The Play of Light and Shadow & Writing by Barry Ergang Read Free Book Online Page B

was taken from his camera. Bart has a computer
in his office, so it’s reasonable to assume he has other disks in
there, too. What I’m getting at is what Detective Cochran pointed
out: the killer took an awful risk strangling Derek on the deck
with people just around the corner. Well, did he take the disk,
drop it in a pocket, and casually walk into their midst? He’d be
risking a search later. Or did he duck into the office, hide the
disk, and then stroll back through the house, nobody the
wiser?”
    Darnell grinned. “Maybe he should be running the investigation,”
he told Warner.
    “ Yeah, it’s another good thought. Let’s
have a look at the office.”
    My potentially illustrious moment was
short-lived. Warner examined the disks we found in Gaines’s desk on
the office computer. Those that weren’t blank contained only text
irrelevant to the case.
    Besides the desk, the only furniture was the
chair behind it, a leather sofa, and, lining the room,
floor-to-ceiling bookcases stuffed with volumes.
    “ Let’s start on the books,“ Darnell
said. “Give me a pair of gloves and I’ll help you look through
them. If the disk shows who I think it does, you‘ll have the
evidence you need for an arrest.”
    Warner held up a hand, palm out. “Wait
a minute. You said who . You
mean you know who’s behind this?”
    Darnell nodded.
    “ Since when?”
    “ A little while ago.”
    Warner exhaled loudly. “Y’know, you got
to Cochran immediately, and now you’re beginning to irritate me .”
    “ It’s the effect I have on people. I’ve
learned to live with it.”
    “ Stop being smart-assed and
talk.”
    He told us.
    “ What makes you think so?” Warner
asked.
    He told us that, too.
    Warner got gloves for Darnell, had a
uniformed man locate Cochran, and the three detectives spent nearly
two hours pulling books off of shelves, looking for one into which
the killer might have thrust the disk.
    “ Bingo!” Cochran said, holding a
leather-bound book in one hand, a disk in the other.
    Warner took it from him and inserted it into
the computer’s drive. The disk was filled with photos, date- and
time-stamped, that Derek had taken throughout the day. Among them
was the one Darnell expected. Cochran gave it a splenetic
examination, then transferred the look to Darnell.
    “ Score one for the P.I.,” he
muttered.
    “ I have no official standing,
remember?” Darnell said. “It’s your collar.”
    “ Do it quietly,” Warner admonished.
“Away from the crowd.”
    “ I know how it’s done,” Cochran
grumbled, and went off to arrest Carol Prentice.
     
     
    Half an hour later, we stood in the gallery
with the Gaineses and Julian Lakehurst, surrounded by color,
texture and perspective that blazed out at us from the surrounding
walls. Alexis slumped motionless on one of the padded benches,
numbed by champagne and grief.
    “ The Professor’s theory was close to
accurate,” Darnell said. “After killing Derek, Carol went into the
office, hid the disk until she’d have time to erase it, and then
went back to the party.”
    “ What was on the disk?” Marjorie Gaines
asked. Her usually crisp tone was subdued by the gravity of the
day’s events.
    “ A picture Derek took of Carol ducking
into the closet a few minutes before you and Dr. Gaines brought
your guests in here.
    “ She was a thief but not a killer—not a
deliberate one anyway. When we saw her after she’d strangled him,
she was pretty well out of it. It looked like she was upset about
the theft, but it was the killing that chewed at her.
    “ After Dr. Gaines won the auction, she
must’ve partnered with Derek. They knew each other from his visits
here with Alexis. She socialized with them. I don’t know how
intimate they were—she’s not talking till she gets lawyered-up. But
they were both ambitious. She needed him to create a diversion so
it’d look like Marchand pulled off the theft. Derek either got
greedy or decided he needed an insurance