“This can’t happen. They need to arrest and charge Mantis and Stapley, and be done with it, so we can all move on.”
“We’re a long way from that happening.” And it’s not looking promising. The APD got a warrant on Stapley’s truck and pulled blood samples that matched what was found in the pantry. They have him on breaking and entering, though he’s claiming he’s being set up. And there are no fingerprints anywhere—on the safe or the gun—to prove otherwise.
The only thing that ties him to the house without a doubt is three drops of blood.
“We need to find that video,” Noah says with grim determination.
Easier said than done. “He didn’t give it to either of our moms, and he didn’t give it to you or me, so who else could have it? Who did he trust?”
“No one.” Noah leans against the wall, his gaze settling on the lights overhead, his thoughts visibly drifting into the past.
“Are you sure he didn’t give it to your mom that day? Maybe she destroyed it.”
“Why destroy that, but keep the gun holster and the money?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I sigh. “Well, he didn’t give it to me. Not unless he hid it in one of my toys, but that’d be stupid. I was six. Six-year-olds break and lose their toys all the time.”
“Right . . .” Several long beats pass. And then a whisper of “holy shit!” slips from him. Noah peers down at me, his eyes wide with realization. “I think I know where it is.”
CHAPTER 50
Officer Abraham Wilkes
May 3, 2003
The duffel bag lands at Jackie’s feet with a thump.
She dusts the soil from her hands. “What is this?”
“The ninety-eight thousand bucks that Mantis stole. He broke into my car last night and left it in the backseat. I sat in a remote parking lot for the past hour, counting it, curious what that asshole was giving up in his attempt to buy me off. Did he come up with the idea? Or did you put him up to this?”
She looks down at it with new understanding, and sighs. “I’d never even bother suggesting it to him, Abe. I know you too well. But why on earth would you bring it here?”
“Because I’m not stupid enough to get caught with it. Here’s your chance to do the right thing.” I turn to leave.
“Wait!” She steps over the bag and moves closer to me. “Maybe it’s not a bad idea that you take it. Just think how much good you could do with it.”
“Have you lost your damn mind, woman?”
“All I’m saying is, this way Mantis isn’t richer for it, and that drug dealer goes to jail. Everyone wins. You could give it to charity. You always say you wished the department did that with the drug money seized.”
“Mantis is corrupt and he needs to be stopped.”
“Abe . . . let this go. Please.” She hesitates. “Canning will never let anything come of this.”
“How do you know that?” The careful look on her face answers me. “You’ve already gone to him about it.”
“Your career will be finished. Don’t throw it all away.”
Screw that. “Well, Canning won’t be able to stop this, because I have a video.”
Jackie’s face pales. “What? How?”
“Doesn’t matter how. All that matters is that I have Mantis stealing a bag of money from a bust and I’m going to make sure it’s put to good use.”
I leave Jackie in the garden, gaping at my back.
A sullen Noah trudges down the stairs, pieces of his trophy in each hand. “I knocked it off the shelf,” he mutters, and then pushes past me.
I quell my rage at Jackie for Noah’s sake. “Hold up. What are you doing?”
“Throwing it out. It’s trash now.”
“This is your first one!” I take the pieces from his hand. “No way are you throwing this out. We can fix this. Go on, get me the Krazy Glue. I think it’s in your mom’s junk drawer.”
He trots off to fetch the tube, while I study the pieces.
And note the hollow square base, about three inches in diameter.
CHAPTER 51
Noah
My hands are sweating as I wedge the end of a flat-head screwdriver into the base of the trophy. I tap the handle with a hammer, working away where the dried gobs of glue still exist. Gracie hovers over my shoulder, not saying a word.
After four tries, the base splits off.
I hold up the square case, showing a round disc inside, my heart pounding in my chest.
I can’t believe it’s been here all this time.
“A miniature DVD, maybe?” It’s about three inches in diameter. Grabbing my phone, I type in the code printed on the front to see what Google returns. “It’s for a camcorder.”
“My dad recorded the bust with a camcorder?”
“I guess so.” I hesitate. “We should call Klein.”
We both look at the disc in my hand and then at each other.
* * *
“It’s not working. I’m going to kill that—”
“Relax. It’s reading the disc.” The guy from the computer store promised this special adapter would work, and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
Gracie huffs from her spot in the desk chair, frantically drumming her fingers next to the mouse, as I hover over her.
The drive screen finally pops up. With a few quick clicks, the Lucky Nine motel appears.
“Oh my God. This is actually it!” she exclaims.
The sun has just set, and the last traces of pink and purple are on the verge of being eaten up by a night sky. Half of the green neon sign that Dina mentioned flickers in the top right of the screen, enough to identify the place for what it was if we hadn’t already been there.
The camera angle is low and the filming is steady, I note, as a car suddenly peels into the lot and parks. Not ten seconds later, an SUV races in and our suspects pile out. Neither of us utters a single word for the next few minutes, our eyes glued to the swirl of shouting orders and aimed guns on the screen as Canning’s drug hounds—Mantis at the helm—arrest the wiry man.
We both inhale sharply as a black duffel bag goes smoothly sailing into the passenger-side window of the police vehicle.
Gracie grins up at me. A bitter but victorious grin. Probably the same grin Dina saw on Abe’s face that night she walked into the office and caught him watching this video.
“Let’s replay it. See what else we can find.” I reset it to the beginning and we watch again. “Holy shit. Look there.” I tap on the white Cavalier parked across from where the bust is happening. Only the front half of it shows on the screen, but it’s enough. I recognize that car. And the lone figure in the driver’s seat.
My chest tightens. “That’s your dad.”
Gracie’s face pales slightly as she quietly studies her father. He’s sitting still, watching Mantis and the others. Her eyes don’t move from him the entire time, and when the video ends, she resets it to play again.
“Who’s he talking to? Who’s that man?” She jabs the computer screen. A wiry black man is standing next to Abe’s open window at the beginning, but he steps out of the frame quickly. She rewinds it three more times, trying to glean more. But the man never gives us his face.
“My dad’s in the video,” she says suddenly. “That means he wasn’t recording Mantis. Someone else was. Someone standing over here.” She taps the bottom of the screen, her brow pinched with thought.
“Not standing. Sitting,” I add. “This angle is too low for someone to be standing.” And too steady for someone to be holding the camera, I’m thinking.
“Wouldn’t Mantis have noticed someone taping them?”
“He didn’t notice Abe there,” I counter, but she’s right. I find it hard to believe the cops wouldn’t notice someone out in the open, pointing a camcorder at them.
“Unless the person recording this wasn’t out in the open.” She pauses the video and points to the edge of the screen on the left. “This is 116.” Realization fills her face. “I think I know where this video was taken from. Come on, we’ve got to go there.” She nearly knocks me over in her mad dash out of the chair.
“Hold up a sec.” I grab my phone and, resetting the video yet again, begin making a copy.
CHAPTER 52