Free Touch-Me-Not by Cynthia Riggs

Pond.
    “A police matter?” asked Casey.
    “I’ll let you decide,” Howland replied, returning to his chair. “The file consists of a dozen or more short videos, apparently taken by a camera or cameras hidden in bathrooms and showing women taking showers.”
    “Cameras installed without the resident’s knowledge?” Victoria asked. “Was the installer Jerry Sparks?”
    “No way of knowing,” said Howland. “The videos were on his computer. I downloaded them onto this thumb drive.” He lifted the lanyard with the inch-and-a-half-long metal object. “They’re disturbing, to say the least.”
    “Jerry Sparks has free access to the places he works,” said Victoria. “I certainly have never watched over him. I suspect most people don’t.”
    “Sparks has done work here in the police station,” said Casey. “He seemed competent enough.” She pushed her swivel chair away from her desk and stood up. “Can you download the videos onto my computer?”
    “Sure,” said Howland.
    “There’s something I should tell you,” Victoria said to Casey. “Alyssa Adams came to see me on Thursday evening.” She turned to Howland and explained. “She’s a member of the mathematical knitters’ group, and she, too, has been getting calls from the breather.” Victoria turned back to Casey. “Alyssa believes she knows who’s making the calls.”
    “Not Jerry Sparks?” said Casey.
    Victoria nodded.
    “Double whammy, if he’s the one,” murmured Casey. “Phone calls and videos.”
    “Did she recognize his voice?” asked Howland.
    “He didn’t speak. But a couple of months ago, she had a movie date with Jerry that ended unsatisfactorily, and she’s been getting calls since then.”
    “Did he ever identify himself?” asked Howland.
    “He did in the first couple of calls. Jerry apologized and invited her on another date. She accepted the apology and declined the date. He called two or three times after that, getting more and more insistent.”
    Casey shifted the beach stone from one hand to the other and back again.
    “And after those first calls?” asked Howland.
    “There was a period of several weeks when she didn’t hear from him, and then the calls started again, but this time they’ve consisted of heavy breathing or muttered obscenities.”
    “How often does she get the calls?” asked Casey.
    “At irregular intervals, two or three times a week.”
    “The videos were filmed over several months,” said Howland. “Dates are noted on the right side, near the bottom. He may have used only one camera and moved it around. Many of the videos seem to have been taken in the same bathroom. Possibly a rental unit, or a gym or fitness center.”
    “Where is Jerry Sparks now?” asked Victoria.
    “I wouldn’t know,” said Howland. “Never met the guy.”
    Casey swiveled her chair. “How long will it take you to bring the videos up on my computer?”
    Howland got up from his chair again. “No time at all.”
    LeRoy left Beany’s with no clue as to the whereabouts of Jerry Sparks’s computer except that the guy who’d bought it drove a white Volvo station wagon. LeRoy got back into his van. He had to find that computer before the police did. Sparks had lied about downloading the videos onto his cell phone, but LeRoy couldn’t take a chance that Sparks had also lied about downloading those pictures onto his computer.
    When LeRoy called Victoria Trumbull, the answering machine kicked in with a message from her granddaughter. He told the machine he was on the way and would take a look at the upstairs outlet.
    When he got to Victoria’s, no one was home. He knocked several times on her kitchen door, then went upstairs to the guest room, where he checked the blackened outlet and the smoky patch on the wall above it. He’d have to come back later when he had more time. It was a wonder Mrs. Trumbull hadn’t burned her house down long ago.
    He finished rewiring what he could with the tools he’d brought