“Apparently she didn’t go home,” Lamper said.
Cole halted typing to watch Gao.
She sniffed. “So this time she’s been caught.”
Hamada and Lamper’s brows went up. Though Cole could not see, he imagined Razor’s did, too.
Gao looked at Lamper, her lips tight. “I’ve often suspected that Miss Benay has claimed time off for family concerns as a pretext to give her long weekends for partying. I’m just surprised she did it in the middle of the week. No doubt Miss Hayes knows where she is. Excuse me.”
She marched out into the main office.
“Miss Hayes,” she began, and broke off to stare at her computer, going rigid with outrage. “Miss Hayes! How dare you play your games with
That brought the men to Lamper’s office door, Lamper moving more slowly than the others.
Hayes’s chin snapped up. “I never touched it!”
“She’s telling the truth,” Lamper said. “She was sitting at her desk the whole time you’ve been in my office.”
“
Hamada started. Razor froze.
“And this is like the one you denied writing on Miss Benay’s computer.”
Hamada shouldered past Lamper to come and peer over Gao’s head at the monitor. “It’s the same message, you mean?”
“No, but it’s the same kind of thing.”
Hamada read: “‘Ck security tape for Gao and Sara’s departure times.’”
Cole slid out from behind Gao’s desk through Hayes’s. As he did, he saw Razor’s eyes follow the movement, widening in shock. Cole waved. “Yo, amigo!”
Razor squeezed his eyes shut.
Cole rushed over to grab his shoulder. “Don’t do that and block me out!”
“Razor, are you all right?” Hamada asked.
Razor opened his eyes but looked away from Cole. “Just short of caffeine is all.”
“Short of belief in your own eyes and ears you mean, you bastard.” Cole bared his teeth. “Come on, man! I need your help.”
Hamada turned to Lamper. “Does everyone leave through the front door?”
Lamper hesitated, then nodded. “It’s the only door.”
“Then may we look at the tape for that camera?”
Lamper frowned. Cole almost saw the word “warrant” in his eyes.
Hamada must have, too. His expression went earnest. “If we knew when Miss Benay left that night, it would help us determine if she could have witnessed the incident in question.”
Lamper glanced toward his phone. “Excuse me for a minute.”
He went in the office and closed the door. Cole debated following and listening to the call, but based on previous conversations with Flaxx, he imagined Flaxx saying something like: “Let them see the tape. This is no different than giving them a peek at a store account. We have nothing to hide, remember? We always cooperate with the law enforcement — as long as it’s convenient.”
Sure enough, when Lamper came out of the office, he smiled and, moving gingerly, led the way across the hallway to the Security office. Cole noted that Gao included herself in the group.
In the Security office, Cole slid around everyone to the far wall, clear of the group.
The guard — Antoine Farrell according to his company name tag, young and husky enough to deal with most trouble — swivelled his chair from the bank of recorders and monitors. “You want to see a tape from Wednesday?” The overhead light gleamed on his shaved scalp as he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lamper. We don’t have those anymore. We record over them every forty-eight hours.”
Cole swore. He had been afraid of something like that. Hamada sent Razor an
Lamper shrugged at Hamada. “I guess there’s no way to know when Sara left that evening.”
Farrell twitched. “You mean you want to see the reception area tape?”
Cole felt his scalp prickle.
Lamper nodded. “Yes, but what difference does that make?”
“I think it means he has that tape,” Hamada said. “Right?”
Farrell took a breath and looked up at Lamper. “Well…see…the machine for that camera ate the tape that night…after I left. I got the tape out and wound it back in the cassette but when I tried playing it, it jammed at the crumpled part.” As Lamper frowned impatiently, Farrell talked faster and faster. His tone went defensive. “So I was going to throw it away…and then I thought, it was running fine when I left, so it was the machine that messed up…so I kept the tape, so the next time the machine jams there’s proof it’s done it be- ”
Lamper cut him off with a sigh. “Just show us the tape, please.”
“Yes, sir.” Farrell was light-skinned enough that his flush showed.
He opened a drawer and pulled out a cassette. After pushing it into the slot of a TV/VCR unit sitting at one end of the counter, he punched Rewind and visibly held his breath. When the tape made no sounds of self- destruction, he let the breath out. “How much do you want to see?”
Lamper glanced questioningly at Hamada, who said, “Let’s go from fifteen minutes before the office closes.”
Cole climbed up to stand on the counter and look over Farrell’s head at the TV.
With occasional pauses to check the time imprint, Farrell rewound to 16:45, then punched Play.
The camera’s position above Gina’s desk let it catch all the reception area except for the desk itself. Cole watched employees file out around five. The last one, Gina, wiggled her fingers in farewell at Farrell as he knelt to turn his key in the lock at the bottom of the doors. Minutes later a middle-aged Hispanic woman appeared with a vacuum cleaner and ran it over the carpet. At five-thirty, she reappeared with a coat and purse. Farrell let her and himself out, locking the doors from the outside.
The time read 17:43:03 when Mrs. Gao appeared, accompanied as far as the front doors by Sara. Gao’s frown and moving mouth suggested she was leaving Sara with strict instructions. The roll of Sara’s eyes when she turned away indicated her opinion of those orders.
Watching the tape, Gao’s mouth pressed into a tight line.
“I take it Miss Benay has a key to let herself out?” Hamada said.
“Not a personal one.” Lamper shook his head. “When one of my staff wants to work late, they check out a key from Mrs. Gao or me. After they lock up behind themselves, they drop the key through a slot outside. It goes into the box there to the left of the doors.”
“Fast forward until we see Miss Benay leave,” Hamada said.
Farrell did so in short, cautious spurts. Donald Flaxx left just before six, letting himself out with his own key. The time imprint rolled on…18:15…18:30…18:45. No one else left or came in.
As the time passed seven o’clock, uneasiness stirred in Cole. Where was Gao? To catch Sara phoning him at seven, she had to be back by now. Did she have any other way in?
He heard Razor sigh. The sound punched him. In it Cole heard Razor’s awareness of the doubt that threw on his information from the dream.
Cole swore. He needed to kick this around with Razor. The emergency exit was the only other way in that he knew. To use it Gao would have had to tape the lock and climb all those stairs, an incredible effort he saw no reason for her to make. Why would Sara lie about who caught her?
Suddenly, with a crackle inside the player, the image on the screen froze. Farrell hit Stop.
“Nineteen-fifty.” Hamada turned away from the player. “So Miss Benay had to leave after that.”
“Does that make it possible for her to be your witness?” Lamper asked.
“She could have used the emergency stairs,” Razor said.
Lamper frowned. “Why would she do that?”
“She had to go out the front door,” Mrs. Gao said. “The key was in the box the next morning.”
And the tape jammed just minutes before she left. The coincidence bothered Cole.
