The building was even bigger than Denes’s house. Attila’s had a rustic look, with a faux–log cabin facade on the front and a large door that looked like it was made of thick, solid planks with black iron braces and studs so that it could probably resist a battering ram. When Leah moved closer, she realized that the facade wasn’t a surface layer of half logs, but real ones about ten inches thick, fitted so tightly that the mortar between them was nearly invisible.

Instantly Leah promoted Attila to the most likely Varga to be doing something illegal. The house looked like a place a rival could not fire a weapon through except at the few windows, and one that the police would take at least fifteen minutes to break their way into. Fifteen minutes was a lot of time to shred and burn evidence of forgery.

Leah placed four cameras in the area around the house, attempting to take advantage of every window and record any vehicle that came up the long driveway. When she had finished installing the cameras, she walked to the parking lot of the diner and drove back to her hotel. She used her laptop to check the images from the cameras and verified that they worked, but she had no idea if her efforts had put her any closer to Viktor.

14

Leah kept patrolling, searching for Viktor Panko or for anyone who recognized his picture. In her experience as a homicide detective, she had seen many times when simply talking to people in the neighborhood of a case and asking questions had brought unexpected benefits. But here she had to be careful, and do more observing than talking. Tonight she decided to try the theater district. The theater district in Buffalo was small and manageable. It seemed to consist of Main Street from Chippewa Street to Tupper, with a few satellite businesses on the parallel streets—Pearl, Franklin, and Delaware. About five big hotels were downtown within a few blocks, including the Hyatt where she’d stayed the first few nights and the Westin, where she had moved to keep from getting too familiar, along with several good restaurants.

Shea’s Performing Arts Center was a landmark theater and seemed to be where the main attractions appeared, and there were four or five smaller theaters that presented plays and shows. The concentration of these places would be helpful. If she made the rounds, she would have a pretty good chance of seeing anybody who frequented the bars and restaurants and clubs. If Viktor Panko came here, she would have a much better chance of spotting him than she would in a larger district.