Eleven days before Founders' Day, I found a forty-one-second video on clips.com that showed someone stealing the hands off our town clock. That someone wore a Courier staff windbreaker. There were nine of them, and one was mine.
I want to be clear about something. I did not take the clock hands.
I want to be equally clear that I was asleep that night. I live alone. My alibi is a cat, and the cat died in 2015.
"That's not an alibi," Dot said. "That's an obituary."
By eight the next morning, Dot was at my kitchen table with her recipe box. She had brought a fresh pack of index cards and a pen that clicked.
"Nine windbreakers," she said. "Read me the names."
I had the order form. Of course I had the order form. It was in shoebox 2001-019, between a menu from the Rotary lunch and a photo of a pumpkin that looked like a former governor.
I read them out.
"One. Russell Abernathy, editor."
"Dead," Dot said. "2011. Heart."
"Two. Hollis Drummond, sports."
"Alive. Knees like wet bread. Can't do stairs."
"Three. Pruitt Lam, photographer."
"Alive. Was he around that night?"
"He was at a wedding in Brookside. He took four hundred photos. They're timestamped."
Dot made a card anyway. "Alibis can be faked."
"With four hundred photos of a chicken dance?"
"I'm not ruling anything out. Next."
The list went on. Two more were dead. One had moved to Arizona in 2007.
One had moved to Florida in 2003. She'd sent the windbreaker back by mail, with a note that said Too humid for this. I had filed the note.
That left three people in Harrow Falls who'd had a Courier windbreaker in 2009. Hollis, with his knees. Pruitt, with his chicken dance. And me.
Dot wrote my name on a new card. She looked at it for a while. Then she put it in the box, right behind card ninety.
"Now you're in there twice," she said.
"Is that worse?"
"It's more complete."
I called Pruitt Lam, because it seemed rude not to. He is fifty-five now and photographs weddings in three counties. He answered on the first ring, which photographers never do.
"Marge," he said. "Is this about the clips.com thing?"
"How do you know about the clips.com thing?"
"Dot's sister does my taxes."
I looked at Dot. Dot looked at the ceiling.
"I was in Brookside that night," Pruitt said. "Cousin's wedding. I can send you the photos."
"All four hundred?"
"Just the important one. There's one of me in the chicken dance at 2:14 a.m. I'm in a rented tuxedo."
"Was your windbreaker with you?"
"Over a tuxedo? Marge. I have standards."
He emailed the photo ten minutes later. He was right about the tuxedo. He was also right about the chicken dance, which I will not describe, out of respect.
Dot moved his card to the back of the box. "Doesn't clear him," she said. "Just demotes him."
"To what?"
"Card two hundred and twelve. It's where I put people I like."
"Where am I?"
She didn't answer. She just clicked her pen, twice, which I chose to find encouraging.
There was one thing on the clips.com page I didn't understand. Under the video, in small gray text, it said "Contact support."
I clicked it. It opened an email form. I typed my question, then retyped it so it sounded less like a confession.
I have found a video on your archive that may show a crime from 2009. It is titled "test test." I would like to know who uploaded it.
I would also like a better copy. The current one looks like it was filmed through soup.
I hit send at 8:41 a.m. I expected nothing. I expected a robot, or a week of silence, or a coupon.
At 8:45, I got a reply.
Hi Marjorie,
Thanks for writing in! I'm Teddy. I'm the support team. I'm also the archive team, the server team, and the guy who waters the plant.
I can't share who uploaded a video. Privacy policy. Sorry.
But the soup thing I can maybe help with. We compressed every video on the site in 2012 to save on storage. The original files went onto backup tapes.
If yours is on a tape, it's 640x480. That's four times sharper.
The tapes are in a cabinet behind me. Some of them still work. Give me a few days.
Thanks for being one of our 38 active users!
Teddy Brask, clips.com
"He watered a plant," Dot said. "In the email. Why would he tell us that?"
"I think he doesn't get a lot of email."
"Thirty-eight users," Dot said. "He probably knows all of them by name."
"He probably knows their birthdays."
"Does he know mine?"
"You're not a user, Dot."
She took out her phone. By lunch, she was. Teddy sent her a welcome email with a smiley face, and she printed it out.
I wrote back to thank him. I asked how many people worked at clips.com.
He replied in two minutes. Just me. Since 2019. I'm 44, so that's basically a third of my life.
A second email followed. The plant is a pothos. His name is Gary.
Bunny's Diner sits across the square from the courthouse. It has the best view of the clock in town, and the worst coffee.
Bunny Szabo is forty-eight and has owned the diner for twenty years. She names her pies after local events. There's the Flood of '97, which is mostly peach. There's the Recount, which is a lemon meringue nobody fully trusts.
The most popular pie is the Missing Minute. It's chocolate. It has no topping, so the face is blank. She has sold it every October since 2009.
Dot and I took the back booth. I ordered tea. Dot ordered the Missing Minute, which I thought was in poor taste, given the circumstances.
"It's research," Dot said.
Bunny came by with the pot. "You two look like you're plotting something."
"We're not plotting," Dot said. "We're investigating. Marjorie found a video on clips.com of the clock thief."
I stared at her. She stared back, chewing.
"Dot."
"What? She was going to find out."
Bunny had stopped pouring. The coffee was still going into my tea. Neither of us mentioned it.
"A video," Bunny said. "Of that night."
"Forty-one seconds," Dot said. "Someone on the catwalk. In a Courier jacket."
Bunny looked at me. It was a strange look. I had known her for twenty years, and I could not read it.
Then she said, "I've got a pie in the oven," and walked away. She went into the kitchen. She didn't come out again until we left.
"She doesn't have a pie in the oven," Dot said. "The oven light's off. I can see it from here."
"Maybe she's upset."
"About what? This is the best thing that's happened to the Missing Minute in seventeen years."
By the time I got home, it was dark. I opened the laptop and went back to the video page on clips.com. I wanted to watch it again, slowly, frame by frame, like a professional.
Then I stopped, because the number under the video had changed.
When I'd first found "test test," it had four views. Dot and I had watched it three times that night.
That made seven. I had watched it twice that morning. Nine.
The counter now said thirteen.
Four other views. Since breakfast.
"Somebody else is watching," I said aloud, to the shoeboxes. They had no comment.
I emailed Teddy. Can you tell me where the new views on "test test" are coming from? Not who. Just where.
He answered at 10:12 p.m. Teddy, I was learning, did not sleep.
I can't tell you where. Privacy again, sorry.
But I can tell you one thing, because it's not private, it's just weird. The account that uploaded "test test" hasn't logged in since 2009.
It logged in this afternoon at 3:17.
Gary and I are a little spooked.
Up next: Nine Windbreakers
Continue to Part 3 →