Lost Tomorrows

by Coyle, Matt;

  What if the person who broke into my room two nights ago was just a common thief and was in my room to steal whatever he could and grabbed my computer when I woke up?

  What if I never found Colleen’s killer?

  One tape left to prove my theory. The last day of Krista’s life. Monday, April 1st.

  The video began at 12:00 a.m. like all the rest. I ran it on fast forward but at a slower speed than I had on the last one. No action from twelve to one. Krista’s porch light was on as it had been in the other videos until Leah and her brother arrived at the house three days after she died and turned it off.

  I looked at the clock on the video: 1:09 a.m.; Krista had just over an hour left in her life of forty-six years. 1:30 passed by. No movement around the house. Finally, at 1:59 a.m., Krista emerged from her house, got into her car, and took the last drive she’d ever make.

  At least I now had proof of one thing. Krista had been home all night, not bar hopping on State Street, the night before she died. What made her go downtown at two o’clock in the morning?

  The rest of the day zoomed by in a shuddering rush. No one approached Krista’s house during the day except for the mailman. No black Challenger or Wrangler. Around six p.m., ten to twelve people gathered in front of Krista’s house and put flowers by her front door. This went on for about an hour. Frank Cornetta set down a bouquet of white roses on Krista’s porch at 8:23 p.m. when no own else was out on the street. The camera angle was from behind, but it looked like he raised his hand to his forehead in a crisp military salute. He held the salute for a moment, then turned and walked back to his house. And wiped his eyes.

  I watched to the end of the tape. No one breached Krista’s house and no Dodge Challengers or Jeep Wranglers drove by. I closed the security camera file and stared at the blank computer screen. Seven days of video viewing and I hadn’t seen anything to confirm my theory that someone broke into Krista’s house after she died and stole her file on Colleen’s murder.

  Then it hit me. After Krista died. What if someone broke into her house before she died? And whatever they found was the reason they killed her? I called Frank Cornetta.

  “Frank, Rick Cahill. I’m hoping you can help me one more time.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for on the tapes? Are the police any closer to catching Krista’s killer?”

  “No, I didn’t find what I’d hope to, but the police are making progress.” And I might have to defer to them at some point if I didn’t find any new evidence to get me closer to finding Krista’s killer. And Colleen’s. “I realized that what I’m looking for might be on your security camera before Krista died.”

  “And you want copies of those tapes?”

  “Yes. Can you get me the security tapes going back a week before Krista died?” To when she reopened Colleen’s cold case.

  “No. Unfortunately, I can’t. The cloud only holds the video for two weeks unless you make hard copies every night, which I don’t. But, today’s Thursday, so I should be able to grab the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before she died. Will that help?”

  “Yes. I’ll take whatever I can get.”

  Another fool’s errand that could be forever open-ended. What if someone broke into Krista’s house on the Thursday where there’s no tape? Or before? I didn’t have a choice. Until SBPD found the killer, I had to get evidence to find the killers on my own and dispense justice or find enough evidence to disprove the connection between Krista’s and Colleen’s murders and let the other justice system play out.

  “Can you tell me what you’re looking for?”

  Cornetta didn’t have to give me the tapes. They were his property. He was doing me a solid in hopes I’d find Krista’s killer. He deserved the truth.

  “Evidence of someone breaking into Krista’s house.”

  “I’m away from home right now and won’t get back until ten or so. I’ll copy them then. As long as I copy the Friday tape before midnight, we’ll be fine. Meet me at my house tomorrow at eight a.m. And try not to get beat up between now and then so you can make it on time.”

  “Roger.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I GOT TO Frank Cornetta’s house at 7:55 a.m. and waited in my car. He came out onto his porch and waved me inside at 7:56 a.m.

  I stepped inside to an immaculate home that a drill sergeant wouldn’t have anything to bark at. The smell of bacon and eggs permeated the air. Reminded me that I hadn’t had breakfast yet or eaten much yesterday. A woman in her late forties, brown wavy hair, year-round tan, and sultry brown eyes, examined my broken face then stuck out her hand.

  “Eve Cornetta.” She was beautiful. “Nice to meet you.”

  Her grip was firm and eye contact direct. She fit right into what little I knew about Frank Cornetta’s life.

  “Nice to meet you. Thanks for letting me intrude so early.”

  “We’ve been up since five thirty. Breakfast?”

  “Evie, the man’s on a mission. Rick.” He headed down a long hall past two doors.

  “Thanks for the offer.” I followed Cornetta into the last room on the right in the hallway.

  If possible, Frank Cornetta’s office was spit-shinier than the rest of the house. The room was decorated, but not littered with military keepsakes. A large shadow box hung on one wall. It had seventeen photographs of soldiers around a handcrafted metal Christian cross. The pictures were of individual Marines; some looked to have been cropped from photos of larger groups.

  I didn’t have to ask what the solemn display meant. Frank Cornetta had seen death in his life. A lot of it. Friends lost to violence for valiant causes. So had I. But for much lesser purposes.

  Some had yet to be avenged.

  Cornetta sat down at his desk in front of an open laptop with a flash drive attached to the computer’s USB port. I’d expected him to just hand me the drive. I’d brought $60.00 to pay him for it along with the first one he gave me.

  “I took the initiative to scan through the video files last night and this morning. I hope you don’t mind.”

  A Marine taking the initiative. Who would have thought? He had every right. The security camera was his, as were its images.

  “Of course not. What did you find?”

  “I’m not sure, but it might be something.” He hit the enter key on the computer keyboard and a still nighttime image of Krista’s house came up. No car in the driveway. No lights on inside the house. Just the porch light outside. Timestamped at 8:03 p.m. March 30. The last Saturday of Krista’s life. Her birthday. Her last one of those, too. He hit another key and pointed at the screen. The video started on regular speed. “See? Right there.”

  Cornetta tapped the screen on the front window of Krista’s house to the left of the front door. My recollection was that it was the living room window. The window was curtained. The lower part of the curtain appeared to suddenly turn a shade lighter, then went back to its dark color. It was almost imperceptible and made me wonder if I’d really seen a change. But Cornetta had seen it, or at least thought he had. And he’d convinced himself enough to highlight it for me.

  “Run it again,” I said. I stuck my face close to the computer screen.

  Cornetta rewound five seconds and ran the video at normal speed. There it was. A two-second lightening. He rewound and ran it again, this time pausing when the curtain lightened.

  “If the porch light wasn’t on, we’d get a better contrast,” Cornetta said. “That came from a light inside that house. Someone with a flashlight.”

  He was on the right track. This was the dot I was looking for that connected all the others.

  But Jim Grimes’ admonition crept into my head. Don’t jump to conclusions.

  “How do you know that’s not just Krista turning a light on and off?”

  “Well, for one thing she left in her car a half hour before this.” Cornetta turned and looked up at me from his desk. Comfortable. In charge explaining his thought process to an underling. “And when she’s ho
me and turns on the living room light, the entire curtain lightens and is a lot brighter. You can see when you watch later while she’s home.”

  “What about headlights from a car on a street behind her house shining through a back window?”

  “There aren’t any streets behind her. She has a clear view out to the mountains. No developments between here and there.”

  “But you didn’t see anyone break into her house on any of the tapes?”

  “No, but they could have approached from the back of her house. Parked a couple streets down where there’s access to a hiking trail and veered off the path up to Krista’s house.”

  “Where can I get a chair?” I asked and scanned the room. Cornetta was sitting in the only one.

  “Take mine.” He stood up. “Or, just take the thumb drive with you. It’s all ready to go.”

  “No. Unless you’re kicking me out, I want your eyes on the screen when I go through the whole night.” On the hunt. This video put my teeth back in it. Then I realized I was in someone else’s house, barely a guest, and I’d demanded more of his time.

  Another useful pawn in my quest for the truth. “I mean, sure, I’ll take the drive. And I’m going to pay you for this one and the other one.”

  “Grab a chair out of the kitchen. I’ll cue this back up at the beginning.”

  Semper Fi.

  I hustled out of Cornetta’s office and down the hallway into the kitchen. Eve Cornetta sat at the head of the kitchen table reading the Santa Barbara Independent. She smiled up at me.

  “Frank told me to grab a chair,” I said.

  “Help yourself.” She set the newspaper down on the table. “Is Frank going to help you find Krista’s killer?”

  “He’s been a big help so far.” I grabbed a dark-stained wooden chair away from the table and started for the hallway. “Thanks.”

  “Good. I hope you catch that son of a bitch.” She picked up the paper and started reading again.

  I set the chair down next to Cornetta at his polished oak desk. I sat in it and saw that he’d cued the security video up to 12:00 a.m. Saturday, March 30. The beginning of the tape. The porch light was off so Krista must have been home in bed. We fast-forwarded through the night. No Dodge Challengers or Jeep Wranglers on the street. No one approached Krista’s house.

  Cornetta put the video on normal speed at 7:30 a.m. when Krista pulled her white Mustang out of the garage and drove down the street. The birthday party Leah threw for her that night was twelve hours away. Early exit for a Saturday. Krista didn’t play golf when I knew her. Maybe she was headed for the gym. We didn’t see her get into the car because she entered the garage through the house. All we could see of her in the car was her shoulder, her wavy blond hair, and her profile. She looked to be wearing a dark jacket, maybe a blazer.

  A ball formed in my throat. Krista. Alive. The woman who was a part of the worst decision I ever made. The woman who’d been a mentor to me. Like a big sister until she morphed into something else. I’d forgiven her for her part in Colleen’s destruction years ago. But I could never forgive myself. I’d pushed the memories I had of Krista before the night Colleen was murdered out of my life. Our betrayal, the lone memory I’d kept only as a reminder of my fatal decision. Now, I remembered the time before all that when Krista was my best friend and the smartest cop I knew.

  All that remained was her profile and a splash of her wavy blond hair in black and white.

  “I didn’t see anything unusual during the day, but I’ll run through it for you,” Cornetta said.

  He set the speed on a slower fast forward and we watched people begin their weekends.

  Kids whizzed by on skateboards and scooters. Cars came and went. Not the ones I was looking for. Krista returned home at 3:43 p.m. and parked in the driveway. She got out of the car wearing slacks and a blazer. Detective wear. No gym bag slung over her shoulder. The athletic yet feminine walk I remembered. A sexy command presence. I’d never seen another female cop pull it off. Hell, I’d never seen a male cop do it either.

  Her attire looked like she’d been on the job, but she was off duty that day. Working something on her own time? Colleen’s case? Where did she go?

  Oceanside. To interview Mike Richert. The timing fit. Richert mailed the letter to Krista on the following Wednesday. He mentioned that it had only been a few days since her visit. She was in detective attire and gone for eight and a quarter hours. The drive from Santa Barbara to Oceanside on a Saturday was three and a half hours, max. A seven-hour round trip left her over an hour to interview Richert.

  Krista stayed inside her home the rest of the day. No one approached her house. I kept my eyes pinned to the screen looking for a black Challenger or a white Wrangler as the day spun by. Cars came and went, but none driven by Weaver or Mitchell.

  Cornetta was right about the curtains in Krista’s living room. At about 6:50 p.m. they lightened over the entire expanse of the window. They went dark again right before the porch light went on and Krista left her house at 7:35 p.m. She wore a black dress when she got into her car and drove away. Off to Leah’s house for her birthday party.

  Three minutes after Krista drove off, at 7:38 p.m., a black sedan cruised by her house going in the same direction. It wasn’t a Dodge Challenger. I was tuned into that profile. I’d studied the last four years of models online after Leah told me the kind of car Tom Weaver drove. Something about this car was familiar. It might have been a Ford Fusion.

  “Can you pause on the black car?” I asked Cornetta.

  “Sure.” He rewound and paused the picture as the car passed in front of Krista’s house.

  I studied the driver. Hard to get a good look at him at night. The nearest streetlight was three or four houses away.

  “Can you zoom in?”

  “Sure, but the picture will become blurry.”

  He zoomed in on the car. He was right. The image of the driver pixilated and no facial features were visible. However, it looked like the driver’s face was turned away from the camera toward Krista’s house and the sun visor was covering the upper half of the driver-side window.

  Who has their visor down at night, much less positioned on the driver-side window?

  Someone who was aware there was a security camera on the house across the street from Krista’s and didn’t want to be seen in the neighborhood.

  “You see that?” I tapped the visor on the computer screen.

  “Yes. He has the visor down.”

  “At night and covering part of the driver’s window.”

  “He doesn’t want to be seen by the camera.”

  “Right. Can you reverse the feed? I think we’ve seen that car before.”

  Cornetta started the video in reverse at regular speed. We watched the Fusion disappear backwards and Krista return to her house the same way. We kept watching at regular speed for a few minutes and nothing of interest appeared on the screen. We’d already watched it on fast forward once.

  “Can you go to the next fastest speed?”

  Cornetta clicked the toggle button on the screen and the speed of the image picked up. A black sedan appeared on the right side of the screen and passed Krista’s house going backwards. Cornetta paused the image, but the driver was blocked by the passenger side of the car. It was the same car we saw earlier. A black Ford Fusion. The passenger-side sun visor blocked the upper half of the window. The time on the video read 6:42 p.m.

  “That’s the same car and he’s got the other visor down,” Cornetta said.

  “Yep. Do you recognize it from the neighborhood?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe this guy just likes driving around with his visors down.” Playing devil’s advocate to my own pounding heart.

  “What’s he doing in my neighborhood?” Cornetta restarted the video and played it forward once the car disappeared from the screen. Again, no view of the driver. But there was something else about the Fusion. I’d seen a white version of the same model recently. In the S
anta Barbara Police Department parking lot. Not the employee or visitor parking lots. It was in the lot where SBPD parks it’s black and white cruisers. SBPD had replaced the old Crown Victorias with Ford Fusions. The angle of the camera didn’t catch a license plate coming or going.

  The car that passed by Krista’s house the night someone flashed a flashlight from inside her house was a G ride. A slick top. A plain-wrap detective car. And it was black.

  Tom Weaver’s favorite color.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  WEAVER. HE’D BEEN in Krista’s neighborhood thirty-one hours before Krista was murdered. Had he followed Krista to Leah’s house the night of her birthday? Why? If he did, who was in Krista’s house with a flashlight a half hour after Krista left for the party?

  Weaver. He must have known about the birthday party and knew Krista would be leaving to attend it around seven thirty p.m. He staked out her house and waited for her to leave then went down to the trailhead a couple streets below the house and hiked up and broke in the back door. He needed time to get a look at whatever Krista had discovered about Colleen’s murder since she reopened the case. The party would give him at least three hours to search Krista’s house.

  “Frank.” I stood up and squared to Cornetta. “I have to go outside to make a phone call.”

  “Stay.” He stood up. “I need to talk to the wife for a couple minutes, anyway.” He left the room and closed the door behind him.

  I called Leah’s cell phone. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Did you invite Weaver to Krista’s birthday party?” I assumed their divorce had been contentious, but maybe time had healed the wounds. Until Krista reopened them by reopening Colleen’s murder investigation.

  “No. Why?”

  “Did he know about the party?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. I invited a few of Krista’s and his mutual friends. Why, Rick?”

  “What about Mitchell?”

  “No. What did you find out?”