reason you’re going to show me that tape is because it’s the right thing to do. I can’t help those men unless you help me first, Leon. You don’t have to make me a copy of it. You don’t have to tell anybody about it. You just show me the tape once and then I’ll leave.”
“You make it sound so simple,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do. Like that’s all there is to it. Never mind my responsibility to my paying client. Or the oath I had to sign about cooperating with the police and the courts. None of that counts, huh?”
“Right this second it doesn’t,” I said. “And you know it.”
He thought about that one. “Alex, get out of the way,” he finally said.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Get out of the way of the door,” he said. “So I can get out.”
I let him out of the car. I followed him into his house. He brought his briefcase with him.
“Where’s Eleanor and the kids?” I said.
“They’re at a birthday party. I would have gone, but things are a little crazy right now.”
“Tell me about it. She’s worried about you, you know.”
“I know.”
He led me into the family room, where his television sat in the middle of a wall unit, one of those huge, particle board things with the imitation wood grain. There was one VCR on top of the television, a second one on the floor.
“I just finished making one more copy,” he said. “I was on my way over to Vargas to deliver it. I had given him the original-it was actually a compact VHS tape-about this big.” He showed me about three inches between his thumb and forefinger. “You ever see one?”
“No.”
“You put it in an adapter box to play it on a regular VHS machine. Vargas tried to make his own copy of it, but he couldn’t figure out how to do it. You see, you need to play the tape on one VCR, and then feed it into the second…”
“Okay,” I said. “Skip that part. If I ever need to do it myself, I’ll call you.”
“Yeah, well, this is actually a copy of the original,” he said, holding up a regular VHS tape. “So I had to make him a copy of a copy. I don’t know how good the quality is going to be. I suppose I should give him the good copy. Anyway, here it is…” He turned the television on, put the tape into one of the VCRs, then hit the play button.
After a few seconds of snow, an image came onto the screen. It was jumpy and hard to focus on. It was tilting, too, from one side to the other, enough to make you seasick if you watched it too long. It was a hallway of some sort. There were many doors.
“It’s a hotel?”
“Yeah, sorry about all the movement here. I’m walking while I take this. I’m gonna just fast-forward through this…”
“No,” I said. “Let me see the whole thing.”
“There’s no reason to,” he said. “Let me just-”
“I want to see the whole thing, Leon. Just let it go.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Oh God. All right.”
“What’s happening now?”
“This is the Best Western,” he said. “Down on the loop. I followed Vargas’s wife there. Swanson’s car was already in the parking lot. I’ve seen it a lot lately, so I certainly recognized it.”
A face appeared on the screen, taking up every inch of it. I didn’t recognize Leon at first-probably because I’ve never seen him with curly black hair and a long mustache.
“Leon, what the hell are you wearing?”
“I’m in disguise.”
Before I could say anything else, Leon’s urgent whisper began on the tape. “This is Leon Prudell at the Best Western Hotel in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. I’ve observed Mrs. Cynthia Vargas checking in at the front desk, and then coming here to room one-seventeen.” The camera swung back to the hallway, the doors passing by as Leon made his way to the room in question.
“What are you doing, a newscast?”
“I’m just establishing time and place,” he said. “It’s important if it ever becomes evidence.”
“You’re really walking down the hallway with a video camera?”
“No, not really,” he said. “It was hidden in my wristwatch.”
“Your wristwatch? Are you kidding me?”
“There’s a wire running up my sleeve,” he said. “It connects to the recording unit, which is hidden under my jacket.”
“I don’t believe this,” I said. “Why does he need a video? If you’ve already caught her sneaking off with Swanson…”
“Mr. Vargas is sure his wife will be filing for divorce soon. With Swanson as her lawyer, no doubt.”
“You told me yourself once that Michigan is a strong common-property state. Fooling around on your husband isn’t going to change much when they split up the assets, is it?”
“I told Mr. Vargas that,” he said. “He didn’t seem to mind. I think he wanted the tape for other reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Such as embarrassing the hell out of both of them at the divorce proceedings.”
On the TV, the camera swung to Leon’s face again. “I am standing in front of room one-seventeen. I will attempt to document the presence of both Douglas Swanson and Cynthia Vargas in this room.”
“What are you wearing there?” I said.
He cleared his throat. “I’m dressed as a room service waiter. I’m bringing them a complimentary bottle of champagne.”
“Oh my God…”
“Here we go,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Here’s where things sort of go haywire.”
The hotel room door opened. Counselor Swanson appeared, wearing a white bathrobe. He did not look happy to be interrupted. “What is it?”
“Champagne, sir. With our compliments.” The voices all sounded distant.
“We didn’t order any champagne.”
“With our compliments, sir. It’s on the house.”
“For what? Why do we get free champagne?”
There was a voice in the background. You could barely hear it. It sounded female, and just from context you assumed she was asking who was at the door.
“It’s a man with champagne!” Swanson turned to look back into the room. As he did, he pulled the door slightly more open. There was a flash of white in the background, another bathrobe. Then something obscured the image, taking up the whole screen. There was the sound of impact, then of someone yelling. The camera swung around wildly, then seemed to settle on the ceiling. After a couple of seconds, the screen went black.
“What happened?” I said.
“I tried to get a good shot of Mrs. Vargas,” he said. “I turned the camera in my watch and dumped the tray right on Swanson’s head.”
“Leon, on another day, this would be the funniest tape I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m so glad it has entertainment value,” he said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get a solid shot of Mrs. Vargas. All it does is make me look like an idiot.”
“So what happens next here?”
After a few more seconds of blackness, another image came onto the screen. It was nighttime, but with all the lights he had on, there was no mistaking whose house we were looking at. Leon hit the pause button and froze the image.
“Let me tell you what’s going on here,” he said. “Before you see this.”
“That’s Vargas’s house,” I said. “This is the night that-”
“Yes. This is still the same night. After my little mishap, I figured I’d check in with Mr. Vargas, see what he wanted me to do next. I called him on the cell phone again. It rang a couple of times, but then the signal went out.
