“He parked too close to the gate,” I said. “He had to back up so he could open it. I would never make that mistake.” Neither would Miranda, who drove into the gate more often than I did these days.
“Good,” said Burt. “I’ll be sure to ask you about that on the witness stand.”
“But won’t the DA say that I was just trying to look like I wasn’t me?”
“Maybe,” Burt said, “but if you were smart enough to act dumb about this, wouldn’t you be smart enough not to drive your own damn vehicle?”
“Wait a minute,” I laughed, “you’ve already got me confused.”
He smiled and took a bow. “Confusion, my friend, is only a hop, skip, and a vote away from reasonable doubt.”
The man walked back into the frame, again keeping his head down and turned slightly to the right, away from the camera. He swung the chain-link gate outward and the wooden gate inward, then walked back to the truck and idled through the gate. Then the wooden gate closed behind him. Burt pointed to the time code in the upper right corner of the screen; it read 5:03 A.M. “Pretty shrewd,” he said. “Early enough that nobody else is out and about yet.”
“The hospital shift change isn’t till seven,” I agreed.
“But it’s close enough to daybreak so the guy watching the camera feeds will figure that crazy Dr. Brockton is up really early today. Those guys all know what your truck looks like, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “They’ve seen me drive in there hundreds of times. Hell, I’ve given every campus cop and hospital security guard a tour of the place.”
“And this guy knows that somehow,” Burt said. “Knows they know your truck.”
Owen scrolled forward in the clip until the man opened the wooden gate and pulled out. This time, he pulled far enough forward to clear the chain-link gate. As he closed both gates behind him, I studied the truck more closely. This time it was angled slightly down the parking lot, slightly downhill, so more of its roof was exposed. “I’ll be damned,” I said. “Stop.”
“What?” Burt asked.
“Look at the roof of the cab.”
“What about it?”
“What’s that dark patch?”
Owen worked his mouse, cranking up the brightness and doubling the size of the image. “It’s a moonroof,” he said.
I laughed. Wildly. Hysterically.
“What’s so funny?” asked Burt.
“My truck…doesn’t have…a roonmoof,” I gasped. “A moonroof.”
“You’re sure?” said Burt.
“Sure I’m sure. It was an option, but it cost an extra five hundred bucks, and I was too damn cheap.”
Burt, Thomas, and I exchanged high fives.
“Oh God, I feel better,” I said.
“Me too,” said Burt. “I actually believe you now.”
“You didn’t before? You acted like you did.”
“It’s a courtesy thing,” he said. “My clients always claim they’re innocent. I aways pretend to believe them. It’s more convenient all the way around. Not many of them are telling the truth.” He looked me in the eye. “Doc, I’m really glad you’re one of the exceptions.”
Owen cleared his throat. “Are we through bonding? Shall we look at the rest of this?”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s see what else we can see.” I could feel excitement stirring, the same excitement I often felt at death scenes whenever I began finding clues in decaying flesh and damaged bones.
What we saw was another handful of details that would clearly refute the prosecution’s claim that this was my truck. The wheels had five spokes; mine, I knew-I had recently had to replace one-had six spokes. One headlight angled crazily down and toward the right. “That’s good,” said Thomas. “Headlight spray patterns are as distinctive as fingerprints. Unless yours are misaligned in that same way, that’s very persuasive. And if we can find a truck like this, with a headlight spray like this, we’ve nailed it.”
“Even if we can’t,” said Burt, “we can get footage of the Doc’s truck in that same spot at night and show how his headlights differ, right? And show he’s got no moonroof?
”
“Right,” said Thomas. “This will blow the jurors away. Jurors love this shit. This is nearly as good as CSI.”
I no longer begrudged Thomas his $3,000 a day. He had earned it just now, I figured, and then some. In fact, he’d earned every damn cent I had forked over to Burt DeVriess so far. “Will you tell all this to Evers and the DA, or wait and spring it at the trial?” I asked Burt.
“Actually, I’ll file a motion to dismiss as soon as I get Owen’s report,” he said. “We’ll get some good press. But the judge won’t dismiss the case. Too much other evidence. No judge in his right mind would dismiss a case against a guy whose bed is drenched in his dead lover’s blood.” He shook his head. “A shame those sheets didn’t just disappear.”
“I play by the rules,” I said. And then I thought of something else. “This guy knows that, too. He was counting on that. Counting on the fact that I’d call the cops when I found the sheets. Giving me the rope he knew I’d use to hang myself.”
“Then that tells us even more about him,” Burt said. “Maybe a name will pop into your head in the wee small hours. Maybe Evers will have another, friendlier chat with us. Maybe he’ll start asking and thinking about who else might have done this. Start casting his net a little wider.”
Burt clapped Thomas on the shoulder; Thomas flinched, either from the force of it or from the violation of his boundaries. “Okay, I think we’re done for now,” Burt said. “How soon can you send me that report?”
“I’ll write it on the plane and e-mail it to you to night. That soon enough?”
“Yeah, that’ll do; thanks. Chloe will be in touch once we have a trial date. I’m gonna go start drafting that motion.” As he left the conference room, Burt yanked up the blinds, flooding the room with light. It was that scrubbed version of sunlight that follows a hard spring storm. I took it as a good omen.