“Sally, great!” Thor said, reaching to shake her hand. “Jackson Crow, Clara Avery—Officer Sally Martinelli. She’s one of the finest tech people you’ll find anywhere.”
Sally was small with curly dark hair and eyes to match; she smiled quickly and ruefully. “Once, I thought I wanted to make great movies. I’m not the best tech around, really, but when it comes to video...anyway, their ‘security’ cameras at the Nordic Lights Hotel are almost older than I am. It’s not digital, it’s all film. But I think I’ve cleaned it up pretty well and I have it set to go to the screen—there.”
“Perfect, thanks,” Thor told her.
“Hit the lights—you’ll see better. Almost like the movies,” Sally said lightly. “If we only had popcorn. I’ll start from the beginning of the day...moving it along until we get to later in the afternoon.”
The room was darkened. Sally hit buttons on her computer; images sprang to life on the screen.
The camera angle had taken in the checkin counter, the concierge and some of the lobby. The hallway to the elevators disappeared into shadow.
For the early part of the day, Sally fast-forwarded. People moved about like ants. Thor, Jackson and Clara all stared at the screen. They saw Natalie Fontaine meet with Amelia Carson and the rest of her crew—Becca Marle, Tommy Marchant, Nate Mahoney and a young woman Clara hadn’t met, but who Jackson pointed out as Misty Blaine, Natalie Fontaine’s production assistant.
They saw that Natalie seemed to be giving fierce instructions to her workers, and the faces Tommy, Becca and Nate made as they listened and then turned—backpacks and suitcases in hand—to head out to Black Bear Island to prepare the Mansion.
They watched as Amelia and Natalie seemed to have a heated argument. Misty Blaine stood back—definitely not wanting to be part of it.
The tape slowed as night came on. Misty went to the elevators. Amelia went to the elevators. And then Natalie went up at last.
“That’s the last we have of everyone but Amelia Carson—we see her in the morning, berating the desk clerk,” Sally said.
Clara glanced at Thor. He seemed uninterested in that. “Go back,” he said quietly. “Go back, please, to where the crew is leaving.”
Sally did.
Clara had no idea what he was seeing. The Wickedly Weird people were there, talking, involved in what they were all saying to one another.
A woman with a poodle was standing near the counter, apparently waiting for someone to come from the elevators to join her.
A group of businessmen was checking in. A couple was studying a brochure. An old man with a head of white hair, wearing a black coat and a slouched hat, was seated in a chair near the front door, reading the paper.
“What’s the time line on that shot?” he asked.
“Six forty, early evening,” Sally said.
“Slow motion on his face, please. Back it up a bit, zero in on him,” Thor told her.
Sally did as requested. Clara heard Jackson’s intake of breath as the man looked up. He was wearing little horn-rimmed glasses and the lower part of his face was obscured by a white beard.
Clara looked at Thor. He looked back at her.
“Tate Morley,” he said. “That’s him. Tate Morley is here.”
10
The freeze-frame image of the man Thor was convinced was Tate Morley was printed out several times and sent around.
Not everyone who viewed the image necessarily believed that the man pictured in the rough footage was Tate Morley. Enfield himself was uncertain; Detective Brennan was hesitant to agree, as well.
Jackson, however, believed, as Thor did, that the man definitely could be the escaped convict and serial killer. He could easily change his appearance with different hair lengths and colors, facial hair and hats, glasses and all kinds of accessories.
Thankfully, Enfield and Brennan had enough faith in Thor to see to it that the man’s picture was plastered all over the local news, with the warning that he was known to change his appearance.
Thor looked at the footage over and over again—to the point where he thought even Jackson might lose patience—and yet Jackson and Clara sat with him in silence as he did so.
The problem was that no matter how many times they watched the tape, the man managed to disappear.
Not into thin air, but into a large group of people who arrived for what had apparently been some kind of a pharmaceutical convention. He was obscured by a large cardboard cutout of a smiling young doctor pointing to a host of reasons to take a new drug.
The group went by, pausing in front of the man, laughing and chatting for a moment, and then proceeding to the check-in counter.
And then the man was gone. Whether he had headed out of the hotel or toward the elevators, they just couldn’t see.