Novel.73.Velocity.2005 by Koontz Dean

Author:Koontz, Dean [Koontz, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

chapter 36

AT AN ELECTRONICS STORE IN NAPA, BILLY bought a compact video camera and recorder. The equipment could be used in the usual fashion or could be set instead to compile a continuous series of snapshots taken at intervals of a few seconds.

In its second mode, loaded with the proper custom disk, the system was able to provide week-long recorded surveillance similar to that in the average convenience store.

Considering that the Explorer’s broken window didn’t allow him to lock any valuables in the vehicle, he paid for his purchases and arranged to return for them in half an hour.

From the electronics store, he went in search of a newspaper-vending machine. He found one in front of a pharmacy.

The lead story concerned Giselle Winslow. The schoolteacher had been murdered in the early hours of Tuesday morning, but her body had not been found until late Tuesday afternoon, less than twenty-four hours previously.

The picture of her in the newspaper was different from the one tucked in the book on Lanny Olsen’s lap, but they were photos of the same attractive woman.

Carrying the newspaper, Billy walked to the main branch of the county library. He had a computer at home but no longer had Internet access; the library offered both.

He was alone at the cluster of work stations. Other patrons were at reading tables and prowling the stacks. Maybe the embrace of “book alternatives” wasn’t turning out to be the future of libraries, after all.

When he’d been writing fiction, he had used the World Wide Web for research. Later, it had provided distraction, escape. In the past two years, he hadn’t surfed the Web at all.

Meanwhile, things had changed. Access was faster. Searches were faster, too, and easier.

Billy typed in a search string. When he got no hits, he modified the string, then modified it again.

Drinking-age laws varied state by state. In many jurisdictions, Steve Zillis hadn’t been old enough to tend bar until he was twenty-one, so Billy dropped bartender from the search string.

Steve had been working at the tavern only five months. He and Billy had never swapped biographies.

Billy vaguely recalled that Steve had gone to college. He could not remember where. He added student to the string.

Perhaps the word murder was too limiting. He replaced it with foul play.

He got one hit. From the Denver Post.

The story dated back five years and eight months. Although Billy warned himself not to read into this discovery more than it actually contained, the information struck him as relevant.

That November, at the University of Colorado at Denver, a coed named Judith Sarah Kesselman, eighteen, had gone missing. Initially, at least, there were no signs of foul play.

In what appeared to be the first newspaper piece about the missing young woman, another UCD student, Steven Zillis, nineteen, was quoted as saying that Judith was “a wonderful girl, compassionate and concerned, a friend to everyone.” He worried because “Judi is too responsible to just go off for a couple days without telling anyone her plans.”

Another search string related to Judith Sarah Kesselman produced scores of hits.

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