“Morphine overdose, almost certainly. That’s off the record. We’ll have to wait on the toxicology report to be sure.”
Glancing at his camcorder, Henry felt the burn of acid in his stomach. Still attached to the back of the Sony was a rectangle of beige plastic, slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes. This was a Superstream hard drive, an accessory Henry had mounted before he left the camcorder at Viola’s house. A filmmaker friend had told him about the drives while working on a documentary about Henry’s investigations. The Superstream could be set to record simultaneously with the camera’s tape heads, which not only eliminated the laborious process of capturing taped video onto a computer drive before editing could begin, but also made the DV tape a backup of what was on the hard drive. The Superstream could also be set to begin recording when the mini-DV tape ran out, extending available recording time if you were stuck somewhere without extra tapes. Henry rarely kept extra tapes on hand, so he usually left the unit in that mode. He was almost sure the Superstream had been set that way when he left the camera at Viola’s house. Which means there might be something recorded on the hard drive right now—
“What is it?” the district attorney asked sharply. “Why are you staring at the camera?”
Henry was tempted to say nothing. Johnson probably meant to return the camcorder to him; Henry could almost certainly walk out of here with whatever was recorded on the drive. But though he disliked the DA, he believed in the rule of law. If there was something on that hard drive, it might be evidence of a crime. And if he walked out of this office without telling the DA about it, he would probably be committing a crime himself. Woodward and Bernstein wouldn’t think twice about filching evidence like that, but Henry couldn’t do it. That was probably why he worked at a weekly paper with only five thousand paid subscribers.
“The camcorder might have recorded something,” he said in a monotone.
“So what?” Johnson said. “The tape’s gone.”
Henry almost held his silence, but his sense of fair play pushed him on. “There may be a recording attached to the camera. Now.”
Johnson’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
Henry explained about the hard drive. The DA was clearly no computer whiz, but eventually he understood. At Johnson’s instruction—which he barked out like a military order—Henry dismounted the Superstream from the Sony and laid it on the mammoth desk. Then he opened his briefcase and took out his PowerBook.
“Can’t you just plug the drive into my computer?” Johnson asked.
“No. You have a PC. This drive takes a special program to view, and I only have the Mac version. If you have a FireWire port and cable, I can set things up so that a converted copy will be sent to your computer while we watch the original on mine. You’ll be able to watch that copy on your PC afterward.”
“There’s no ‘we,’” Johnson said firmly. “I’m viewing the tape alone.”
“It’s not a tape,” Henry said patiently. “It’s a digital file on a hard drive. And that hard drive belongs to my newspaper.” This was not strictly true. Henry had purchased the Superstream with his own money; the Beacon didn’t have the budget for that kind of equipment, and if he weren’t divorced with a grown child, he wouldn’t, either.
“That drive may contain evidence in a murder case,” Johnson argued. “I’ll make the decision about what’s going to happen to it after I’ve seen what’s on it.”
Henry thought about this. “I don’t think you can legally keep me from seeing what’s on my newspaper’s hard drive. But whatever you decide now, I’m taking my computer with me. It’s not evidence in a trial, and all my work is on it. So you’d better let me make you a copy you can watch on your computer.”
While Johnson left the office to find a FireWire cable, Henry made a fast decision. After opening the program that would play the video file on the hard drive, he altered its settings so that the file would be copied to his PowerBook’s hard drive at the same time it was being converted and streamed to the district attorney’s computer. In all probability there was nothing on the drive, but if there was, Henry would leave the office with his own copy. By the time Shad returned, Henry was standing beside the DA’s Wall of Respect, looking at a photo of Johnson with Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, celebrities whose stock had fallen quite a bit since the days of Shad’s mayoral campaign against Wiley Warren.
“This what you need?” Johnson asked, holding out a FireWire cable.
Henry made the necessary connections, then set the program so that all the DA would have to do was tap the PowerBook’s trackpad to play the file.
“Time for you to go,” Shad said. “How do I watch the tape?”
It’s not a tape, Henry repeated silently. “Just tap the trackpad on my Mac. That’ll engage the play button on the screen. Do you want me to start it for you?”
“Yes. But as soon as you hit play, go out to my assistant’s office. I’ll tell you when I’m done.”
Henry touched the trackpad, and the light on the Superstream began to blink. A clattering sound emerged from the Mac’s speakers, then something like a strangled wail.
“Get out!” Shad ordered.
As Henry moved toward the door, he glanced down and saw the familiar image of Viola Turner’s sickbed. The woman herself was rolling across it as though trying to escape from some predatory animal. His heart leaped into his throat.