Fighting Chance(52)

“People think they can do all kinds of fancy stuff in the restrooms,” Tony said.

“And?”

“We have pictures of about forty people who came in through the front door that morning and who then went down the corridor to the bathrooms,” Ray said. “The way the cameras are positioned, you can’t actually tell who goes into one of the bathrooms and who just keeps going into the next corridor, and unfortunately—”

“The camera in the next corridor had been tampered with,” Tony said.

“We do have some blurry stuff from that camera,” Ray said. “We think a total of seven people went down that corridor. Not including Judge Handling. She didn’t use that corridor, as far as we can tell. There’s a door behind the judge’s bench in every courtroom and it leads directly into the corridor where the chambers are.”

“And you could see, clearly, that Father Tibor Kasparian used that corridor?” Gregor asked.

“Hell, Mr. Demarkian. Everybody used that corridor,” Ray said. “Father Kasparian. The Maldovanian kid’s brother. That woman who started screaming and brought the police down on the scene.”

“Janice Loftus,” Tony said.

“Yeah, Dr. Janice Loftus,” Ray said. “There’s a good two dozen people we don’t know who they are yet. There are other people we know who they are but we don’t think they matter. Attorneys. Law enforcement and court staff.”

“But you are sure that Father Tibor Kasparian was one of these people,” Gregor said.

“Sure,” Ray said. “He’s one of the ones we’ve got twice. The first time was at ten forty-two. The second time was at eleven fifteen.”

“What about coming back?” Gregor asked. “If the camera caught people going to the bathroom, wouldn’t it catch them leaving?”

“Leaving can be harder to figure out,” Ray said. “The camera’s pointing the wrong way. You get people’s backs. Sometimes you can recognize them, but sometimes you can’t. If they’re dressed in a sort of nondescript way, and there are a lot of people milling around, it can be hard to pick out particular people and be sure of it.”

“We’ve got Father Kasparian pegged going down the corridor the first time,” Tony said. “Then we’ve got him going down it again the second time. But we can’t find him coming back up after the first time. That’s going to be a windfall to discovery, if Kasparian ever gets his act together.”

“Unless he pleads out,” Ray said.

“He’s not going to plead out,” Tony said. “He’s already said he isn’t going to plead out. He doesn’t want to plead at all.”

“Still,” Ray said. “I bet it’s coming.”

“This is what I want you to do for me,” Gregor said. “I want you to list everybody who appears on that camera starting at ten thirty and going all the way to eleven forty. Every single person. Even if you can’t identify them. Then I want you to get me—can you send me the video from the camera? That’s possible, isn’t it?”

Tony and Ray gave Gregor a look that said, plain as day, it was possible, but neither of them had the least idea of how to do it.

2

They went back upstairs to the Homicide Division proper, and found George Edelson waiting patiently on a chair in the corner. On second thought, Gregor decided that Edelson was not being so patient as he seemed. His fingers were drumming against his knees. His feet were pumping up and down on the balls, making his knees look like pistons.

“Well?” he said when Gregor came in behind Tony and Ray.

Tony explained in just enough words to convey the nature of the operation, but not quite enough to make it clear. Then he went over to a cubicle and sat down. “This is mine,” he said. Then he logged in to his computer.

The cubicle was stacked with files, on the sides of the desk and on the floor. There was a small old-fashioned filing cabinet in one corner. The top of the CPU was also covered with files. The monitor, being a flat screen, couldn’t hold them.

“The best way I can figure how to do this,” Tony said, “is to forward the video to your phone. I can do that with videos on my phone. I don’t see why I couldn’t do that from this computer. It occurs to me, though, that there’s something else you might want to see.”

“What’s that?” Gregor asked.

“We’ve been putting together a minute-by-minute schedule of everybody who came in and out of that corridor, to the extent that we know who they are,” Tony said. “We haven’t gotten very far yet, and it’s taking frigging forever—”