'You're not sure of what, Captain?' Tucker lifted his chin a little.

'I'm not sure they should see it.' He looked at Janet and Lucy.

'Please proceed, Captain,' the chief said curtly.

Marino inserted the tape into the VCR and cut the lights.

'It's about half an hour long,' his voice sounded as numbers and lines went by on the television screen. 'Anybody mind if I smoke?'

'I definitely mind,' Tucker said. 'Apparently, this was what we found in the video camera inside Sheriff Brown's house. I have not seen it yet.'

The tape started.

'Okay, what we got here is Lament Brown's upstairs bedroom,' Marino began to narrate.

The bed I had looked at earlier today was neatly made, and in the background we could hear the sound of someone moving.

'I think this was when he was making sure his camera was working,' Marino said. 'Maybe it's when the white residue got on the wall. See. Now it's jumping ahead.'

He hit the pause button and we stared at a blurred image of the empty bedroom.

'Do we know if Brown was positive for cocaine?' the chief asked in the dark.

'It's too early to know if he had cocaine or it's metabolite, benzoyleconine, on board,' I said. 'All we have right now is his alcohol level.'

Marino resumed, 'It's like he turned the camera on and then off and then back on. You can tell because the time's different. First it was ten-oh-six last night. Now it's suddenly ten-twenty.'

'Clearly, he was expecting somebody,' Tucker spoke.

'Or else they was already there. Maybe doing a few lines of coke downstairs. Here we go.' Marino hit the play button. 'This is where the good stuff starts.'

The darkness in Tucker's conference room was absolutely silent save for the creaking of a bed and groaning that sounded more like pain than passion. Sheriff Brown was nude and on his back. From the rear we watched Temple Gault, wearing surgical gloves and nothing else. Dark clothes were laid out on the bed nearby. Marino got quiet. I could see the profiles of Lucy and Janet. Their faces were without expression, and Tucker seemed very calm. Wesley was beside me, coolly analyzing.

Gault was unhealthily pale, every vertebra and rib clearly defined. Apparently, he had lost a lot of weight and muscle tone, and I thought about the cocaine in his hair, which now was white, and as he shifted his position I saw his full breasts.

My eyes shot across the table as Lucy stiffened.

I felt Marino look at me as Carrie Grethen worked to give her client ecstasy. It seemed drugs had interfered, and no matter what she did, Sheriff Brown could not rise to receive what would prove to be the most he ever paid for pleasure. Lucy bravely kept her eyes on the television screen. She stared, shocked, as her former lover performed one lewd act after another on this big-bellied, intoxicated man.

The ending seemed predictable. Carrie would produce a gun and blow him away. But not so. Eighteen minutes into the video, footsteps sounded in Brown's bedroom, and her accomplice walked in. Temple Gault was dressed in a black suit and also wearing gloves. He seemed to have no clue that his every blink and sniffle were on camera. He stopped at the foot of the bed and watched. Brown had his eyes shut. I wasn't sure if he was conscious.

'Time's up,' Gault said impatiently.

His intense blue eyes seemed to penetrate the screen. They looked right into our conference room. He had not dyed his hair. It was still carrot red, long and slicked back from his forehead and behind his ears. He unbuttoned his jacket and withdrew a Clock nine-millimeter pistol. Nonchalantly, he walked toward the head of the bed.

Carrie looked on as Gault placed the barrel of the pistol between the sheriff's eyes.