Kobe
Wednesday was New Year’sEve and a bustling time for the police department since our patrols doubled in anticipation of drunken problems. Golding wasn’t around, which was fine by me since she’d been riding my ass about finding evidence that didn’t exist. Rue worked in silence, reviewing the slew of interviews we had conducted and highlighting anything that needed further exploration.
The secretary from the courthouse called at four to inform me that the warrant I’d dropped off on Monday was signed and ready to be picked up. I snagged my keys, mumbled an explanation to Rue, and took off, glad to be out of the building for five minutes.
While I drove, I contacted Matt Menard, the owner of the Iron Pumphouse, to inform him I had the warrant and needed him to meet me at the gym so I could collect the information I’d requested immediately.
Matt bitched and moaned that he had New Year’s Eve plans and would take care of it after the holiday.
“You have twenty-four hours to hand it over, Mr. Menard. That means you either get it to me tonight, or you drag your hungover ass to the office tomorrow. Up to you.”
He cursed me out but agreed to meet at the facility in an hour.
By the time I returned to the station, the bullpen was cleared out. Shift change had come and gone, and the patrol officers on duty had hit the street. Rue had left a note on my desk, informing me she had gone home for the night but to call if anything came up. Otherwise, she wasn’t coming in the following day.
I plugged in the USB Matt had given me to a port on the laptop. He had transferred the pertinent surveillance files onto it while I stood over his desk an hour ago. While the computer took its sweet time to recognize the drive and open the folder, I skimmed the long list of names on the form he’d printed that indicated who had scanned in and out of the facility on Christmas Day.
“Good lord. It was a holiday, for fuck’s sake. Why are there so many names on this list?”
The list indicated that ninety-seven people had worked out on Christmas. Ninety-seven! The first person scanned in shortly after midnight, indicated on the page as 00:12, and the last was marked as 23:53. I examined the list, searching for Fatemeh.
I came across Dominique’s name first, located near the top of the page. He had swiped in at 04:12.
I chuckled. “Freak.” I wasn’t opposed to working out, but I was opposed to being vertical at four a.m.
I ran my finger down the list and found Fatemeh’s name two below his, her clock-in time marked as 04:56, and an hour later than the time she’d given me. Departure times weren’t indicated. Patrons were not required to swipe out of the building when they left.
The video files Matt had provided were ready to view, so I clicked on the one marked Lobby Cam and dialed in to the time when Fatemeh entered the building.
There she was, nearly unrecognizable in jogging pants, a puffy jacket, and with her hair pulled into a ponytail. She wore heavy winter boots and stomped snow on the mat by the door before vanishing off-frame.
The weight room had three poorly aimed cameras: one focused on the treadmills, one on the free weights, and the final one was a bird’s-eye view of the whole room with countless blind spots from the scattered equipment.
After extensive browsing, I located a few quick clips of her as she moved from one machine to another. She spoke to a buff guy in a white muscle shirt for a time before sliding onto the leg press machine and pumping out four sets. Checking the time stamps, I was able to determine that she was at the facility for at least an hour, finishing with a short run on the treadmill.
So, her alibi checked out. Sort of. Our window for Malik’s kill was far greater than I had anticipated. The video confirmation meant squat in the grand scheme of things.
I sat back, staring at the laptop for a long time, pondering next steps. I had paused the pertinent videos at the precise moments when Fatemeh had entered the frames. Four feeds snapped together to make a grid on the screen.
In the upper left corner, Fatemeh was captured entering the building, dressed for the extreme weather. A snowstorm. Jogging pants. Heavy coat. Clunky boots. A stuffed gym bag hooked over a shoulder.
The whole look was incongruous with the Fatemeh I’d met.
I’d classified the woman as haughty and self-important. Vain to a fault, always dressed exquisitely with her makeup perfectly applied, but no. She might have been that person at work, but she wasn’t that person in her personal life.
When I’d made a spontaneous house call, I’d surprised her in lounge pants, a worn, baggy shirt, and no makeup. She had seemed embarrassed. Put out. Dominique had described her workout attire as gym shorts and baggy hoodies. The videos of her in the weight room and on the treadmill confirmed that.
My gaze stalled on Fatemeh’s feet, the still of her in the lobby as she entered the building. I sat forward, concentrating on the unclear depiction of what appeared to be oversized boots. I drew a finger over the mouse pad and closed the other three videos, enlarging the one that interested me.
The video quality sucked, and no matter how hard I squinted, I couldn’t get a read on the type of boots she wore.
“Hey.”
I startled and jerked my head toward the voice, finding Ari Yates on the other side of my desk.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you.” He waved a folder. “I did what you wanted. Wrote down everything else I remembered from that day with those kids. It wasn’t much. It’s been a long time. I did my best.”
I accepted the folder and peered inside. Yates had penciled a handful of new details in the margin of his old report. The previous day, I’d performed an exhaustive search for high school students in the city, focusing on sixteen- to eighteen-year-old girls who had recent encounters with law enforcement for any reason. I couldn’t inquire with principals since schools were closed for two weeks over the holiday—not that I expected cooperation on that front, especially when dealing with minors.
