Dammit. She bent down, pushed back the door on the VCR, and tried to see inside. Black hole, but no tape. The camera had no storage tape or disk.
But the VCR remained powered on.
Someone had gotten here before her.
That had to be the case.
Unless Shelley had had the tape with her the night she was murdered.
But Braddock said they’d never hooked up to follow through on the pseudo taped scene for Nash. It didn’t make sense that the equipment was turned on but there was nothing inside.
No dust on the equipment, which meant it hadn’t been up here long.
Could there be other tapes hidden up here somewhere?
CJ looked around the attic, at all the boxes. Only one way to find out.
She searched the next box, then the next and the next after that. Old toys. Mostly junk. As she scooted across the boards she noticed that wherever she stepped, the dust was, of course, disturbed, leaving an easy-to-follow trail of where she’d been.
Digging the flashlight from her waistband, she scanned the floor carefully. Other trails where the dust had been disturbed jumped out at her. There had definitely been some serious traffic up here.
As she followed each trail of disturbed dust, she found another spot, still over Shelley’s room—the one they had always shared. A perfect square of the wood floor, approximately twelve by fifteen inches, was relatively dust free. A small hole, this one about the size of a dime, was nearby.
Had Shelley changed the placement of the equipment?
CJ moved back to the VCR and camera she’d found beneath the box. The hole for the camera was so close to the light fixture it wouldn’t be easy to see from below. The camera was one of the high-tech sorts, along snakelike projectile that would curl or twist into most any position. Similar to the kind used for performing exploratory surgery.
Wait. CJ stared at the small hole.Wait. Wait. This wasn’t the hole she’d seen from the bedroom. The one she’d noticed was the other one. Her gaze shifted to the second place, where she’d estimated that maybe Shelley had first set up the equipment.
But there was no electrical access there.
CJ looked around the attic again. An outlet had been installed on one of the rafters. She made her way to the outlet. New. Much newer than the ones in the house.
Why hadn’t Shelley used an extension cord to access this spot? Why go to the trouble to tie another outlet into the light fixture’s hot wire? Then she got it. The VCR and camera had been hidden beneath a box. An extension cord running to the overhead outlet would have given away what was concealed under the box.
What had her sister been up to? Had she been making videos and blackmailing her johns, those who were married or held prestigious positions in the community? Those who would do anything to prevent being exposed?
What the hell were you doing, Shelley?
1407 Dubose Street, 3:30 p.m.
CJ parked her car in front of Tyrone’s house and got out. She was covered in soot and dust. Her clothes were wringing wet with sweat. She had searched the entire attic and every single box.
The effort had not been for naught, she had found a single tape in one of the boxes.
“Dr. Patterson?”
She glanced back at the car that had pulled up behind hers. Jenkins was climbing out.
She wheeled on him. “You listen to me, Detective,” she snarled, surprising herself with the ferocity. “This won’t take long. You stay in your damned car, do you understand me? If I need you, you’ll hear me scream.”
He blinked. “Ah ... okay. Yes, ma’am.” He climbed back into his car.
CJ turned back to Tyrone’s house. Took a breath and pushed the hair out of her face as she hustled up the sidewalk. Like her clothes, her ponytail had wilted. But she didn’t care how she looked or how she smelled.
“Better turn your nasty ass right back around,” one of Tyrone’s goons advised. He lounged in a generic plastic chair on the end of the porch where the overgrown trees provided the most shade.
“I need to see Tyrone,” she said, not slowing down. She stopped on the porch and glared at the man. “Now.”
