by Dale Mayer
“Meaning?”
“Meaning someone’s likely had access to that space.”
“You mean, since the dead guy showed up?”
“Yes.”
“Shit,” he said. “Put Linny on?”
“I’m here,” she said, realizing he didn’t know the phone was on Speaker. “I checked my emails and saw it just now.”
“Good enough,” he said. “I’ll check first to make sure that nobody has been inside since we were gone, and then I’ll set up a camera. This is actually good news.”
“It’s only good news,” she said in exasperation, “if you take care of yourself and don’t get caught by this guy.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll check in. Give me a few minutes though.”
And, with that, the line went silent.
She looked at Fallon. “I’m not sleeping now.”
He frowned at her. “You need some sleep,” he said gently.
“Now my mind’s all hyped up again.”
“That’s why we never check emails,” he said, with a laugh. “But, if you’re not going to sleep, do you want to put on some coffee?”
“That I can do.” She headed into the kitchen and quickly put on a pot for them. When she walked back in, she asked, “Has Quinn checked in yet?”
Fallon shook his head.
She frowned. “Shouldn’t he be there now?”
“I would have thought so, yes.”
She watched as he sent a text message to Quinn. They waited and waited but nothing. “How long do we wait?” she asked hoarsely.
“What would you like to do,” he asked, “if he doesn’t answer?”
“We’re going there after him,” she said. “You know we are.”
He brushed the hair off his face.
“We’re not leaving him,” she said.
“That’s certainly not something I would do normally,” he said. “But I also don’t want to take you into danger.” He started clicking on the console.
“You already said nobody was close enough to help out.”
“No, I don’t think anybody is,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily correct. Maybe somebody is around here who can look after you.”
“I’m not somebody who needs to be looked after,” she snapped.
“I get it,” he said, “but I’m not taking you into a dangerous situation.”
She took a long slow deep breath. “You don’t have any choice,” she said. “Quinn hasn’t answered, and that means he’s in trouble.”
*
Fallon grappled with the problem at hand. But, as his worry for Quinn grew, he said, “Come on. Let’s go,” and he bolted for the door.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asked.
“What? That we’re going after him or that you’re coming with me? Isn’t it a little late to worry?” He quickly loaded up the weapons that he had left in the front closet, snatched them up, and headed to the garage. “Come on. Come on.”
But she was already there at his side. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?”
“I don’t like anything about this now,” he said. “It’s that email. That changes everything. I should never have sent him back out again.”
“You didn’t,” she said quietly. “You guys are used to operating and working alone, so this is nothing different.”
“No, this is different,” he snapped. “It’s still … I don’t like having to worry about you at the same time.”
“Well, it is what it is.”
Inside the vehicle, they took off, the engine as powerful as ever, as it churned beneath her feet. As they headed out on the road, she asked, “Do you have anybody you can call on?”
“Outside of calling the cops, not really,” he said.
“Then I’ll call Wagner again. Uncle Dave counted on Wagner.”
“Only when there was nobody else,” he said.
“Good enough,” she said.
“You might want to keep the hour in mind.”
“I don’t give a damn if I get him out of bed or not,” she said. And, sure enough, a sleepy voice answered. She quickly explained the situation, and his voice came alive almost instantly. “I presume you guys are on your way there now?”
“We are, but we’re not sure what we might come up against when we get there,” she said.
“You could have told me about finding his little photography room earlier,” he snapped.
“Well, we would have, but it was only an hour or two ago, and we were waiting for morning. But next time we’ll be sure to wake you up over things like that too.”
He groaned. “Don’t start with me,” he said.
“Are you coming?”
“I’m jumping into my shoes now,” he said. “I’ll be there in ten.” And he hung up on her.
She looked at Fallon and said, “Well, it’s somebody anyway.”
“I know,” he said.
They pulled up to the warehouse they’d been at earlier.
“Did you see the car?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s right there.”
“Good, that’s something.”
“Doesn’t make a whole lot of difference at this point,” he said.
“Maybe it does. Let’s check.”
“We’re not going there,” he said. “He’s not in the vehicle. I drove past it already.”
“Fine.” She waited, while he got out, and then she stepped around behind him. They checked the front door.
He said, “The hair is still there.”
“So where did Quinn go?”
“Probably around the back.” He frowned at the thought, then looked at her.
“No, I’m going with you. But let’s go in through the back, since that’s where we’re likely to find him.”
They quickly made their way around to the back of the building, and there they found the rear door open. Fallon pulled out a weapon, and, keeping her behind him, he stepped slowly inside. He heard slight sounds going on inside but nothing very obvious. He wasn’t sure if it was a mouse rustling in the dark corners, if it was Quinn and his phone was dead, or if it was somebody else.
Then they heard a voice. “Thought you would come in and steal my photos, did you?”
And Fallon realized somebody actually had Quinn. Fallon waited and listened. But he heard nothing else, except some strange noises, as if this stranger was, he hated to say it, was almost growling. With her quietly staying close behind, he moved in to where they could see more. Once there, he saw Quinn, completely flat on the floor and seemingly unconscious. That didn’t mean he was though. It was the standard procedure that, if you were taken captive, you should appear totally knocked out, while you made escape or attack plans. Another guy was there, quite small, busily collecting the photos.
“These are mine. Paid for by me. You’re not stealing them.”
Fallon stepped forward, his handgun in front of him, and said, “Yet you’re stealing them now.”
The man turned and gasped. He immediately jerked his hands in the air, and the photos plummeted to the floor. But the stranger wasn’t looking at Fallon. Our stranger was staring at Lindsey, beside Fallon. A look of complete rapture on his face.
“It’s you. Oh, my God. It’s you.” And he raced forward.
She stepped behind Fallon, who raised the weapon, and said, “Stop.”
The guy looked at him, his lower lip quivering, then stared at the weapon. “Are you hurting her?” he said.
“No,” Fallon said, “of course not. But you’ve damn well hurt my friend.” Linny was already over there, gently checking out Quinn’s head wound, not wanting to wake him up yet.
“Your friend?” he said. “That’s not fair. He came in here, trying to steal my photos.”
“But they’re not your photos either,” he said. “Are they?”
At that, the man looked stunned and said, “Yes, they are.”
“No, they aren’t,” she said. “They
belong to Ben Radcliffe, don’t they?”
He stared. “I paid for them,” he said. “These were supposed to be mine.”
“You mean that one or two of them were supposed to be yours. But he was selling them to a lot of people. Actually he was giving a lot away too. Did that bother you?”
“Of course it bothered me. I was paying for mine.”
“And so were others. Interesting that you prefer the really distorted versions.”
“No, no, no. He was … He was somebody who was well ahead of his time,” he said, and every word that came out of his face was seriously normal sounding. But the look on his face as he stared at the photos revealed that he was more than a little addicted to whatever drug he was on.
“So what’s your name?” Fallon asked.
“Peter.”
Fallon wondered at the ease of getting info from this guy. Wondered if it was because of the drugs he was on; then he wondered if it was something else because there was just no understanding his behavior. “I’ll walk over and check on my friend,” he said. “I want you to walk back over there and stand where your photos are.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “My photos.” He raced back over and quickly collected the ones that had dropped on the floor.
Fallon bent down and nudged Quinn with his foot. Quinn moaned slightly. “Quinn, wake up,” he said. “We’ve got company.”
Immediately Quinn’s eyes flew open, and he stared around in surprise, then slowly made his way to his knees as he studied the new player in the game. He looked at the stranger and said, “You the one who hit me?”
“No, no, no,” he said, “I didn’t hit you. I was protecting my photos.”
“Right, protecting them by hitting me,” he said in a dry tone.
The guy nervously went back to collecting them and held them clutched against his chest. “You might have taken them,” he said.
“Well, that’s not likely, when I came here to preserve them,” he said.
At that, the other man said, “Are you one of her fans too?”
“Sure, I am apparently,” he said. “How did you find out about it?”
“The website,” he said. “It’s such a beautiful website with all those photos.”
At that, Fallon turned to look at Linny. “Website?”
She shook her head ever-so-slowly. “I haven’t got a clue what he’s talking about.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” he said. “The one where you do all the modeling.”
“No,” she said.
“What’s the website address?” Fallon asked.
“Well, it’s one of the hidden ones,” he said. “We can only get to it from the forum.”
“Great, what forum is that?” he asked, and the man supplied the name of it easily enough.
“You realize that’s like an art forum,” she said.
Peter looked at her and said, “Well, of course, this is all art. You didn’t think it was something else, did you?” He looked at her, completely affronted. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
She shook her head, brought up her phone, and checked for the website. When it loaded, it said something about not being a real website. “What’s the forum again?”
He gave her the URL for that.
“I’m not a member, so it won’t let me in. Give me your log-in, so I can check out my website.”
He quickly gave it to her, without argument. Fallon was surprised because either this guy was seriously innocent or had no clue what was involved here. She brought it up and, sure enough, saw the same photos that they’d seen in the house on the back of Ben’s bedroom door and now in his darkroom.
“You mean, all these photos?” Fallon said, pointing to them.
Peter stepped up and nodded. “Yes, these are the originals. They’re all of her.” He smiled. “We’re so happy to have you on board.”
“Wrong,” she said. “Those pictures were taken of me when I wasn’t aware of it.”
“Yes, that makes it much better,” he said. “Of course it’d be easier if you would sign the forms.” He looked at her and fretted. “Haven’t you signed them?”
“I haven’t even seen them,” she said. “So have you done this before? Had photos of a different woman up there, and he does these variations of art on the photos?”
“Yes,” he said. “We have several women whose photos we’d really like to have.”
He gave such a happy sigh that they all just stared at him in shock.
By now Quinn had regained his feet and was leaning against one of the walls. No blood poured down his head, but he looked a little sore and pissed. Mostly pissed. He stared at the guy in front of him. “You realize that the photographer is dead, right?”
“Yes, I heard,” he said. “That’s why I’m here, getting my pictures.”
“Yet I don’t think they’re your pictures.”
“No, I told you that I paid for them.”
“And you can prove that?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “All the transactions went through my bank.”
“Good,” said a new voice to this conversation. “Then you won’t mind explaining it to us.”
And, sure enough, Wagner walked in.
He took one look at the gathered crowd and said, “So I needn’t have come after all?”
“This guy attacked Quinn here,” said Fallon. “Knocked him out cold, and he’s been collecting all these photos, saying they are his. Basically they’re all pictures of Linny here.”
“What?” Wagner stepped forward, frowning. “Seriously?” He looked at the walls, as Fallon pointed them out, and then at all the distorted art versions of the photographs. “Wow,” he said, looking at the stranger. “And you were just protecting the photographs, I presume, when you attacked Quinn here?”
“Of course,” he said. “This is art.”
“Right,” he said. Wagner looked back at Quinn. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Quinn growled. “But this place is getting too looney tuney for me. I’ll go outside and grab some fresh air.”
“Maybe I’ll come with you,” Linny said, “if you don’t mind.”
He reached out an arm, and she slung hers through it and followed him out. Fallon watched the two of them go quietly. He’d never seen anything but camaraderie between them, but now he found himself watching her a little more closely.
“So what do you want to do?” Wagner asked Fallon, while staring at the intruder.
“We need to confirm his story for one. Apparently they’re using a members-only website, and the photographer had been posting photos of Linny and then making these art variations. These guys are all paying for them in some way, … though it appears Ben was also just giving away some of the photos.”
“He would sell the first abstraction of the photos,” Peter said. “They were the better of them. Then, as the quality deteriorated, he would just give away those later versions,” the guy said.
“Okay, and how do you know that the quality has deteriorated?” Fallon asked.
“Well, of course they have. Every time you take new variations of the photograph, it gets worse.”
Fallon nodded. “Sure. You know they’re digital, right?”
The guy looked at him in surprise. “Of course you wouldn’t understand,” he said, with a shake of his head. “I can see the disbelief on your face right now. Figures. It takes real, … real talent to appreciate art like this.”
“Right,” Wagner said. “Well, we’ll take you down to the station, and we’ll have a little talk and see what else you might have been involved in.”
“I’m not involved in anything,” he said. “Why would you even think that?”
“Because the authorities are looking to see who killed the photographer, Ben,” Fallon said quietly.
“Well, I certainly didn’t,” he said. “Why would I kill off the source of all my photos?”
At that, Fallon was stumped because Peter was right. Anybody who was addicted to t
hese pictures wouldn’t have wanted to kill off the creator. No matter how Fallon tried, that logic was irrefutable. He turned toward Wagner and said, “All yours.”
Chapter 8
Outside Linny took several slow deep breaths, as she rotated her shoulders and her neck, trying to ease up the tension clawing at the base of her throat and at the top of her shoulders.
“You okay?” Quinn asked.
She smiled. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“I don’t know. The guy came right behind me. Kind of disconcerting,” he said. “I wasn’t … Even though I was half expecting to see something, nobody had come in through the front, so I didn’t expect anybody to be coming up behind me. I was sloppy.”
“You’re tired,” she corrected. “That’s understandable.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s not acceptable in this world. This kind of mistake gets you killed.”
“Well, they didn’t kill you this time, thankfully,” she said.
“Maybe not, but, at the same time, I’m not terribly impressed with myself.”
“And you’ve got the headache to prove it.” She smiled knowingly.
“Isn’t that the truth.”
“Still, at least he’s here, and we’ve got him talking,” she said.
“Now if only we could understand what the hell he is even saying,” Quinn said, with a grin.
At that, they both shared a laugh.
“Pretty bizarre, if you ask me.”
“I guess it’s just another art form,” she said. “But it’s kind of odd to think that they’re making art by distorting the photos.”
“But that’s what art really is, I guess. Taking something and putting your own twist on it,” he said. “They’ve done it since time began.”
“Abstract art in painting is something we’ve accepted for a long time. So why not abstract photography?”
“Exactly, and apparently this guy had his own little following,” Quinn said.
“So was it one of the fan club who killed Ben? And, if so, why drop him off at the compound?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “And how does any of this relate back to us. We get that it relates to you, but is there a completely simple, yet obvious, answer for whoever did this? That Ben should be dropped off in front of your place, since he’d already spent his life here?”
