The place they settled on, after nearly half an hour of evasive driving, was a no-frills Great Southern Inn and Suites. In truth, the Great Southern was the exact sort of place Lou would have picked had he not accumulated an abundance of credit card points. The irony was not lost on him that those points had most likely saved his life. There was only a micro-sized pool at the two-story motel, and no balcony from which he could have jumped.

Vaill registered as Gregg Campbell from Houston, and had a license and credit cards to back that up.

“I have half a dozen of these sets,” he said to Lou in a more than passable Texas drawl. “Passports, letters of credit, the works. Gregg Campbell is one of my favorites, although the truth is he would probably never stay here. Oil, dontcha know.”

“Our tax dollars at work,” Lou said.

He liked it when Vaill shed his grim mantle, but he well understood why he didn’t do it often.

The Great Southern was up a long drive, about a quarter mile off a sparsely traveled highway. They found it because of a large sign on a very tall pole. Lou wondered what a six-story-tall pole would look like. After they registered for a second-floor suite, Vaill waited in the shadows near the entrance for a good while, fixed on the driveway and the parking lot. Finally, satisfied enough, he led Lou up to their room.

“I wouldn’t put it past the monster to leave his car someplace and walk a mile or so to come up behind this place,” he said.

He pulled the small desk over in front of the closed pull-out, set up his laptop, and inserted one of two DVDs.

“I thought we could start with the one Burke’s wife gave to me and McCall. I showed her graphic photos of what he did to Maria, and she cracked and gave this to us. There’s nothing really of use on it, but I thought it would be a good place to start. Want me to go out for some popcorn for the matinee?”

“Let me see if I can recall what happened the last time you left me alone in a hotel room,” Lou replied.

“Okay, no popcorn, no Raisinets.”

“So there’s not much to this recording?”

“It’s a tearjerker featuring a murderer. Doesn’t even get a PG rating.”

“Sounds like at least you guys are making use of the warehousing technology.”

“This is a video of Burke, sent to his wife. It’s been analyzed by one of our very best intelligence people. No, make that our absolutely best intelligence people. Like I said, he didn’t come up with much. But if nothing else, it presents some interesting insights into the man.”