The Phantom Photographer: Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 3 (Murder in Marin Mysteries)

by Martin Brown

  For Fred, the three hundred dollar monthly payments could simply be ascribed as an act of kindness by a generous step-father. For Marv and the many others that Michael hoped would follow, their needed to be a more solid answer.

  “Hi, Marv. Can you get away for lunch one day this week? I want to show you prints of the photos I took of your business for this month’s highlight section of the chamber’s newsletter.”

  “Sure, kid, I’d love to see the photos. Where would you like to go?”

  “I love Emilio’s. They make a killer lasagna.”

  “Agreed. Noon Thursday work for you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay, and to show my appreciation for the work you’ve volunteered to do for us and the chamber, I want to treat you to lunch.”

  “That’s great; I appreciate it. See you Thursday.”

  Michael arrived fifteen minutes prior to noon. He took a certain perverse delight in knowing that he would have lunch with Marv in the same restaurant, seated in the same booth, where he confronted Fred with the uncomfortable truth that he had documented the affair he was having with Nora Stephens.

  He made a stack of the photos that were taken the day of his company’s photo shoot, and at the bottom of those prints he placed one shocking picture of Marv and Sandy “working” late at the office one night.

  Lunch went by quickly. Michael talked about how much he enjoyed getting to know people in town through both the chamber and the Rotary. Marv discussed what a “great guy” Milton was and how happy everyone was that he’d brought in Michael, “who wanted to make such a significant commitment to the community.”

  “Speaking of contributing, I wanted you to see these prints from that photo shoot we did at your place.”

  Marv went through each of the eight by ten black and white prints, making comments as he went. “This is a great one of the guys in the inventory department; I love this one of the front counter guys; Geez, this one of me is really terrific; I love this photo you’ve got of Sandy…you really captured that cute smile of hers.”

  “Oh, I’ve got another one of Sandy later that’s a real grabber.”

  It took Marv several minutes, commenting as he went, to work his way to the bottom of the pile. When he did, his eyes widened, his mouth tightened, and for a surprisingly long time, he could not even look Michael in the eye.

  The crisp black and white image he was looking at featured Sandy, nude, with her legs wrapped around Marv’s back. Marv was stripped, with the exception of his pants and underwear wrapped around his ankles as he leaned into Sandy…sprawled across his desk.

  Michael, watching Marv’s face redden, waited for what seemed like an eternity to see who would be first to break the deafening silence.

  Finally, Michael did. “Incredible quality, given the low light and the angle I was shooting from, but, a good camera, the right lens, and the proper film speed to handle the lack of light really makes all the difference.”

  Those casual words by Michael fully awakened Marv’s ire. “I ought to take this photo and ram it down your throat,” Marv said in a voice that might be described as a stifled scream.

  “Easy, big fella,” Michael responded with a cruel smile.

  “What were you going to do with these?”

  “Well, of course there are a lot of things that I could do, but I think this is the time for us to put our heads together and come to some arrangement that can work for both of us.”

  Marv, who was thinking of picking up the fork he had just used moments ago to take another bite of Emilio’s homemade chocolate cake, and ramming it into Michael’s neck, said in a soft growl, “What is it you’re looking for, you little prick?”

  In the excitement of the moment Michael decided to up his demand by a hundred dollars and add a unique twist as to how Marv could cover the expense and give him cover for his extortionist demands. “Honestly, I need to supplement my income at the camera shop. Milton’s a great guy to work for, but an extra five hundred dollars a month would really help, so I was thinking it would be terrific if the auto parts business and the chamber could hire me on a monthly retainer, say for two-fifty apiece.”

  By this time, Marv was flush with anger, and for a moment said nothing at all.

  Michael, like a shark circling its next meal, watched as his target dissolved in a frenzy of frustration.

  “Marv, don’t have a stroke over this. I have a dozen different shots of you, all of which could be used at a peep show in San Francisco. Let’s do the smart thing here. You want these photos to go away and be forgotten, and I want a little extra money every month. You’re top dog at the chamber; after the great shots I’ve taken of your business, it can’t be all that difficult to put me on two different retainers, and you can split it any way you like.”

  “And suppose I just told you to take a hike, what then?”

  “Seriously, Marv, we both know you’re not that dumb. Your marriage would be down the shitter, and from what I hear, your divorce attorney wife could cut you up into little pieces in any settlement. Obviously, your position as manager at the Anderson Auto Parts store will fall apart, and after your dismissal, your standing with the boys and girls at the chamber will go down the toilet as well.

  “And for what: the satisfaction of telling me to go fuck myself? Come on, man, you’re better than that. You’re smarter than that. This is one of those moments,” Michael said as he leaned in, “when you have to consider the big picture. Make the right choice.”

  “And if I should choose to accidentally run you down with my car, how would that be?”

  “I suppose being just a couple of years out of college I look pretty damn dumb to you, but trust me, I’m really not that stupid. Don’t you think I’ve got someone ready to send out my collection of Marv and Sandy photos the moment I go missing, or get hit by a car while crossing South Novato Boulevard? Get serious, man. Start thinking with your brain and not your dick. The photos will hang you. Do something stupid and make me disappear, and with what I have on you, who do you think will be suspect number one?”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Call me any name you want. My offer stands. Pay my price now or pay a much bigger price if you tell me to get lost. And, remember, you’ll get a damn good photographer in the bargain. That is, whenever I have the time to be available to meet your photography needs.”

  “And when do I start paying your extortion demands?”

  “Gosh, you really can get abusive when you don’t have two or three margaritas in you. Okay, I want a check delivered to this PO Box on the first of each month, but never later than the fifth. Since the first is less than a week, and you have some arrangements to make, both at your company and probably at the chamber as well, you can wait and start the following month. Five hundred bucks, and again, I don’t care how you divide it. Just get me the money or everyone in Novato who matters to you gets a full set of, from what I can see, was your finest hour.”

  Marv gave the table a bang with his fist.

  Michael got up to leave and threw down his new business card that had his new company’s name, Michael Marks Photography, along with its post office box.

  “Make your checks payable to this name on the card, and send it to that PO Box.” Leaning in close to his ear, he whispered, “Don’t screw with me, Marv. You’d be a lot better off to just do as you’re told.”

  Marv picked up the card. He was sorely tempted to tear it up and throw the pieces in Michael’s face, but reason took hold of him…the side that knew Michael had him by the short hairs and there was really very little he could do.

  He would dearly love to bang Michael over the head and bury him in one of a dozen spots he knew in the abundant open space of Marin County. But if it was at all possible that Michael had a backup who would rain photos down upon everyone should Michael disappear, he would be in a far worse position than the one he was in right now. As bad as placing five hundred a month in Michael’s pocket would be, a ruined marri
age, a destroyed career, and serving a life sentence in San Quentin would be far worse.

  Marv took a deep breath and got up to walk out. “Sir, excuse me,” he heard their waiter say. “When your friend left, he told me you were picking up the check for lunch today.”

  “Sure,” Marv said in a defeated tone, as he handed him a card. “I meant to do that; I just forgot. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “The place is all yours,” Milton said, as he hurried out the door of the camera shop, leaving Michael to his grand schemes; not just what he had made as of today, but what he could make if he continued adding victims. For now, he was looking at eight hundred a month, starting when Marv’s money was added to Fred’s in the coming weeks. This would make for a total of nearly ten thousand dollars in newly found income every year.

  While Michael suggested to Marv that if he needed a cover story to help lighten the load of a five-hundred-dollar monthly payment, he could claim Michael did work for the auto parts company and the chamber and get them to pick up part or all of that expense. In truth, Michael could care less. If Marv unwisely chose to have his employer and the chamber pay for his personal misfortune, that was none of his business. Personally, he would continue to bury the money by converting relatively small checks to cash. Through his service to the community’s two largest organizations, he knew enough local bankers that this was relatively easy to do.

  Working for Milton had become second nature. The real excitement for him now was nurturing the growth of his peculiar business. That meant shifting his attention to the Novato Rotary’s top man, Paul Ablow.

  Michael’s concern that Paul would be difficult to track and trap proved to be incorrect. To his surprise, Paul, who lacked the bravado of Fred or Marv, was nearly effortless. For two nights, Michael followed Paul after he closed his store, Paul’s Patio World, located on DeLong Avenue, and then headed straight home.

  Perhaps he read Paul wrong. Perhaps he was as trustworthy as a boy scout.

  But on the third night, as he followed Paul on his usual route home, he observed from a parking spot across the road that Mrs. Ablow was on her way out for the evening. She was carrying what appeared to be an overnight bag and gave Paul a kiss on the cheek as she headed for the carport and, moments later, drove off.

  Michael sat in his car for another twenty minutes. Bored, and expecting nothing to happen, he thought of picking up a pizza and bringing it home. But, just then, he heard the sound of a good stereo system coming from the direction of Paul’s home. As the sound of a popular Neil Diamond album reached him, Michael thought it wise to wait another thirty minutes to see what, if anything, might happen.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, a blue Mustang convertible pulled into Paul’s driveway, and a woman, who could not be much older than Michael, popped out. The front porch light revealed that she was wearing a skin-tight orange top and sky blue cutoffs that barely covered her bottom.

  Wow, I can’t believe this, Michael thought.

  From where his car was parked, he occasionally caught a glimpse of what looked like two people dancing in a dimly lit living room. Twenty minutes after the young woman arrived, the living room lights went out, and Michael was wondering if they had gone into a back bedroom. No matter what film he used, he was not going to catch the action in a room so dimly lit.

  But Michael set aside those concerns. He was on a roll, and this was no time to turn away from what might be a lucrative opportunity. There was no logical choice but to pursue the target.

  He quietly closed and locked the door of his car and started to walk toward the house. He circled around the side, past the kitchen’s sliding door, and came upon the back bedroom. Blessedly, tall box hedges hugged the property on three sides, giving Paul, Michael reasoned, cover from the prying eyes of nosy neighbors. Quickly, he realized that Paul and his girlfriend were at play in one of the back bedrooms. He got as close to the bedroom window as he thought wise, sharpened the focus on his lens, and squeezed off several shots. The light was lower than he would have liked, but he was quite sure he would get the photographic evidence he needed.

  As with his other two captures, an evening in the darkroom proved the worth of the time he invested. Once again, his shots captured all the proof he needed that Paul was unfaithful to his wife.

  Michael had grown tired of Emilio’s, so he made an appointment to meet Paul at his store just after its seven o’clock closing time, to discuss his company’s photo spread in the next edition of the Chamber Waves newsletter.

  Michael went through his well-practiced lead up to the major reveal of a photograph he felt certain Paul was willing to pay dearly to keep his wife from seeing.

  “Michael, you really do some wonderful work. Marv told me last month how impressed he was with the photos you did at Anderson’s Auto Parts. Let’s talk about what you can do here to show my store at its best.”

  “Great, but before we do, I want to show you one more photo,” Michael said, as he slipped an eight by ten photo of Paul at play with a woman who had to be fifteen or more years his junior.

  “Wow, what a great shot,” Paul exclaimed, as he marveled at the quality of the photo. “This is really hot! When did you get this?”

  “I was on a photo safari in your neighborhood.”

  “Looks to me like you were spying.”

  “Well, maybe just a little.”

  “Are you a peeping tom with that camera of yours? Come on, buddy, tell me the truth now,” Ablow said with a wink and a sly grin.

  “Not quite,” Michael said, hesitantly sensing from Paul’s playful tone that perhaps something had gone terribly wrong.

  “Well, that’s one of my little sweeties,” Paul explained with a wondrous smile. “Her name is Carla. You wouldn’t happen to have any more of these? I mean, did you take any other pictures? We shared a shower later, but I wouldn’t imagine you got any of those shots, frosted glass window kind of ruins the opportunity.”

  “Do you and Carla get to do this a lot?”

  “As often as we can. My wife and I have an open marriage. She goes out and does her thing one night a week, and I do mine. She’s not into things like threesomes, so when it comes to play dates, we just go our separate ways. But tell me about your thing. What would you call it? Some sort of photo erotic fantasy play?”

  After an awkward pause in the conversation, Paul continued to voice his curiosity over what he assumed was Michael’s sexual fetish.

  “But, listen, Michael, this is not cool. I don’t have any problem with you doing your own thing, but if you’re going to take pictures of me, well I want to know next time. For one thing, I could have made the lighting a little better, which would have helped give you a better view of the action.”

  The last thing Michael wanted to share with Paul was that he was trying to build a list of victims he could blackmail in exchange for keeping secret the photographic evidence he had gathered. He had no intention of providing Paul and his wife with a secret portfolio they could share with their various lovers.

  “Well, I was driving down your block and I saw this really hot girl going into your place and, well…I was just curious. I’m sorry I snuck around the back and took the photos that I did. I know it was wrong of me. I’ll never do it again.”

  “Hey, man, it’s okay. You like to watch. I get it; we’ve all got our own thing. I’m sure that there are a lot of people who wouldn’t approve of what Bev and I do for fun, but just like you, we’ve all got our own little secrets.”

  Michael had no choice but to stand there and look both embarrassed and humbled. Clearly, it was better for Ablow to see him as a peeping tom than an extortionist.

  “Maybe you should speak to Bev. She might like you to get some photos of her as well. I really admire your work. If you’ve got any more of Carla and me from that night, I’d be happy to pay you for them. You do really great work!”

  Michael could not get out of Paul’s Patio World fast enough, eve
n though Paul insisted that Michael stay and complete the stated purpose of the business meeting they were supposed to be having.

  Later, in the car, driving over to Mary’s Pizza Shack, which was in the same strip mall where the camera shop was located, Michael could not believe what had just happened. He was aching to tell someone, but of course there was no way to explain why he had taken these pictures of Paul and his attractive young lover in the first place. Perhaps, at some point, he could tell his brother Christopher this story and they could share a good laugh. But certainly no one else.

  It just didn’t seem fair. He did everything right and got the wrong result. It was a powerful lesson to him about the rules of the game he had decided to play. Secrets worth paying for were only those worth hiding. Certainly release of the photos of the local Rotary president at play would cause a stir among the members, but it would be the ruin of Michael in both his job and his standing in the community. It was far wiser, he knew, to file this away under funny things that happen when you enter the business of extortion.

  Michael quickly adjusted to a more philosophical view of the whole episode. It was like one of the many hunting trips Christopher and Michael had gone on with their father in the years after Barbara had left. So often, when they thought that big buck was in their sites, something went wrong.

  Every business has time, money, or both, invested in some pursuit that fails to yield its expected return. Michael had the sophistication to realize that he was still in the process of building a business. Setbacks and unexpected developments were part of the process. He needed to set Paul and his wife aside and move on to others who most assuredly had secrets they’d pay to keep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  In time, and by practicing patience, Michael found two more targets over the following year. Both were a result of his time working for the chamber and the Rotary.