“That’s it,” he said. “Runs twenty-four seven. Saved our ass three years ago when a bunch of teenagers tore up the place with their pickups and you people were able to nail ’em ’cause of their plates. Other than that, I don’t know. Nobody really looks at ’em.”

“You save the footage?” Sam asked.

“Only for a month.”

Relieved, both cops smiled.

“That’ll do,” Lester said. “Which of these is aimed at your front gate?”

The manager tapped one of the squares. “This one.”

They were rewarded by seeing that the camera allowed for a glimpse across the street at its uppermost edge.

“That enough?” Sam asked, peering closely.

“Sure,” Lester said. “You can’t see the shed’s roof, but the rest of it’s there.” He turned to the other man. “Is that pull-off lit at night?”

“Sure. So are we. It’s a better deterrent than the cameras.”

“You got your tablet?” Lester asked Sam.

She was pulling it from the bag hanging off her shoulder. She turned it on, checked the log, and recited the date and time stamp out loud.

“That’s what we’re after,” Lester told the manager.

He opened a drawer, pulled out a keyboard, inserted it into one of the black boxes before him, and entered a command. They all watched as the picture before them sped backward through time, coming to an abrupt stop at the time Sam had recited.

“Cool,” Lester said. “Hit Play.”

The manager did so, and they next saw Shaw’s Mercedes pull up before the shed, small and just barely within the top of the frame.

“That what you’re after?” the man asked as the recognizable figure of Don Kalfus stepped out from behind the wheel and looked around.

“Sure is,” Lester muttered, transfixed as a second car, a Jeep, appeared.

The Jeep produced two more people, a man and a woman.

“What the hell?” Sam asked, barely whispering. “That’s Lucy and hubby.”

They continued watching as the trio clustered together in a quick and obviously heated conversation, finishing with a shoving match between the two men, the older, paunchier Shaw being no contest against young Kalfus.

Until Lucy, ignored until then, stooped down, picked up the two-by-four, and landed a blow on the back of Kalfus’s head worthy of Mickey Mantle.

“Holy shit,” the manager said.

Kalfus collapsed, Shaw regained his balance, dropped to his knees, and checked his wife’s handiwork.

They watched in silence as the couple briefly conferred over the still body, before awkwardly lifting and shoving it into the Mercedes’s trunk.

At that point, ten minutes from start to finish, Lucy returned to the Jeep as Shaw got behind the wheel of the Mercedes, and both vehicles began rolling toward the far edge of the image.

“Pause it,” Lester told their host.

The picture froze.

“Back it up in one-second increments, if you can.”

“Sure.”

“What did you see?” Sam asked.

Lester reached out one long arm and tapped the monitor with his index finger. “That.”

“Damn,” the manager said. “Somebody’s riding shotgun.”