Sheriff Babitt: Josh went to all of them, too. Sarah made him her official ball photographer when he was just ten years old. That kid made a nice piece of change selling pictures to the guests. If you bought one of his prints, I'm sure you'd remember a good-looking kid like that.
William Swahn: You mean pedophile candy, don't you? At least a hundred children show up at the lodge every year. As far as I know, Josh never took a picture of me at any of the balls.
Sheriff Babitt: And that's odd, isn't it? I searched the boy's darkroom. I looked at five years of photographs, all the ones he took at the Winston lodge. There's not one single picture of you at the ball- everyone else in town-but not you. Now I call that strange. You'd think he would've caught you in one of those group shots just by accident. So, naturally, I assumed that you bought those pictures from the boy-maybe the negatives, too. You see why I can't let go of the idea that you met him, talked to him, maybe did a little business with him?
Oren leaned down to point at the margin note in Cable Babitt's handwriting: I thought the man was going to wet his pants.
Swahn smiled as he read this line. "I believe that was wishful thinking on the sheriff's part. As I recall, I declined to answer any more questions without my attorney present."
The elevator descended to the parlor floor with its passenger and a storage carton.
"I couldn't defend myself to the sheriff-not without giving up Miss Rice as my client." Swahn opened the cage door and nudged the box out with one foot. "That's all of them. Your housekeeper gave me the contact sheets so I wouldn't have to develop all the negatives. That's why the sheriff never saw them. Babitt only saw the pictures that were made into full-size prints." He rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a magnifying glass. "You'll need this."
Oren opened the cardboard carton and pulled out stacks of glossy paper, each one filled with miniature photographs the size of postage stamps. He had watched his brother make these sheets by laying strips of negatives on the paper, side by side, and then exposing the lot with a burst of light. Circles of a red wax pencil highlighted images chosen for the labor-intensive process of making eight-by-ten prints. "Josh never wanted anyone to see these. Ninety percent of his shots were rejects. I thought he destroyed all the contact sheets."
Swahn sat on the floor beside the box and picked up a sheet of twenty small images. "This one has shots from a birthday ball." He turned it over to show Oren a list of names in Josh's handwriting. "And these are the guests who ordered prints from your brother. You'll find me in some of these group shots, but none of my pictures are circled in red. Josh never made them into full-size prints, and why would he? I never ordered one. For the last time, Mr. Hobbs-until the day he disappeared, I didn't even know your brother was alive."
Oren knew that some of the uncircled shots had been printed. But Swahn had not been the customer, though the man figured prominently in a picture marked by the indent of Sarah Winston's fingernail. This was how the lady had chosen the photographs she wanted to buy, and then she and Josh would always argue over her selections.
Once, Oren had accompanied his brother to the frame shop where Mrs. Winston was waiting. Josh had wanted moral support for a fight he could never win. That day could have gone worse. Fortunately, the shop's owner had been in the back room when Josh dived between Horatio and Mrs. Winston, waving his arms, dancing and dodging to block the dog's every avenue of assault on her by drool or tongue licking.
"Hey! Settle down!"
In a happy accident of timing, the dog had chosen that moment to lie down on the floor.
Mrs. Winston was Josh's patron. He would have killed Horatio to save her from a slobbering. On that long-ago morning, Josh had handed her the chosen print, saying, "You know it's not the best one."
"Yes, dear, I know that. But it's the one I want."
That time, Josh had a plan to defeat her. He pulled another envelope from his knapsack and gave it to her.
This second photograph delighted her. "Oh, this is beautiful. Really first-rate."
"It's the best work I've ever done."
"Well, I want this one, too. I'll buy it from you right now."
"No, it's free," he said. "Just give me back the other one."
In the end, Mrs. Winston had beaten him in her very charming way. She had so gracefully worn the boy down and won both photographs-and crushed him. Josh had been forced to bear many compliments on the second picture, the good one, and he was made to accept a check for an outrageous amount, the most he had ever earned for one print. But Josh cared so little for money. He had only wanted to get back the bad photograph- so that he could destroy it.
When the two brothers and the dog left the shop that day, even Horatio had been subdued, sensing Josh's loss.
Oren wished that he had paid more attention to that transaction in the frame shop. But now he had a second chance. He went through all of the contact sheets for the birthday balls and looked for the indents of Mrs. Winston's fingernails beneath the small images.
He found five, one for each ball, and all of them pictured William Swahn's face in the crowd. One other guest was featured in each of these shots, and now he understood what had eluded his brother for years: These two faces in one photograph were key to the lady's selections.
"Swahn? How well do you know Mavis Hardy?"
It was a rare day when the sheriff visited the County Coroner 's Office, a small building between an electronics store and a coffee shop. In a quiet county with a low crime rate, there were few occasions that might call him here. This late afternoon, he had arrived before the appointed hour.
After a long talk with a title company, he knew jurisdiction was dicey. The gravesite was on private land, but Evelyn Straub had suckered the state into a lease of mineral rights that had not panned out. And now he was in a contest for the bones.
His adversary, the CBI agent, drove her black Taurus into the parking space next to his jeep. It was said that a man could be judged by the caliber of his opponents. If this was true, then Cable Babitt was insulted. Special Agent Sally Polk stepped out of her car, and the wind whipped up the hem of a flowery dress. It was the sort of thing she might wear to a meeting of the garden club. Also, he had to wonder what kind of woman was too lazy to dye the gray out of her hair.
And the answer?
He decided that, unlike himself, she was not at all anxious about holding on to her job in the California culture of youth. And that stupid dress was another sign that she must be good. This woman didn't care one whit about her public image. Sally Polk slipped a purse strap over one shoulder and headed for the entrance, indistinguishable from any matronly civilian who had business with the coroner.
The race was on.
Cable was first to the door, but he did not pause to hold it open for her. Hell no. Chivalry was dead, dead, dead. He let the door swing shut behind him to slow her down a pace. He smiled, as if scoring a point that might help him hold on to his double homicide. And he had another game point in his pocket. The county coroner was nothing so grand as a pathologist, and whatever Dr. Martingale imparted to the CBI agent would be useless.
Down the hall they went, the sheriff in his footrace with the state's investigator. The woman, unhurried, lagged farther behind. Cable slowed his steps, aiming to effect a mosey when he entered the refrigerated back room.
A stainless steel table was laid out with two incomplete skeletons, but all the major bones had been accounted for between the mountain grave and Joshua Hobbs's coffin. An overhanging lamp bathed the remains in light so bright that the stains from the earth were washed away. These people might have been flayed of flesh only this morning.