In the End
"Can I stop you for a minute?" Sergeant Fitzsimmons asked.
"Sure," Danny said.
"Why were you doing all this?"
"All what?"
"Why were you going to all this trouble to take the pictures? I mean, I can understand why any teenage boy would want photos of a bunch of naked cheerleaders. But the way you talk about it, you seemed to swing from being all excited about the idea to feeling guilty about it."
"Is that unusual?"
"In a way. Let me ask you something. How much pressure did Sam put on you to take the pictures?"
"Some, not much."
"But she wanted you to take them Friday afternoon? Any other day wouldn't do?"
"Yeah."
"Did that make you suspicious?" Fitzsimmons asked.
"Not then. But later, yeah. It made me wonder."
"I'm probably getting ahead of myself. I should let you finish your story. But I'm curious to know how you were able to take the pictures. You said you didn't have time-lapse equipment?"
"No. That stuff's expensive," Danny said. "But I was able to put together equipment that worked just as well." He paused. "Do you need to hear all the details?"
"Yeah."
"Is this off the record?"
Fitzsimmons thought a moment. "I can't promise you that."
"Then maybe I'm getting myself in too deep. Maybe I should talk to a lawyer first."
"Danny, were you directly or indirectly responsible for any of the deaths that occurred yesterday?"
"I might have been indirectly responsible."
"I don't think so," Fitzsimmons said.
"How do you know? I haven't even begun to tell you what happened."
"Let's just say I know. Danny, you can trust me with this information."
"But what's the law against Peeping Toms?"
"I'd have to look it up."
"Well, say I did take these pictures. Does that mean I've broken the law?"
"Do you care if you have, after all that's happened?"
The tightness in Danny's throat returned. He remembered stepping in the puddle of blood the night before and knowing the puddle was too vast to ever drip back into the body crumpled beside it. He remembered the smell of the blood, mixed with the dirt on the cliff top, and how different it smelled from the burnt flesh of a few hours earlier.
"I guess not," Danny said. He had to take a breath. "I rigged my camera up to a VCR."
"Come again?" Fitzsimmons asked.
"Just about any VCR can be programmed to record a half dozen TV shows. What I did was solder the wires of my camera cable to-"
"What's a camera cable?" Fitzsimmons asked.
"It's a cable that allows you to stand several feet away from the camera and take a picture."
"Like if you want to be in the picture yourself?"
"It can be used to do that. I needed to shoot several pictures over a period of time because I couldn't tell exactly when the cheerleaders would get in the shower. Every time it came to one of the program times, the VCR moved its heads and pressed the cable wires together, and a picture was taken."
"So you set it to take eight pictures?"
"That's the maximum the VCR would allow. I set it to take a picture every four minutes, starting at four. The last picture was snapped at four twenty-eight."
"You mean four thirty-two?"
"No. Four twenty-eight. You can figure it out on a piece of paper."
"I see. Who told you the cheerleaders would be in the showers at four o'clock?"
Danny hesitated. "Sam did."
Fitzsimmons sounded as if he were taking notes. "When did you set all this equipment up in the showers?"
"Late Thursday night. Early Friday morning."
"Can you be more exact?" Fitzsimmons asked.
"Three o'clock Friday morning."
"Did anyone help you?"
"No," Danny said.
"Did anyone see you place the equipment?"
"I don't know. I don't think so."
"How did you hide all this equipment so that no one could see it? And how did you get into the girls' showers?"
"Let me tell you, it wasn't easy," Danny said.