“Where is this tape from?”
“It was rented at a small video store on Aramingo,” Buchanan said.
“Who brought it in?” Byrne asked.
“He’s in A.”
* * *
THE YOUNG MAN sitting in Interview Room A was the color of sour milk. He was in his early twenties, had close-cropped dark hair, pale amber eyes, fine features. He wore a lime-green Polo shirt and black jeans. His 229— a brief report detailing his name, address, place of employment— revealed that he was a student at Drexel University and worked two part-time jobs. He lived in the Fairmount section of North Philadelphia. His name was Adam Kaslov. The only prints on the videotape were his.
Jessica entered the room, introduced herself. Kevin Byrne and Terry Cahill observed through the two-way mirror.
“Can I get you anything?” Jessica asked.
Adam Kaslov offered a thin, bleak smile. “I’m okay,” he said. There was a pair of empty Sprite cans on the scarred table in front of him. He had a piece of red cardboard in his hands, twisting it and untwisting it.
Jessica placed the
Psycho
videocassette box on the table. It was still in a clear plastic evidence bag. “When did you rent this?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” Adam said, his voice a little shaky. He had no police record and this was, perhaps, the first time he had ever been in a police station. A Homicide Unit interrogation room no less. Jessica had made sure to leave the door open. “Maybe three o’clock or so.”
Jessica glanced at the label on the tape housing. “And you got this at The Reel Deal on Aramingo?”
“Yes.”
“How did you pay for this?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you put this on a credit card? Pay cash? Have a coupon?”
“Oh,” he said. “I paid cash.”
“Did you keep the receipt?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Are you a regular there?”
“Kind of.”
“How often do you rent movies at that location?”
“I don’t know. Maybe twice a week.”
Jessica glanced at the 229 report. One of Adam’s part-time jobs was at a Rite Aid on Market Street. The other was at the Cinemagic 3 at Penn, the movie theater near the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “Can I ask why you go to that store?”
“What do you mean?”
“You live only half a block from a Blockbuster.”
Adam shrugged. “I guess it’s because they have more foreign and independent films than the big chains.”
“You like foreign films, Adam?” Jessica’s tone was friendly, conversational. Adam brightened slightly.
“Yeah.”
“I like
Cinema Paradiso
a lot,” Jessica said. “One of my favorite movies of all times. Ever see that one?”
“Sure,” Adam said. Even brighter, now. “Giuseppe Tornatore is great. Maybe even the heir apparent to Fellini.”
Adam was beginning to relax somewhat. He had been twisting that piece of cardboard into a tight spiral, which he now put down. It looked stiff enough to be a swizzle stick. Jessica sat in the battered metal chair opposite him. Just two people talking, now. Talking about a vicious homicide someone had videotaped.
“Did you watch this alone?” Jessica asked.
“Yeah.” There was a morsel of melancholy in his answer, as if he had recently broken off a relationship and was accustomed to watching videos with a partner.
“When did you watch it?”
Adam picked up the cardboard swizzle stick again. “Well, I get off work at my second job at midnight, I get home around twelve thirty. I usually take a shower and eat something. I guess I started it around one or one thirty. Maybe two.”
“Did you watch it straight through?”
“No,” Adam said. “I watched up until Janet Leigh gets to the motel.”
“Then what?”
“Then I shut it off and went to bed. I watched . . . the rest this morning. Before I left for school. Or, before I was
going
to leave for school. When I saw the . . . you know, I called the cops. Police. I called the
police.
”
“Did anyone else see this?”
Adam shook his head.
“Did you tell anybody about it?”
“No.”
“Was this tape in your possession the whole time?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“From the time you rented it until the time you called the police, did you have possession of the tape?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t leave it in your car for a while, leave it with a friend, leave it in a backpack or a book bag that you hung on a coatrack somewhere public?”
“No,” Adam said. “Nothing like that. I rented it, took it home, and put it on top of the TV.”
“And you live alone.”
Another grimace. He
had
just broken up with someone. “Yes.”
“Was anyone in your apartment when you were at work yesterday evening?”
“I don’t think so,” Adam said. “No. I really doubt it.”
“No one else has a key?”
“Just the landlord. And I’ve been trying to get him to fix my shower for, like, a year. I doubt he would come around without me being there.”
Jessica made a few notes. “Have you ever rented this movie from The Reel Deal before?”
Adam looked at the floor for a few moments, thinking. “The movie or this particular tape?”
“Either.”
“I think I rented the DVD of
Psycho
from them last year.”
“Why did you rent the VHS version this time?”
“My DVD player is broken. I have an optical drive in my laptop, but I don’t really like watching movies on a computer. The sound kind of sucks.”
“Where was this tape in the store when you rented it?”
“Where
was
it?”
“I mean, do they display the tapes on racks there, or do they just have empty boxes on the racks and keep the tapes behind the counter?”
“No, they have actual tapes on display.”
“Where was this tape?”
“There’s a section called Classics. It was in there.”
“Are they displayed alphabetically?”
“I think so.”
“Do you recall if this movie was right where it was supposed to be on the rack?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you rent anything else along with this?”
Adam drained of what little color remained in his face, as if the idea, the very notion, that other tapes might contain something this horrible was a possibility. “No. That was the only one.”
“Do you know any of the other customers there?”
“Not really.”
“Do you know anyone else who may have rented this tape?”
“No,” he said.
“Here’s a tough one,” Jessica said. “Are you ready?”
“I guess so.”
“Do you recognize the young woman on the tape?”
Adam swallowed hard, shook his head. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Jessica said. “We’re just about done for now. You’re doing great.”
This dislodged a crooked half smile from the young man. The fact that he was going to leave soon— the fact that he was going to leave at
all
— seemed to lift a heavy yoke from his shoulders. Jessica made a few more notes, glanced at her watch.
Adam asked: “Can I ask
you
something?”
“Sure.”
“Is that part, like,
real
?”
“We’re not certain.”
Adam nodded. Jessica held his gaze, looking for the slightest sign that he might be hiding something. All she found was a young man who stumbled onto something bizarre and, probably, terrifyingly real. Talk about your horror movie.
“Okay, Mr. Kaslov,” she said. “We appreciate you bringing this in. We’ll be in touch.”
“Okay,” Adam said. “Are we done?”
“Yes. And we’d appreciate it if you didn’t discuss this with anyone for the time being.”
“I won’t.”
They stood, shook hands. Adam Kaslov’s hand was ice.
“One of the officers will walk you down,” Jessica added.
“Thanks,” he said.
As the young man walked out into the duty room of the Homicide Unit, Jessica glanced at the two-way mirror. Although she couldn’t see through it, she didn’t have to read Kevin Byrne’s face to know they were in total agreement. Chances were good that Adam Kaslov had nothing to do with the crime committed on the tape.
If, in fact, a crime had actually been committed.
BYRNE TOLD JESSICA he would meet her in the parking lot. When he found himself relatively alone and unobserved in the duty room, he sat at one of the computers, ran a check on Julian Matisse. As expected, there was nothing current. There had been a break-in at Matisse’s mother’s house a year earlier, but nothing involving Julian. Matisse had been in prison for the past two years. His list of known associates was outdated as well. Byrne printed off the addresses anyway, tore the sheet from the printer.
Then, although he may have been screwing up another detective’s work, he dumped the computer’s cache and erased the PCIC history for the day.
* * *
ON THE GROUND floor of the Roundhouse, in the back, was a lunchroom with a dozen or so battered booths, a dozen tables. The food was passable, the coffee was forty-weight. A bank of vending machines held down one wall. Large windows with an unobstructed view of the air-conditioning units held down the other.
As Jessica grabbed a pair of coffees for her and Byrne, Terry Cahill walked into the room, approached her. The handful of uniformed cops and detectives scattered around the room gave him the casual, appraising eye. He really did have
fed
written all over him, right down to his highly polished yet sensible cordovan oxfords. Jessica would bet that he ironed his socks.
“Got a second, Detective?”
“Just,” Jessica said. She and Byrne were on their way to the video store where the
Psycho
tape had been rented.
“I just wanted to tell you that I won’t be riding with you this morning. I’ll run what we have through VICAP and the other federal databases. See if we get a hit.”
We’ll try to get by without you,
Jessica thought. “That would be very helpful,” she said, suddenly aware how patronizing she sounded. Like herself, this guy was just doing his job. Luckily, it appeared as if Cahill hadn’t noticed.
“Not a problem,” he replied. “I’ll try to hook up with you in the field as soon as I can.”
“Okay.”
“Great to be working with you,” he said.
“You, too,” Jessica lied.
She capped the coffees and made her way to the door. At the door she caught her reflection in the glass, then looked beyond, racking her focus, at the room behind her. Special Agent Terry Cahill was leaning against the counter, smiling.
Is he checking me out?
8
THE REEL DEAL WAS A SMALL, INDEPENDENT VIDEO STORE ON Aramingo Avenue near Clearfield, shoehorned between a Vietnamese takeout and a nail salon called Claws and Effect. It was one of the few mom-and-pop video stores in Philadelphia not yet put out of business by Blockbuster or West Coast Video.
The grimy front window held posters of Vin Diesel and Jet Li movies, cascaded over a decade of teen romantic comedies. There were also sun-leached black-and-white head shots of fading action stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Jackie Chan. One corner of the window bore a sign proclaiming WE CARRY CULT AND MEXI-MONSTERS!
