I watched it six times. On the fourth time, I realised I was holding my breath, and on the fifth time, I realised I was crying. Not the bad kind. It was the kind that comes when you've been carrying something heavy on one shoulder for a long time and someone finally picks up the other end.
"She picked up nothing," I said. "She made a show of picking up nothing."
"Junie used to say you can tell everything about a person by what they do when they think nobody's watching," Gus said. "Mostly she said it about me and the last cookie. But it holds up."
"Gus. Gus, this is—"
"I know what it is." He closed the laptop gently, like closing a hymnal. "I already made two copies. One's on a thumb drive in my truck. One I emailed to myself and my daughter, in case this machine decides to die, which it's been threatening to do since the Obama administration. Now you tell me where your lawyer wants it."
* * *
Bev wanted it immediately. She drove out from Boise on Sunday night in a mud-spattered Subaru with a bumper sticker that said MY OTHER CAR IS ALSO A SUBARU. She sat at my kitchen table with Gus's laptop and my binder and watched the clip twice, without expression, chewing.
Then she said, "Huh," and spat her gum into a napkin.
"Is that good?" I asked.
"Honey," Bev said, "that's the best thing I've seen in a homeowners' association matter in thirty years, and I once had a case where the HOA president was caught on camera poisoning a neighbor's koi with Miracle-Gro." She turned to Gus. "Mr. Teague, will you talk to a detective?"
"I'll talk to the Pope if it helps."
"A detective will do. I'll make a call in the morning."