Page 39 of Summer Shivers
He does as I instruct. I take note of the time and watch the scene unfold. It’s like something out of a bad movie. Harrison is sitting on a chair at the edge of the pool having just finished his swim. His elbows rest on his knees and his head is hung down. My guess is, catching his breath after the workout. Twin figures dressed all in black approach him from behind. He doesn’t appear to hear them.
One hits him on the back of the head with a rock. The other pushes him back into the pool.
The water tinges pink around his head as he floats lifelessly, the wound on his head bleeding. The pair watch him for ninety-seven seconds before heading toward the house, rock still in hand. Something to the left catches their attention, and they pause before running out of the camera’s frame.
“Find where they went,” I tell the tech guy. He scrolls through everything again, not finding them. Until he pulls up footage of the driveway, the two figures get into the back seat of a dark-colored BMW before it pulls away from the far side of the house.
I pace the room trying to work out what's happened.
“Martin, work this out with me. What do we know for sure? Two people killed him. A third person drove the car. BMW.”
Martin gets up and grabs a pen from the whiteboard on the wall and writes:
two murderers
one driver
erased surveillance footage
BMW
“We know the ex-wife has a key to the house,” I continue.
“Maybe she erased it then,” the tech guy says laughing.
It hits me like a load of bricks. “What’s your name, again?” I ask him.
“Eddie,” he says.
“Eddie, you’re a fucking genius.”
He flushes under my praise.
“Can we get access to her erasing what she erased in the same way we got what she erased?”
“I think so?” Eddie looks at me, quizzically, saying it more like a question than a statement.
“There’s no surveillance in the safe room, right?” I confirm.
“No,” Eddie says.
“But there is in Harrison’s office, which is where the door to the safe room is,” Martin adds, understanding where I’m going with this.
“Exactly,” I say. “Is there a way to know when the original recordings were erased?”
“You mean, like a date?” Eddie asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“No,” he says.
“Okay, let’s try footage from yesterday and the day before.”
It takes a while, but we finally hit paydirt with Sarah Daniels going back to the house yesterday. She accessed the safe room, was there for close to ten minutes, then left.
“She fucking erased the footage,” I say to no one in particular.
“Would appear that way,” Eddie adds unnecessarily.
