Frames Per Second

by Bill Eidson

  “Sure.”

  “Sarah, you’re going to be the lead on any new investigation of both Jarrod Johansen and Jimbo McGuire. Ed, you’ve already started the prison ladies’ story, and I’ve got another assignment for Lucien, which I’ll get into.”

  Prison ladies, Ben thought. Peter’s term, Peter’s irreverence. It sounded forced coming from Kurt.

  “So, first thing, go establish yourself with the cops,” Kurt said to Sarah. “If they don’t come through, we’ll write it as a slice of one reporter’s life and we’ll leave open the door as to which story killed him … if it was any one of these. Obviously, it’s possible that it was something in his past. The police are leaning toward the possibility that it was someone after Ben because of Johansen.”

  Kurt shrugged and looked back at the list. “But this is what we’ve got for now. All right, how are you doing so far on the prison ladies, Ed?”

  “I’m taking each woman’s story a case at a time,” Ed said. “Some of them should probably get out. Others, it’s not so clear.”

  “The police forming any opinions about their husbands’ families or friends in regards to Peter’s death?”

  Ed smiled. “The police don’t tell me all their opinions. But my impression is that they’re looking into it without a hell of a lot of interest. Most of the guys these ladies killed didn’t sound smart enough to set an alarm clock, never mind a bomb. I think the cops are assuming the same of their friends and family.’’

  “Well, keep on it. Ben, you coordinate with Ed when he’s ready for you to go in. I’ll be looking for group shots and individual portraits.”

  “All right.”

  “That assumes you’re not too tied up on these other three angles. If so, let me know and I’ll send someone else out to the prison.” Kurt went back to the flip chart. “On Johansen, Lucien, I’d like you to share your notes with Sarah.”

  Lucien’s face flushed, and Ben and the others looked away, embarrassed for him. Everyone had stories pulled away from them from time to time, but it was never easy to take.

  “What about me?” Lucien said. “You said there was another assignment?” The plaintive tone in his voice was so clear Ben was again embarrassed for him. Ben looked at Kurt, as the others did, wondering if he was going to land on the young reporter with both boots.

  But Kurt was smooth. “I’ve been looking for an opportunity for you to expand your political coverage. Therefore, I’m going to have you cover Senator Cheever.”

  Lucien sat a little straighter. “That’s cool. What have we got?”

  “Not much. I had met with Peter on Wednesday and he brought me up to speed then.” Kurt slid out a sheaf of photos and Ben, Lucien, and the others swung around to his side of the table to look. Sarah stood well back from Lucien, clearly letting him take the lead. There were over thirty prints of what were essentially three scenes.

  Kurt didn’t try to hide his frustration. “Peter said he dinked around with your camera, Ben, and set the motor drive onto high speed and didn’t know how to stop it. He essentially took about ten to twelve shots each of what should have been only three photos before blasting through a roll of film. By the time he figured out how to rewind and reload the camera, there was nothing worth taking.”

  Ben felt his stomach drop.

  “You should’ve insisted Peter take another photographer,” Kurt said. “I can’t believe an operation like ours is being hobbled by ego like this. Peter was a great reporter, but too damn secretive for his own good… . In any case, this is what we’ve got through the window of Cheever’s town house on Beacon Street. Him sipping wine with an attractive young woman up in his office in the daytime with her clothes on.”

  Indeed, there were three sets of black and white shots taken through the window. One set of the senator smiling as he put down a tray of two wine glasses on a table. The second was of a young woman standing in the window. She was laughing, her head back, the line of her throat revealed. The last was of the woman looking pensively out the window, the afternoon light revealing her as a beauty. Ben stacked the prints of the second set and fanned them against his thumb, making a small quick-time movie with the minor movements the woman had made while being photographed at eight frames per second.

  Even in the jerkiness of the rudimentary film method, he could read her appeal, the way her chest and shoulders lifted slightly as she laughed, the sidelong look she directed back into the room, presumably at the senator.

  “And who are Peter’s sources on Cheever?” Lucien asked.

  “Damned if we know. From what the police told me, they’ve found nothing in his apartment, we’ve found nothing substantive in his computer here.”

  Ed said, “The police say there was a burned vinyl notebook inside the van. Totally unreadable, even for their labs.”

  “You want me to walk those shots into Cheever and ask who she is?” Lucien asked. “Get his reaction?”

  Kurt paused.

  “All right,” he said, slowly. “Do that. But go easy with him. Just say you’re following up on Peter’s story, relate the situation. Ask him if he has any comments, if he could identify the girl for us. Somehow, I don’t see the senator wiring bombs to hide screwing around on his wife. Not in the same state that voted for Teddy Kennedy year after year.’’

  “Cheever’s still going to blow,” Ed said.

  “Probably,” Kurt said. “Wear your asbestos suit, Lucien. And Ben, go along when Lucien gets the appointment. See if you can get Cheever’s reaction on film.”

  Kurt turned back to Sarah. “All right, Peter was also working on a young punk from Southie.” He pulled out another manila envelope and laid out a sheaf of black and white prints. “Jimbo McGuire.”

  Ben looked at the prints and sighed. He’d told Peter to stay away from McGuire. And yet, the story was right there to see. Peter had gotten too close. With the four-hundred-millimeter lens that Ben had left him with, he was achieving full head and shoulder shots.

  Far too close for a guy like McGuire.

  McGuire was an exceedingly handsome young man, with dark hair, an open, chipper look to him. The first shot showed him leaving a warehouse not too far from Ben’s studio down off the piers. Another of him going into Jimmy’s Harborside Restaurant, looking back over his shoulder in front of the pebbled glass. A set taken most likely in Charlestown talking to a small balding man outside of a candy store. And the final was of him in a Mercedes with a young woman. His hand was on her thigh, and his head was turned directly toward the camera. Just her body was visible, wearing shorts and a halter top.

  Lucien whistled. “Wished Peter got the full shot on her.”

  Ben glanced at Sarah, who smiled faintly. Kurt laid out the rest of the pictures. There was another shot of McGuire talking with the same shopkeeper outside a redbrick building. And finally one that looked like the North Shore. Ben could see beachfront property, the Boston skyline faintly in the background. A home in Nahant, perhaps.

  In the last three shots, there were two of McGuire. One, looking back over his shoulder, a scowl forming. The other of him pointing directly into the camera.

  The third shot was a quick, poorly framed photo of a thick-bodied man walking close to the camera, his shoulders forward, his head down. Out of focus.

  “McGuire saw Peter and sent somebody over,” Ben said.

  “That’s right,” Kurt said. “Peter said he took off before the guy got hold of him.”

  “They say anything? Make any threat?”

  “No. Peter said it was all there to see in this guy’s face and the way McGuire was standing there, hands on his hips.”

  “Huh.” Ben said. “Have the cops talked to them?”

  “They’re not sharing that with me. That’s up to you and Sarah.”

  Ben said, “I sure don’t see anything here that’s worth killing about.”

  “I know.” Kurt leaned over the shots, looking at them closely. “Neither did Peter.”

  Kurt asked Ben to
stay a moment as the others were leaving the room. “I just outlined a lot of work for you here. Are you really up to it, physically?”

  “I’m hurting a bit, but I’m all right,” Ben said. Thanking God for the little vial of Darvon in his pocket to help keep the pain at bay.

  “Have the police said anything to you about protection?”

  “Yeah. They can’t afford it. Besides, I can’t have a couple of guys following me around while I’m trying to cover the very people who may have done it.”

  “I see.” Kurt drummed his fingers lightly on the table. “That leads me to what I have to say now. I talked with Andi about our conversation about additional visitation rights.”

  “I left a message on your machine for her yesterday,” Ben said.

  “I know. But I’m relaying our thoughts to you. At this time, with what’s going on, we don’t think it’s safe for the children to be around you more than they are already. If anything, we think you should stay away from the children for a while. Including canceling this coming weekend.”

  Ben stood up and walked to the front of the room. Our thoughts … We can’t see … We think …

  Ben exhaled carefully. “You know, Kurt, I truly admire your ability to manage a room full of people. I don’t admire you using it for managing my family life.”

  “Our family life,” Kurt said.

  Ben had planned this weekend two months ago. He had bought tickets for an Eric Clapton concert at Great Woods, something he knew they all would enjoy.

  He thought of Lainnie, crying on his chest at the hospital.

  “I think you can understand my logic,” Kurt said.

  And, of course, Ben could. It was safer for the kids to stay away from him at least for a week or so.

  He just needed to get past Kurt laying it out for him.

  “All right,” Ben said, shortly. “But Jake’s birthday is the end of next week. Nine days. Let’s all meet someplace public … you and Andi can bring the kids, take them home.”

  Kurt said, “Naturally, I can’t commit until I talk with Andi.”

  “Naturally,” Ben said.

  CHAPTER 10

  SARAH KNOCKED ON THE OPEN DOOR OF BEN’S CUBICLE. “GOT A minute for me?”

  “Of course.” Ben took a box of transparency sleeves off a chair and she sat down. He had been thinking about this meeting all morning, knowing it would have to come soon.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Yes …” she said. “I know you and Peter were friends. Close friends if I heard him right.”

  “We were.”

  “You probably know he took the shuttle down to visit me and Cindy every month.”

  Ben nodded.

  “I was jealous of you, actually.”

  Ben raised his eyebrows. “We weren’t that close.”

  She smiled wanly. “He’d show me the pieces the two of you did together. You know he and I started as a team first. I saw us as a boy/girl version of Woodward and Bernstein. Being lovers, wedding bells, and Cindy came afterwards. Ever so much more difficult.’’ Her smile curved. “You two boys could keep it simple: work together, do amazing things on the street, and just stay buddies.”

  “Buddies who sat around bars whining about loneliness after all that ‘amazing’ work.”

  She hesitated, seemingly lost within herself, and then said, “Maybe we can have a drink sometime, talk this all over. I’m going to have to lean on you as Peter’s former partner.”

  “That’s fine. But I’ve got to warn you that in recent months, Kurt’s had me off on other things. Peter and I were just getting back to work together when this happened. I don’t know anything more than what you heard in the editorial meeting.”

  “Understood. We’re also going to have to look hard at this thing of yours with Johansen. It looks like a pretty promising lead, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Promising …” he grimaced.

  She waited.

  He said, “If promising means I lie awake nights wondering if I got Peter killed, then, yes, it’s promising. It was my van, it was my camera bag. But there’s also this kid, this Jimbo McGuire. We know Peter was found out, at least to the extent that he was chased off by McGuire’s bodyguard.”

  “Tell me again why Peter was taking photographs himself?”

  “Because he was stubborn,” Ben said. “And more than a little paranoid. He wasn’t willing to take someone else along and I needed a vacation.”

  “I see.” She said it calmly enough, but he could see—or thought he could—the flash of resentment.

  “Got to be tough, sitting here being civil when you’re thinking, It should’ve been you.”

  “I’ve got my own guilt to worry about,” she said, with a slight edge to her voice. “I did my part destroying our marriage. He wouldn’t even be working for Insider …”

  She stopped and abruptly brushed away a tear before it even started. When her attention returned to him, her eyes somehow seemed darker. “Look, if it motivates you to feel guilty, then who am I to get in the way of it? Use it to help me find the bastards who did this. And yes, if McGuire looks like a possibility, by all means let’s follow that up, too.”

  Ben put out his hand and she held it.

  “Deal,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand briefly, with surprising strength. She flipped open her notebook to show him a phone number. “That’s the FBI in D.C.” she said. “How about you call in that favor with that agent you saved and get us an interview with Johansen?”

  After only two rings, the number was picked up and Ben asked for Agent Parker.

  A man identifying himself as Agent Blaine answered Parker’s phone. “Who’s calling?”

  “Ben Harris. I’m the photographer who—”

  “I know who you are.” The man’s voice was flat. “What can we do for you?”

  “Is Parker there?”

  “He’s not.”

  Ben explained they were looking for an interview with Johansen.

  “This in relation to the bombing up there in Boston or is this just some color for your celebrity issue?” Blaine asked.

  “I’d kind of like to know if that bomb was meant for me.”

  “Well, you’re a hell of a photographer, Mr. Harris. And we appreciate what you did for Agent Parker. But people as good at interrogation as you are at snapping pictures have been grilling Johansen about Boston and a whole lot of other activities. So far, his answer is ‘no,’ and we don’t have any evidence to show otherwise. If we did, we would pass it along to …” Ben heard the rapid tap of a keyboard. “… Detective Brace on the Boston Police. Have you met with him?”

  “I expect you know I have,” Ben said. “Seeing as you know so much already.”

  “You’re right,” Blaine said, cheerfully. “I do. So I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell you what I tell all the reporters—no interviews.”

  “Parker said he owed me a favor, and I’m calling it in.”

  The agent paused. “I’ll tell him you called, but don’t hold your breath. Agent Parker’s extremely busy right now, and our policy right now is to keep the press away from Johansen. It builds his ego up and we’re trying to wear him down.”

  “His ego also trips him up,” Ben said. “I’ve seen it.”

  “And maybe Parker will see it your way,” Blaine said and hung up.

  The next day, Ben and Ed went to the woman’s prison in Framingham.

  It was hard going. The grim consistency of the women’s stories. Stories of men who were forgiven again and again even as they beat and abused women they had sworn to love. Of men who wouldn’t stay away even when restraining orders were issued. Of women who had been pressed beyond their limits and had finally reacted with guns, with knives, with poison.

  But, Ben heard nothing from any of the women that shed any light on Peter.

  By the time Ben and Ed got to the last woman’s cell, most of the day was gone. Her name was Maria and she had been convicted of walking into a
bar and shooting her boyfriend. Her body had been covered with bruises and cigarette burns at the time; her two children from a previous relationship had been taken to the emergency room a half-dozen times in as many months.

  They were in a foster home now.

  Ben started setting up his shot on autopilot, his hands and eyes knowing what to do. Simple instructions: Stand here, please. Look there, Maria. Thank you.

  No thought added.

  Some of his distance was due to the pain in his leg, and the floating feeling from the medication. But the women’s stories evoked images within himself, images from his own world: of Parker blurring up from the floor as Ben fired the strobe into Johansen’s eyes; of Andi and Kurt sitting across from him on the love seat telling him they were to be married; of rowing alone under the moonlight in Maine; the sound and heat as Peter disappeared right in front of him.

  Of waking up in the hospital bed … Lainnie’s tears, Jake’s awkward distance … of Kurt saying after the meeting, “We think you should stay away from the children for a while.”

  Ben came out of the reverie, his own anger alive in him, the taste of it bitter.

  Maria was looking at him challengingly. “Uh-uh, honey, you don’t tell me where to sit. This is the picture I want.” She stood in front of the prison bars, hip cocked, her well-muscled arms crossed just under her breasts. Anger swept off her, but, even so, she laughed harshly at herself. “I know I’m a bitch, but that’s the way it’s gonna be. I let a man come in my house and tell me what I do and how I do it and who I see and that’s not gonna happen again for this girl.”

  “How did it happen?” Ben asked.

  “Ain’t you been listening?”

  Ben raised the camera and repeated his question. Through the glass, he saw for a moment a desperate vulnerability replace the challenge in her eyes. He almost squeezed the shutter button to capture what was perhaps a truer portrait of her.