Time Exposures

by Wilson Tucker

  “No,” Owen said and bounced out of bed. “Hit the deck.” He pulled back the cover. “Chop, chop.”

  The young woman climbed out with a suspicious word on her lips that aroused his wonder. He was sure he wouldn’t like it if he understood it. She walked on bare feet to the kitchen and turned on a light.

  Owen said, “Wow,” and looked at the view while the blonde snapped a switch above a stainless steel box set into the kitchen wall. Another contraption that reminded him of an oven. He watched in silence as she sullenly pushed a series of buttons below the shiny box ordering a meal. Nothing happened immediately and the blonde leaned against the wall, fighting sleep. Time slipped away.

  “What’s holding up the show?”

  “Be patient,” she said crossly. “It will be cooked and delivered in a moment.”

  “Right out of the factory, eh? You babes sure have this town organized.”

  A signal light winked into sudden brilliance over the wall box and the blonde pulled open an oven-like door on the front. His breakfast was there, steaming hot.

  Owen stared at the monkey wrench. The wooden handle was done to a crisp.

  The woman was stunned. “What is that?”

  “A monkey wrench. What did you think it was?”

  She turned on him, her face clouded with the color of anger. Despite himself, Owen was entranced. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a woman angry all the way down.

  “Look at me!”

  Owen lifted his gaze. “I am.”

  “You did that!”

  “Guilty, your honor.”

  “That is why the processing plant was shut down, that is why you were sent home early!”

  “I thought it was the union hours.”

  She shook an excited finger in his face. “Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you realize people might go hungry tomorrow? Did you make many of those things?”

  “No,” Owen said truthfully. “Just one of them. That one.”

  “You are totally irresponsible!”

  “Aw, calm down. You said that before; you’re always yakking about my flaws and my equilibrium. Go sing a new song.” He inspected the smoking handle of the wrench and decided he wasn’t hungry after all. It wouldn’t be wise to request another order just now.

  She said ominously, “There will be no question about your equilibrium in the morning. There will be no flaws when you leave here.”

  “Going to rebuild me, eh? A complete overhaul?”

  “You will not be flawed when I am finished with you.”

  “That's what I thought.” Owen looked at her symmetrical witchery. “Always wanting to take the fun out of life, always wanting to knock everybody down to size. Honey, you’ve got a screwball world here and you can damn well keep it. If you prefer them zombies out there to me, the hell with it.”

  He turned and stalked out.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to bed,” he called back from the other room. A moment later: “I’m in bed. See in what peace a Christian can die.” The young woman stood in the kitchen for a long moment before snapping off the switch on the wall oven. The light followed, and still she waited in the darkness. At length she realized her bare feet were cold.

  Owen Hall’s single day of life ended better than it had begun.

  The End

  **********************************

  Time Exposures,

  by Wilson Tucker

  Universe 1, ed. Terry Carr, Ace 1971

  Short Story - 6809 words

  Wilson Tucker sold his first science fiction short story in 1941 to a pulp magazine called Super Science Stories, and since then has written perhaps two dozen more. He’s concentrated on novel-writing, in both the science fiction and mystery fields; his sf novels THE LONG LOUD SILENCE and THE YEAR OF THE QUIET SUN are among the best in the field. But his work in the shorter lengths has been excellent too, with the result that new Tucker stories are always eagerly awaited. Herewith, Tucker’s first short story in a number of years, written specially for UNIVERSE 1: a quiet, matter-of-fact account of crime solving in the future, with a police camera that can photograph up to fourteen hours into the past. Provided there’s anything to be seen, of course.

  Sergeant Tabbot climbed the stairs to the woman’s third floor apartment. The heavy camera case banged against his leg as he climbed and threatened collision with his bad knee. He shifted the case to his left hand and muttered under his breath: the woman could have been gracious enough to die on the first floor.

  A patrolman loafed on the landing, casually guarding the stairway and the third floor corridor.

  Tabbot showed surprise. “No keeper? Are they still working in there? Which apartment is it?”

  The patrolman said: “Somebody forgot the keeper, sergeant—somebody went after it. There’s a crowd in there, the coroner ain’t done yet. Number 33.” He glanced down at the bulky case. “She’s pretty naked.”

  “Shall I make you a nice print?”

  “No, sir, not this one! I mean, she’s naked but she ain’t pretty anymore.”

  Tabbot said: “Murder victims usually lose their good looks.” He walked down the corridor to number 33 and found the door ajar. A rumbling voice was audible. Tabbot swung the door open and stepped into the woman’s apartment. A small place: probably only two rooms.

  The first thing he saw was a finger man working over a glass-topped coffee table with an aerosol can and a portable blacklight; the sour expression on the man’s face revealed a notable lack of fingerprints. A precinct Lieutenant stood just beyond the end of the coffee table, watching the roving blacklight with an air of unruffled patience; his glance flickered at Tabbot, at the camera case, and dropped again to the table. A plainclothesman waited behind the door, doing nothing. Two men with a wicker basket sat on either arm of an overstuffed chair, peering over the back of the chair at something on the floor. One of them swung his head to stare at the newcomer and then turned his attention back to the floor. Well beyond the chair a bald-headed man wearing too much fat under his clothing was brushing dust from the knees of his trousers. He had just climbed to his feet and the exertion caused a dry, wheezy breathing through an open mouth.

  Tabbot knew the Lieutenant and the coroner.

  The coroner looked at the heavy black case Tabbot put down just inside the door and asked: “Pictures?”

  “Yes, sir. Time exposures.”

  “I’d like to have prints, then. Haven’t seen a shooting in eight or nine years. Damned rare anymore.” He pointed a fat index finger at the thing on the floor. “She was shot to death. Can you imagine that? Shot to death in this day and age! I’d like to have prints. Want to see a man with the gall to carry a gun.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tabbot swung his attention to the precinct Lieutenant. “Can you give me an idea?”

  “It’s still hazy, sergeant,” the officer answered. “The victim knew her assailant; I think she let him in the door and then walked away from him. He stood where you’re standing. Maybe an argument, but no fighting—nothing broken, nothing disturbed, no fingerprints. That knob behind you was wiped clean. She was standing behind that chair when she was shot, and she fell there. Can you catch it all?”

  “Yes, sir, I think so. I’ll set up in that other room—in the doorway. A kitchen?”

  “Kitchen and shower. This one is a combination living room and bedroom.”

  “I’ll start in the doorway and then move in close. Nothing in the kitchen?”

  “Only dirty dishes. No floor stains, but I would appreciate prints just the same. The floors are clean everywhere except behind that chair.”

  Sergeant Tabbot looked at the window across the room and looked back to the Lieutenant.

  “No fire escape,” the officer said. “But cover it anyway, cover everything. Your routine.”

  Tabbot nodded easily, then took a strong grip on his stomach muscles. He moved across the room to the overstuffed chair and peered carefully over the back of
it. The two wicker basket men turned their heads in unison to watch him, sharing some macabre joke between them. It would be at his expense. His stomach plunged despite the rigid effort to control it.

  She was a sandy blonde and had been about thirty years old; her face had been reasonably attractive but was not likely to have won a beauty contest; it was scrubbed clean, and free of makeup. There was no jewelry on her fingers, wrists, or about her neck; she was literally naked. Her chest had been blown away. Tabbot blinked his shocked surprise and looked down her stomach toward her legs simply to move his gaze away from the hideous sight. He thought for a moment he’d lose his breakfast. His eyes closed while he fought for iron control, and when they opened again he was looking at old abdominal scars from a long ago pregnancy.

  Sergeant Tabbot backed off rapidly from the chair and bumped into the coroner. He blurted: “She was shot in the back!”

  “Well, of course.” The wheezing fat man stepped around him with annoyance. “There’s a little hole in the spine. Little going in and big—bigod it was big—coming out. Destroyed the rib cage coming out. That’s natural. Heavy caliber pistol, I think.” He stared down at the naked feet protruding from behind the chair. “First shooting I’ve seen in eight or nine years. Can you imagine that? Somebody carrying a gun.” He paused for a wheezing breath and then pointed the same fat finger at the basket men. “Pick it up and run, boys. We’ll do an autopsy.”

  Tabbot walked out to the kitchen.

  The kitchen table showed him a dirty plate, coffee cup, fork and spoon, and toast crumbs. A sugar bowl without a lid and a small jar of powdered coffee creamer completed the setting. He looked under the table for the missing knife and butter.

  “It’s not there,” the Lieutenant said. “She liked her toast dry.”

  Tabbot turned. “How long ago was breakfast? How long has she been dead?”

  “We’ll have to wait on the coroner’s opinion for that but I would guess three, maybe four hours ago. The coffee pot was cold, the body was cold, the egg stains were dry—oh, say three hours plus.”

  “That gives me a good margin,” Tabbot said. “If it happened last night, yesterday, I’d just pick up my camera and go home.” He glanced through the doorway at a movement caught in the corner of the eye and found the wicker basket men carrying their load through the front door into the corridor. His glance quickly swung back to the kitchen table. “Eggs and dry toast, sugar in white coffee. That doesn’t give you much.”

  The Lieutenant shook his head. “I’m not worried about her; I don’t give a damn what she ate. Let the coroner worry about her breakfast; he’ll tell us how long ago she ate it and we’ll take it from there. Your prints are more important. I want to see pictures of the assailant.”

  Tabbot said: “Let’s hope for daylight, and let’s hope it was this morning. Are you sure that isn’t yesterday’s breakfast? There’s no point in setting up the camera if it happened yesterday morning, or last night. My exposure limit is between ten and fourteen hours—and you know how poor fourteen-hour prints are.”

  “This morning,” the officer assured him. “She went in to work yesterday morning but when she failed to check in this morning, when she didn’t answer the phone, somebody from the shop came around to ask why.”

  “Did the somebody have a key?”

  “No, and that eliminated the first suspect. The janitor let him in. Will you make a print of the door to corroborate their story? A few minutes after nine o’clock; they can’t remember the exact time now.”

  “Will do. What kind of a shop? What did she do?”

  “Toy shop. She made Christmas dolls.”

  Sergeant Tabbot considered that. After a moment he said: “The first thing that comes to mind is toy guns.”

  The Lieutenant gave him a tight, humorless grin. “We had the same thing in mind and sent men over there to comb the shop. Black market things, you know, toys or the real article. But no luck. They haven’t made anything resembling a gun since the Dean Act was passed. That shop was clean.”

  “You’ve got a tough job, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m waiting on your prints, Sergeant.”

  Tabbot thought that a fair hint. He went back to the outer room and found everyone gone but the silent plainclothesman. The detective sat down on the sofa behind the coffee table and watched him unpack the case. A tripod was set up about five feet from the door. The camera itself was a heavy, unwieldy instrument and was lifted onto the tripod with a certain amount of hard grunting and a muttered curse because of a nipped finger. When it was solidly battened to the tripod, Tabbot picked a film magazine out of the supply case and fixed it to the rear of the camera. A lens and the timing instrument was the last to be fitted into place. He looked to make sure the lens was clean.

  Tabbot focused on the front door, and reached into a pocket for his slide rule. He checked the time now and then calculated backward to obtain four exposures at nine o’clock, nine-five, nine-ten, and nine-fifteen, which should pretty well bracket the arrival of the janitor and the toy shop employee. He cocked and tripped the timer, and then checked to make sure the nylon film was feeding properly after each exposure. The data for each exposure was jotted down in a notebook, making the later identification of the prints more certain.

  The plainclothesman broke his stony silence. “I’ve never seen one of those things work before.”

  Tabbot said easily: “I’m taking pictures from nine o’clock to nine-fifteen this morning; if I’m in luck I’ll catch the janitor opening the door. If I’m not in luck I’ll catch only a blurred movement—or nothing at all—and then I’ll have to go back and make an exposure for each minute after nine until I find him. A blurred image of the moving door will pinpoint him.”

  “Good pictures?” He seemed skeptical.

  “At nine o’clock? Yes. There was sufficient light coming in that window at nine and not too much time has elapsed. Satisfactory conditions. Things get sticky when I try for night exposures with no more than one or two lamps lit; that simply isn’t enough light. I wish everything would happen outdoors at noon on a bright day—and not more than a hour ago!”

  The detective grunted and inspected the ticking camera. “I took some of your pictures into court once. Bank robbery case, last year. The pictures were bad and the judge threw them out and the case collapsed.”

  “I remember them,” Tabbot told him. “And I apologize for the poor job. Those prints were made right at the time limit: fourteen hours, perhaps a little more. The camera and the film are almost useless beyond ten or twelve hours—that is simply too much elapsed time. I use the very best film available but it can’t find or make a decent image more than twelve hours in the past. Your bank prints were nothing more than grainy shadows; that’s all I can get from twelve to fourteen hours.”

  “Nothing over fourteen hours?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I’ve tried, but nothing.” The camera stopped ticking and shut itself off. Tabbot turned it on the tripod and aimed at the sofa. The detective jumped up.

  The sergeant protested. “Don’t get up—you won’t be in the way. The lens won’t see you now.”

  “I’ve got work to do,” the detective muttered. He flipped a dour farewell gesture at the Lieutenant and left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

  “He’s still sore about those bank pictures,” the officer said.

  Tabbot nodded agreement and made a single adjustment on the timing mechanism. He tripped the shutter for one exposure and then grinned at the Lieutenant.

  “I’ll send him a picture of myself, sitting there three minutes ago. Maybe that will cheer him up.”

  “Or make him mad enough to fire you.”

  The sergeant began another set of calculations on the slide rule and settled himself down to the routine coverage of the room from six to nine o’clock in the morning. He angled the heavy camera at the coffee table, the kitchen doorway, the overstuffed chair, the window behind the chair, a smaller chair and a bookcas
e in the room, the floor, a vase of artificial flowers resting on a tiny shelf above a radiator, a floor lamp, a ceiling light, and eventually worked around the room in a circle before coming back to the front door. Tabbot rechecked his calculations and then lavished a careful attention on the door and the space beside it where he had stood when he first entered.

  The camera poked and pried and peered into the recent past, into the naked blonde’s last morning alive, recording on nylon film those images now three or four hours gone. During the circle coverage—between the bookcase and the vase of artificial flowers—a signal light indicated an empty film magazine, and the camera paused in its work until a new magazine was fixed in place. Tabbot made a small adjustment on the timer to compensate for lost time. He numbered the old and the new film magazines, and continued his detailed notes for each angle and series of exposures. The camera ignored the present and probed into the past.

  The Lieutenant asked: “How much longer?”

  “Another hour for the preliminaries; I can do the kitchen in another hour. And, say, two to three hours for the retakes after something is pinned down.”

  “I’ve got work piling up.” The officer scratched the back of his neck and then bent down to peer into the lens. “I guess you can find me at the precinct house. Make extra copies of the key prints.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Lieutenant turned away from his inspection of the lens and gave the room a final, sweeping glance. He did not slam the door behind him as the detective had done.

  The full routine of photographing went on.

  Tabbot moved the camera backward into the kitchen doorway to gain a broader coverage of the outer room; he angled at the sofa, the overstuffed chair, and again the door. He wanted the vital few moments when the door was opened and the murderer stepped through it to fire the prohibited pistol. Changing to a wide-angle lens, he caught the entire room in a series of ten minute takes over a period of three hours. The scene was thoroughly documented.