Jessica looked at her watch again, even though she knew exactly what time it was. 'Thanks, Tom. Call me if you talk to someone who can give this kid more time.'
Tom Weyrich knew what she meant. 'I'm on it.'
Jessica hung up. She looked back at the screen. The video was at the beginning again. The baby smiled and moved his arms. At the outside, they had less than two hours to save his life. And he could be anywhere in the city. Mateo made a second digital copy of the tape. The tape ran for a total of twenty-five seconds. When it was over, it cut to black. They watched it again and again, looking for something, anything, to give them a clue to where the baby might be. There were no other images on the recording. Mateo started it up again. The camera whipped downward. Mateo stopped it.
'The camera is on a tripod, and a fairly good one at that. At least for the home enthusiast. It's a smooth tilt, which tells me that the neck on the tripod is a ball head.
'But look here,' Mateo continued. He started the recording again. As soon as he hit PLAY, he stopped it. On screen was an unrecognizable image. A thick vertical smudge of white against a reddish brown background.
'What is that?' Byrne asked.
'Not sure yet,' Mateo said. 'Let me run it through the dTective unit. I'll get a much clearer image. It will take a little time, though.'
'How long?
'Give me ten minutes.'
In an ordinary investigation, ten minutes would pass in a snap. To the baby in the coffin, it might be a lifetime.
Byrne and Jessica stood outside the AV Unit. Ike Buchanan walked into the room. 'What's up, Sarge?' Byrne asked.
'Ian Whitestone is here.'
Finally, Jessica thought. 'Is he here to make a formal statement?'
'No,' Buchanan said. 'Someone kidnapped his son this morning.'
Whitestone looked at the movie of the baby. They had transferred the clip to a VHS cassette. They watched it in the small snack room in the unit.
Whitestone was smaller than Jessica had expected. He had delicate hands. He wore two watches. He had come with a personal physician and someone who was probably a bodyguard. Whitestone identified the baby in the video as his son, Declan. He looked gut-shot.
'Why… why would someone do such a thing?' Whitestone asked.
'We were hoping you might be able to shed some light on that,' Byrne said.
According to Whitestone's nanny, Aileen Scott, she had been taking Declan for a walk in his stroller at about nine thirty that morning. She had been struck from behind. When she awoke, hours later, she was in the back of an EMS rescue, on her way to Jefferson Hospital, and the baby was gone. The time frame told the detectives that, if the time code on the tape had not been manipulated, Declan Whitestone was buried within a thirty-minute drive of Center City. Probably closer.
'The FBI has been contacted,' Jessica said. A patched and back-on- the-job Terry Cahill was at that moment assembling a team. 'We're doing everything possible to find your son.'
They walked back into the common room, over to a desk. They put the crime scene photographs of Erin Halliwell, Seth Goldman, and Stephanie Chandler on the table. When Whitestone looked down, his knees buckled. He held on to the edge of the desk.
'What… what is this?' he asked.
'Both of these women were murdered. As was Mr. Goldman. We believe the man who kidnapped your son is responsible.' There was no need to tell Whitestone about Nigel Butler's apparent suicide at this time.
'What are you saying? Are you saying that all of them are dead?'
'I'm afraid so, sir. Yes.'
Whitestone weaved. His face turned the color of dried bones. Jessica had seen it many times. He sat down hard.
'What was your relationship to Stephanie Chandler?' Byrne asked.
Whitestone hesitated. His hands were shaking. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged, just a parched, clicking noise. He looked like a man at risk of a coronary.
'Mr. Whitestone?' Byrne asked.
Ian Whitestone took a deep breath. Through trembling lips he said, 'I think I should talk to my lawyer.'
76
They had gotten the whole story from Ian Whitestone. Or at least the part his attorney would allow him to tell. Suddenly the past ten days or so made sense.
Three years earlier-before all his meteoric success-Ian Whitestone made a film called Philadelphia Skin, directing under the name Ed- mundo Nobile, a character in one of Spanish director Luis Bunuel's films. Whitestone had used two young women from Temple University for the pornographic film, paying them each five thousand dollars for two nights' work. The two young women were Stephanie Chandler and Angelika Butler. The two men were Darryl Porter and Julian Matisse.
On the second night of filming, what happened to Stephanie Chandler was more than a little fuzzy, according to Whitestone's convenient memory. Whitestone said that Stephanie was shooting drugs. He said he didn't allow it on the set. He said that Stephanie left in the middle of the shoot and never returned.
Nobody in the room believed a word of it. But what was crystal clear was that everybody involved in the making of the film had paid dearly for it. Whether Ian Whitestone's son would pay for the crimes of his father was yet to be seen. Mateo caLLed tHem down to the AV Unit. He had digitized the first ten seconds of the video field by field. He had also separated the audio track and cleaned it up. He played the audio first. There was only five seconds of sound.
First there was a loud hiss, then a rapid decrease in intensity, followed by silence. It was clear that whoever was operating the camera had turned down the microphone as he began to roll the tape.
'Run that back,' Byrne said.
Mateo did. The sound was one of a quick burst of air, which began to fade immediately. Then the white noise of electronic silence.
'One more time.'
Byrne seemed transfixed by the sound. Mateo looked to him before continuing with the video portion. 'Okay,' Byrne finally said.
'I think we have something here,' Mateo said. He clicked through a number of still images. He stopped on one, enlarged it. 'This is just over two seconds in. It's an image right before the camera tilts downward.' Mateo tightened the focus slightly. The image was all but indecipherable. A splash of white against a reddish brown background. Rounded geometric shapes. Low contrast.
'I don't see anything,' Jessica said.
'Hang on.' Mateo ran the image through the digital enhancer. On screen, the image moved closer. After a few seconds, it became slightly clearer, but not clear enough to read. He zoomed and clarified one more time. Now the image was unmistakable.
Six block letters. All white. Three on top, three on the bottom. The image appeared to be:
ADI ION
'What does it mean?' Jessica asked.
'I don't know,' Mateo replied.
'Kevin?'
Byrne shook his head, stared at the screen.
'Guys?' Jessica asked the other detectives in the room. Shrugs all around.
Nick Palladino and Eric Chavez each got on a terminal and began to search for possibilities. Soon they both
