Page 173 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

another day if he had brought them in after the shop opened
Saturday morning.”
Labelle was silent, letting her computer do the thinking: I would
bet she had linked to a mapping program to calculate the distance
between Hannibal’s place and the rental shop. This was ground I had
already covered—in my car, of course. I braced myself for her
criticism.
“Even at a leisurely pace, he would have made a nonstop round
trip in less than an hour. That more or less fits his explanation, but
you cannot verify any part of his story. No passersby encountered?
No events Hannibal said he witnessed of which he could not have
had knowledge unless he were actually present? Then we know
neither when he was out of his house that night nor if he was the one
dropping off the videotapes. Did you check them for fingerprints?”
“Yes. Only Hannibal’s and those of the clerk who processed the
returns. Inconclusive, a potentially false negative.”
“Not good, Duncan. I will review the relevant testimony of all
parties involved.” I pitied the two officers watching Mr. Simulian’s
residence that night. “Perhaps we can determine something of
interest from the placement of the other jurors that night. Is that in
here?”
“Yes. On those sheets of yellow tablet paper.”
“Okay. I’ll reorganize them. Una Lloyd could not have been a
target on the fifteenth because she spent an unscheduled night at the
apartment of an old schoolmate from trade school. Her own place
suffered a power failure that was not repaired until the next morning,
and she had some work that could not wait. So she grabbed her
laptop computer and set up shop on the other side of town. At any
rate, she was not alone, and her friend confirms that they were awake
well past midnight talking in the kitchen. The place has a security
system, and it was set from about nine p.m. until six a.m.”
I nodded. Slowly, silently, I slid open my lower right-hand desk
drawer and reached in for my coffee cup. One move at a time, I told
myself.
“Where’s number three? Ah, here he is. Mr. Fonik’s location is not
precisely known, despite the supposed regularity of his habits. Not a
weekend, so he should have been at his own place. Why did you tag
his statements with a question mark?”

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