“Uh, sure. Heh heh,” he fake laughed. The detectives weren’t amused as they crowded around the desk.
Without requesting a warrant, he dutifully pulled up the video system. I flicked my gaze to the detectives to gauge if they found this a little too compliant, but their own attention was drilled onto the manager.
Once he was ready, he glanced up at me. “What time are you looking for?”
Instead of answering, I waited for the detectives to answer. See? I could play nice.
Sullivan’s chest swelled as he glared first at me, then the manager. Tom, if the nameplate was correct. “Between seven and ten last night. We want to see anyone who left through the back door.”
Tom gulped and nodded. “Sure, sure.”
We all waited patiently as we watched him find the right time block, then it moved six times the normal speed. The hallway was pretty quiet, surprisingly.
Oh wait. There went Tom with a rather tall, broad-shouldered woman. Stopping her at the door, they kissed for what must have been five minutes, if the kiss was this long on fast forward, then he tapped her ass and she grabbed his package and disappeared into the alley.
And his face when he turned around? Definitely that of a man doing something he shouldn’t be.
I almost snickered, especially when I noticed the ring on his finger, but that wasn’t my monkey or my circus.
Another hour sped by and this time, something much more interesting popped up on the screen. Sullivan's breathing changed. That told me the guy coming up the hallway was our vic in the alley. He wasn't a little guy, so he filled the frame, but there—just alongside him was a more slender figure. The shadows obscured her features, not that the quality on the video was great to begin with.
The guy turned at the door, pushing her up against the wall and blocking our view again. Then he was pushing her out the door. Her.
Sullivan had his phone to his ear. "We need to add a possible abduction. Female. Looks about 5'7, brown hair—"
"Blonde," his partner argued. "5'4 more like."
"No distinguishing features. Wearing what looks like a black dress."
"Not a dress, it's a skirt and top." The partner corrected again, but I ignored them. Because the minute the pair vanished out the door. They were gone. The vic—well, we knew what happened to him. But I didn't think she'd gone missing.
No, she was the one I'd been looking for.
"You got video out front?"
"In the bar?" The manager asked, sweat beading his forehead.
"No, in the bathroom, jackass."
"Oh, well, we got a couple of cameras. One on the till and the other on the door."
The detectives were having a hissed argument and I ignored them as the manager changed the view with a few keystrokes. "Same time frame?"
"Let's start there."
Monday nights were slow, but not that slow. Easily a dozen people came or went over the course of each half-hour. The bar would have been packed by eight. Every time a woman entered, I'd slow the video playback and study her.
Sullivan slammed his way out of the office, but his partner returned to view the tapes with me. The sour smell of flop sweat rolling off our manager irritated my nose, but I wanted to check each one. By the time we hit ten, she hadn't put on an appearance. Our vic had, right at nine. We freeze framed it and sent a shot to the detective's phone for identification purposes.
"Take us back to when you first opened."
"Um...we don't usually turn the cameras on until six," the guy admitted.
"Why?" the detective demanded. I really should ask her name, but I really didn't care.
"Cause most of our afternoon crowd are—you know…just...locals and friendlies."
"Men or women hooking up and cheating and they'd prefer not to be caught on tape."