Ann Apel: “But if not for Barry, the cops would never have talked to us.”
Davy Apel: “They would have, sooner or later. When they spotted the interest payments. You know what we could have done is, we could have gone to Margery, and said, ‘Look, Barry owes us almost a quarter million, and we need the money. Help us out.’ I think she might have. Then... I feel kinda bad about Glen. Not too bad, since you were fuckin’ him.”
Ann Apel: “I don’t wanna hear—”
Davy Apel: “I’ll tell you one thing. We’re gonna have an amicable divorce, split fifty-fifty. I won’t take a penny less. And I don’twant to hear you sneaking around the house at night or you could get shot as a burglar.”
Ann Apel: “Fuck you, David. You better stay away from my end of the house or you’ll get the same thing that Glen did. I’ve still got that old Woodsman under the bed, and I’m carrying it during the day.”
Davy Apel: “Well, fuck you back, bitch...”
—
One more,” Scorese said.
—
Davy Apel: “I hope to hell you didn’t touch that grille with your bare hands. Flowers said something about bringing a DNA guy down.”
Ann Apel: “I had Tom Benson’s old work gloves on, when I climbed up and down, and I didn’t touch anything with my bare hands except the rifle. I hope you didn’t—you’re as clumsy as a circus clown. But, both our DNA is all over the machine, since we work with it every day. I don’t think that’s a problem.”
—
There are some more bits and pieces, but those are the best ones,” Scorese said. He looked pleased with himself.
—
It’s more than enough,” Jenkins said. “It sounded like they were all over the house. How many bugs did you stick in there anyway?”
“Eighteen. We could have recorded a rock ’n’ roll record,”Scorese said. “I got one in the bathroom, Ann Apel took a leak that must have gone on for five minutes.”
“Can’t wait to hear that one,” Virgil said. And, “I’ll call Zimmer.”
“Take them tonight?” Jenkins asked.
“Why not,” Virgil said. “They’ll be tired and disoriented. We’ll separate them, see if we can get them talking about who did what.”
—
Scorese traveled in a van full of electronic equipment and didn’t like to leave it where somebody might break into it. “The recordings are digital. I’ll ship everything back to the office tonight and leave a thumb drive copy for you guys, and a copy of the warrant, and I’ll keep the originals. If we can get this done early enough, I might pull my mics and drive back tonight.”
“Don’t run off the highway and kill yourself,” Virgil said. “We’ll need your testimony.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Scorese said.
Virgil had been looking past Scorese’s head, and he saw the curtain between the store and the back room twitch. To Scorese he said, “Listen, one more question. Suppose somebody made a recording of a person speaking but nobody knew whether it was an actual person speaking or another recording. Could a guy like you tell which it was? A recording or a natural voice?”
Scorese said, “Maybe. If the original voice recording was good enough and there wasn’t much ambient noise between the second recorder and the first one... and if the acoustics were good.”
“What if none of that was good? Bad acoustics, recordings done with iPhones, people screaming?”
“Not a chance,” Scorese said.
—
Holland stuck his head through the curtain, and said, “We were out here working on inventory, but I couldn’t help overhearing some of that.”
“There’s a surprise,” Jenkins said.
