Duffel Bags And Drownings by Dorothy Howell

asked.
    “She wouldn’t discuss it. Typical Cady. Refusing to face anything head on. This whole
     thing is ridiculous. Jeri’s death was a tragic accident, not a murder.”
    “What makes you so sure?” I asked.
    “Isn’t it obvious?” Fay said. “Jeri went into the ice room looking for Cady, then
     somehow hit her head, fell into the water and drowned.”
    Apparently, the police hadn’t told her about the scratches on Jeri’s face and the
     dent in her skull.
    I saw no need to get into it with her.
    “And I’m positive that nobody—absolutely nobody—who works here would murder a co-worker,”
     Faye said. “I don’t run that kind of company.”
    “The police must have some sort of evidence,” I pointed out.
    “And I have evidence, too,” Faye told me.
    My senses jumped to high alert.
    “Let me show you,” Faye said, and grabbed a DVD out of her desk drawer. “Come with
     me.”
    I walked with her to the employee lounge. No one was inside. Faye switched on a television
     sitting on the counter that I hadn’t noticed before, and slid the DVD into the player.
    “It’s the building’s surveillance tape from the day of Jeri’s death,” Faye explained.
     “The landlord gave it to the detectives, but he kept a copy for himself. Insurance
     reasons, he said. He brought it here and insisted I watch it to prove that his complex
     is safe.”
    Faye pressed a button and the TV came alive with grainy black and white footage. It
     was a split-screen format, displaying views of the front and rear parking lots.
    “Are these the only angles you have?” I asked.
    “Some of the security cameras are off-line because of the construction,” Faye said.
     She fast-forwarded the DVD. “This is shortly before Jeri died.”
    I glanced at the date and time stamp at the bottom of the screen, then studied the
     front parking lot. The stores in the shopping center formed a big “U” with parking
     spaces in the middle. The security camera that captured this footage must have been
     mounted near Cady Faye Catering because its field of view didn’t show the caterer’s
     storefront, the traffic lanes in front of it, or the first few rows of parking spaces,
     just a large area of the parking lot and a section of stores directly across from
     Cady Faye Catering.
    The shopping center was busy. Lots of vehicles were coming and going. People flowed
     in and out of the stores.
    “There,” Faye said, pointing at the television screen. “See that Mercedes? It’s just
     like Cady’s, which explains why someone thought she was here when she wasn’t.”
    The film was too grainy to see the license plate, but it was definitely a light colored
     Mercedes.
    “And look,” Faye said. “There’s another one.”
    Both of the cars were too far away to get a view of the driver and any passengers
     who might be inside, but Faye had a point—a Mercedes similar to Cady’s in the parking
     lot wasn’t unusual.
    A line of vehicles followed the Mercedes. They moved into the frame as they drove
     down one of the aisles, circled to the next aisle, then disappeared out of the picture.
     My breath caught when I realized that one of the vehicles was a black Land Rover—Jack
     Bishop’s Land Rover.
    My heart did a little pitter-patter—that happens a lot where Jack is concerned—and
     it took a few seconds for me to focus on the screen again. Then it hit me—where was
     my car? I’d pulled into the parking lot as Jack was leaving. Why hadn’t I seen myself
     in the footage? I realized then that the entrance/exit to the shopping center wasn’t
     covered by the security camera.
    I turned my attention to the other half of the split-screen and saw, a few minutes
     later, my Honda pull into the parking lot at the rear of the building. The angle of
     the camera caught only a portion of my car.
    “There’s a lot of the building and parking lot that isn’t covered by the footage,”
     I said.
    “Just wait,” Faye said. “You’ll see