At the end of the file I found a page of handwritten notes. They were
dated a week before Clarissa's death and were in the same slanted
scrawl I'd seen in Clarissa's files.
Tt/ DC about Gunderson appeal. He advd me city would not reopen. We
agreed re Grice.
Something about the file was still tugging at a corner of a memory.
Each time I thought I was close to plucking out the thought, I'd lose
hold of it entirely. 'What else?'
He held up the floppy disc. 'I've got to give this back to my
investigator. It's password protected.'
'And the video?'
'That's the doozie.'
Slip popped the videotape into the built-in VCR beneath the small
television screen. The blue screen turned to static, then to a shaky
image of a couple walking out a door.
It was Clarissa Easterbrook and T. J. Caffrey. Caffrey looked around
but apparently didn't see whoever was holding the camera. He held
Clarissa's face and then kissed her. It was long but gentle. I felt
my eyes shift away instinctively from their private moment, but I
forced myself to focus.
Their faces still close, they spoke a few words to each other. Then
the camera followed as Caffrey walked Clarissa to her car, giving her
one last kiss before she got in. He hopped into his car, and the two
drove away. The camera panned outward to show the backdrop, a
two-story motel with doors that edged the parking lot. A sign at the
road declared it to be the Village Motor Inn.
When the screen went to static and then back to blue, I looked at Slip.
'It's a motel north of Vancouver,' he explained, 'about thirty miles
out.'
They'd gone all the way to Washington to avoid being spotted.
Obviously, they hadn't been careful enough.
'I guess that confirms the affair,' I said. 'You think someone was
blackmailing her? I hate to break it to you, Slip, but it might've
been Jackson.' If sympathy and threatening letters didn't do the
trick, a videotape like this one might. He had followed Clarissa at
least once before.
'If it's blackmail,' he said, 'what do you make of this?' Slip handed
me a brown padded envelope addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Terrence J.
Caffrey on a street in Eastmoreland. 'The video was inside that
envelope.'
There was no postmark.
'Maybe it was hand-delivered, and Caffrey showed it to Clarissa?'
'Possible. Or maybe Clarissa was going to mail it and never got around
to it.'
I thought about it. Tara had gotten the impression that Clarissa's
mystery man was reluctant to live happily ever after with her. Maybe
Clarissa was playing hardball? I had seen obsession inspire crazier
actions against a supposed loved one.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn't know everything yet, a
state of knowledge I was never good at accepting.
Before I left, I gave Slip the photographs of Gunderson and Minkins
that Chuck had pulled for me. I kept their PPDS reports for myself.
Gunderson was sixty-five with a clean record. Minkins was thirty, on
probation for a forged check.
My eyes stayed on Minkins's picture. When Chuck gave it to me
yesterday morning, I hadn't given it a second glance. But now he
looked familiar. The guy by my table in the library. With shorter
hair and a closer shave, he could've been Minkins. On the other hand,
he could've been yet another lanky guy with dark hair and a mustache. I
might have to arrange an in-person look-see.
For now, I wanted to know what Jackson could tell me. 'Have your guy
take a look at these. See if he recognizes them from the site.'
Slip glanced at the photographs. 'Are you going to tell me who they
are?'
'Nope.'
When I left Slip's office, I called my father to make sure he was home.
I wasn't sure I could make it over for dinner, I told him, but I needed
to talk to him now, if he didn't mind.
Five minutes later, he was pouring me a glass of iced tea as we sat
together at the breakfast nook. We both had finally adjusted to the
clean tabletop. When my mother was still living,
this was the place where she stacked her books, mail, and bills. Now
that my father was in charge of running the house, those things piled
up in the den.
