Page 32 of Dead Man's List

Navarro moved his laptop to the table and brought up the recording.

Munro was sitting at his massive desk, clearly inebriated, a half-full bottle of whiskey at his elbow. He was looking at his phone, frowning, when the office door flew open. Munro fumbled for the drawer, but a man in a hoodie and a Halloween hockey mask beat him to the punch, racing across the room to hold his gun to Munro’s head.

“Drop the phone,”the intruder said, his voice deep and raspy. He wore the mask they’d seen in Munro’s security footage.

Munro did as commanded, the phone clattering to the desk.

“Turn off the cameras,”the man demanded.

Munro’s jaw tightened.“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll kill you where you sit.”

“What do you want from me?”

“What you owe me, you sonofabitch. Fifty grand, for starters.”

Munro looked startled, then slurred,“Oh, I know who you are.”

“Shut the fuck up and turn off the cameras.”

Munro grabbed his phone, but the intruder took it from his hand.“I have to use the app,”Munro insisted.

The man held the phone in front of Munro’s face. The phone’s home screen must have unlocked because the intruder put it on the desk and began tapping.

The feed went dark.

“That’s all we got,” Ryland said. “But the time stamp on this recording is three minutes after the garage camera was painted over and twenty minutes before the trailer was captured leaving Munro’s neighborhood. It’s also consistent with how long the dried blood was on the garage floor.”

“Was anything else missing?” Connor asked.

Ryland nodded. “Munro wore a Rolex watch in this video, but it wasn’t on the body and it’s not in the house. Brand new it retails for forty grand.”

Connor looked at Kit. “Between the Rolex and the Ferrari, sounds like a job for Goddard.”

Detective Bruce Goddard was in the robbery division and had helped them in the past. “Let’s call him.”

Ryland rose. “I’m headed to the lab. We’ve got more video to review. Munro had multiple servers that appear to hold up to six months of footage.”

Connor followed Ryland to the door. “Kit?” he asked when Kit stayed seated.

“I’ll be out in a minute.” She waited until Connor had closed Navarro’s door. “They’re going to find Sam on Munro’s footage.”

Navarro’s brows went up. “What? When? Oh.” His face settled into its resting scowl. “He went to Munro’s for that presentation about New Horizons, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“And he didn’t tell me because he’s still antsy about being a suspect.”

Kit nodded. “Exactly. Just wanted to give you a heads-up. He said he clearly said no to Munro, just in case he was being recorded, then reported the whole thing to Joel.”

“Thanks for telling me. Tell Dr.Reeves that he doesn’t need to worry about it.”

Kit had to admit to being relieved for Sam’s sake. “Thanks, boss.” She pushed away from the table. “We’ll work quickly, and I’ll call Sam right now and ask him to find out what he can about Shelley’s movements in the days before her death. Hopefully we can find out if she communicated with her killer about the trailer.”

“Thank you. Kit? Be safe.”

“Always.”

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