Page 35 of Just Tonight

It was astonishing, the effect that silence had. Cami had seen it before, and she couldn't help but be impressed by it all over again. It wore even the angriest person down. It was a very powerful weapon. She remembered her own experience on the wrong side of the desk at the FBI offices and how uncomfortable it had made her. It was a chance for your imagination to start running away with you.

Eventually, Connor spoke.

“You seemed very eager not to chat to us when we approached you in that downstairs basement bar, Mr. Langdon. You went to serious effort to get away, and then hide from us. I’m wondering why you ended up doing all of this?”

Boyd looked down.

“I don’t have to tell you a thing,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You don’t,” Connor agreed conversationally. “We can sit here all night. I’m happy with doing so. I’ve done far more before. I’m a patient person, as you’ll find.”

Now, Boyd was starting to look alarmed.

“However, it might be quicker and easier for us to get to the point. That being: why did you act so guiltily when you saw us arrive?” He paused. “We’re investigating a very serious crime. So if it happens that you are not, in fact, guilty of a very serious crime, then I'd recommend you tell us. It'll save time. Minor offenses, right now, we're not interested in pursuing."

That was like a lifeline. Cami saw, to her astonishment, that Boyd was looking as if he'd just been given a chance he'd never expected to have. For the first time, his face looked less dislikeable, less closed in, and defensive.

Could it be that he was only guilty of a minor offense?

Surely not, Cami thought, feeling a flash of panic because they had no other suspects. He was the only employee who was in the area, worked with the smart homes, and would have had the opportunity to commit the crimes.

“I – I was, maybe, guilty of a minor offense,” he mumbled. “You see, my girlfriend, she recently broke up with me, and I was planning to get back at her in a petty way. I was figuring out if I could reprogram one of the apps she had on my computer, to order her a whole stack of different pizza deliveries that she and her new boyfriend would have to pay for.” He sighed. “But I felt really guilty about it, and then the app malfunctioned and said I had made an illegal move on it. I was trying to reconfigure the setting, and then you arrived and I guess – I guess I overreacted and thought you’d come looking for me because the app had reported me for fraud.” He bowed his head.

That? That was the revenge? That was the suffering he’d planned? Pizza?

Cami nearly spluttered out loud in astonishment. She’d imagined it to be something so much worse. What he’d said did fit in with actions she’d seen – but she’d been viewing them in a far more suspicious light.

“Do you know who Lisa Court is?” Connor asked.

Cami watched him closely, but his face didn't even twitch at the name. However, she told herself not to get too excited about that because he'd been very poker-faced when they'd been sitting in that game. He clearly did know how to control his expression.

“Why are you asking me?” he said. “Is she a – a victim or something?”

Connor nodded. “Yes. She’s a murder victim. Do you know Debbie Maynard?”

To her surprise, some light dawned in Boyd’s face.

“Yeah,” he said. “Debbie, I know about. She was on my list for following up. She called me and said there were things going wrong with her smart home functionality. That was last week.”

Now, Cami’s eyes were wide. She was the one who’d lost her poker face.

“And did you help her?” Connor asked.

“Yeah,” Boyd said. “I reset the system and checked it was all working correctly. She was happy, so we ended the call. I did it all remotely, but I was due to call her – not tomorrow, the day after, I think – to make sure it was working.”

There was a silence. Cami felt sure that Connor, too, was taking in this puzzling twist of circumstances.

“When was this?” he asked.

“It was last week. Thursday or Friday, I think.”

So the smart home had been giving problems for a couple of days. Then Boyd had fixed it, but it clearly had not stayed fixed. Because it had been nonfunctional when Cami had seen that screen. Her mind racing, she wondered how on earth this was possible. Assuming Boyd was not the killer – which was not yet established, but was now looking more likely – how was this murderer managing to interfere with the workings of the smart homes.

Even after it had been fixed? He’d broken it again, and Cami was sure he’d done that so he could get into the house. That was why he was sabotaging them. It gave him an easy way in, and more than that, it would scare his victims.

“Who knows the codes?” Connor pressured Boyd. “Who’d be able to get into the system and do such a thing? How would it happen?”

“Well, we all have access to the master codes,” he said. “They are specific to each house. Some of the homeowners change theirs, but because it requires coming on site and doing an actual physical reset, most people leave theirs the way they are when we install them.”

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