“Why would I? It backs Katrina's story.”
“How many times did you watch it?”
“Once.”
“You watch some old football game half a dozen times on the classics channel, but a murder scene video only once.”
“Accident scene,” he corrected her.
“Has Pincher filed his exhibit list?”
“Not yet.”
What was she getting at? Both state and defense had gotten the tapes from the home security system. The house had been wired with hidden cameras. None in the bedrooms, so no porn shots of trussed-up Charlie Barksdale with Katrina riding him, cowgirl style. But a camera was fitted into a picture frame in the corridor just outside the master suite. With the door open, the wide-angle lens had caught a sliver of the wet-bar area, maybe twenty feet from the bed. Steve remembered everything on the tape; there wasn't that much. At 11:37 P.M., according to graphics on the screen, Katrina walked into the frame. She was wearing black leather chaps, crotchless panties, and a laced corset with openings in the bra for her peekaboo nipples. Her Sunday church outfit, no doubt.
As Katrina poured herself a drink, she suddenly turned and headed back toward Charlie. Even though the bed was out of camera range, Steve could argue to the jury that what could be seen corroborated Katrina's story: Standing at the bar, she heard Charlie in distress and ran to him. She tried to loosen the leather collar, but it was too late.
“So what's the problem with the video?” he asked.
Victoria dug into her briefcase, came out with the tape, and slipped it into the VCR on the bookshelf. “Did you watch it in slo-mo?”
“No slo-mo. No instant replay. No Telestrator. So what?”
She turned on the VCR and the TV, and the grainy black-and-white video came on. Thirty seconds of nothing but an empty corridor with a gray granite bar visible in a corner of the room. Then Katrina sashays into the frame. If there'd been audio, Steve figured, he could have heard her leather chaps rustling. She pours what looks like vodka into a glass. Suddenly-well, not that suddenly in slo-mo-her head whips back toward the bed. Steve knew what came next, but now he saw something he hadn't seen before. Just a split second before hurrying to the bed, Katrina's eyes flicked toward the corridor.
Victoria froze the frame. “What's she looking at? Who's in the corridor?”
“No one.”
“Keep looking. Against the wall.”
“What?”
“Don't you see the shadow?”
Steve blinked twice. There was a shaded area on the wall. Or was there? With the frame frozen, the screen pulsated, maybe creating an optical illusion. “It could be the pattern of the wallpaper. Or a trick of the lighting. Or just something the camera lens does.”
“I see the outline of a person,” Victoria said.
“And some people see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich.”
Victoria hit the PLAY button. The shadow, if that's what it was, seemed to fade away.
“We could take the tape to a photogrammetry expert, have it enhanced,” she said.
“So could Pincher.”
“Sure, if he sees the shadow. But if he's like you-if he's like most men-he'll miss the details.”
“Which is why we make a good team. I see the big picture. You see the shadows. I attack with a saber. You jab with a rapier. I drop the bombs. You…”
“Clean up your bird crap.”
“Remember, Judge Gridley said we were like Solomon versus Lord. But now…”
“Now what, Solomon?”
If she didn't have the guts, he did. “Shouldn't we talk about last night?”
“Nothing to talk about. Chapter closed.”
“I thought maybe, with the benefit of a night's sleep, you'd-”
“I didn't sleep.”
“All the more reason to talk.”
She walked to the window, looked across the alley toward the balcony where the steel band was taking a break and passing around a joint the size of a salami. “We have a case to try. That's all we're going to talk about. And when it's over, I'm out of here.”
“What's that mean?”
“After I marry Bruce, I'm going in-house with his company. It's the best move for me.”
“You're running away.”
“From what?”
“Last night-”
“Never happened, and even if it did, it won't happen again,” she said, employing the lawyer's technique of alternative pleading. “Look, I'm sorry if I sent out any signals you misinterpreted.”
“You kissed me. How'd I misinterpret that?”
“I've been under a lot of pressure. I cracked. That's all it was.”
“So you won't talk about what you're feeling right now? What you're thinking?”
She wheeled around. “I'm thinking I liked you better when you were an insensitive jerk.”
“I'm not buying it.”
“Don't you get it? I'm unavailable. That makes me more desirable. You're inappropriate. That makes you more desirable. It's a flaw in our genetic code. We can't help ourselves, we're drawn to the flames. It's what makes us the screwed-up human beings we are.”
“And that's why you kissed me? And I kissed you back?”
“If you have a better explanation, let's hear it.”
“I'm not sure. There's something about you that…”
He stopped, unable to continue, and she pounced. “That what?”
“That makes me, I don't know… I… I have these feelings,” he stammered.
“C'mon,” she prodded. “You're the one who wants to open up. Just how do you feel about me?”
“You had me from ‘Get lost.'”
“No I didn't. Can't you be sincere?”
“Only if I fake it.”
“I mean it. Either tell me how you feel or just shut up.”
He hadn't expected her to challenge him. Suddenly, he was back at Beach High with a huge crush on Renee de Pres, an exchange student from Paris. Even now, he remembered everything about her. Dark hair cut short in that sexy French way. Tight miniskirts with the top three buttons of her blouse left open. An alluring accent that made him want to lick the dewy perspiration from behind her bare knees. He was, after all, seventeen with an achy-breaky heart and a perpetual erection.
Renee had been in the stands when they played Hialeah High for the state baseball championship. In the ninth inning, with the score tied, Steve singled, stole second, then third, and scored on a sacrifice fly, sliding headfirst under the tag. His teammates carried him off the field. It was an ephemeral moment, but in his naivete, he believed it was the first of an endless series of joyous spectacles, drums and bugles announcing every triumph of his life.
Four hours later, Renee introduced him to the wonders of blossoming Gallic womanhood in the backseat of his Jeep, pulled into a mangrove thicket at Matheson Hammock. It was his first time, though not hers, and he completed the act even faster than he had rounded the bases. With her guidance, a second effort was more rewarding, and a third left them breathless. By dawn, he was sure no one had ever felt like this before, and he uttered the three magic words-“I love you”-which made Renee laugh and call him a “silly boy.”
For the next two weeks, barely a moment went by that he wasn't touching her or kissing her. Every shared experience-no matter how mundane-miniature golf, pepperoni pizza, Sting's “Every Breath You Take,” unleashed
