Cheryl Vranjes answered her door wearing a worried expression. Pete had seen the look before when law enforcement appeared on the front stoop. Once again, she ushered them into her living room. “Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?”
Baronick looked entirely too serious. “Thank you but that won’t be necessary.” He held up his phone. “We have another video we’d like you to look at if you don’t mind.”
Pete eyed him. We do? But he kept quiet. The detective was up to something.
Cheryl’s trepidation was replaced with eager excitement. “I don’t mind. I’m happy to help.”
Baronick moved shoulder to shoulder with the woman and gestured for Pete to join them. Pete positioned himself behind and between them as Baronick queued up a video on his phone.
The dark, poor quality image showed a parking lot with only one car. Pete didn’t recognize the location. This wasn’t the same footage Agent Graley had presented. The back door of the car opened, and a man in black stepped out, keeping his face shielded from the camera.
Cheryl gasped, touching fingertips to her lips.
The man in the video jogged across the screen. Baronick paused the video before the guy moved out of camera range. “What do you think?” the detective asked Cheryl.
“That’s him. It’s that man again. The same one who killed Elizabeth.”
Baronick avoided Pete’s eyes to look down at their witness. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” She looked up at him. “I thought you said there wasn’t any other film of the killer.”
Pete thought the same thing.
Baronick’s expression changed, morphing from deadly serious to disappointed. “There isn’t.” He hit play on the phone again.
The man in the video stopped and turned to face the camera, which zoomed in tight. He reached up, flipped back the hoodie covering his head, and looked straight into the lens.
It was Baronick.
Cheryl gaped at the detective. “What in heaven’s name?” She pointed at the phone. “That’s you.”
Pete took a step back, waiting for Baronick’s explanation.
“Yes, ma’am, it is.”
“But…why?”
He shot an apologetic glance at Pete before putting his phone away and facing the confused woman. “You positively identified the man in Agent Graley’s video as the same man running from the scene of Elizabeth Landis’ murder. You said he moved the same. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I didn’t see anything discernible in his gait. I wanted to prove—” He held up a finger to stop her protest. “—or disprove that you weren’t able to determine the identity using the grainy security footage available.”
Cheryl appeared ready to tear into the detective. She started to dispute his trickery several times before clamping her mouth shut. She huffed. After thinking over what he’d said, she must’ve reconsidered her earlier statement. “I guess I was wrong,” she said, her voice low. She glared at Baronick. “You tricked me. But you proved your point. I’m just a stupid woman.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Quite the opposite. I know you were sincere when you identified the man in the first video. And I know you’re not the kind of person who’d want to see the wrong man go to jail for something he didn’t do. Or go free for something he did do.” He gave her a sympathetic smile. “I wanted you to be sure.”
“Clearly, I’m not.” Cheryl shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. This just means we’re no further ahead or behind than we were a couple days ago.”
Pete saved his argument of the last statement until after they’d thanked Cheryl for her time and were inside Baronick’s unmarked sedan. “What the hell was that all about?”
“I think it was pretty clear.”
“What’s clear is you’ve just discredited one of our main witnesses for the prosecution. Whose side are you on?”
Baronick faced him. “Cheryl Vranjes discredited herself the moment she made a positive ID on the other video. No one could say for certain that guy was the same one she remembered from nine years ago. If she’d gone into court with that story, Imperatore would’ve ripped her testimony to shreds.”
One thing Zoe’s new office had going for it was the quiet. Paulette made handprinted signs and taped them to the door, inside the elevator, and next to the building directory in the lobby, but so far, people weren’t dying to find the coroner’s office.
Zoe winced at the memory of Franklin’s voice and old joke.
Paulette left to meet Lauren, making it even quieter. Alone, Zoe untangled the knot of cables and cords to reconnect the pair of computers. One for her. One for Paulette.
Zoe flinched at a soft thud and flutter. She spun toward the lone window to find a pigeon on the exterior sill. It stared at her through the streaked window as if wondering what the hell this human was doing, invading the bird’s private space.
“Hi,” Zoe said to the miffed-looking mass of feathers. “Sorry if my company annoys you. I hope to be only a temporary visitor.”
It continued to watch her accusingly. Which led her to conclude there was such a thing as too quiet. She skimmed through her phone to find the head-pounding playlist she’d created for late hours at the farm when she’d been getting the house ready for habitation. Not only did the hard-driving music keep her awake and working, but it blocked all the things that went bump in the night. She set the phone on the windowsill, thinking the beat might scare away the pigeon.
But, apparently, it liked rock.
Humming along to the tune, Zoe positioned a computer tower beneath the dented and marred gray metal desk she’d claimed as her own. She crawled under it, wishing she’d mopped the grimy linoleum before starting the task, and sat, hunched and cross-legged, sorting out the connections.
Rocking to the beat, she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps. The fist pounding on the open door startled her half out of her skin. Rearing up, she banged her head on the desk and wasn’t sure if the boom was part of the song’s crescendo, a new dent
