When the DA didn’t answer, a horrifying thought hit him. “The camera wasn’t on when she died, was it?” he asked, with a macabre feeling that Johnson was going to answer in the affirmative.

“We don’t know. The switch was in the on position, but the tripod was overturned and the camera was on the floor. Its cassette door was open, and there was no tape inside. The plug was out of the wall, and the battery was dead as well.”

Henry tried to imagine a scenario that could have led to such circumstances.

“Had Viola Turner made any tapes for you prior to last night?” Johnson asked.

“None that I know of. Did you find an audio recorder in the house?”

The DA’s eyes narrowed. “No. Why?”

“I left a handheld analog voice recorder with Viola after my first visit, for the same reason I left the video camera a week later.”

Johnson wrote something on a piece of paper. “The sheriff’s department searched the house, but no tape recorder was found. What brand was it?”

“Olympus.”

Johnson noted this. “The killer must have stolen that as well, then. Do you know if Mrs. Turner had recorded anything on that?”

“No idea.”

Shad frowned and looked down at his desk.

“How did she die?” Henry asked. “If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Morphine overdose, almost certainly. That’s off the record. We’ll have to wait on the toxicology report to be sure.”

Glancing at his camcorder, Henry felt the burn of acid in his stomach. Still attached to the back of the Sony was a rectangle of beige plastic, slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes. This was a Superstream hard drive, an accessory Henry had mounted before he left the camcorder at Viola’s house. A filmmaker friend had told him about the drives while working on a documentary about Henry’s investigations. The Superstream could be set to record simultaneously with the camera’s tape heads, which not only eliminated the laborious process of capturing taped video onto a computer drive before editing could begin, but also made the DV tape a backup of what was on the hard drive. The Superstream could also be set to begin recording when the mini-DV tape ran out, extending available recording time if you were stuck somewhere without extra tapes. Henry rarely kept extra tapes on hand, so he usually left the unit in that mode. He was almost sure the Superstream had been set that way when he left the camera at Viola’s house. Which means there might be something recorded on the hard drive right now—

“What is it?” the district attorney asked sharply. “Why are you staring at the camera?”