the picture another 20 percent, I get only marginal improvement. I’m at the limits of the camera and the viewing program. Staring intently at the second man’s features, and the way his head sits on his shoulders, I recognize the face of one of the men with the Poker Club guys at the groundbreaking ceremony. He was standing just outside the Prime Shot tent, drinking a beer from a bottle. It’s Dave Cowart, the contractor Jet got sent to jail for a year. Cowart works for Beau Holland, the man who tried to assault me on the roof of the Aurora Hotel last night.
“Thank you, whoever you are,” I murmur, wondering who could have broken into my vehicle and taped the drive to my steering wheel. I search the background of the image for landmarks but see none. Only darkness.
Then I go still. The image has a time and date stamp in its bottom left corner. Because I’ve always seen these on game camera photos, I didn’t think anything about it. But on this photo, it means everything. This photo was shot two nights ago, at 1:17 a.m.
Buck was murdered two nights ago.
“Don’t tell me,” Nadine says, backing through the door with a box of books. “Some local hottie left you nude selfies.”
“Take a look,” I say, leaning back to give her room. “A lot better than selfies.”
She leans forward and studies the screen for fifteen seconds.
“That’s Buck,” she says softly. “I see his ponytail!”
“Yep.”
“Who’s the other man?”
“Dave Cowart. The contractor Jet sent to jail for rigging bids. He works for Beau Holland. And that time stamp says this was shot on the night Buck was killed.”
Nadine turns slowly to me, her eyes flickering with excitement. “What are you going to do?”
“Copy it onto your hard drive first, if that’s okay.”
She nods. “After that?”
“Make about ten more copies, then give one to the police.”
“They won’t do a damn thing with it.”
“Probably not. But I have to give it to them.” With a couple of clicks I save the image to Nadine’s desktop.
“Are you going to print it in the paper?” she asks. “That’s what I want to know.”
“Oh, I think you can count on that.”
“Who the hell shot that picture?”
“I think it was captured on an automatic game camera. A trail camera. Someone must have put some up to cover the mill site. I didn’t see any last night, but then I didn’t see much but dirt and bricks.”
“So there could be pictures of you from last night? Of us?”
A ripple of fear goes through my chest. “There could be.”
Almost of its own accord, my right forefinger moves toward the image, then hovers, moving up and down. Something’s coming to me . . .
“Marshall?” Nadine says. “What are you doing?”
“This is why there were no guards out there the night Buck was killed. They replaced the human guards with automated trail cameras. Somebody saw Buck on a picture like this, taken on a game camera. And they knew they could go out there and kill him.”
“In real time, you mean?”
“I’m pretty sure some of those cameras can send images to your cell phone. The newer, more expensive ones.”
“Are you saying someone lured him out there?”
“Removing the security guards would have given Buck a false sense of security. When he didn’t see any guards, he felt secure enough to trespass and dig again. But they still had live surveillance. The early trail cameras, you had to go out and physically remove the SD card and then view the pictures at home. But the new ones have SIM cards. If that’s what happened, the killer could have been sitting in a bar, gotten a JPEG over his phone, and had plenty of time to drive out there and kill him.”
“So . . . there might be pictures of the murder?”
“If I’m right, there could be. These cameras are triggered by motion. Maybe heat as well, I don’t know. It all depends on whether Buck was killed within view of one of those cameras.”
“How many pictures would the camera have shot?”
“As few as one, but maybe dozens. I don’t know enough about them. I’ll have to do some research. The question is, who broke into the Flex and left it for me? I was thinking it must be the person who cracked your safe. But . . . it can’t be. This person is trying to help me.”
Nadine bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “Maybe the whole town’s not against you.”