“Yes,” she said slowly. “I mean, it’s a lot to take in. I don’t think I’m a prude. People have sex, sometimes with all the extras, and I’ve got nothing against that. Even when it’s your own father.” She paused. “But this... I don’t know what to think about this.”
I glanced back at the bed, spotted some items on the table next to it. Remotes, for the TV and the DVD player.
“Lucy, can you grab me those?”
“What?”
“Those remotes.”
She walked around the bed, appeared hesitant to grab them at first, but of the items I’d found in this room, the remotes were the ones I’d be the most comfortable touching. She handed them to me. I figured out which one was for the DVD player, powered it up, then hit the eject button. The tray slid out.
Empty.
Either Adam Chalmers was in the habit of taking the disc out of the machine when he was finished watching it, or whoever ransacked this place was thorough.
Even though my right knee was planted in shag carpeting, it was getting sore, so I switched to the other and, in the process, shifted in such a way that I caught a glimpse of something under the bed.
A black case. Plastic, it looked like.
I reached under, grabbed it by the handle, and slid it out.
“What’s that?” Lucy asked.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I flipped up the tabs on the front of the case and raised the lid. It was filled with soft gray foam, with cutouts to hold a camera and a couple of lenses that were packed neatly inside.
I pried out the camera. It was a nice, expensive model designed to take still photos or video.
“Oh my,” Lucy said.
I glanced back at the empty DVD cases. “Yeah. Looks like your father’s home movies are missing.” I thought a moment. “My guess is, someone was looking for the DVD they wanted, heard you come in, slipped out of this room with the discs, slid the shelf back into position, and took off out the back door.”
She nodded slowly.
“He probably figured he had time to go through the discs. Maybe they were labeled. Then he heard the door open, and he left these cases scattered all over the place.”
I studied her.
“Are you sure you didn’t know about this?” I asked. “You haven’t received a phone call since what happened at the drive-in? Someone offering to sell these back to you.”
Lucy shook her head. “Nothing like that. I swear.”
Maybe the call had yet to come. But did blackmail really make sense? The ones you’d want to blackmail, if you had these discs, would be Adam Chalmers and his wife, Miriam.
But they were dead.
“At least now we know what they were after,” I said. “We know what was taken. Do you want to bring the police into it now?”
Her mouth opened in horror. “God, no.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find these DVDs. Find out who has them. I don’t have any idea what’s on them and I really don’t want to know. But we need to get them back, and they need to be destroyed. There can’t be anything on them that I’d want anyone to see.”
“Your father’s reputation is important to you.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I mean, it’s partly that, but...”
“Your daughter,” I said.
Lucy nodded. “If these get out somehow, I can survive the embarrassment. But what about Crystal? You know how things are these days. Everything goes viral almost instantly. And even kids know what’s happening. I can’t bear the taunting she might endure, the humiliation. Or that she might go online one day and see this stuff herself, if that’s what the person who took those discs plans to do. To put them up on YouTube.”
“Sure,” I said.
I wondered where to start. Who might know about this secret room? The guy who built it, perhaps, although Adam Chalmers might have done the work himself. A cleaning lady, maybe, or a person authorized to come into the house to do some kind of repair work? But how would they know the room even existed? And if they did, why would they want the discs?
Who’d care about acquiring videos of Adam Chalmers and his wife getting it on? Especially after they were dead.
And then it hit me.
Adam and Miriam weren’t the only performers.
There were supporting players.
Angus Carlson had exited the Thackeray College admin building and was almost to his car when he heard someone yelling in his direction.
“Excuse me! You!”
Carlson was the only one crossing the parking lot, so there was a pretty good chance that whoever was shouting was shouting at him. He stopped and turned. The man he knew only as Peter, the one he’d pegged as a Thackeray professor who’d been talking to Duncomb, was trying to get his attention.
“Me?” Carlson said, pointing to himself.
Peter nodded, closed the distance between them. He was panting.
“Sorry. I was waiting for you to come out of Clive’s office, but I guess I missed you, didn’t realize you’d already left. Had to run when I spotted you. You’re with the police? You’re a detective?”
“That’s right,” he said. Acting detective, but he didn’t see any need to point that out. “Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Peter Blackmore. Professor Blackmore.” He extended a hand and Carlson took it. “English literature and psychology.”
“Okay.”
“I wondered if I could ask you a couple of questions. Kind of hypothetically.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“If someone is missing, how long do they have to be missing to be, you know, official?”
“Official?”
“Officially missing,” Blackmore said.
“Who are we talking about here?” Angus Carlson asked.
“It’s just a hypothetical.”
“Hypothetically speaking, is this missing person a four-year-old girl who didn’t show up at nursery school, a ninety-year-old man who wandered away from a nursing home, or a husband who ran off with his secretary?”
Blackmore blinked. “It’s none of those.”
“The point I’m trying to make is, it depends. A kid fails to show up for school, the police jump on it right away. You have to move quickly on something like that. An old guy who wanders off is pretty urgent, too, but at least with him you’re less worried that he’s the victim of an abduction. And the husband who runs off with his secretary, well, that’s not really a concern of ours at all. Depending.”
“I see,” Blackmore said, thinking.
“Maybe if you could be more specific.”
“It’s a bit like the third one you mentioned, but not exactly. Do I have to wait twenty-four hours before reporting someone missing? That’s what I’ve heard. That you have to wait twenty-four hours. Or is it forty-eight?”
Carlson shook his head. “That’s a TV myth. You can report someone anytime you want. If there’s reason to believe a crime was committed, that this missing person is in danger, the police will act right away. Was a crime committed in connection with this hypothetical disappearance?”
Blackmore paused, looked away. “Not that I know of, I guess. She just hasn’t come home.”
“Is it your wife, Professor? Is that who’s missing?”
He swallowed, hesitated, then said, “Maybe. I mean, yes, it’s my wife, but I can’t say for sure that she’s actually missing.”
“What’s her name?”
“Georgina Blackmore.”
“When did you last see her?” Carlson was reaching into his pocket for his notebook.
“Uh, yesterday morning, when I left home to come out to the college.”
“Does Mrs. Blackmore have a job?”
“Yes, yes, she does. She’s a legal secretary. At Paine, Kay and Dunn.”
“Did she show up for work yesterday?”