contacting them seemed like taking things one step too far.
Already feeling defeated, they continued on. Two gas stations, a coffee shop and a donut place all had the same answer: “Sorry, haven’t seen them.”
It was as they entered another convenience store that he realized he truly was an idiot.
When the clerk gave him the same response the others had been giving, instead of saying, “Thanks,” and leaving, Jake said, “I see you have security cameras.”
“Uh, yeah,” the clerk said.
Berit had been turning to leave, but Jake’s comment stopped her.
“Do you record, or are they just live feeds?”
“Insurance wants us to record,” the clerk said.
Jake tried to contain his optimism. “You keep the recordings on site?”
The clerk motioned toward the rear of the store. “In the office.”
“How far back?”
“Supposed to keep two months’ worth,” the clerk said, looking a bit uncomfortable.
“But you don’t?” Jake asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Sir, how far back?”
The clerk grimaced as if he were in pain. “Two weeks. The owner doesn’t like to waste the money on VHS tapes. Don’t tell him I told you, though, okay?”
Jake tried to look stern, while inside he was feeling relief. “I’ll tell you what. We won’t say anything if you let us take a look at a couple of them.”
“Sure. No problem.”
“You have a monitor somewhere we can use?”
“Let me show you,” the clerk said.
Unlike at the Lawrence Hotel, Jake knew exactly the time range they needed to look at, so it was a simple matter of identifying the correct tape and fast-forwarding to the time in question. Unfortunately, the men had not stepped through the door in the hour and a half prior to the murder. But he didn’t let that get him down. He’d found a bandage for his flawed plan, so there was hope.
He and Berit retraced their steps to the places they’d already checked, and in all but one, they were allowed a look at the security footage. Unfortunately, the men had not stopped at any of those places, either.
Because they had to watch video everywhere they stopped, their progress was slower than Jake would have hoped, and soon it was approaching noon.
“This is a waste of time. You know that, right?” Berit said as they pulled away from yet another gas station.
Jake stared out the front window, saying nothing, but thinking the same thing. They probably should just give up, but that feeling that he was right was still nagging at him, telling him to keep going.
“Just another thirty minutes?” he asked.
She frowned, then rolled her eyes. “Thirty minutes. But that’s it.”
“Thanks.”
The next two businesses had no security footage at all. After that, they hit a coffee shop called Oscar’s Grind. As they walked in, Jake knew they could make only a couple more stops, at most, before the thirty minutes were up.
Once more they went through their routine with the manager. Oscar’s had a camera system, but to save on storage space, the system was programmed to take still images every two seconds instead of shooting continuous video.
“What night was that you wanted to look at?” the manager asked.
They were in the back room, crowded around a small desk that held a monitor and a VHS player.
“Saturday, between seven and nine,” Jake told him.
The manager stuck the appropriate tape in the machine, and soon the monitor filled with an image of the coffee shop. The angle was from behind the cash register, looking over the counter. In the foreground was an employee taking orders, her back to the camera, while on the other side was the front of the line of people waiting to be served. In the lower right corner was a time stamp: 6:58 p.m.
The playback was choppy due to the still images, but it was more than sufficient to see the faces of the customers.
“Can you speed it up?” Jake asked.
“A bit.”
The manager pushed Fast Forward. On the screen, customers began moving rapidly.
When the time stamp read 7:48 p.m., both Jake and Berit said, “Stop.”
The manager hit the Pause button, and the image froze on the monitor.
“Back up a couple of seconds,” Jake said.
The manager did as asked.
On the monitor, standing just beyond the register, were the two men who’d left the Lawrence Hotel at the same time. There was no mistaking them. And unlike in the footage from the hotel, they were no longer acting like they didn’t know each other.
“You were right,” Berit said, her voice barely audible.
“Are these the guys you’re looking for?” the manager asked.
Ignoring the question, Jake said, “Can you move to a couple minutes before this point and let it play?”
“Of course.”
They watched as customers came and went, then the two men stepped up, placed their order and exited the frame.
The manager reached out to stop it, but Jake said, “No. Let it play.”
They watched for another five minutes. The men didn’t come back, but Jake hadn’t been expecting them to. Who he was really hoping to see was the third man, but there was no sign of him.
“Can you make printouts?” Jake asked.
“Printouts,” the manager said, sounding embarrassed. “People can do that?”
Jake stood up. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks. That’s all we’ll need for now.”
“Oh, ah, all right,” the manager said. “No problem at all.”
“How long before you erase what you’ve recorded?” Berit asked.
“A week.”
“We’re going to need you to hold on to the cassette,” she told him. “You can at least do that, right?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Good,” Berit told him. “We’ll be in touch.”
Neither Jake nor Berit said anything as they walked through the coffee shop and out to her car. The silence continued after they got in, both lost in thought.
Finally, Berit said, “We have to tell someone.”
“Tell them what?”
“What you’ve found out.”
“And what exactly have I found out?”
She looked at him like she couldn’t understand what he meant. “The men. They were here.”
He returned her gaze, not saying anything, waiting for her to realize what he’d already figured out. That no matter how much they might see the connection, there was still absolutely nothing solid. In fact, there was nothing even remotely close to solid. It was all relying on a hunch, a feeling of a rookie cop who didn’t quite fit in with the others.
When it finally hit her, she said, “Then what are we going to do?”
“Dig deeper, I guess,” he said. “Find something that can’t be ignored.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
He thought for a moment, then said in all honesty, “I don’t know.”
