suspects. Now it’s all scanning social media feeds, cell phone signals, scouring
email, call, and text records.
Back at the station, sitting at my desk, I continue looking through what I have, hoping for something I missed.
I don’t have enough evidence to take Ana Blacksmith into custody, even to get a warrant to search her apartment. After scrolling
Paul’s voicemail, his texts and email, and scouring his social media pages, as well as Amanda Alessi’s, I couldn’t find a
single angry or threatening message from Ana. No one at Paul Hayes’s workplace had seen her lingering, showing up enraged
as Regina Hayes had claimed.
I check my own voicemail. There are several messages from Amanda’s father asking for an update and what were we actually doing
to find his daughter. But even the voicemail, texts, and emails I’ve been able to access on Amanda’s accounts are all innocuous—all
twenty percent off at Anthropologie, and confirming your hair appointment, and drinks on Friday?
No tickets to Aruba. No hotel reservations. No Uber to the airport. They never went. They never even planned to go.
Someone clearly had access to their accounts, posted those images. But who? The tech team couldn’t find any remote access to any of their social media accounts, meaning that only their authorized devices had been used to log on to each of the accounts.
So, whoever killed Paul had access to his home, his computer, his phone. And Amanda’s, too.
My thoughts keep going back to Regina. Access, motive, and opportunity. A big beefy boyfriend to help her move the body. Old
Bob said on the initial walkthrough that there might have been a third person moving the body, a third set of footprints at
the scene. Could someone else have been helping them? There was a pot of money at the end of that rainbow. Ana Blacksmith
was right about that. Isn’t that like detecting one-oh-one? Follow the money?
I wish I could stop thinking about her.
My eyes fall on the picture I keep on my desk of the day Chief Royer and Commissioner Brown gave me my gold detective shield.
It was a proud day, and I remember wishing I had a family to share it with. Instead, it was a night out with the guys—my first
patrol partner, the chief, the commissioner, and their cronies.
On a whim, I enter Chief Royer’s name into the search bar, and start scrolling through various news articles, some of them
quite old. About his being appointed chief, a major drug bust, a standoff with a group of doomsday preppers in The Hollows
that ended in a fire where people were killed. All before my time.
But as I read, I notice something odd. I notice how over the years, one or two things seem off. Like when Royer was named
chief, another man who was ahead of him for the job suffered a stroke and was forced to retire. Royer got the position. A
major witness for the defense in Royer’s big drug bust case killed himself in protective custody. Then toward the end of the
feed, I find a picture of him at a fundraising dinner for the Little Valley Food Bank.
He’s standing with Agnes Blacksmith, tagged as local florist and founder of the food bank. They are arm in arm, smiling. He’s wearing a boutonniere of flowers, the article says, from Agnes’s extensive garden. Their body language is intimate, heads tilted together, smiles broad.
I’m processing this when my phone rings.
“Detective Bandeau.”
“I’m Brent Ellis.” The raspy voice of an older man. “My mother gave me your card. Says you need the footage from her doorbell
camera?”
“Yes, that’s right. Thanks for getting back to me. Does the device record?”
“It does. I like to know who’s coming to her door. I installed the camera for her last year. I set it to turn on when there’s
motion, so it captures all the activity on the street. I usually delete it every month or so. But I haven’t gotten around
to it.”
“Can you email the files?”
“I already did,” he says. “I converted the recordings and sent a Dropbox link to the address on your card.”
I check and see an email from him in a long list of unopened messages.
“Does it include the last two weeks?”
“The whole last month. Every time the camera detected motion, it recorded. Can I do anything else for you?”
“Not at the moment,” I say. “Thanks for your help. And I’ll come back to you with any questions.”
The files are huge, take forever to download. I brew some coffee in the break room and prepare for a long night.
I sit in my creaky chair, and click through the files, watching people come and go, to work, out on dates, to school activities.
Families with kids, couples, singles. It’s a diverse group, a mix of races, gender, age, middle income in decent cars. I see
the peace of it, the appeal. Safety, routine. Why do I feel like I would suffocate in a life like that?
Finally, I see what I’ve been watching for. I pause, rewind. Watch it once, twice, three times.
I’m not often surprised. But I am tonight. Some of the pieces click into place.
I’m rising to get into my car when my phone rings again.
It’s Beck. Obviously, he’s working late, too.
“You know,” he says when I answer, “I’ve been doing a little research. And I think I might have something that I need to share
with you.”
“Hit me.”
I hear his chair creak beneath his weight. “Maybe better if you come here.”
“I’m on my way.”