Spiral

outside security, Mr. Umberto Reyes, maintains. That no one entered the grounds during the party.”
    ”Up till the time you found Veronica dead.”
    ”Correct.”
    I looked around the room again. ”Who knew about Kalil wanting to shoot his home movie?”
    Tranh gave me his smug little smile. ”I believe everyone. It was announced with the invitations weeks before.”
    ”Announced as in printed on something?”
    ”No, nothing so formal. Everyone was simply told the party would be ‘filmed’ that way.”
    ”And that the other, security cameras on the inside of the house would be turned off?”
    ”If not everyone was told directly, everyone could have heard about it.”
    I watched Tranh. ”Which is your ‘careful plan’ part.”
    He watched me, too. ‘Yes. Whoever killed Veronica had carefully planned her death for the one time many people Would be in the house without being watched by the house.”
    ”You also said in your suite that she was a ‘very difficult’ girl.”
    ” I did.”
    ”Difficult how?”
    Tranh paused. ”Veronica had learned too much too quickly.”
    ”About what?”
    ”How to get what she believed she wanted.”
    ”Like having her grandfather order the interior cameras turned off during his party?”
    Duy Tranh paused again, then said, ”Perhaps you should speak with Mr. Umberto Reyes now.”

FOUR

    We walked through the house and out the front door toward the gate. The guy in the blond crew-cut was standing next to his little security gazebo, most of the media and gawkers gone from the street.
    Duy Tranh waited until we were an arm’s length away from the guard before saying, ”Mr. Umberto Reyes, this is Mr. John Cuddy. The Colonel has hired him to look into the death of Veronica.”
    ”I know.”
    Reyes’s lips barely moved as he looked at Tranh, and I got the distinct impression there was no love lost between them-I turned to Tranh myself. ”Thanks for your help so far, but I think I can take it from here.”
    He hesitated, then said, ”Please advise me if you need anything further.”
    When Duy Tranh disappeared around a corner of the house, I turned back to Reyes. ”I’m told you were in the MPs, too.”
    ”That’s right.”
    Still terse, any accent buried. ”Then we both know there are two ways of doing this.”
    Reyes moved his tongue around inside his cheek. ”I’m ‘Umberto’ by birthname, but you can call me ‘Berto.’”
    ”And I prefer John.”
    I stuck out my hand, and we shook on the truce. Reyes let me speak next, though.
    ”Tell me about the day Veronica Held was killed.”
    ”You want overview first, then detail?”
    I nodded.
    He took a breath. ”Big picture, a lot of people came on the grounds for the party, but once they got here, they all stayed inside the house because of the cold, and nobody else came in behind them.”
    ”Or around them, Berto?”
    Reyes pointed to the gazebo. ”I’ve got six video monitors in there. Small screens, but they do the job. Four exterior corners, two interior intersections. Since both the interior cameras were nonoperational—you been told why?”
    ”Yes.”
    ”Okay, that left me just the four exterior ones, and I knew everybody who came through that gate for the party.”
    ”Meaning?”
    ”Meaning I just had to glance up at their faces to recognize them.”
    ”So, you didn’t have to spend much time looking away from the screens.”
    ”Right. Nobody else came in. Or out.”
    ”None of the guests left early?”
    ”Or even went outside. Like I said, it was cold that day.”
    ”How cold, Berto?”
    ”Fifty, maybe even forty-five.”
    Everything’s relative, but at least Reyes was warming up to me a little. ”You pretty familiar with the video monitoring equipment in Central Control?”
    ”We had the same system, my last post in the service.”
    ”And?”
    ”Worked fine back then, worked fine that day.”
    ”You keep a guest list for the party?”
    ”Negative, man. Like I told you before, I knew everybody.”
    ”Can you name them?”
    Reyes reeled off a dozen or so, both first and last, some I recognized from my talks with the Skipper. Impressive, or well rehearsed. ”How about your logbook?”
    ”The police took the entry page for that day. Evidence.” I was about to ask him if he’d copied it first when a Porsche Boxster convertible screeched to a halt outside the gate and a young woman with platinum hair leaned into the horn on the wheel in front of her. Through the car’s