Behind the camera, Van Zandt clearly became bored with the horse. There were far too many close-ups of Paris and her model's smile. I wondered just how close they were, whether or not Paris Montgomery drew the same line I did when it came to getting what she wanted from a man.
Then came one long shot of a girl holding Stellar by the reins, posing the riderless animal for a side view. Erin Seabright in a skin-fitting T-shirt and a pair of shorts that showed off slender, tan legs. Just as she got the horse positioned to best show him off, he butted her with his head and sent her staggering backwards, laughing. Pretty girl, pretty smile. She took hold of the horse's head and planted a kiss on his nose.
The tough, mouthy, bad girl. Not in this scene. I could see Erin's connection to the horse. I could see it in the way she spoke to him, the way she touched him, the way her hand lingered on his neck as she moved him. Knowing her family situation, it wasn't hard to imagine Erin felt closer to the horses she cared for than she did to most of the Seabright household. The horses didn't judge her, didn't criticize her, didn't let her down. The horses didn't know or care if she had broken rules. They only knew whether or not she was kind and patient, whether or not she brought them treats and knew where they liked to be scratched.
I knew these things about Erin Seabright because I had been Erin Seabright a lifetime ago. The girl who didn't fit the family mold, didn't want to live up to family expectations; the girl who chose acquaintances based on their objectionable qualities. Her only true friends lived in the stables.
The tape revealed more to me about Erin than it did about Van Zandt. I rewound it and watched Erin's part again, hoping I would have the opportunity to see her smile like that in person, though I knew even if I could get her out of this mess, it could be a very long time before she felt like smiling.
I swapped the tape for another and zoomed fast-forward through three more horses, then Sean and Tino popped up, and I let the tape play. The pair made a lovely picture as they moved around the arena. Sean was an excellent rider, strong, elegant, quiet and centered in his body. The brown gelding was lean and leggy and had a stylish way of going. The camera followed as they moved laterally across the ring toward the gazebo, diagonal pairs of legs crossing with the grace of a ballet dancer, the horse's body curving like a bow around Sean's leg. And then they went out of the frame.
The camera lingered on the gazebo, zooming in on Irina. She stared out of the picture with an expression of cold hatred, brought her cigarette to her lips, and blew the smoke right at the glass eye. It didn't seem to unnerve her that Van Zandt was watching her. It made my skin crawl. I wanted to go to Irina's apartment and lecture her on locking her door at night.
Elena Estes, Mother Hen.
I put the camera back where I had found it and went back into the bedroom, to the TV stand that housed another television and VCR. And a collection of porn. Multiple girls with one guy. Multiple guys with one girl. Lesbian sex. Lots of lesbian sex. Gay men. Some of the movies looked like they might have been violent, most didn't.
An equal opportunity perv, our Mr. Van Zandt.
I searched the drawers of the dresser and nightstands. I looked under the bed and found dust bunnies and some petrified dog turds. Van Zandt's patron needed a new cleaning person.
I found no tapes related to Erin's kidnapping. I knew the kidnapper had to have them. The tape that had been sent to the Seabrights was a full-sized VHS tape. Most modern camcorders were either digital or recorded on eight millimeter or a small VHSC cassette like the ones in the closet. The tape would then have been copied via VCR onto the larger tape. The kidnapper had also had access to more sophisticated audio equipment than any I had seen in the town house. The voice on the tape had been mechanically altered. If Van Zandt was involved in the kidnapping, he had the tapes and recording equipment stashed elsewhere.
Disappointed, I turned out the lights and went back downstairs. My internal clock was telling me it was time to go. I had lingered too long over the videotapes of the horses. I knew Landry would try to keep Van Zandt in the interview room as long as he could, but there was always the possibility Van Zandt would just get up and leave. He wasn't under arrest-that I knew of. He didn't even think the laws of the United States should apply to him.
I looked at the front door, but didn't move toward it. The idea of striking out had never appealed to me. I wanted to find something more incriminating than a porn habit, something-anything-that, even if it didn't tie him directly to the murder or the kidnapping, could at least be used as leverage against him in a future interview.
I went through the kitchen and let myself into a garage just large enough for one car and some storage lockers along one wall. The locker doors had padlocks on them. I didn't have the time to pop them. On top of the lockers were precarious piles of junk: a Styrofoam cooler, pool toys, cases of Diet Rite soda, a twelve-roll package of cheap toilet paper. In other words: nothing.
Plastic trash cans and recycling bins sat along the wall at the far end of the garage. I wrinkled my nose and went to them.
A criminal's garbage can be a treasure trove of evidence. Egg-coated, stinking evidence in most cases, but evidence nonetheless.
I pulled the lid off the first can and peered down into it. The only lightbulb in the garage was on the wall beside the kitchen door. The wattage wasn't enough to be of any real help to me. I wished I had brought my flashlight from the car, but there wasn't time to go get it.
I dug through the trash, having to get much too close to see what I was looking at. Junk mail, boxes and microwave trays from frozen dinners, egg cartons, egg shells, egg goo, Chinese take-out cartons, pizza boxes. The same garbage anyone might have. No credit card receipts, no to-do list that included murder and kidnapping.
I found a note that listed names of horses, a date, a departure time from Palm Beach, an arrival time in New York, flight number and times for a flight to Brussels. The horses he was shipping to Europe. I slipped the note into my jeans pocket. If Van Zandt was shipping horses out of the country, he could ship himself out of the country with them. He could fly with the horses and be gone from Landry's jurisdiction like a thief in the night.
Then I pulled the lid off the second trash container, and adrenaline rushed through my system like a drug.
The only item in the can was a shirt. The shirt that hadn't been run through the wash with the pants and socks and underwear-clothes taken off in haste and thrown in the machine together.
I had to lean down into the container to pick the shirt off the bottom. The smell of the can assaulted me, made my eyes water, turned my stomach. But I came back up with the shirt in hand and took it over by the light for a closer inspection.
Fine Egyptian cotton in a warm French blue. I held the shirt up to the light, looking for a monogram, wanting some positive ID the shirt belonged to Van Zandt. I found none, but there was something on the left side of the collar that might just as positively identify the owner: dark stains that looked like blood. The left front panel of the shirt had a large tear in it about halfway down with more blood.
My heart was racing.
Van Zandt might have cut himself shaving, a defense attorney would argue. And did he stab himself shaving too, a prosecutor would ask. The evidence suggested he might have been injured in a struggle, the prosecution would say.
I could easily picture Jill Morone fighting her attacker, arms flailing, fingers curled into claws, raking at him. She might have caught him on the neck, scratched him, he bled on the shirt. If the autopsy revealed skin beneath her fingernails… If Van Zandt had corresponding wounds on his neck… I hadn't noticed any, but he could have hidden them with his ever-present ascot. I thought of the stall in Jade's barn, of what I had thought might be blood on the pine bedding. Maybe from the second injury. She might have struck him with something, cut him with something. Maybe it wasn't liquor that accounted for Van Zandt's pallor that morning after all.