Just One Look

They both looked at her. Josh said, “Huh?”

“How do you develop rolls?”

He said, “Huh?” again.

“You put the roll in that machine,” Grace said. “They come out in a pile. Then you put the pile in an envelope. Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you look at every picture you develop?”

He said nothing. He looked around as if asking for help.

“I’ve seen you work,” Grace said. “You read your magazines. You listen to your music. You do not check through all the pictures. So my question is, Josh, how do you know what pictures were in that pile?”

Josh glanced at Scott Duncan. No help there. He turned back to her. “It’s weird, that’s all.”

Grace waited.

“That picture looks like it’s a hundred years old or something. It’s the right size, but that ain’t Kodak paper. That’s what I meant. I’d never seen it before.” Josh liked that. His eyes lit up, warming to his lie. “Yeah, see, that’s what I thought he meant. When he said did I put it in. Did I ever see it before?”

Grace just looked at him.

“Look, I don’t know what goes through that machine. But I’ve never seen that print. That’s all I know, okay?”

“Josh?”

It was Scott Duncan. Josh turned toward him.

“That picture ended up in Ms. Lawson’s pack of pictures. Do you have any idea how that happened?”

“Maybe she took the picture.”

“No,” Duncan said.

Josh gave another elaborate shrug. He must have had very powerful shoulders from all the work they got.

“Tell me how it works,” Duncan said. “How you develop the pictures.”

“It’s like she said. I put the film into the machine. It does the rest. I just set the size and the count.”

“Count?”

“You know. One print from each negative, two prints, whatever.”

“And they come out in a pile?”

“Yeah.”

Josh was more relaxed now, on comfortable ground.

“And then you put them in an envelope?”

“Right. Same envelope the customer filled out. Then I file it in alphabetical order. That’s it.”

Scott Duncan looked over at Grace. She said nothing. He took out his badge. “Do you know what this badge means, Josh?”

“No.”

“It means I work for the U.S. attorney’s office. It means I can make your life miserable if you cross me. Do you understand?”

Josh looked a little scared now. He managed a nod.

“So I’m going to ask you one more time: Do you know anything about this photograph?”

“No. I swear.” He looked around. “I gotta get back to work now.”

He stood. Grace blocked his path. “Why did you leave work early the other day?”

“Huh?”

“About an hour after I picked up my roll of film, I went back to the store. You were gone. And the next morning too. So what happened?”

“I got sick,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Feeling better now?”

“Guess so.” He started pushing past her.

“Because,” Grace went on, “your manager said you had a family emergency. Is that what you told him?”

“I gotta get back to work,” he said, and this time he pushed past her and nearly ran out the door.

• • •

Beatrice Smith was not home.

Eric Wu broke in without any trouble. He checked through the house. No one was there. With the gloves still on Wu flicked on the computer. Her software PIM—a fancy term for a date and phone book—was Time & Chaos. He opened it and checked her calendar.

Beatrice Smith was visiting her son, the doctor, in San Diego. She’d be home in two days—far enough away to save her life. Wu considered that, the fickle winds of fate. He couldn’t help it. He glanced through Beatrice Smith’s calendar two months in the past and two months in the future. There were no overnight trips. If he had come at any other time, Beatrice Smith would be dead. Wu liked to think about things like that, about how it was often the little things, the unconscious things, the things we can’t know or control, that alter our lives. Call it fate, luck, odds, God. Wu found it fascinating.

Beatrice Smith had a two-car garage. Her tan Land Rover took up the right side. The left side was empty. There was an oil stain on the ground. This, Wu figured, had been where Maury parked his car. She kept it empty now—Wu couldn’t help but think of Freddy Sykes’s mother—as if it was his side of the bed. Wu parked there. He opened the back. Jack Lawson looked shaky. Wu untied his legs so he could walk. The hands remained bound at the wrist. Wu led him inside. Jack Lawson fell twice. The blood had not fully circulated through the legs. Wu held him up by the scruff of his shirt.

“I’m taking the gag off,” Wu said.

Jack Lawson nodded. Wu could see it in his eyes. Lawson was broken. Wu had not hurt him much—not yet anyway—but when you spend enough time in the dark, alone with your thoughts, your mind turns inward and feasts. That was always a dangerous thing. The key to serenity, Wu knew, was to keep working, keep moving forward. When you’re moving, you don’t think about guilt or innocence. You don’t think about your past or your dreams, your joys or disappointments. You just worry about survival. Hurt or be hurt. Kill or be killed.

Wu removed the gag. Lawson did not plead and beg or ask questions. That stage was over. Wu tied his legs to a chair. He searched the pantry and refrigerator. They both ate in silence. When they finished, Wu washed off the dishes and cleaned up. Jack Lawson stayed tied to the chair.

Wu’s cell phone rang. “Yes.”

“We have a problem.”

Wu waited.

“When you picked him up, he had a copy of that photograph, right?”

“Yes.”

“And he said there were no other copies?”

“Yes.”

“He was wrong.”

Wu said nothing.

“His wife has a copy of the picture. She’s flashing it everywhere.”

“I see.”

“Will you take care of it?”

“No,” Wu said. “I can’t return to the area.”

“Why not?”

Wu did not respond.

“Forget I asked that. We’ll use Martin. He has the information on her children.”

Wu said nothing. He did not like the idea, but he kept it to himself.