“Not to them, not to bunk mates, if it comes to that. Not a damn word. If they hook you up, I’ll get you out on bail as soon as I can find a judge.” Max took his hand away. “So hang tight. And-”
“And shut up,” Sly whispered; the detectives had reached our row of seats.
Lew hovered over Sly, as if his big body could shield that skinny kid from whatever the detectives might throw at him.
“Miss MacGowen, Mr. Miller,” Thornbury said. He extended his hand toward Max. “Counselor.”
“Detective.” Instead of accepting his hand, Max wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Lew had Sly under his wing. Max turned to Thornbury. “If you’ll excuse us, we are just leaving.”
Detective Thornbury stepped into the end of the row, effectively blocking our way. “I’d like a word-”
“My client has nothing more to say.”
Detective Weber smiled to himself, as if to say, God damn lawyers. Then, with his head cocked to the side, he asked, “Why does she think she needs an attorney?”
“She?” Max spun toward me as if just discovering I was there.
“You.” Weber jabbed a finger toward me.
Max put a hand against Sly’s back and gave him a little nudge.
“No need for you to hang around, son. I’ll catch up with you in the gallery in a little while.”
Without a word and without any hesitation, Sly and Lew slipped out behind the crowd.
“You lied to us, Miss MacGowen,” Thornbury said.
“I never lied to you.”
“There are sins of commission and sins of omission, Miss MacGowen,” Thornbury said. “Let’s talk about the latter.”
Max hooted at that. “What are you, a priest or a cop?”
Thornbury suddenly looked tired. He turned his shoulder to exclude Max. “Miss MacGowen, did you take pictures of Park Holloway when you found him?”
“Why do you ask?”
He sighed, shook his head as if to say that I was something akin to a boil on his skinny butt, and then, slowly, as if addressing an idiot, “You told us Friday night that you had gone to the administration building to shoot footage of the stairwell because that kid’s artwork was going to be hung there.”
“Is going to be hung there. True.”
“So you must have taken a camera with you.”
“There you are, a fine example of deductive reasoning, Detective,” Max proffered. Thornbury hadn’t taken his eyes off me. When I turned my focus back to him, he said, “So?”
“Yes, I had a camera.”
“And you took pictures?”
When Max nodded I said, “I shot some footage, yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that when we spoke to you earlier?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“We asked if you had any further information and you said no.”
“You asked what I knew about the murder,” I said. “I knew-I know-nothing about the murder.”
“Those pictures are evidence in a murder investigation.”
“Doubtful,” Max said. “I saw the footage. Might be useful in court to establish the scene of the crime for a jury, if you ever get a case filed. But otherwise? Maggie filmed nothing that the responding police and paramedics didn’t see for themselves, or the technicians photograph. And I’m sure you heard everything you needed to hear on the 911 tape.”
“Let us be the judge of that, Counselor. We need to see that film.”
Omitting Roger’s role in filming that night before the coroner and the detectives arrived, I said, “The photo card was given to the people from Scientific Services Bureau before you arrived Friday night.”
Thornbury wheeled on Weber. “Why don’t we know that?”
Weber held up his hands: he didn’t have an answer.
“But I made a copy first,” I said.
“We need to see it,” Thornbury said, doing the human version of eyes popping out of his head and steam coming out of his ears.
“Sure. Why not?” Max said with faux enthusiasm, as if the idea was wonderful and original. To me he said, “It’s movie time, honey. Where’s the popcorn machine?”
“In my classroom.”
Someone had traded the big black umbrella I’d left dripping in a bucket near the door for a tattered flowery affair with several broken ribs. Not a collegial thing to do, I groused to myself. Didn’t matter, though. Gusting wind made umbrellas useless. All of us were drenched by the time we walked across campus and reached the arts complex.
In the studio classroom, while the others found chairs, I booted the footage I shot before Roger sent me upstairs to take pictures of the body.
Detective Weber, who had let Thornbury do most of the talking so far, watched with interest as the big projection screen dropped electronically from the ceiling.
Blue light filled the screen, and then the card with time, date, place, and the project name, SLY: THE ARTIST AND HIS WORK, faded in. The unedited footage followed.
On that eventful Friday afternoon, I started filming as I approached the administration building. Reflected in the tall glass doors were the campus quad and the buildings on the opposite side. Out of camera range, I tapped the automatic door opener that was there to accommodate the disabled, and two of the tall doors slowly opened outward.
Immediately, the screen went white.
“What did you do there?” Thornbury demanded, sitting up straight. “Did you fool around with the film here? You cut something out?”
“It’s just flare,” I said. “When the door opened, sunlight bounced off the marble floor and hit the camera lens. Same thing that happens to your eyes when there’s a flash of light. Hang on, give it a minute.”
Details of the administration building lobby began to emerge as if out of a fog as I walked with the camera further into the room, away from the tall front windows and the glare on the floor in front of them. First, details of the teak-paneled walls could be discerned, and then a granite-top reception counter and the broad, graceful sweep of the stairway behind it became clear.
Thornbury grunted something that I took to be the Oh yeah moment, acknowledgment that if I had cut the footage I had cut it elsewhere.
I nodded toward the screen. “Here comes your money shot, detectives.”
Standing in the middle of the stairwell, I raised the camera lens straight up toward the ceiling and found the soles of Holloway’s shoes. The recorder picked up a noise that sounded like someone choking. It was me, realizing what I was seeing.
I turned up the sound: “This is 911. What is your emergency?”
They listened to the 911 call, though I knew they had heard it already, as they watched the film.
The only new information to them was the call I had placed to Roger from the phone on the reception desk while I waited for the paramedics.
When the paramedics rattled the front doors, I put the camera inside my bag because I didn’t want them to think that the camera with its long lens could be a lethal weapon. The camera continued to record sound, but from that point there was nothing to see.
We heard a confusion of voices, then I said, “He’s in the stairwell,” and five sets of footsteps could be heard crossing the polished floor.
I turned to Detective Thornbury as I pushed Pause. “That’s it. The rest you know.”
“You made another call when you were on with 911. Who was it?” he asked.
“Chief Tejeda, of course. There was a dead man.”
“Tejeda?” He glanced at Weber as if this was somehow significant. “How well do you know Tejeda?”
I shrugged. “Well enough.”
“You sounded like you were talking to an old friend.”
“We’re friendly. It’s a small town.”
“You don’t live in Anacapa,” he said, scowling, challenging me. “So how did you get so close to the police chief?”
“His wife was my college roommate,” I said.
“Yeah? She works here, doesn’t she? Some sort of teacher? She get you this temp job?”
Max leaned past me to address Thornbury. “Ms MacGowen’s network of friends and her work history are germane to this event how, Detective? Or are you working up the courage to ask her for a date?”