by Amanda Quick
She slapped a fresh film holder into the camera, popped in a new flashbulb, and went back up the front walk. It might be a mistake to waste time on an outdoor shot but her intuition told her that it would sell. She would include the officer. Pictures with people always sold best.
She stood in the shadows of the front entrance and prepared to shoot the doorway. The low rumble of a powerful engine stopped her. She turned and saw headlights spearing the night. An expensive convertible braked to a halt at the curb. A man got out. He was not wearing a hat. When she saw his famous profile in the light of the streetlamp she held her breath and retreated deeper into the shadows. Ripley Fleming was one of the hottest stars in Hollywood.
Fleming moved swiftly along the stone walk, the wings of his elegant overcoat whipping around him. He went up the front steps and confronted the officer.
“What the hell is going on? Is Miss Carstairs all right?”
The officer, stunned by the realization that he was speaking to a famous actor, had to try a couple of times before he could string words into a coherent sentence.
“Miss Carstairs is dead, sir,” he mumbled.
“Dead?” Ripley said, as if he was not familiar with the word.
“Murdered, sir. They’re saying it’s the work of the Dagger Killer.”
“Murdered,” Ripley repeated. He sounded dazed.
He turned to gaze through the partially open door. Vivian knew that from where he stood he could see a portion of the body on the crimson sofa. There was something about his expression that was vaguely familiar. In the glow of the hallway light, Fleming’s chiseled features were set in the same dramatic mask of shock that had made for a riveting scene in his last film, Dead End Alley.
And there it was, another golden shot for her camera. A picture of Ripley Fleming’s arrival at the scene of the Carstairs murder shortly after the body had been discovered would be worth more than the photo of the dead woman because there were no other photographers around to capture the expression on the actor’s face. Exclusive.
Vivian quietly readied her camera. Ripley must have heard her moving in the shadows. He whipped around and saw her. Something akin to panic replaced the horror on his memorable face.
“Please, no,” he whispered. “No pictures. I’ll pay you—”
She hesitated a second but she knew she had already made the decision. She lowered the camera.
“Forget it,” she said. “You don’t need to pay me not to take your photo, Mr. Fleming. I’m very sorry about Miss Carstairs.”
“Thank you,” Fleming said. He hesitated. “I owe you.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t.”
He fled down the steps and jumped into his convertible. Tires shrieked when he pulled away from the curb and raced down the street.
“Reckon the rumors in the Hollywood papers are true,” the officer mused. “Looks like Mr. Fleming and Miss Carstairs were having an affair. I’d better tell Detective Archer about this.”
The cop disappeared inside the house.
Vivian shot the house and hurried back to her car. This was why she was never going to have a great career in photojournalism, she thought. Taking a picture of the body at a crime scene was one thing. Photographing the shocked lover after he had begged her not to take his picture was beyond her. It would have felt wrong, indecent.
She jumped into the speedster and drove quickly down the winding lanes of the ritzy neighborhood and through the quiet streets of the town below. She parked in front of the beach house and hurried inside with her camera.
She headed straight for her darkroom—a converted pantry off the kitchen—grabbed the bottle of developer, and filled up the first tray. Next she prepared the stop bath and finally the fixer tray.
When she had everything ready she turned off the lights, closed the heavy black curtain as an extra precaution against light, and went to work.
* * *
An hour and twenty minutes later she was in the office of the photo editor of the Adelina Beach Courier. Eddy Banks—middle-aged, reeking of cigar smoke, and endowed with extremely poor taste in clothes—studied the prints of the Carstairs murder.
“These are damn good,” he said. “Her fans are gonna be in tears tomorrow when they see this shot.” He narrowed his eyes. “Carstairs will go on the front page. I’ll use the house for page two. Nice bit of atmosphere. Did you give either of these to one of the syndicates?”
“No,” Vivian said. “They’re all yours if you want them. But these aren’t my five-dollar celebrity-seen-in-a-nightclub shots. I want seventy-five for those two pictures.”
“I’ll give you thirty bucks for both.”
“Fifty.”
“Consider ’em sold.” Eddy eyed her. “These photos are going to go national. You ought to demand a photo credit as well as the cash.”
“You know the last thing I want is to have my name associated with newspaper photos.”
“Still dreaming of making it big in the art world, huh?” Eddy shook his head. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Because I’m not good enough to be an art photographer?”
“Hell, no.” Eddy snorted. “Because the art world is never going to take photography seriously, especially not the kind you do.”
“Times are changing.”
“Some things never change.” Eddy took another look at the picture of Clara Carstairs on the sofa. “She was a real beauty, wasn’t she? She looks so young. Downright tragic. Do the cops have any leads?”
“I don’t think so, not unless Archer found something at the scene tonight. From what I could see it was the same setup as the Washfield and Attenbury murders. No signs of a struggle. Celebrity victim in a dramatic pose. Bloodstained antique dagger at the scene.”
Eddy shook his head. “Can’t be that many expensive old daggers around.”
“According to the cops, none of the museums or antiques galleries in the Los Angeles area have reported any thefts of daggers. Whoever is doing this probably has access to a private collection.”
“Sounds like it.”
“He must be wealthy, too,” Vivian added. “Rich enough not to care about leaving a valuable antique at the scene of a murder.”
“Good point.” Eddy planted his cigar in his mouth. “Well, looks like we’ve got our headline.”
“Clara Carstairs Murdered by Dagger Killer, Police Baffled for the front-page shot,” Vivian suggested. “Mansion of Doom for the second photo?”
“You’re getting real good at the news photo business.”
“I’ve been hanging around you too long, Eddy.”
Eddy glanced at the picture again and shook his head. “Like a scene from one of her own movies.”
Vivian studied the print. Her inner vision stirred and whispered to her. There are always secrets. You just have to look for them.
“Yes,” she said. “It almost looks like a scene from one of her own films.”
Secrets.
Chapter 2
Exhaustion finally hit on the drive back to the beach house. Vivian parked the speedster in the small attached garage and let herself in through the kitchen door.
She headed for the bedroom. The night shift was over. She needed sleep because she had a busy day ahead.
She kicked off the slip-ons, undressed, and fell into bed. She contemplated the shadowed ceiling while she reviewed her schedule. She had a studio portrait booked at ten o’clock. Like her crime-and-fire pictures, portraits were bread-and-butter business, albeit far more respectable. Successful art photographers often did portraits. Charged a lot for them, too.
She had cleared her afternoon to devote to her art. A model was due at two for the next picture in her new series.
It took about twenty minutes of staring at the ceiling before she abandoned the attempt to sleep. She was tired but every ti
me she closed her eyes she saw the scene of the Carstairs murder. As Eddy had pointed out, it could have been a stage set from one of the actress’s own movies.
No, not a stage set. The lighting and the sight lines were not right, not for a movie.
But they were perfect for a photograph.
She pushed the covers aside, stepped into her slippers, pulled on a robe, and made her way down the hall to the living room. She paused to turn on a lamp.
Shortly after moving in a few months ago she had converted the front room into a studio. Lights, cords, tripods, and a variety of props littered the space. Black cases containing her precious lenses, light meters, film, flashbulbs, and all the rest of the equipment required for her work were lined up against one wall. Backdrops and swaths of fabric were suspended from a series of movable rails. A large, freestanding mirror stood in a corner. She had discovered early on that it was easier to get a good portrait if the sitter could see his or her own reflection.
She left the studio, went into the small dining room that now served as her office, and switched on a lamp. The table was covered with folders filled with photos and newspaper clippings. Most were her own work but some were pictures taken by other photographers that she deemed worth a closer study. Photography was an art. There was always something to learn, always a new way to see beneath the surface. A way to discover and reveal secrets.
She opened the file labeled WASHFIELD MURDER and dumped the contents onto the table. Leonard Washfield had been a wealthy and well-connected socialite. The family money had come from the railroads. Leonard had been born and raised in San Francisco but he had moved to Hollywood after graduating from college. He had financed a couple of successful motion pictures and soon became known for his extravagant parties. He had been photographed at the hottest nightclubs, where he always seemed to have a beautiful actress on his arm. A month ago his dramatic death had been front-page news.
For a moment she stood looking down at the little pile of photos and clippings. There was a certain sameness to them because the photographers were mostly using the same kind of camera and had shot mostly from a distance of about ten feet. But there were some pictures, including her own, that had taken advantage of the unique lighting at the scene.
After a while she picked up the folder labeled ATTENBURY MURDER and examined the pictures. Sarah Attenbury had been a glittering fixture on the Los Angeles social scene. Invitations to her parties were coveted by everyone who moved in high-flying circles in Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
The first faint light of a foggy dawn was illuminating the sky when Vivian concluded that she was certain of what she was seeing in the pictures. She went back into the living room and picked up the phone.
“Operator, please connect me with the police,” she said. “Yes, I’ll hold.”
A short time later a gruff voice came on the line. “Adelina Beach Police Department.”
“Detective Archer, please. Tell him it’s about the Carstairs murder.”
“He just left. Been a long night. Hang on, I’ll see if I can catch him.”
The phone on the other end clattered on a desktop. After a couple of moments a man with a smoker’s rough voice came on the line.
“This is Archer.”
“Detective Archer, my name is Vivian Brazier. I’m a photographer. I was at the Carstairs house earlier this evening taking news photos.”
“I remember you. The lady with the camera. What’s this all about?”
“I have been looking at the pictures that appeared in the papers after the Washfield and Attenbury murders and there are some striking similarities between those two homicide scenes and the one at the Carstairs mansion.”
“The fancy daggers.” Archer’s voice sharpened. “We think they came from a private collection. We’re checking out that angle. Is that all you’ve got? Because if so, I’d really like to go home and get some sleep.”
“I think the pictures were deliberately and carefully composed. Each element is intentional. The lighting was staged for a dramatic shot. Your killer considers himself an artist.”
“What the hell? You think he stopped to paint a couple of pictures after he murdered Washfield, Attenbury, and Carstairs?”
“No, I think he photographed the scenes.”
“Are you serious? We’re looking for a photographer? That means my suspect list is approximately the size of the telephone book. Everyone and his kid sister has a Brownie.”
“You’re looking for a pro, not an amateur. He’ll be using expensive equipment, fine-grained film, and pricey paper. There aren’t a lot of camera shops that carry high-quality lenses, film, and paper. Trust me, those shops will remember their best customers.”
“Paper?” Archer sounded thoughtful. “You think he’s printing his photographs?”
“Of course. I told you, he considers himself an artist. Find him and you’ll find his equipment and negatives as well as the prints.”
“What about those old knives?”
“I can’t be absolutely positive but I suspect they may be his way of marking each murder scene as part of a series.”
Archer whistled softly. “You saw all that just by looking at the crime scenes?”
“I spend my days composing pictures. I know what to look for. Oh, one more thing.”
“Hang on, I need to make some notes.” There were some rustling sounds. A moment later Archer came back on the line. “All right, go ahead. What else do you think you saw at the scenes?”
Vivian picked up a newspaper clipping of the Washfield murder. “Do you know anything about photography, Detective?”
“Evidently not as much as I thought I did.”
“For the past couple of decades there has been an argument going on in the art world over the issue of whether or not photography should be considered an art or just a means of documenting reality.”
“Who cares?”
“The art world cares. Museums and galleries that hang photographs care. So do photographers who are trying to use their cameras to create art.”
Photographers like me, she thought. But she did not say that aloud.
“This battle about whether photography deserves to be called an art is a big deal?” Archer said.
“A very big deal. There are two aesthetic approaches involved, pictorialism and modernism.”
“I’m not really interested in art. I’m trying to stop a crazy killer.”
“Fine. I won’t bore you with the details, Detective. All you need to know is that the older school is called pictorialism. It’s all about making a photograph look like a painting.”
“How do you do that?”
“You shoot for a painterly look. Soft focus, maybe. You use all sorts of tricks and tints to manipulate the photograph when you print it. You’re not trying to capture reality, you’re going for an abstract vision. Modernism is the new tradition. It’s all about clean lines and a sharp focus. It’s about revealing reality.”
“You’re losing me.”
“I think the killer you are hunting sees himself as working in the older tradition. His pictures will be pictorial in style and that means he’ll be purchasing supplies that only a photographer working in that genre would want. That should help narrow down your suspect list.”
“You really think he’s taking pictures of the scene after he kills someone?”
Vivian studied the pictures of the Washfield murder.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “When you find him, I’m sure you’ll find his collection.”
“If you’re right you’ve given me the lead I’ve been looking for. I’ll get my people out on the street first thing this morning to start talking to camera shops.”
“Expensive camera shops. The kind that sell professional equipment and the best film.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“One
thing,” Vivian said. “Whatever you do, please keep my name out of this. Photographers, especially those who shoot murders and fires, don’t get much respect from the art world.”
Archer snorted. “I get it, believe me. Same goes for cops. People call us when they get robbed but no one sends us engraved invitations to the big charity ball.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Vivian said. “I appreciate it.”
“Don’t worry,” Archer said. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Chapter 3
Vivian did not sleep late. She got up early, bathed, dressed, and rushed out the front door and down the street to the newsstand. Screaming headlines announced the Carstairs murder. Her picture was on the front page of the Adelina Beach Courier.
She grabbed copies of every morning paper the vendor stocked. Arms full, she hurried back to her house, brewed some strong coffee, and started reading.
All of the morning papers carried photos and lurid accounts of the newest Dagger Killer murder. The papers that considered themselves to be family papers were careful to paint out all traces of blood and ran the images of the body on page two. Others, such as Hollywood Whispers and the Adelina Beach Courier, slapped the most graphic pictures on the front page.
She read all of the articles carefully, curious to see if any of the reporters had discovered that Ripley Fleming had arrived at the scene of the murder.
By the time she finished her coffee it was clear that Fleming had escaped relatively unscathed. Hollywood Whispers and a few of the other movie gossip papers reminded readers that he and Carstairs were rumored to have been intimately involved but that was no more than what had already been printed.
Talk of a romantic connection between an actor and an actress was an excellent way to keep their names and photos in the press. A picture of the shocked lover arriving at the scene of the murder, however, would have invited a very different kind of speculation.
