An Image of Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

change, but Davis grimaced. She rewound the tape and screened it again.
    Neither spoke after the second run-through. Davis got up, ejected the tape, and slipped it into a plastic bag with the word EVIDENCE repeated around the edges in navy blue letters.
    “Other than you, has anyone else touched this tape?”
    I thought for a moment. “Rachel brought it inside.”
    “Anyone else?”
    Hank had handled it when he dubbed it. His prints were probably all over it. Which they were bound to find if they checked. But I couldn’t tell her that without admitting I’d made a copy. Which didn’t seem like a prudent idea. I kept my mouth shut. “Well, if we find any prints, we may ask you and Rachel to provide us with a set for elimination purposes, okay?”
    I shifted my weight. A potential problem was looming. I should probably fess up. “So—so, what happens from here?”
    “We’ll send it to the crime lab,” Olson said. “Then, who knows? Depending what they find, it could end up leaving our jurisdiction.”
    “Because you don’t know where the crime was committed?”
    “If there even was a crime.”
    “You don’t think that was real? How can—”
    “We’re not paid to make opinions, Ms. Foreman. Our job is to assemble the evidence. It looks real, I’ll grant you. But you’re a video producer. You know how images can be manipulated.”
    “You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with this?”
    Olson raised his eyebrows. Davis watched me carefully.
    “I never saw this tape before last night.”
    “Okay,” Olson said. “Let’s go over this one more time, shall we?”
    I went over the chronology again, trying to reassure myself this was normal. Like he said, they weren’t getting paid for their opinions. They had to suspect everyone. As I talked, Davis took notes.
    “What about the room?” Olson asked. “Have you ever seen that room before? Or been in one like it?”
    I shook my head. “At first, I thought it was somebody’s basement, but then I realized it couldn’t be.”
    “Why was that?”
    “Light was seeping around the edge of the blind or curtain or whatever was covering the window. So it had to be aboveground. During daylight.”
    “Do you have any idea why someone sent you the tape?”
    Maybe he did believe me. “I don’t know. I can’t figure out whether it’s a threat or—”
    “Why do you think it may be a threat?”
    “Because of the events I was involved with last fall. And before that. But I have no idea why I would be a target now. That’s why I say I don’t know if it’s a threat or.…”
    “Or what?”
    I paused. “A plea for help.”
    “A plea for help?”
    “Maybe someone wanted me to look into the matter. Even bring you the tape.”
    “For what reason?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    He and Davis exchanged another glance. Then he said, “Well, you’re right about one thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s impossible to see what’s going on.” He turned to Davis. “Let’s get someone to take a closer look.”
    “At least there’s only one camera,” Davis said.
    “We got lucky.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “With most surveillance systems, there’s usually more than one camera,” Davis answered. “In a large office building, for example, there could be eight or ten security locations with a camera at each. But only one tape.”
    “Are you saying that images from multiple cameras are recorded on one tape?”
    She nodded.
    “Why?”
    “Cost. Otherwise, you’d have to buy a separate recording device for each camera. Which I’m sure some companies do, but most—well, they just do the minimum.”
    “I didn’t know that.” I studied the cinderblock cracks on the wall. A tape that’s constantly flipping between cameras would be a meaningless jumble of frames and scenes. And if it was recorded in time-lapse, it would be virtually impossible to make any sense out of it.
    “I did try to slow it down on my VCR. It helped.”