'Right.'
'And expensive.'
Right.
'Seems like a pretty elaborate and time-consuming method for an actor or a studio to harass you,' she said.
I pressed my lips together and nodded. I'd considered the same.
'Besides,' she said, 'what would they hope to gain by this?'
'Maybe they're wearing me down in preparation for a demand of some sort.'
It sounded thin, and Sally's face showed that she thought so, too.
'Let's get back to Ariana.' Sally had maneuvered our exchange so we were looking through the window into the family room. 'She have any enemies?'
We stood side by side, a big-screen view of the blanket and pillow on the couch. I took a deep breath. 'Aside from the neighbor's wife?'
'Okay,' Sally said. 'I see.' A pause. 'I'm not gonna find out anything about those bruised knuckles that makes me mad, am I?'
'No, no. I hit the dashboard now and again. When I'm alone. Don't ask.'
'Make you feel better?'
'Not yet. I don't know of Ariana's having any real enemies. Her only sin is being overfriendly.'
'Often?' she hazarded.
'Once.'
'People can surprise you.'
'All the time.' Following her out across the lawn to the sumac, I stayed on the underlying question. 'Ariana doesn't lie well. Her eyes are too expressive.'
'How long until she told you about the neighbor?'
We'd established an easy rapport, Sally and I. She seemed trustworthy, genuinely interested in my take on the matter at hand. Or was she just a skilled detective at work, making me feel special so I'd keep flapping my mouth about personal matters? Either way, I heard myself answer again: 'About six hours.'
'What took so long?'
'I was on a flight. She picked me up at the airport. After I didn't punch Keith.'
'Six hours is good. I wonder if she's taking longer to tell you something else.' She shoved aside the sumac branches. No footprints on the spongy ground beneath. She shot the light through the plastic sheeting of the greenhouse shed. Row after row of flowers poking up from the sagging wooden shelves. 'Lilies?'
'Yeah. Mostly mariposas.'
She whistled. 'Those are hell.'
'Three to five years from seed to grow the bulb up. Everything eats them.'
'Plant 'em a foot deep and pray.'
'Like the dear departed.'
'Progressive the way you take an interest in your wife and her activities.' She hoisted her considerable frame onto our rear fence, peered across at the quiet street beyond. 'Could've hopped over from here.'
I nodded at the other fence, the drooping one dividing our backyard from the Millers'. 'Or there.'
'Or there,' she conceded. She dropped back down with a huff of breath, and we started along the property line.
'Now what?' I asked, a bit anxiously.
'Neighbor's name?'
'Don Miller.' Saying it made my mouth sour.
'It was shot from his roof. I'll have to talk to him.'
I stopped in my tracks, looking across at the Millers' property. 'Shouldn't be hard.'
'Why's that?'
'He's still awake.' I pointed over the sagging fence at his silhouette in the bedroom window.
He stepped away from the curtain, but Sally kept her stare on the house. 'We'll be back in a jiffy, Patrick. Go be with Ariana. She's scared. Those expressive eyes.' She turned her back on me politely, starting for our house to retrieve her partner.
Ariana and I watched the DVDs again, all three, one after another. The hand in the latex glove did look masculine. The cuff of the black sweatshirt had been tucked into the glove so no skin would show, but I freeze- framed forward just to make sure.
'I'm sorry I called the cops without talking to you. You lied to me, but still. I thought you were out of your head and going to do something stupid that would get you shot.' Ariana was pacing around the couch, her hands laced on her head. 'It's amazing how little it takes to make someone suspicious. A misinterpretation, a white handkerchief, and a few well-placed nudges, right?'
I watched the scoop of tan skin at her neckline. 'Is there anyone you can think of . . . ?'
'No. Please. I don't know anyone that interesting.'
'I'm serious. Are there any other men who--'
'Who what?' Pink crept along her throat into her face. When Ari got flustered, she was usually a half step away from anger.
'Who've taken an interest,' I said evenly. 'At the showroom, the grocery store, wherever.'
'I don't have a clue,' she said. 'He was prying at me about that. Detective Valentine. Who the hell does something like this? It's gotta be someone from the studio. Or that asshole Conner.' More pacing. A glance at the clock--it was nearly 2:00 A.M. 'They're gonna take the DVDs into evidence. We should copy them.' She held up a hand to stop me. 'I know, I'll handle them with an oven mitt.'
While she picked up the disc carefully by the edges, I went upstairs and searched the Internet for Keith Conner. It didn't take long to find a picture that included his hands. He wore a great old Baume & Mercier on his right wrist, so he was likely left-handed. I pulled an image into Photoshop and enlarged his right hand. Was this how celebrity stalkers whiled away their lonesome evenings? Keith's hand looked like most men's, like the hand used to open my back door. But even if he was behind this, he would have outsourced the break-in.
Ariana's voice startled me. 'You're not gonna believe this.' She cradled her silver laptop, open. 'Look at this.' She tried to play the loaded DVD. Blank. 'I dragged the icons to my desktop, but when I went to burn them, the disc drive made this sound'--she demonstrated--'and then I double-clicked on the icons, and they all vanished.'
'DVDs don't erase themselves,' I said.
Her stare hardened. 'Well, these ones do.'
I looked at the two other DVDs, in a Ziploc bag. 'And you dragged them all to the desktop before burning. So you're saying they're all blank now.'
She nodded. 'I guess they were designed to erase as soon as someone tried to copy them.'
I gritted my teeth, shoved the heels of my hands into my eyes.
The doorbell rang.
I swallowed, trying to moisten my throat. 'Ari, let me handle the detectives. Pretend you went to bed.' She started to say something, but I cut her off. 'Just please trust me on this.'
She ejected the last disc, carefully put it in the Ziploc with the others, and handed it to me without a word. Tense, I jogged down the stairs and opened the front door.
Sally said, 'Come in?'
'Of course. How 'bout Valentine?'
He was sitting in the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, jotting notes. Sally shrugged. 'As I said, he's less social.'
We went inside. I said, 'Make you a cup of tea or something?'
'You have that chai stuff?'
I zapped two mugs in the microwave and brought them over. She shook a packet of Sweet'N Low into hers, and then another. She curled her hands around the mug. 'You're lonely, Patrick.'
'Yeah. You?'
She shrugged--it was something of a tic. 'Sure. Single parent. Female detective. It's a lot of time with people
