Frames Per Second

by Bill Eidson

  Ben drummed his fingers on the desk, knowing his next logical step, and hating it.

  He went upstairs to their bedroom.

  There was the faint smell of Kurt’s aftershave lotion mingled with Andi’s perfume. “Oh, Jesus,” Ben said. Hating what he was doing.

  He swung open an old framed print of a Winslow Homer scene to reveal the safe. Courtesy of the previous owner of the house. Not something Ben or Andi would have ever gone to the trouble to install, but he knew she used it to store her jewelry, as well as certificates for the few stocks they owned.

  Ben took out his wallet, and sifted through it until he found his Social Security card. The combination was scratched down on the back.

  It didn’t work.

  Kurt must have changed the combination.

  Ben was almost relieved.

  If he couldn’t find out, he couldn’t find out.

  But he knew Andi and her habits. And he knew there was still a chance he could move forward. He went back down to the office, and went to Andi’s desk and found her diary. He opened it to the front page and saw the old combination scratched out, and the new one listed below.

  He jotted the number down, and hurried back upstairs.

  It worked.

  Inside, he found more jewelry. More pieces that Kurt had apparently given her in the six months of dating than Ben had given her in all their time together. There was also a small bar of silver with a commemorative insignia. There were several flat envelopes with the Paine Webber label, and then a thick manila envelope.

  Ben took that one out.

  It was sealed. Something hard-edged bulged in the middle.

  Ben hesitated.

  Everything else, he could clean up. He could go downstairs, shut off the computer.

  And be done with it.

  He closed his eyes, and then slid his finger inside the envelope and ripped it open. He dropped the contents onto the bed and turned on the bedside lamp.

  There was a prospectus on the silver futures.

  There were a series of letters from the Paine Webber broker confirming that Kurt had leveraged the growth in his silver contracts into more contracts … that he simply kept re-extending himself as the price increased.

  There was a computer disk.

  And a five-by-seven print of Senator Cheever and Teri Wheeler embracing.

  It took Ben just a moment to open the files on the computer.

  There were almost a dozen separate files showing the stages of individual elements of what were most likely scanned black-and-white prints. Maybe Kurt had gotten hold of the negatives, but Huey probably would have said so. And there was a scanner right beside Kurt’s computer.

  There were what looked like the original shots of the senator holding the tray and then of Teri Wheeler laughing, her head arched back. Then the same shots, only this time the senator’s hands were empty of the tray. And the background around Teri had been stripped away. And then of the senator’s image, rotated and placed so that his hands were now around Teri’s waist. The angle of his neck and head taken from another shot and replaced on his shoulders in another … giving the impression that he was kissing her or at least nuzzling her neck.

  And then the individual pieces were overlaid onto each other, including the return of the background image, and the foreground frame of the window.

  Another version with what looked to be fine-tuning of the shadows and light on their faces.

  And finally, there was the finished scene. The shot that Peter apparently saw, but missed.

  The shot Kurt had constructed.

  How handy, Ben thought. Thinking of what Jake had said at his birthday dinner a million years ago. “No more missed shots.”

  CHAPTER 32

  BEN WAITED IN THE VAN UNTIL THE BEDROOM LIGHTS WENT OUT. First Lainnie’s around nine-thirty, and then Jake’s about an hour later. Ben sat there for another half hour, hoping his son was drifting off deeply.

  Ben had cleaned up any sign of his break-in before he had left. He had put everything back as he had found it. Everything but the packet containing the disk.

  With that in hand, he took a deep breath, walked up to the front door, and rang the doorbell.

  Andi opened the door a crack and peered out. She whispered, “Are you drunk?”

  “We’ve got to talk.”

  “Not now we don’t.”

  “Somebody at the door, honey?” Ben heard Kurt say.

  And then the door swung open.

  Kurt stood there in his bathrobe. Pajamas and slippers. His querulous look changing quickly to anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Ben held out the photo of the senator and Teri Wheeler. “I’m here to talk about this—and this.” He held up the big Paine Webber envelope with the disk in front of it.

  Kurt’s face blanched. He looked up the stairs behind him swiftly and then back at Ben. Clearly wondering how the worst had happened.

  Ben almost felt sorry for him.

  “What is that?” Andi asked.

  Kurt tried to close the door. “Call me at the office.”

  But Ben put his foot in the way. “No. This concerns all of us.”

  Andi said, “What is it?” She pulled at the door and at first Kurt wouldn’t let her open it. “Kurt!”

  He relented and the door swung wide.

  She said, “What’re you talking about?”

  Ben looked at Kurt. The man had turned gray. He leaned back against the door. His breathing was shaky. “How did you …”

  “I broke in,” Ben said. “While you were at the movies.”

  “Broke in here?” Andi said.

  “Let’s go in the library and talk about it,” Ben said. “And keep your voice down so the kids don’t have to listen to this.”

  “They’ll listen to you getting arrested if you don’t get out of here,” she began in a harsh whisper.

  But Kurt put his hand on her shoulder. He shook his head ever so slightly. “No, we’ll listen.”

  She went silent. She touched her husband’s face, suddenly scared. “What is it, Kurt?”

  He took her hand. “He’s right. We need to go where the kids won’t hear us.”

  “I’ll explain,” Kurt said when they reached the library. His voice was hoarse.

  After Ben closed the door, Kurt held out his hand for the file and the disk. After a moment’s hesitation, Ben let him have them.

  Kurt waved him and Andi to the loveseat and sat across from them with the coffee table in between.

  Kurt stared at the photograph for a time, and then cleared his throat. His hands were shaking.

  He looked up. “I’ve always tried to do the right thing. Kept to my responsibilities. It’s the way I was brought up, it’s most likely my nature. Kind of dull, but that’s who I am.”

  He focused his attention on Andi. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You and the kids. I just wanted to keep it. Keep this life together.”

  She looked confused. “You have it. We’re right here.”

  “I know. I know you say that.” He touched his chest. “But inside I feel every day like I might lose it all. That disastrous marriage to Kathleen.”

  He looked at Ben. “And you. Having you around on the edges all of the time. Wanting back in.”

  “Wanting a life with my kids,” Ben said. “I was clear about that.”

  Kurt nodded. “I know what you said. Maybe I even believed you. But it’s not what I felt inside. You understand the difference?”

  Ben didn’t answer, and Kurt didn’t wait.

  “So I took a risk,” he said. “I wanted to move us away from this house. This damn house that feels in every board like you’re still a part of the place. I wanted to make us our own home and move away from you and have a fresh start.”

  “The way it looks to me, you wanted me discredited and ruined.”

  Kurt shook his head. “I didn’t consciously go about that. I got myself into a jam, and I saw a way ou
t.”

  “What happened?” Andi asked, quietly.

  “Those investments I’ve been telling you about. You trusted me so completely. And they were good for a time, but they’ve gone south.”

  Her face paled. “How far south?”

  He looked her in the eye. “I’ve lost all my own capital. And most of what you gave me months ago to invest. And then I panicked and tried to recoup it all by buying silver futures. The market went against me. I was desperate.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth.

  Kurt continued, his voice heavy. “There is no new house. We might lose this one. The market kept opening down the limit every day … I couldn’t move the silver … with what I owe, I don’t see how we can keep up the mortgage.”

  He put the picture down in front of her. “And so I did this.”

  “What do you mean you did this?”

  “I fabricated this photo.” He jerked his head toward the computer. “Using Photoshop. Scanned in the prints.”

  He looked toward Ben. “When Peter was telling me what happened, how he blew it using your camera, he told me there was a shot like this. Right after he ran through the roll, he saw the senator come up and hug Miss Wheeler and kiss her. They were there for just a split second, and Peter was berating himself—and I was berating him—for missing the shot.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “It was useless without the picture. I … I didn’t want to go up against the senator with just my word about what Peter saw.”

  “Sure,” Ben said. “And you saw a way out of your money troubles.”

  Kurt shook his head. “Not right then. At that point, I wasn’t in so much trouble. No, this has all happened very quickly. I’d been playing with Jake on a bunch of images, and I scanned in the photos myself at first just to see if I could do it. Sort of teased myself along—you know, could I make the shot that Peter missed. I kept at it. Telling myself it was just a hobby, a distraction. Get my mind off my money worries. I didn’t take it seriously, because I knew the dot pattern would show up and I had to print out on electronic imaging paper. But the picture I made turned out so well. So convincing. And then Jake showed me how he had used your old camera stand downstairs to photograph a digital print and then had it printed on conventional paper. And I suddenly realized that if I just softened the focus a little I’d be able to do it all.”

  Ben said, “And by then I had already gone in and presented the photos to the senator and you figured if it all went wrong, I’d be held up as the bad guy.”

  Kurt wet his lips. “Maybe. I didn’t think of it so directly. I certainly figured you could talk yourself out of any problems. After all, you were in Maine when the shot was taken.”

  “So I would’ve said. Of course, I couldn’t prove it.”

  “I didn’t think it would get to that. I thought he’d pay up. I thought he was in a jam, and I was in a jam. The kind of campaign funds he has, access to people like Goodhue who want to see him president someday, I thought I could at least wipe out this problem with the margin and restore some of Andi’s money to her. It wouldn’t begin to cover the hit on my own money.”

  Andi had bent forward, covering her face. Kurt reached out to touch her and she pushed his hand away.

  “I’m sorry, Andi,” he said.

  He looked at Ben. “And I apologize to you, too. I wanted you to take that damn logging assignment to get you out of town, make you unavailable in case the senator sent someone around. At the very least, I needed to get you off the staff.”

  “Bullshit. You wanted to get me away from you. You wanted to give me an apparent motive. ‘Out-of-work photographer turns to blackmail.’ ”

  Kurt considered this. “Maybe. I’ve been less than honest with myself. That’s possible.”

  Ben shook his head, marveling. “Is that your version of ‘I do not recall?’”

  “I suppose it is.” Kurt paused. “Who did the senator send around?”

  “Himself.” Ben told them about the meeting.

  Andi took her hands from her face. She reached out and touched Ben’s hand. “Oh my God. I’ve been listening to this, devastated about what it means in our life. Not thinking what could’ve happened to you.” She laughed, shortly, on the verge of tears. “And here I was castigating you today for putting yourself at risk.’’

  “What’s the bottom line with the senator?” Kurt asked.

  “He’s not going to pay. He says he’ll pull me down with him. Nail me for blackmail.”

  “Clearly, my blackmail of the senator ends here,” Kurt said. “The question is, what are you going to do to me?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ben said.

  The three of them sat in silence for a moment, at an impasse.

  Ben cleared his throat, and the two of them looked at him expectantly. “Where did you have the shot processed and printed?”

  “I did it myself. Used Huey’s lab one night. I’d taken Photo 101 back in college, I just had to read up on it.”

  “Tell me exactly when all this happened.”

  Kurt went over to his desk and came around to Ben’s side of the coffee table with a calendar. With a pen, he circled the date three days after Ben and Lucien’s meeting with Cheever. “There. That’s when Cheever would’ve gotten the photo. I mailed it outside the Kenmore Square post office. I figured it would arrive the next day. So I waited until the next day and called him from a pay phone. Said I was Senator Atkins, got right through.”

  That coincided with what the senator had said, Ben thought. The call came two days after Dawson attacked Ben in his studio and tried to burn all his photos.

  “Have you contacted the senator again about picking up the money?”

  “No.”

  “When were you going to do that?”

  “I figured I’d give him a week. And then there was this thing with you and Sands. I gave it a couple more days. It’s turned into almost two weeks since I called him.”

  “You think they’re related? You blackmailing the senator and Sands wiring the bomb that killed Peter?”

  “It couldn’t be,” Kurt said. “Peter was killed weeks before I sent that photo to the senator. Before I even had the idea of blackmailing him, never mind constructing the photo. And Dawson attacked you a good couple of days before I sent the photo, so it comes to the same thing. And we know he was McGuire’s man.”

  “But nevertheless, it made you pause.”

  Kurt made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Everything about this has given me pause. I wasn’t sure I was going to go through with it. Collecting the money. I’m honestly not sure.”

  “But if you did?”

  “If I did, most likely what I would’ve done is called him again this week.”

  “And done what?”

  Kurt made a disgusted face. “I’ve seen as many movies as anybody. I’d have sent him around to a half dozen phone booths and watched him at three of them to see if he had police or anyone else following. Had him leave the money someplace and then I’d mail the negative of the copy-stand photo.”

  “You would, huh?” Ben looked at him skeptically.

  “Yes, I would.” Kurt seemed somewhat surprised. “This has been chewing me up inside, doing this. I would’ve returned it, and been done with the whole mess. I would’ve told Andi that I’d taken a bath on my investments but that at least her money and the house were safe.”

  He looked to Andi. “I’m telling you the truth. Both of you.”

  Neither of them said anything.

  “So …” Kurt waited. “So what are you going to do?”

  Andi put her hand on Ben’s arm. Stopping him from answering. “Walk with me please,” she said.

  Kurt began to shake his head. “Don’t do it this way. Don’t walk out with him.”

  “Can I trust you to just stay here and wait?” she asked, sharply. “The kids are asleep upstairs. Can I trust you?”

  He jerked, as if she had just slapped him. When he
answered, his voice was hoarse. “You can trust me,” he said. “Give me time, I’ll prove it to you.”

  Ben and Andi started up the winding trail behind the house. They climbed silently for about ten minutes, a walk they had made together many times over the years. He let her go ahead into the moonlit woods up toward a rocky ledge. She moved fast and both of them were breathing a little harder by time she reached the outcropping.

  She sat down, and put her head in her hands. He sat beside her, looking back at their former home, saying nothing. Sweat trickled down his back.

  Finally, she sat up and brushed at her eyes with the palm of her hand “Enough,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “It’s not as if I didn’t know something was up. He hasn’t been sleeping. The way he was reacting to you. I told myself it was all just adjusting to the new situation. Pretty stressful for anybody, to move into a family like this.”

  “Blackmail is pretty stressful too. If you’re not used to it, that is.”

  “Please don’t,” she said. “You’ve certainly got the right, but please don’t do that now.”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you.” She held his hand for a moment, and then let go. She was trembling.

  “Is it true what he said?” Ben asked. “You gave him everything to invest?”

  “I gave him a lot. But not all of it. I loved him—and I probably still do—but, no, the blue chips that I inherited from Uncle Gus are still in my name and I never made them available to him. Certainly, the house and the equity in it are in my name. So if it’s a matter of just keeping up the mortgage payments, I might be able to swing it on my own for a while.”

  “That’s assuming your assets aren’t seized. You’re his wife and he’s run up substantial debts—you’re in trouble here.”

  She nodded. “Oh, we’re in trouble, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.” She looked at him. “Ben, right now I’m so angry and disappointed with Kurt I’d like to stand up and scream and throw rocks and generally just have a good tantrum. But the fact is you and I have to make some decisions right now. So I’m going to try to keep it together and tell you some things. Because what you do is going to have a big impact on all of us—including the kids—for a long time to come.”