In the den he tapped a key on his open laptop to bring it to life. He took the USB drive out of his pocket and stuck it in the appropriate slot. The icon that appeared was titled “02 DEC 2011 08:00AM–11:59AM”—the time window within which the Spalter shooting had occurred. He went to the GET INFO menu and discovered that the little thumb drive had a 64GB capacity, far more than enough to cover the specified hours, even at a high resolution.

He clicked on the drive icon, and a window opened immediately with four video file icons—titled “CAM A (INT),” “CAM B (EAST),” “CAM C (WEST),” and “CAM D (SOUTH).”

Interesting. A four-camera array was an unusual level of video security for a small electronics store in a small city. Gurney figured the array was either an active display for the purpose of selling security cameras—like having a wall of televisions, all on—or, a possibility that had crossed his mind earlier, Hairy Harry and his girlfriend were in a riskier business than consumer electronics.

Since the south-facing camera would have been the one facing the Willow Rest cemetery, that was the file Gurney chose first. When he clicked on the icon, a video window appeared with controls for PLAY, PAUSE, REVERSE, and CLOSE, plus a sliding bar linked to the file time code, for getting to specific points in the video. He clicked on PLAY.

What he saw then was what he’d hoped for. It was almost too good to be true. Not only was the file resolution superb, but the camera that had produced the file evidently included the latest motion-tracking and zoom-to-action technology. And, of course, like most security cameras, it was motion-activated—recording video only when something was happening—and had a real-time indicator at the bottom of the frame.

The motion-activation feature meant that the nominal four-hour period of coverage would occupy far less recorded time in the file, since intervals of inactivity in the camera’s field of view would not be represented. So it was that the first hour of the period had produced less than ten minutes of digital footage—triggered mainly by hardy dog walkers and winter-suited joggers performing their morning rituals on a path that paralleled the low cemetery wall. The scene was brightened by pale winter sunlight and a light, patchy coating of snow.