Downfall by J. A. Jance

did that go?”
    â€œHer purse was in her desk, and her cell phone was inside it. There was nothing out of place in the room, and no sign of any struggle. But her car keys weren’t in her purse, and her car wasn’t in the parking lot.”
    â€œSurveillance tapes?”
    â€œYup,” Ian said, “and I was able to obtain copies of the applicable footage.” It took a few minutes and some help from Casey Ledford to get the footage on his computer locked and loaded into a PowerPoint presentation. “Here’s where it starts.”
    Joanna studied the blurred images on the screen. The time stamp dated 8/23 at 4:45 P . M . showed a single male wearing what appeared to be a hoodie walk onto the school grounds making sure his features were obscured from the camera lens.
    â€œA little hot to be running around in a hoodie, don’t you think?” Joanna observed. “But the hoodie does exactly what he intended it to do—it hides his features completely.”
    Once the man entered the school grounds, he sheared off to the right and disappeared from view.
    â€œThe cameras are located at the school’s front entrance,” Ian explained. “Ms. Nelson’s classroom, however, is off on the right in one of five portables. Unfortunately, none of those are equipped with surveillance cameras.”
    Ian fast-forwarded, stopping the film at 4:47 P . M . “Here’s what happens next.”
    Two people appeared in the frame—a man and a woman. Joanna surmised that most likely the man was the same one they had seen before. He still wore the hoodie. The woman was dressed in a tank top, skimpy shorts, and a pair of tennis shoes. The man walked to the woman’s left, gripping her upper arm with his right hand while keeping his left hand out of sight in the pocket of the hoodie.
    â€œSo the perp’s left-handed,” Casey Ledford observed. “I’m guessing he’s holding a weapon of some kind in his left-hand pocket.”
    â€œIf it was a kidnapping,” Ian said, “why no demand for ransom?”
    â€œSpeaking of weapons,” Ernie interjected, “Jaime and I came here straight from the autopsies. I have Dr. Baldwin’s preliminary results. According to her, both victims died of blunt-force trauma from a fall. No gunshot wounds. No stab wounds. So here’s what I don’t understand. If the perpetrator used a weapon in the course of the kidnapping, why not use it again as the murder weapon once he got her on top of Geronimo?”
    â€œGood question,” Joanna said. “Maybe the perp thought that if there was no indication that a weapon had been used, we’d be more likely to write it off as an accident rather than a homicide.”
    â€œWhat kind of weapon are we talking about?” Casey asked. “Remember, it had to be threatening enough to hold not just one but two women captive.”
    â€œAnother good question,” Joanna agreed. “Go on, Detective Waters.”
    â€œOn the basis of what we’re seeing here, Chief Montoya said he would go ahead and notify the FBI that we’re dealing with a suspected kidnapping. By now he’s most likely done so.”
    Joanna wasn’t overjoyed at the idea of working with the feds—locals never were—but over the years she had developed a better track record of working with the local agent in charge than she’d had in the beginning.
    â€œAny ETA on when the feds will swoop in?” Joanna asked.
    â€œNot so far. In the meantime, Chief Montoya wants you to know that he’ll personally handle the process of obtaining Susan Nelson’s phone records. He said to tell you he’ll be glad to run point in obtaining the other victim’s phone records as well.”
    Frank Montoya’s uncanny ability to obtain phone records ina hell of a hurry had always been one of his best tricks. That was something else that, as yet, was way beyond Tom