Noah scratched his three-day-old growth of beard. “You trying to tell me I stink?”
“Okay. You stink. Going to seed before my eyes. Have some pride, dude. They come to arrest your ass again, you don’t want to look like the Unabomber in your photo shots.”
Gallows humor. They’d traded a lot in that the past few days. One way to manage the eight-hundred-pound gorilla they weren’t discussing.
The doorbell rang. Harley, who’d been dozing at Noah’s feet, sat up and barked, but he didn’t move away from his handler’s side.
“I’ll get it, sweetheart.” Mike’s voice had gone falsetto, mimicking a housewife. He’d been running interference of every kind for Noah—answering the door, answering the phone, picking up take-out, or ordering meals to be delivered. Mike could veg out better than anybody he’d ever known.
Mike was back within a minute with a lumpy padded envelop. “Special delivery. Had to sign for it. You expecting something?”
“No.” Noah took the package. The return address was for A. Gutierrez, his sister Sandra’s private investigator friend.
He tore it open. Inside was a DVD marked: Westside Conservatory Senior Living Center and Well Care Facility security camera.
Noah looked up at Mike, cop face in place. “Are you here as my friend or as Durvan’s watchdog?”
Mike laughed. “I’m offended by the question.”
Noah’s expression didn’t change. “Because if you’re here in an official capacity, I have to ask you to leave the room.”
Mike crossed his beefy arms, a frown furrowing his brow. “If I’m here as a friend?”
“Then I could use another pair of eyes.”
Mike considered Noah’s request, then gave his head a slight shake. “I was tired of earning a regular paycheck anyway.”
As Noah shoved the disc into the computer, Mike pulled up a chair.
The beginning of the footage was the same that Noah had been shown by Durvan during his interrogation. Noah pointed near the top of the screen. “Watch for a truck to pull up here. It’ll be in the parking lot that’s on the next block.”
After two minutes a truck came into view, the same uneven light and slightly out-of-focus images seen from a distance.
“That’s your truck?”
Noah nodded. “Looks like it. Watch closely.”
The truck pulled up before the back of a building, nose-in so that the driver’s door faced the camera. The security lights in the parking lot came on, giving them a better view than expected. Still, the distance made the images indistinct. A man got out on the driver’s side and opened the rear door. Out hopped a German Shepherd, his actions indicating that he might be barking.
“That’s what was bothering me.” Noah looked over at Mike. “You ever see me release Harley from the truck without first putting him on a leash?”
Mike shrugged.
Noah refocused on the computer screen. “See that? Harley doesn’t want to be leashed by that guy.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
After a moment of struggling, Harley was on the leash and following the man around the front end of the truck where they disappeared into the shadows on the other side. The back door to the store where the fire took place was blocked by the way the truck was parked.
Noah sat forward. “This is where the footage I was shown during interrogation stopped. So this is where things should get interesting.”
For a good five minutes the video ran without anything happening but the occasional car driving past on the street between the camera and the faraway parking lot. After a few minutes, the security lights in the parking lot died, leaving the truck little more than a shape in the dark.
Noah wiped a hand down his face. “Damn, I was hoping there’d be more activity around the truck.”
“Like what?”
“Hold on.” Noah touched the image of his truck. “The interior light didn’t come on when the guy got out of the truck on the driver’s side, did it?”
“So?”
Noah ran the video back to the place where the man got out. “There’s no light inside the cabin with the opening of either door. If someone else is in the truck, we can’t tell. I’ll bet a month’s pay I’m in there passed out on the passenger side.”
Mike gave him a strange look. “Dude, admit it. So far, all you’ve got on video is a big yawn.” He yawned for emphasis. “I’m calling in two rib dinner orders at The Railhead.”
“Wait. Look at this.” The security lights had come on again, showing a man climbing into the vehicle. This time the man was wearing what looked like coveralls. “What am I wearing, and where’s Harley? I wouldn’t leave Harley behind in a building.”