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“Will do. Thanks, TJ.”
“You’re welcome.” I left, crossed the driveway and my own front lawn, then went to my other neighbors, the Wax-Gormans. Susanne was a librarian, and her husband, Jim, worked as a graphic designer. Their cars were in the driveway, and I hurried up the path to the front door, a lacquered black with no Ring doorbell. My hopes sank but I knocked anyway.
Susanne answered, her blue eyes sharply intelligent. “TJ, good morning.”
“Hi, sorry to bother you. I’m wondering if you have a Ring camera on your back door, by any chance?”
“No, we don’t.” Susanne shook her head, and her silver earrings swung back and forth. “I keep thinking we should get one. The Hennesseys have one.”
“Only out front.”
“Why do you ask? Is there a problem?”
I told Susanne the same story, and she arched an eyebrow.
“TJ, you think the burglar went in through your back window?”
“Yes.”
“So he climbed your back fence?”
“He must have.”
“Come in.”
•••
I stood with Susanne under a magnolia tree, next to the fence that divided our backyards. The magnolia sprouted white buds and its branches also hosted a white plastic birdhouse, with a camera inside. Good news for me, but bad news for birds who don’t want their picture taken.
“There’s a camera in thebirdhouse?” I asked, amazed. “Why?”
“To watch the birds remotely.” Susanne scrolled through her phone. “See the little tray? I put birdseed there and I love to watch them. I use safflower seeds because squirrels don’t like them.”
“You watch it on your phone?”
“Yes, when I can. There’s an app.” Susanne showed me her phone, then thumbed through pictures of blue jays and robins. The focus was excellent, and in the background was a section of my backyard fence.
Bingo.“It could show someone climbing into my backyard.”
“Yes, it could.”
“Please tell me it takes pictures.”
“Yes, videos, too.” Susanne pointed to a gray line on the phone screen. “This shows there was activity I missed. I don’t watch it all the time, obviously.”
“So if we go to those gray lines, we’ll see if it detected a bird or anything else?”
“Yes. It even has night vision. When do you think you were broken into?”
“I don’t know. Within the past few days? Maybe a week?”
Susanne checked her watch. “Hmmm. It would take a long time to go through that much video, and I have to get to work.”
“Can you send the video to me, so I can look myself?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I sat at my laptop, staring at the screen. The video from the birdhouse camera gave me an excellent view of a man climbing over my fence. It was Barry Rigel.
