An Image of Death

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  I was about to tell him not to jump to conclusions. It was just a letter, anonymous at that. It could be from anyone. Indeed, the possibility that it was written by his uncle—or any other relative—was remote. But the emotion in his voice told me how much he wanted it to be true. I kept my mouth shut.

  “Look,” he went on. “I could be making assumptions here. I understand that. But what if I’m not? What if it’s true? Ellie, this could be the most important thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  I waited for him to say Except for meeting you.

  He didn’t.

  “So, what have you been doing?” He asked after a pause

  I nattered on about the luncheon. He followed up with a question or two, but I could tell he wasn’t really interested.

  “I think they may ask me to produce a video for them.”

  “The women you went out to lunch with?”

  “They call themselves WISH.” I explained.

  “Subsidized housing for foster children?”

  “Apparently it started out in California. Now it’s expanding east.”

  “I could have used help like that.”

  “You did fine on your own.”

  “It wasn’t easy.” He was quiet. “You know, I wonder if it’s a sign.”

  “A sign?”

  “You know, you help out some foster kids, and I find a long-lost uncle. Mitzvah goreret mitzvah.” Good deeds beget good deeds.

  Given what he’d been through in life, David’s faith always surprises me. It isn’t a blind adherence to dogma. He’s even studied Talmud to better understand his heritage. And while Judaism does sanction the nonbeliever, in fact, encourages us to act “as if,” his bedrock convictions make my doubts about God seem petty.

  He said he’d call tomorrow once he knew more. After we hung up, I wandered back into the family room. I was glad I hadn’t told him about the tape. I was looking forward to a quiet winter of cocooning and staying warm. No danger. Or trouble. Or fear. In fact, I should call the police right now. Let them deal with this.

  Halfway to the phone, I stopped. What if the tape was a hoax? Doubtful…but not impossible. If I handed it over to the cops, I’d look like the biggest fool east of the Mississippi. And if it wasn’t a hoax, there was clearly a reason the tape had been sent to me. If I gave the tape to the police, I might never know what that reason was.

  Except that the idea someone sent me a tape of a woman being killed didn’t do much for my security. Living on the North Shore confers a sense of safety, of protection that I’ve come to expect. Any violation of that security—even if it’s just an image on tape—punctures a tiny hole in my bubble of well-being. Common sense said I shouldn’t get anywhere near this. I headed back into the kitchen to call the police.

  I stopped at the refrigerator. It wasn’t as if a dead body was lying on my floor. I had an image on videotape, an image that might or might not be real. There was no telling when the tape was shot or when the woman on it had been killed. It could have been recorded months, even years ago. Which meant the perpetrators were long gone. Why was I hurrying to hand it over?

  Someone wanted me to have the tape. Didn’t that bestow on me just a slight sense of duty, of responsibility, to follow it up? I’m no lawyer, but I know there’s no statute of limitations on murder. The smart thing might be to make a backup of the tape. I could make a quick copy at Mac’s in the morning, then hand it over to the cops. That would allow me to puzzle out who sent the tape and why on my own terms. Regardless of what the police might do.

  If I wanted to.

  Which, of course, I wasn’t at all sure I did.

  Then again, curiosity has always been the spur of my Achilles heel.

  I dropped the tape into my bag.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Rachel asked me about the tape at breakfast, I said there was nothing on it. “Someone’s idea of a practical joke.”

  “Weird,” she said between bites of toast.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  “You like see food?” Her jaw dropped open, revealing a mouth full of half-chewed bread.

  “Hello, world. I’d like to introduce you to my stunningly mature, well-bred daughter.”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  I emptied my coffee mug in the sink. “You didn’t happen to see a license plate on that van, did you?” I asked casually.

  She shook her head.

  “Color of the plates?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. Well, we’d better get a move on. You don’t want to be late.”

  After I dropped Rachel at school, I drove over to Mac’s. Kendall Productions occupies several suites in a small industrial complex in Northbrook. MacArthur J. Kendall the Third and I have been working together for years. Mac’s an excellent director, and he puts up with my antics. I put up with his WASP name and background. Things between us did become strained a few months ago, but, on the whole, it’s worked out better than most of my relationships with men.

  Hank Chenowsky might have something to do with that. A youth spent in front of the tube has, in his case, made for a qualitative contribution to mankind. He’s the best video editor I’ve ever seen. And he’s only been at it for five years.

  I stuffed my gloves into my pocket and pushed through the door. A buzzer sounded. That was different. I took in the new furniture, carpeting, and paint job. Mac had just finished remodeling his studio. Apparently he’d added a few security measures, too. I helped myself to coffee from a shiny new Starbucks machine. Things must be going well.

  A shuffling noise sounded. I turned to see Hank sauntering down the hall toward me. “Ellie, hey. How are you?”

  Thin and gangly, with light blue eyes and long pale hair, Hank’s coloring is almost albino, although when I teased him about it once, he hotly denied it. I learned later that a lack of skin, eye, and hair color can be associated with mental retardation. Hank is as sharp as the light on a crisp autumn day, but his outburst made me wonder if someone else in his family wasn’t.

  “I’m good.” I gave him a hug. “How were your holidays?”

  “Cool.” A contented smile spread across his face. “Sandy took me home to meet her parents.”

  “Already?” They’d only been going together a couple of months.

  He nodded, blushed, and shrugged, all the while managing to look quite pleased with himself.

  I patted his arm. Then I peered down the hall. “Is Mac here?”

  He shook his head. “Debbie’s down with the flu, and one of the kids has an ear infection.”

  “Too bad.” I hoped my voice didn’t sound too insincere. It was better Mac wasn’t here; he wouldn’t approve of my plan. “Hank,” I said in my sweetest voice, “you think you could you do me a little favor?”

  “Depends what it is.”

  I headed into the master editing suite. A bank of monitors was built into the wall above a flat table. Another set of screens was attached to the back edge of the table. A keyboard plus two other instrument panels sat on top. Hank followed me in. A photo of a freckled, flame-haired young woman hung on the wall. Behind her was a view of the lake. She was smiling broadly.

  I dug out the tape from my bag. “Think you could dub this for me?”

  He pulled his hair into a ponytail with both hands. “What is it?”

  “Someone dropped this off at the house. I thought it would be a good idea to copy it before I hand it over to the police.”

  “Police?” From the way his hands dropped to his sides, you’d think the tape was contaminated with Ebola. “Ellie, I don’t know. Mac said—well, you know how he gets.”

  Mac was cautious. Always played by the rules. He had a right to be. “I understand.” I nodded. “I don’t want to put you in an awkward position. How about I call him?”

  Hank frowned. “I told him I wouldn’t bother him unless it was an emergency.”

  I shrugged. “It’s VHS. And it’s only about ten minutes.”
r />   He shifted. “What’s on it?”

  “I’d…I’d rather not say.”

  He cocked his head. “Ellie.…”

  “By the way,” I barreled on. “Do you think maybe you could dub it onto DVCAM? The picture is pretty lousy, and I’d like to play with it at some point. Not now, of course. And not here. But you know.…”

  “Ellie, before I digitize this, I need to know what’s on it.”

  I hesitated. “There’s no way to do it without looking?”

  ***

  While Hank was dubbing the tape, I dialed the police nonemergency number. “Dan O’Malley, please,” I said to the dispatcher.

  “Not here. He has the late shift this week. You want his voice mail?”

  “Sure.” I started. “No. Wait. Is…is Georgia Davis there?”

  “I think she just came in. Hold on.”

  Davis was the youth officer on the police force. I’d met her last fall when Rachel—and I—were having problems.

  I heard silence on the line, a few clicks, then a female voice. “Davis.”

  “Officer Davis, it’s Ellie Foreman, Rachel’s mother.”

  “Oh, sure. Hi. How’s Rachel doing? Nothing wrong, I hope?”

  “She’s running four miles a day and exercising like crazy. Field hockey.”

  She laughed. “There’s worse things.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  A pause followed, which I knew I was supposed to fill.

  “Officer Davis, er—an unusual package was delivered to my house last night.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was a videotape. VHS. Black and white.”

  “Yes?”

  “There was no label on it. No return address, either. Just my name.” I hesitated. “I took it inside and screened it.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I think it shows a woman being murdered.”

  ***

  When Hank handed me the copy of the tape, his eyes were burning. “I don’t want to know anything about this,” he said grimly. “In fact, I never want to see it again. I’m erasing it from the decks.”

  I nodded.

  “And that’s the last time I ever do you a favor, Ellie.”

  “I understand.”

  His voice softened. “Let the police deal with it. Stay away.”

  “That’s where I’m headed.”

  “Then why…why did you make a—” He cut himself off. “What are you going to do with this?”

  “Nothing.”

  He looked me up and down.

  “Really.”

  “Get out of here. And don’t you ever tell Mac what we did.”

  ***

  Georgia Davis met me in the lobby of the police station. She was in uniform, and her shoulder-length blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. With large brown eyes, a creamy complexion, and an hourglass figure, she made the boxy blue uniform look like designer fashion. Only a crooked nose kept her from being a beauty.

  I motioned toward her clothes. “You’re not a youth officer anymore?” When I’d met her last fall, she was in civvies.

  “Been back on patrol since New Year’s.”

  I couldn’t tell from her tone whether that was good or bad. “You like it?”

  “Sure. More action.”

  I wondered what kind of action that might be. We live in a small bedroom community twenty miles north of Chicago where policing tends toward stolen bikes and drunk drivers, and the most exciting event of the past three years was a drive-by shooting on Happ Road. No one was hurt.

  She ushered me into a windowless room. A conference table and chairs took up most of the space. A VCR and monitor stood at one end. Three of the walls were cinderblock, and if it hadn’t been for the large mirror covering the fourth, we might have been in any suburban office.

  “Have a seat.” She went to a phone on the wall and punched in three numbers. “She’s here,” she said into the phone.

  A minute later a big man in uniform with a fringe of gray hair and weathered skin sailed into the room.

  “Morning,” he said brightly. “Deputy Chief Brad Olson.” He offered me a meaty hand. A gold eagle was pinned to his collar.

  I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise. Detective O’Malley has kept us up to date about your…you.” His smile was so elliptical, I couldn’t tell if he was being tongue in cheek. Still, I was struck by his cheery manner. He’d probably been a cop forever. Where was the hard-bitten cynic? The “I’ve seen it all” disdain?

  He waved a hand. “Please, sit down.” He sat at the end of the table and folded his hands. The top of his head gleamed in the fluorescent light. “Officer Davis says you have a show for us.”

  I took a seat on the side of the table. “I guess you’ll be the judge of that, sir.” Sir? Was this former all-cops-are-pigs-activist really calling a police officer “sir”?

  His smile deepened, as if he had read my thoughts.

  Davis sat down across from me, tore off a blank form from a pad, and attached it to her clipboard. “Tell us what happened,” she said.

  I explained.

  “You say Rachel brought it in.” She tapped a pen against the table. “Did she see the color or make of the vehicle? Or the plate?”

  “No. And she doesn’t know what’s on the tape.” I told them about the long lead-in at the head end and how she’d gone upstairs without seeing anything. “I told her it was blank. A practical joke. Are you going to have to talk to her?”

  Davis and Olson exchanged glances. “Why don’t we come back to that,” Olson said.

  “What about the people on the tape?” Davis asked. “The gunmen. Did they look familiar?”

  “Do you mean, do I know them?”

  She nodded.

  I stiffened. “Of course not.”

  “Never saw them before?”

  “Never.” I fidgeted in my seat. It never occurred to me the police would think I knew the killers. “But they were wearing ski masks.”

  “What about the woman? You ever see her?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Not even casually—in the store, the dry cleaner’s, someplace like that?”

  “I’ve never seen her,” I said firmly.

  “And there was no note or explanation why you were receiving the tape?” Olson interjected.

  “Nothing.”

  Davis made a note on her report, then slid the tape out of the cardboard sleeve. She put the tape in the deck and hit Play.

  I cut in. “What you’re about to see was recorded in time-lapse. To conserve tape. Which means everything will be speeded up. Like an old-time movie. You may not be able to catch it all. I had to screen it twice.”

  “We’re familiar with surveillance tapes,” Olson said.

  I felt heat on my cheeks. Of course they were.

  Both officers focused on the screen. When the woman crumpled to the floor, Olson’s expression didn’t change, but Davis grimaced. She rewound the tape and screened it again.

  Neither spoke after the second run-through. Davis got up, ejected the tape, and slipped it into a plastic bag with the word EVIDENCE repeated around the edges in navy blue letters.

  “Other than you, has anyone else touched this tape?”

  I thought for a moment. “Rachel brought it inside.”

  “Anyone else?”

  Hank had handled it when he dubbed it. His prints were probably all over it. Which they were bound to find if they checked. But I couldn’t tell her that without admitting I’d made a copy. Which didn’t seem like a prudent idea. I kept my mouth shut. “Well, if we find any prints, we may ask you and Rachel to provide us with a set for elimination purposes, okay?”

  I shifted my weight. A potential problem was looming. I should probably fess up. “So—so, what happens from here?”

  “We’ll send it to the crime lab,” Olson said. “Then, who knows? Depending what they find, it could end up leaving our jurisdiction.”

  “
Because you don’t know where the crime was committed?”

  “If there even was a crime.”

  “You don’t think that was real? How can—”

  “We’re not paid to make opinions, Ms. Foreman. Our job is to assemble the evidence. It looks real, I’ll grant you. But you’re a video producer. You know how images can be manipulated.”

  “You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with this?”

  Olson raised his eyebrows. Davis watched me carefully.

  “I never saw this tape before last night.”

  “Okay,” Olson said. “Let’s go over this one more time, shall we?”

  I went over the chronology again, trying to reassure myself this was normal. Like he said, they weren’t getting paid for their opinions. They had to suspect everyone. As I talked, Davis took notes.

  “What about the room?” Olson asked. “Have you ever seen that room before? Or been in one like it?”

  I shook my head. “At first, I thought it was somebody’s basement, but then I realized it couldn’t be.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Light was seeping around the edge of the blind or curtain or whatever was covering the window. So it had to be aboveground. During daylight.”

  “Do you have any idea why someone sent you the tape?”

  Maybe he did believe me. “I don’t know. I can’t figure out whether it’s a threat or—”

  “Why do you think it may be a threat?”

  “Because of the events I was involved with last fall. And before that. But I have no idea why I would be a target now. That’s why I say I don’t know if it’s a threat or.…”

  “Or what?”

  I paused. “A plea for help.”

  “A plea for help?”

  “Maybe someone wanted me to look into the matter. Even bring you the tape.”

  “For what reason?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He and Davis exchanged another glance. Then he said, “Well, you’re right about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s impossible to see what’s going on.” He turned to Davis. “Let’s get someone to take a closer look.”