“You’ll need an AVI app to see it,” Gou said.
“I got one of those,” Virgil snapped. “Give it to me. On a thumb drive. If you don’t have one, I’ve got one in my car.”
He took a fast circuit around a junk food rack and came back to Gou, who said, “You’re scaring me a little. I’ll get the video for you.”
“Now,” Virgil barked. “Get it.”
He did another trip around the junk food rack, and Gou was downloading the video. Two more trips and she handed him the thumb drive, and she said, “You gotta chill.”
“I’ll chill when I’m dead,” Virgil said, and he went out the door.
—
Lucas got thecold case file on Carly Gibson and skipped through it. Gibson apparently had been walking to her car, a block and a half from the law school, when she’d been attacked and killed. Traces in her hair indicated that she’d been beaten with a lead pipe—old-school, but effective, her skull crushed. Her purse was missing, but a gold necklace was still in place around her throat, and a gold-look bracelet around one exposed wrist.
Robbery was mooted as a motive, but if so, the killer was in a hurry, having missed both gold items. On the other hand, it was dark. He, or she, may never have seen the gold.
The killer left behind exactly no spoor.
Lucas read through it again and was struck by the similarity to the murder of Marcia Wise. Again, no spoor: not a single trace.
—
While he wasthere, he pulled the report on the death of Becky Watson. According to the reporting officers, a witness—Amanda Fisk, a ninth-grade student at Woodbury High School—said that sheand Watson had been at a movie in Galtier Plaza. They were waiting to be picked up by Fisk’s father. Watson was standing behind a streetlight pillar when she apparently stumbled over the edge of a curb and fell into the path of a UPS truck.
The truck driver had not been drinking and had a good safety record. He said he only saw Watson a split second before the impact and she “looked like she was doing a racing dive into the street.”
Watson was a good student and had no reason to commit suicide. The witness, Fisk, said she didn’t know exactly what happened, but agreed with the driver that Watson had lurched into the street, possibly stumbling over a raised curb.
The case was closed as an accident.
Lucas made notes and headed for the law school.
—
Virgil called andbefore he could say anything, Lucas blurted, “Fisk killed her law school classmate. Killed her exactly the same way as she did Wise. I talked to the dean, and we went back through the records. Fisk finished fourth in her class and was the top woman student. She would have been number two among women, if the woman who was leading her hadn’t been beaten to death. And man, I’ve been reading the Becky Watson file. If she didn’t push Watson in front of that truck, I’d be astonished. And you—did you find anything?”
Virgil’s voice grated like a trashed transmission: “That bitch burned down my stable.”
29
Russ Belen was a handsome man, a trifle short, with wide shoulders, curly russet hair, a generally cheerful attitude, and smiles for everyone. A firm look-you-in-the-eye handshake. Whether it was all real, nobody but Belen knew. Whatwasknown was that he didn’t consider a county attorney’s job as the high point in his political career.
Which was probably the reason he went on alert as soon as he spotted Henderson and his aide, Mitford, in the back of the room. The party included Rose Marie Roux, the state commissioner of public safety; Ralph Moore, BCA director; as well as Duncan, Lucas, and Virgil.
A step inside the door, Belen stopped, looked around, and asked the room in general, “Am I the last one to arrive?”
Roux said, “The rest of us have been meeting for an hour, Russell. Do you know Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers?”
“Sure, Lucas and I go back a way…Virgil I only know by reputation. You’re starting to scare me. What’s going on?”
They were meeting in a BCA conference room around a long faux-walnut table. Roux said, “Sit down, Russ. Over there, where you can see Lucas and Virgil.”
He took a chair, continuing to look quizzically at the participants. To Henderson, he said, “You’re unexpected in whatever this is, Senator. Am I happy to see you again?”
“You may not be shortly,” Henderson said.
Belen: “What’s the problem?”
