“I wanted to talk to you about your composite.” Laura showed him the one she’d printed up from the TalentFish site. “Do you remember when you had these taken?”
He leaned close. She could smell his aftershave and a dash of garlic, probably from the plates he handled. Giving her his best smoldering look. “Last year some time. I had some old shots that didn’t really represent what I look like now, so I needed to update them.”
“You worked with a photographer affiliated with the agency? One of these?” She handed him the slip marked “From the Desk of Myrna Gorman”.
He tapped the third name on the list. “Jimmy. Yeah. He gave me a good price. What’s this about?”
He seemed truthful. Impinging on her space, though, trying to make a conquest. Too concerned with his own image to think about anybody else.
She told him how she came across his picture.
He stared at her, his seduction forgotten. “You mean someone used my photograph on the Internet? Pretended they were me?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Oh man! If they found out at TalentFish, I could be blacklisted!”
“That’s one of the ramifications, yes,” Laura said dryly. “Besides two dead girls.”
He stared at his feet. “I can’t believe this.”
“This Jimmy. What do you know about him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. He was just some guy Strand recommended.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“Average. Kind of … insignificant.”
“He gave you that impression? That he was insignificant? Why was that?”
“I don’t know. He was kind of short. Not good-looking.”
Not good-looking. In Peter Dorrance’s world, that probably had greater significance than the Mason-Dixon line.
“What about his coloring?”
“God, I can’t remember.” He wanted to be helpful, though, so he added, “I think his card said he lived in Apalach.”
“Where’d you take the photos?”
He pointed across the vacant lot. “That yellow house. Belongs to the owner.” He nodded at Bennies. “Good guy, always looking out for his employees. He even drove the car out so I could pose with it." He shook his head. “Nice wheels. I didn’t even want to lean against it, afraid I’d hurt the paint job.”
“Was that his idea or yours?”
“Steve’s? Oh, you mean the photog. It was his idea. He must have took ten, fifteen rolls.”
“Is that unusual—that many?”
“I thought I was getting a really great deal. He said it was a special because he wanted to make his name as a fashion photog.”
In Panama City? Laura thought.
“I only paid him two hundred dollars. Not that that’s chump change, but for everything he did, it was a great deal. We must have been out there three or four hours. I went through a whole bunch of clothes.”
“This exchange—“ Laura showed him the phone number. “That’s in Apalachicola?”
“I think so.”
“Anything else you can remember about him? What did he drive?”
“I can’t remember … wait a minute. It was an old beat-up truck. I remember because he parked it way down the road so it wouldn’t get in the shots. So this is identity theft, right?”
“I’d say so." She circled her cell phone number and handed him her card. “If you can think of anything else about that day, or what he said or did, anything at all, please call me.”
She started down the steps.
He called out after her. “You think I have enough for a lawsuit?”
“You’re going to have to stand in line,” she said.
29
The moon was up when Laura drove into Apalachicola. As she came off the curve of the Gorrie Street Bridge into town, she spotted the massive hotel she’d noticed on the way out. The Gibson Inn, blue clapboard with white trim, had wraparound galleries populated with Adirondack chairs. The inn looked like a riverboat all lit up and ready to steam away.
She parked out front and went in. Cigarette smoke lingered with the potted palms and plush Victorian furnishings of the lobby. A tabby cat lounged on the desk, partially covering the bell with her paunch. Laura stroked the cat and asked for a nonsmoking room. She paid with her own money. The woman at the desk led her upstairs to a nautical-themed room with wooden shutters and a king-sized bed.
For a moment she thought about Tom Lightfoot. Felt this overwhelming desire to have him here with her, a pair of lovers on vacation, having fun.
But this wasn’t a vacation. If the photographer, Jimmy, didn’t pan out, she’d go home empty-handed.
Unpacking didn’t take long—putting away her other suit, two sets of casual clothes, a small makeup case, toothbrush, pajamas. Her gun, her protective Kevlar vest, Jessica Parris’s murder book she had compiled so far.
Then she called Jimmy de Seroux. The phone rang ten times, no answering machine.
She had to make another phone call, which couldn’t be put off. She reached the dispatcher at Apalachicola PD and left a short message, asking for an appointment with the chief.
“Just come by tomorrow anytime,” said the dispatcher. She promised to pass on Laura’s message.
Laura did this as a courtesy, although she had mixed feelings about contacting them. Jimmy de Seroux could be a dead end. Still, she didn’t want word to get back that she had been asking questions around town.
Which it surely would. Laura had lots of experience with small towns.
After dinner in town, Laura took a glass of red wine from the bar out onto the porch. The air, which had been so heavy and hot during the day, was leavened by a breeze from Apalachicola Bay. She could smell the fecund richness of the bay, the sea life.
The waitress came out and asked her if she needed anything.
“Have you lived here long?”
“Grew up in Port St. Joe.”
“Do you know a man named Jimmy de Seroux?”
“Dot would know.” She nodded to the bar. “She’s the bartender.”
There were only a few people inside. The middle-aged woman wiping down the bar looked up and smiled.
“Jimmy? Of course I know him. What’s he up to? Haven’t seen him in a coon’s age.”
“I heard he’s a photographer and he lives somewhere around here.”
“I didn’t know that. Photographer, huh? Must be one of those multi-talented people." She sighed. “Some people get all the talent. The rest of us have to work for a living." She flicked a dishrag over the polished bar top.
Laura said, “He does something besides photography?”
Dot pointed at a autographed photo above the bar. “Jimmy used to play the piano here. Pretty good, too.”
Laura peered at the photograph. Hard to see in the dim light. She asked Dot if she would take it down, and Dot obliged, handing it to her.
Laura stared at the picture. She felt the skin of her scalp tighten.
She’d seen many photographs like it, mostly in bars: A black-and-white photo in a black frame, typical publicity shot. But this wasn’t any photo.
Looking into that face, Laura had a bad feeling—a visceral reaction rather than anything based on logic.
If she’d glanced at the photo on the wall in a dark bar, she wouldn’t have looked twice. The guy wasn’t attractive. He wasn’t even interesting. Just an average guy, mid-thirties, pale face and narrow mouth. The distance between nose and mouth was long and simian, like Homer Simpson. Wispy hair on the longish side, combed across a domed forehead. A white short-sleeved shirt that would have gone well with a pocket protector. He looked soft, almost effeminate—harmless.
He looked like a lot of people. The kind of person you’ve seen before, but couldn’t place.
But his eyes were dead.
Dot ducked back behind the bar and snapped down a business card on the bar. “I knew I had it somewhere,” she said triumphantly. “People are always leaving their cards with us.”