the adult film business when you two had lunch, did anything seem off about her that you noticed? Was she tense, unfocused? Did she seem scared?”
“No, not really. We just had lunch and that was it. I was surprised that she was giving up such a great gig, but I can understand it. I plan on doing it for maybe two more years and then I’m going to nursing school. There’s a shortage.”
“Good for you,” said Blum. “And a much better way to spend your life.”
“I hope you’re not judging my decisions,” Clemmons said, frowning.
“I could lie and say I’m not, but everyone always judges everyone else’s decisions. My mother was the queen of that.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“I could very well be your mother. And I’m sure she wants you to be happy and safe. And like it or not, a career in nursing is safer and healthier than one in adult films, at least if you look at the statistics.”
“But the money is so good.”
“Of course it is, Beth. That’s the whole point. But would you rather be helping a child get well, or help a male actor get off?”
“You’re very blunt.”
“I’ve lived long enough to know when politeness is required and when directness gets me to where I need to go. I do wish you the best of luck.”
Pine rose and so did Blum. Pine handed Clemmons a business card and said, “Anything else occurs to you, please let me know.”
Clemmons looked down at the card. “And you’ll let me know when you catch whoever did this?”
“We will,” said Pine. She knelt down to tie her shoelaces, rose, glanced inscrutably at Blum, and then they left.
* * *
They met back up with Wallis in the lobby. He looked excited.
“They do have exterior cameras here. I got them to pull what they have. They have a little room in back for us to watch it. I asked the concierge if he had ever known of a guy visiting Rebane, but he didn’t. The same for the security guard on duty. I asked them to check with their counterparts to see if they ever had. And we’ll canvass her neighbors with the same question.”
He led them to a room at the rear of the lobby where a uniformed security guard was at a control board. Wallis gave him the date parameters and the man loaded the info onto the system.
They stood behind him and watched the TV monitor on the board come to life.
An hour later Pine saw it first. “There, coming out the front door. Freeze that.”
The guard hit a key on the board, and the picture they were looking at stopped right there.
Wallis eyed the time stamp on the side of the frame. “That was probably the night her roommate was staying at her boyfriend’s.”
“Let it run now,” said Pine.
The guard did so, and they all watched Hanna Rebane walk out the front doors of the building and move out of range of the cameras. She encountered no other person on the way.
“She’s dressed like she’s going on a date,” noted Blum, who peered closely at the image. “Designer dress, handbag, and shoes that don’t look like knockoffs.”
Wallis stared at her. “You can tell all that from the video? That’s impressive.”
Blum glanced at him. “You just have to know what to look for, Detective. Plus, she had all those designers in her closet.”
They watched the film for a long time.
However, Hanna Rebane never came back.
Chapter 23
IT WAS QUITE LATE as they drove to Andersonville in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Pine stared out the window at countryside she had seen only decades ago as a child. It was beautiful land: open fields intermingled with large stands of pine and oak trees. And yet there was an isolation here, which meant a great deal of criminal activity could flourish without serious challenge.
And it did flourish that night in Andersonville with no challenge at all.
Wallis dropped them off at the Cottage and promised that he would see if there were any other surveillance cameras near the apartment building that might pick up where the visuals around Rebane’s residence had left off.
“In addition to canvassing her neighbors, you also need to get a tech team over there to dust for prints and collect other traces,” Pine had told him. “Whoever she might have been seeing could have visited her there when Clemmons was away. If he’s in the system, it would be a shortcut to find