Miranda Rodgers said, “I thought maybe you’d come back.”
“No kidding,” Hastings said. He wore a friendly smile, standing in the doorway of her home. She wore an orange and white kimono, showing some cleavage.
Hastings said, “Are the kids here?”
“They’re asleep. If I let you in, will you promise to keep quiet?”
“Sure.”
He followed her in and she shut the door behind him. She looked at him and didn’t smile. Just looked at him like she knew what he was all about. She liked being in control.
She said, “Do you want a drink?”
“If you’re having one.”
“Or I can roll us a joint. You don’t mind weed, do you?”
“Not really my thing.”
“Okay.” She gestured to the couch.
Hastings sat down. She stood behind the kitchen counter and poured wine into a couple of glasses. Then she turned out the kitchen light. Now there was only the light of one lamp in the living room.
She handed him his glass and sat next to him. She raised her glass and said cheers.
Hastings nodded.
She sipped her wine and pulled her legs up on the couch, tucking them at her side. Hastings had to consciously avoid looking at her upper thighs. She caught him not looking and chuckled.
“So detective, what can I do for you?”
“Well…it’s hard to say.”
“Just say it.”
“Well before I say…what it is I wanted to say, I wanted to tell you how sorry I was for the way I acted before. I don’t think I was very nice to you.”
“You weren’t. But that’s okay.”
“And I wanted to tell you that your alibis checked out. I thought they would.”
“Did you.”
“Yeah. You’re obviously not the kind of person who would ever want to hurt someone. Yet alone kill them.”
“Well how nice to hear that from you.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“Forget it.”
He looked at her and she looked back at him. Again, she wouldn’t smile at him. As if she didn’t want to give him that.
Hastings said, “There is one thing I’m curious about.” He smiled uneasily.
“What?”
“What we talked about earlier. You said that you and Johnny used to videotape the two of you — together.”
“You mean in bed?”
“…yes.”
“Well you don’t have to get all nervous about it.” And now she did smile. “Yeah. Like I said, it was no big deal.”
“He made sure it was okay with you?”
“Of course he did.”
“What about when he videotaped you with other people?”
He wasn’t facing her when he asked her that. After he asked her, he turned to see her looking back at him.
Miranda said, “Who told you that?”
“A witness.”
“What witness?”
“Aaron told me.”
A long moment passed while he waited, waited in fear for her to call bullshit on him. She pulled the wineglass to her pale lips and then pulled it away. She said, “Johnny told Aaron about that?”
“Yeah.”
Miranda sighed. “That asshole.”
Hastings almost said, So it’s true then. But he stopped himself. He kept the prurient, nervous smile on his face and said, “Wow. That’s…that’s something.”
“Johnny liked it. He liked watching me with other men. Sometimes women. Sometimes both.”
“How would you meet these people?”
“Oh, you know, the usual places. Parties, clubs. One guy we met a grocery store.”
“And they were cool with it?”
“Oh, yeah. People like being put on film. Makes them feel important. Famous, in a way. For Johnny, it was a kind of intimacy. He would introduce me to most of them.”
“And then what?”
“We’d go to a hotel or come back to our place. And…you know, let things happen.”
“And when you filmed these sessions, I presume you got their permission.”
Now she looked at him with a different expression. No longer playful, but wary. She said, “What is this?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Yeah. With their permission. It was all good.”
“But sometimes without their permission, right? Sometimes Johnny would hide the camera. Right?”
She glared at him for a few seconds. She curled her fingers around her wineglass and looked down at her lap.
“You fucker,” she said. “You son of a bitch.”
“Right?”
“No. Not right. We didn’t do that.”
“That’s not what Aaron said.”
“Aaron doesn’t —”
“Let me tell you something, I’m investigating two murders. One of the victims is the father of your children. So you better stop playing games with me or I’ll have you locked up for obstruction.”
“You misled me. You tricked me.”
“Answer my question: did Johnny film people without their permission?”
“You said you already know.”
“I want to hear it from you. Tell me.”
“Yes. Yes, he filmed people without their permission. It was nothing. We didn’t hurt anyone. We never threatened anyone. He just did it to get off. That’s it.”
“What did he do with these films? These taped sessions?”
“Sometimes he taped over them. Sometimes he kept the tapes.”
“Do you have any?”
“I have some here, yes. It’s private. And it was years ago. We were married then.”
“I’m not going to arrest you for taping yourself having sex. I don’t care about that. But if you’re not straight with me, all that ugly shit is going to come out. Your children will learn about it.”
“Fuck you.”
“No need to get mad,” Hastings said. “Just tell me what I need to know. Did he tape things digitally too?”
“Yes.”
“And stored those recordings on his computer. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Don’t guess. Tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know what he did after we split up. I don’t know everything, okay?”
“Before you split, when he taped you with these other men and women, how did he do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where did he hide the camera?”
She sighed. “There’s all sorts of ways to hide it. You can hide it in pens, in picture frames, in clocks, thermostats or smoke detectors. There’s all kinds of ways. It’s easy.”
Hastings got off the couch and stood in front of her. She repositioned herself, pulling her kimono around her. They had both resumed their true characters.
“You said clocks,” Hastings said.
“Yes.”
“The other day when I came to see you, I told you Johnny’s sister took a clock from his apartment. You seemed disturbed by that. Did you think she took a clock with a digital camera in it?”
“I thought so at first. But then you told me what kind of clock it was, the family heirloom, and I knew it was just a regular clock.”
“Did Johnny’s sister know about this filming habit of his?”
“No. His family didn’t know him at all.”
Hastings remembered what Johnny’s sister had told him. He was not a nice guy. A woman saying that about her own brother. Tudi Rodgers — fat, unattractive, uncharitable and unwilling to play perverted games. Who knew what cruel things he had done or said to her?
It was two o’clock in the morning before George Hastings went to bed. He lay awake for another hour or so, thinking about cameras and money and grown men and women who like to play games and have no genuine friendships. All part of humanity’s rich pageant, he supposed. Maybe the Johnnys and the Mirandas suffered genuine pathologies. Or maybe they were just bored children with too much time on their hands. They looked down on the squares and they made their fun. But surely, Hastings wondered, surely they must have gotten bored and depressed along the way.