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“Sorry.”
“I’ll live.” She dug into a desk drawer, found a bottle of eyedrops and deftly administered them. “You know, everything’s digital now.”
“I know.”
“So why bother?”
“Helps me get into it.”
“Seems like you already were ‘into it.’ ”
How could he explain that he liked to see the evidence as it had come in, to touch it and smell it, to feel as if the details of the case were surrounding him in the twenty-year-old dust? Delacroix had grown up in the digital/virtual age where everyone had a cell phone and friends via social platforms. Reed needed more, something tactile and real. He needed to get his hands dirty.
But she was already back at the computer screen. “Also, a couple of things. According to the ME, the victims weren’t sexually molested.”
He felt a sense of relief. “Good.”
“I know. Right?” Her eyes met his. “Not that it matters now, I suppose, but . . . glad they didn’t have to suffer that on top of whatever else happened to them.” Reaching for her can of soda, she hit her glasses to send them skating across her desk and flying across the space between their desks. “Geez, I’m such a klutz,” she said as he picked up the pair, glanced through the lenses to see that they weren’t cracked, then handed them back to her.
“Not much of a prescription.” The lenses seemed clear, without any correction.
“I know.” She seemed embarrassed. “I’ve had them for years. Because I have what’s commonly called a ‘lazy eye.’ I guess I should have surgery, but I keep putting it off, you know. I mean, what if something goes wrong? I’m better off with these.” She held up the glasses by the bow, then slid them onto her nose, opened her can of soda, took a swig and was back to business. “Anyway, I talked to a few people who were at the theater that day, people who made statements.”
“And?”
“They are all sticking to their stories, which isn’t a surprise, but I was hoping for something that might change things up. But so far, no luck.” Another long swallow from her can. “I talked to most of the people who’d been at the theater that night, except for three I couldn’t locate as they’d moved and one who’d passed away. The others, let me see—nine of them, including the guy working the refreshment stand who also was the ticket taker and the cashier in the booth outside the front doors—but none of them had anything more to add.”
He wasn’t surprised, but it was still disappointing.
“No one saw Owen Duval go into the theater, that’s the thing, and if you look at the security footage, such as it is, he’s nowhere to be seen even though he bought a ticket. I sent you the link, by the way.”
Reed faced his desk, switched on the computer and scrolled through his e-mails until he discovered the link and opened it. The first footage was of people entering the theater. There weren’t many trickling in, so it was easy to spot the three blond girls. “There they are . . .” Delacroix said, rolling her chair over to his and pointing at the screen. Owen appeared in the camera’s eye as he approached, then slipped cash through a hole cut into the glass. The ticket taker slid four tickets back to him, along with some change, and he appeared to mutter a “thanks” as he passed out the tickets and placed his ticket and two dollars into his wallet.
“So he never went inside,” Reed said.
“Looks like.” Her eyes were narrowed as she stared at the images. “Now, watch, the camera angle changes because the department put all the film together.”
She was right. After the girls entered the building, the screen went dark for a few seconds, then the new black-and-white image of the lobby appeared; the girls waited for an older couple to order and take their drinks and popcorn before stepping up to the glass case and making their own selections, one big barrel of popcorn, three drinks and a box of some kind of candy.
“Red Vines,” Delacroix said as if it made any difference. “I talked to Gary Garvin, the guy behind the counter, and he remembered because the girls argued about what to buy, only had so much money so they had to split. He said the oldest girl, Holly, made the final choice and the middle girl, Poppy, wasn’t happy about it.” True enough; as the girls edged away from the counter, the middle girl was scowling, holding her drink but obviously mad as two teenaged boys approached the counter. “Did you talk to any of these guys?” he asked, motioning to the boys pushing each other and laughing, screwing around as they ordered.
“No, they were never located.”
“Seriously? Because they could have known Owen Duval, and because of it, might have paid more attention to what happened to him.”
“I sent you a list of everyone who was questioned. These guys weren’t located. No one recognized them.”
As Delacroix’s cell phone beeped and she checked an incoming text, Reed reversed the footage until it fell on the boys again. “One of them has braces.” He pointed to the blond with the long hair, his eyes nearly obscured by the pale fringe, a burst of freckles over a Roman nose. He was wearing a tank top, jacket and shorts and looked all of fourteen. The other was taller and seemed slightly more mature, more filled out, his face a roadmap of pimples, his dark hair curly and wild, his shoulders broad and straining the shoulders of a long-sleeved T-shirt that barely covered the waistband of his shorts, which were so low slung they nearly fell off his narrow hips. “We need to find these guys.”
“They tried,” she said, pocketing her phone. “At least Charles Easterling tried originally.”
“Well, we gotta try again. Let’s get a picture from the film of each boy. Make it as clear as possible and give it to the press, get it out there, see if anyone remembers them or if they come forward. They’ll be in their early to midthirties by now. If that doesn’t work, we’ll do computer enhancements, show what they look like today, like we did with Rose Duval, and see if we get a hit.”
Delacroix had retrieved her cell from her pocket and was nodding as she made notes on the device, but she paused, looking up. “You think that will work—the computer-generated images?”
“Won’t know until we give it a try.”
“But nothing’s come through on the youngest Duval girl, right, the one where we sent out the images?”
