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minutes,” Wright said, glancing at his notes. Kyle had no doubt that Wright and his gang had analyzed and memorized every second, every frame. “As you will note, Elaine Keenan is not present. She says she was next door, drinking with some friends.”
“So she's changed her story again.”
Wright ignored this and said, “If you don't mind, I'll fast-forward a little, to the point where the police show up. Remember the cops, Kyle?”
“Yes.”
The video scrambled forward for a minute or so, until Wright pressed a key. “At 11:25, the party comes to an abrupt halt. Listen.”
In mid-song, and with most of the fifteen still in view, dancing
and drinking and yelling, someone off camera clearly yelled, “Cops! Cops!” Kyle watched himself as he grabbed a girl and disappeared from view. The music stopped. The lights were out. The screen was almost completely dark.
Wright continued: “According to our records, the police were called to your apartment three times that spring. This was the third time. A young man by the name of Alan Strock, one of your roommates, answered the door and chatted up the officers. He swore that there was no underage drinking. Everything was fine. He'd be happy to turn off the music and keep things quiet. The cops gave him a break and left with a warning. They assumed everybody else was hiding in the bedrooms.”
“Most of them fled through the back door,” Kyle said.
“Whatever. The cell phone video was on voice activation, so it clicked off after sixty seconds of near silence. It was at least twenty feet from the front door. Its owner ran off in the panic, forgot about it, and in the melee someone knocked things around on the counter, the cell phone got bumped, so the picture got adjusted. We can't see as much as we could before. About twenty minutes pass and all is quiet. At 11:48, there are voices and the lights come on.” Kyle moved closer to the screen. About one-third of the view was blocked by something yellow. “Probably a phone book, the yellow pages,” Wright said. The music started again, but at a much lower volume.
The four roommates--Kyle, Alan Strock, Baxter Tate, and Joey Bernardo--were walking around the den, in shorts and T-shirts, and holding drinks again. Elaine Keenan walked through the den, talking nonstop, then sat on the edge of the sofa, smoking what appeared to be a joint. Only half of the sofa was visible. A television, unseen, was turned on. Baxter Tate walked over to Elaine, said something, then put his drink down and yanked off his T-shirt. He and Elaine fell into a pile on the sofa, obviously making out while the other three watched television and milled about. They were talking, but the music and
TV drowned out their words. Alan Strock walked in front of the camera, pulling off his T-shirt and saying something to Baxter, whose view was blocked. There were no sounds from Elaine. Less than half of the sofa was visible now, but a tangle of bare legs could be seen.
Then the lights were turned off, and for a second the room was dark. Slowly, the glare from the television focused and bounced off the walls to provide some illumination. Joey Bernardo came into view, also pulling off his shirt. He stopped and stared at the sofa, where some manner of frenzied activity was under way.
“Listen,” Wright hissed.
Joey said something that Kyle could not understand.
“Did you get that?” Wright asked.
“No.”
Wright stopped the video and said, “Our experts have studied the audio. Joey Bernardo says to Baxter Tate, ”Is she awake?“ Tate is obviously having sex with Elaine, who's passed out drunk, and Bernardo stops by, takes it all in, and wonders if the girl is actually conscious. You want to hear it again?”
“Yes.”
Wright reset the video, then replayed it. Kyle leaned down, and with his nose six inches from the screen he watched hard, listened even harder, and heard the word “awake.” The detective shook his head gravely.
The action continued, with the