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The Lucky Pub, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Friday, October 25th, 2:30 PM Local Time
Paige and I just got situated in Lucky Pub’s office in front of a monitor when our phones chimed with message notifications. It was an email from Nadia with a list of five women—any of whom could be our sniper. I scanned the list quickly, but there was no one named Estella. That would have been too easy.
“You ready to view it?” Hart asked.
“I am.” I glanced at Paige, whose nose was still in her phone. “Paige?”
She pulled her gaze from her screen. “Please, go ahead.”
Hart hit Play, and the stilled video on screen came to life. Hart had spent money on his video surveillance system—not HD quality by any means, but not the grainy black-and-white shit we were often given to work with.
The camera was positioned at the end of the patio, so we were given a good overview of the entire area. Barbie was taking orders from a table of four and laughing with her customers.
“Where’s Mr. Wise?” I asked.
“Right there.” Hart pointed out the backs of a man and woman sitting next to each other. “Now, the woman you’re curious about…Watch this table.” Hart circled a finger on the monitor, and seconds later, a hostess showed a woman to a table. It was farther away from the camera, but she was facing us.
“Freeze that there,” Paige requested, and Hart complied.
The woman was someone you’d least expect to kill four men. She was trim and pretty with blond hair, and she carried herself with grace. But the fact a woman of the same description had shown up the night before Reid’s murder, too, was more than coincidence to me. We were getting our first good look at our sniper. I glanced at Paige and nudged my head.
“Can you do a print screen of that image and send it to me?” Paige went on to give Hart her email address.
Hart clicked away, and seconds later, Paige’s nose was back in her phone. “I’m just going to forward this to someone real quick.” She tapped wildly at the screen, composing a message to Nadia with the photo attached. “Thanks,” she said to Hart, and he hit Play again.
On screen, “Estella” watched Wise intently, only to look away every now and then. Wise shifted—as if he were uncomfortable—and took his arm down from Alvarez’s shoulder. So what was it about “Estella” that made him anxious? Did they share a past like Reid and the mystery woman—presumably “Estella”—had?
The video went on to show “Estella” placing an order with Barbie and then the waitress setting off to take care of it. “Estella” immediately resumed staring at Wise, even as she unwrapped her cutlery from a paper napkin. Wise continued squirming and sipped on his drink, taking a few in rapid succession.
Barbie returned with something and placed it on the table. It appeared that “Estella” thanked her, still not taking her eyes off Wise. When Barbie left, “Estella” picked up what had been dropped off: a steak knife. She held the hilt in the palm of her right hand and put the tip to the pad of her left index finger.
“She’s threatening him, right there,” I said, and Paige nodded. Hart remained silent.
Josefina Alverez pecked Wise on the cheek and excused herself.
A bathroom break?
When Wise’s mistress was out of sight, he walked over to “Estella” and sat across from her.
They did know each other!
“Estella” was saying something. I wish we had sound, but a lip-reading expert might be able to figure out her words. Her face didn’t show any emotion. If anything, she appeared calm as she continued to toy with the knife. Wise, on the other hand, was visibly agitated when he left the table in less than a minute to return to his own. Alvarez reentered the camera range not long after that.
“Can you rewind, zoom in, and play it slowly?” I asked Hart.
He paused the video and looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m doing good playing and pausing. Rewinding, sure, but there’s no way I can play it slowly. And don’t ask me to zoom in, either. I’m the least tech-savvy person out there.”
Again, where was Zach? He had a way with technology. But I’m sure if we got the video to Nadia, she could handle it. “We’ll have our analyst do that for us.”
“It’s just not going to be me.”
“Just send the segment of video to Agent Dawson—from the moment Mr. Wise is seated until he, his mistress, and that woman leave the pub.” I figured since he already had her email, it would make it easy for him.
“I can send the day’s footage. Again, I’m not a wizard. No video editor or splicer here.”
“That works,” I said. “For now, if you can, let’s rewind to when Mr. Wise goes to her table and watch it again.”
Hart narrowed his eyes at my dig, but he did as I’d asked without comment. Lips were moving far too fast for me to make out what was being said, but I’d wager the conversation was terse. Given Wise’s brisk movements, her few words were all that was necessary to get her point across.
This time, we let the video play out until Wise and Alvarez left, followed shortly by “Estella.”
“Well, that’s all folks,” Hart said. “I’ll get you the file.”
Paige and I waited until she had the video, then thanked Hart for his help and left.
Back in the SUV, I started first. “I’d really like to know what she said to Wise.”
“That makes two of us.” She was tapping away on her phone. “I’m forwarding the video to Nadia.”
“Have her find someone who can figure out what Estella”—I put finger quotes on the name—“said to Wise.”
“Already on that.” A few more taps, and Paige looked over at me. “We’re getting close, I feel it.”
“Yeah, we both saw the way she wielded that knife. I’d say we have our sniper’s face.”
“There’s something bugging me about what we just saw.”
I turned to face her more squarely. “And that was…”
“Yes, I agree that she seemed to threaten Wise with the knife play, but how does he go from acting intimidated…You saw how he was squirming in his chair?”
I nodded.
Paige continued. “How does he go from that to being brave enough, as it were, to join her at her table? And when he goes back to his table for the rest of his meal with Josefina, he seems to be more relaxed than before?”
“Good actor? False bravado? Though he was visibly agitated for a bit. And did he say anything to her? We couldn’t see his face.”
“If he did, she gave no visual tells. But for Wise to be uncomfortable one second, aggravated, possibly cocky the next, he underestimated her.”
“Isn’t that an understatement.” I thought back to “Estella’s” steadfast appearance—confident, chin high, and calm. So calm. “Whatever happened to that woman made her a cold-blooded killer.” Shivers tore through me. The killers who didn’t feel emotion were the hardest for me to comprehend—and the hardest to predict.