The Seventh Victim

by Mary Burton

  A hundred yards behind her, a truck blew past on the interstate, sending a rush of energy, air, and sound cutting through the quiet night.

  She hefted her large bellows camera on her shoulder and, with her flashlight in hand, followed the matted path until she spotted the billow of the yellow crime scene tape. She set up the tripod facing east and checked her watch. It was 5 AM and the sun would rise in about forty-five minutes. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  She hurried back to her truck and from a wooden storage box retrieved a ten-by-eight glass plate that she’d precut and cleaned last night. After wiping down the plate one last time, she uncorked a glass bottle filled with the chemical collodion, poured the syrupy liquid on the glass, and gently tipped her wrist back and forth. The trick was to evenly coat the glass. The masters of this process, known as “flowing the plate,” strove for no streaks or runs, but she’d found the occasional imperfection added depth and interest to her final prints.

  When she’d coated the plate to her satisfaction, she poured the excess collodion back into the bottle and opened what looked like a black, slim file box. She slid the glass negative into the box, which was filled with silver nitrate, and waited five minutes. Tenting her work area under a large black blanket that blocked out all light, she removed the tacky, light-sensitive glass negative and loaded it into a plate holder. She hurried back to her camera, knowing her negative needed to be used while still damp.

  Under another black drape, she inserted the first negative into the camera just as the initial bits of light appeared on the horizon. Through the viewfinder the image appeared upside down, but when she processed the negative it would right itself.

  The sun inched up to the edge of the horizon, and she reached around and pulled the cap off the lens. She counted to thirty and then replaced the cap. With the morning heat already rising, she hurried back to her truck with the exposed negative, ducked under her blanket again, and poured developer evenly over the glass plate. As she counted to fifteen she gently agitated the glass and watched for her image to appear.

  More thunder rumbled in the distance and the rising winds whooshed over the tall, dry grass. When the image emerged, she poured water over it, halting the development process. She set the negative aside to dry and prepared a second.

  With thunderclouds looming, she shot and developed two more negatives before the threat of rain forced her to load up her equipment.

  By six thirty, as the morning traffic on the interstate built, she was angling her camera gently into the back of the truck.

  The pleasure of her morning’s work ended abruptly when flashing blue police lights reflected in her side mirror. “Damn.”

  She’d been through this before, cops spotting her at a crime scene and stopping to ask what she was doing. Logically it made sense. What person in their right mind would do this? But logic didn’t temper her irritation.

  The officer, in his midforties, short with dark hair, got out of his car and approached her, one hand on his gun. “Ma’am, what are you doing out here?”

  Turning, she kept her hands, palms open at her side. “I’m a photographer. I was taking pictures of the sunrise. In the back of my truck, you’ll see my camera and equipment.”

  He moved to the back of the truck, touched her back tailgate with his palm, and glanced inside. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Eyes narrowed, he pulled a flashlight from his belt and shined it inside. The light swept over the camera, the chemicals, and the box of negatives.

  “My name is Lara Church. I teach at the university, and I have an art show opening this Friday in Austin.”

  He glanced at her and then at the equipment. “What is there to photograph out here?”

  “I’ve been known to pick some random places at odd times.”

  “What kind of camera is that?”

  “It’s a bellows camera. The kind photographers used during the Civil War. Ansel Adams took his pictures out west with a bellows camera.” She’d found the better she explained herself the less time she would be detained.

  He stared at her as if he wasn’t sure if she was crazy or just stupid. She could have told him maybe a little of both.

  “Can I see your driver’s license and registration?”

  “Sure.” She moved toward the front of the truck and paused. “I have a dog in the front seat. He’s pretty big but harmless.”

  The officer nodded and held back as she moved to the front of the cab and grabbed her purse. She fished her driver’s license out of her wallet and handed it to the officer.

  He glanced at the license. “Texas.”

  “I just changed it to Texas from Florida a couple of weeks ago.” She’d had the Florida license for two years but hadn’t lived in the state for over two years. After Florida there’d been Vermont and then Maine. Out-of-date identification was another red flag she was careful to avoid.

  “I’ll be right back. And do me a favor. Get back in your truck.”

  The order made her bristle. “Sure.”

  She slid behind the wheel of the car, scratched a curious Lincoln on the head, and waited, irritated. If she’d been just a minute faster she’d have been gone and well on her way home. This delay meant she’d get caught in early-morning commuter traffic.

  After a ten-minute wait the officer returned and handed her back her papers. “Looks like you’re clear.”

  She swallowed a smart-ass response. “Right.”

  “It’s not safe out here by yourself, Ms. Church. We’ve had trouble in this stretch of road.”

  I know. A woman was murdered, and I just photographed the spot where they found her body. “I’ll be more careful.”

  “It’s not about being careful, it’s about staying away from places that leave you vulnerable.”

  Seven years of careful had landed her in a half-living kind of existence. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The drive back to her house took forty-five minutes, and by the time she arrived, she’d driven through a heavy but brief thunderstorm. She let Lincoln out of the car, reached over the backseat to grab her box of negatives. A barking Lincoln waited for her on the front porch.

  “Okay, okay, I hear you. Breakfast. Pronto.”

  She set her negatives down on the dining room table, moved into the kitchen, and pulled out his bag of food, which she dumped into a bowl. She filled his water bowl with fresh water and then placed a chew stick by his bowl.

  Her stomach grumbled, but instead of taking the time to eat, she grabbed a piece of cheese from the refrigerator and her negatives. She’d eat a real meal later.

  She closed the shed door and moved to the table where she had her chemical trays and light source set up.

  As soon as Lara opened the box of glass negatives she lost track of time. When she worked with the negatives and the images, the outside world melted away, along with worries and fears.

  When Lincoln started barking, she glanced at her wristwatch and realized that five hours had passed. Knowing she had to wrap for the day, she still took one last glance at the images she’d created. She was pleased. On one negative the chemicals had not reached the edges of the glass so when the image developed, her imperfect technique created a jagged frame that wrapped around thunderous clouds backlit by a rising sun and the strip of crime scene tape that flapped in the wind.

  She held the image up. At first she stared at it with an artist’s critical eye, but as the seconds ticked, she found herself searching beyond the physical elements to the dark mind of the killer. Why did you kill her?

  Lincoln barked louder, dragging her from her unanswered questions. “I’m sorry, Lincoln. I didn’t mean to lose track of the time.”

  She opened the shed door and found herself face-to-face with Sergeant James Beck. Lincoln barked from the kitchen window, clearly frustrated that he wasn’t free.

  As the dog barked, she took a step back. “What are you doing here?”

  He glared at her
and then back at the dog. “Your dog needs to be let out.”

  Torn between arguing and Lincoln’s needs, she brushed past him as she dug the key from her pocket. Seconds after she opened the door, the dog bounded up to Beck, who stared at the animal until it lowered its gaze.

  “What are you doing here?” she repeated.

  His gaze held the darkness of an angry man. “What were you doing at my crime scene this morning?”

  She teetered between flustered and annoyed. “How did you know where I was this morning?”

  “The DPS trooper who took your identification called my office and mentioned your name.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Big state, small world.”

  He raised his brow. “I put the word out that if your name came up I wanted to hear about it.”

  Annoyance snapped. “You’ve had people spying on me?”

  “Not spying, just on the lookout.” He towered over her by nearly a foot. “Why were you there?”

  His commanding tone had her muscles bristling. “I wasn’t aware that it belonged to you.”

  His jaw tightened. “What were you doing there?”

  She danced with the devil. “I didn’t see any ‘No Trespassing’ signs.”

  He leaned so close she smelled hints of his soap. “Do you really want to get into a pissing match with me, Ms. Church? Do you?”

  Anger pushed aside the fear pounding in her throat. “Sure, why not? I haven’t had a good workout this morning.”

  His gaze narrowed. “You can tell me what you were doing this morning now or downtown in my office. I’ve got time to kill and it would give me great pleasure to drag you into headquarters and waste your day.”

  Beck didn’t make idle threats, of that she was certain. She could dig in her heels and win a trip into Austin. Or she could talk, and get on with her day. “Detective Raines was like you. He didn’t think twice about screwing with my day if he didn’t like the answers I gave him.”

  Beck’s brows knotted. “What were you doing at my crime scene?”

  She folded her arms over her chest, wondering why he drove her to be so childish. “I was taking pictures. I am a photographer.”

  “What’s out there worth photographing? It’s the side of the interstate.”

  “It’s a crime scene. That’s what I photograph.”

  He shook his head, his disapproval evident. “Does the world need to see more violence?”

  She brushed her bangs out of her face with the back of her hand. “Good art makes people think.”

  Beck glanced at her fingertips darkened by chemicals. “What were you doing in the shed?”

  “It’s my darkroom. I was developing the prints I took this morning.”

  “You must have been pretty absorbed. You didn’t hear me call. Hell, the damn dog was about to bark its head off.”

  “I get lost when I’m working. I never heard you, but I did hear Lincoln barking.”

  Absently, he rested a hand on his hip. The butt of a gun peeked out from under his jacket. “Mind showing me those pictures?”

  At this stage the work remained too raw to show. The idea that anyone, especially Beck, would scrutinize her work left her feeling vulnerable. “Come to my show on Friday. It will give you a good idea of what my work is about.”

  His smile held no hint of humor or warmth. “I’m interested in the pictures you took at my crime scene. Today.”

  My crime scene. He was a dog with a bone. “The work isn’t finished.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Show me.”

  An order. Not a request. “Will you arrest me if I don’t?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  A promise. Not a threat. Demanding a search warrant would likely translate into a lot of lost time for her. “Sure. Follow me.”

  She opened the shed’s screened door. Lincoln scrambled past Beck to be by her side. Beck fell in step behind them. His purposeful steps sounded annoyed and angry against the cobblestone path.

  She pushed open the door to her darkroom.

  The heavy smell of chemicals hung in the air. Above the developing table hung a clothesline where a half dozen prints hung.

  “You painted the walls black,” he said.

  “Better for the negatives.”

  She clicked on the overhead light and moved toward the worktable where the prints dangled. The chemical scents grew more cloying the deeper she moved into the room. If she didn’t keep the A/C window unit running, the smell could leave her light-headed.

  She gestured toward the pictures. “See? Just photographs.”

  He pulled off his hat, leaned in, and with a narrowed gaze studied the prints. “They look old.”

  This close, the restrained power in his body made her skin tingle. “I use a bellows camera. It’s well over a hundred years old.”

  He kept his gaze on the photographs. “Why do murder scenes interest you so much?”

  “Probably because I almost had my own personal murder scene.”

  “Seven years ago.”

  She shifted her stance. “You’re not the first person to tell me to get over it. I know I should be back to normal after all this time, but, well, I don’t think that I am.”

  His intense gaze soaked up the images’ details. “Why’d you shoot at sunrise?”

  “I don’t know. Normally I shoot at sunset.”

  “The end of a day. The end of a life.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you chose sunrise.”

  The beginning of a day. The beginning of life. “Yeah.”

  “Someone like you—a survivor—should go out of your way to avoid murder and violence. Someone like you should take color pictures of flowers and clouds. Kittens and puppies.”

  A laugh startled from her. “You think? Those subjects don’t feel exactly real to me.”

  As he straightened, his gaze settled on her. “It’s because you can’t remember your attacker.”

  She cocked her head. “You think you’ve got me all figured out.”

  “You’re not so complicated. You were attacked, nearly died, and you are using your camera to jog your memory.”

  Annoyed, she brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “Fill in the memory, and I’ll be all better?”

  “You cannot cure a problem that you do not acknowledge, Ms. Church.”

  She cocked a slim brow. “Is that my five-cent shrink evaluation?”

  “Common sense, Ms. Church. Until you can put all the pieces together you aren’t going to feel whole.”

  Silence, as heavy as death itself, settled before she broke it. “I don’t want your advice, Sergeant.”

  “Stay away from my crime scenes, and I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.”

  She wasn’t sure if she could stay away.

  When she didn’t answer, he said, “Like it or not, you are involved in this case.”

  “I’m not involved in this case. I am not.” The words rang hollow.

  “When it comes to my case your opinion doesn’t mean much.” He flicked the edge of a dangling print with his finger. “I don’t want you close to any evidence.”

  She shoved her hands in her pockets. “I never go near an active scene. I wait until the police are finished with the area.”

  “Don’t care, ma’am. While you’re in my district you stay away from all murder scenes.”

  “You can’t tell me where I can or cannot go.”

  “I can when it comes to crime scenes.”

  “So what are you gonna do, arrest me?”

  “That’s about right, Ms. Church. That is about right.” He swapped the smile for a sneer. “And if you’d care to test me, and see if I am a man of my word, go right ahead.”

  Resolve radiated from him, raw and intense, triggering a sudden shakiness that permeated her muscles. She attributed the unsteadiness to her early-morning wakeup call, an empty belly, and too much time in the darkroom. “Fine, I’ve been warned. If that’s all, you can leave now.”

&n
bsp; He took another step toward her. Close enough to bump, but not violate, her personal space. “Ms. Church, we have not seen the last of each other.”

  “I bet you we have.”

  Grinning, he replaced his hat. “I’ll take that bet.”

  Chapter 9

  Wednesday, May 22, 1 PM

  Lara drove into Austin shortly after Beck left. She told herself she was not skittish or restless because of Beck. Her sudden lack of concentration and frayed, restless nerves were rooted in hunger. Not Beck. She just needed to eat and then she’d be fine.

  She had no groceries in the house, and she hadn’t eaten a real meal in twenty-four hours. Lab wasn’t until four so she had time to treat herself to a hot meal at the River Diner near campus.

  When she sat at the café’s corner table her stomach grumbled, and she was suddenly anxious to eat. As she glanced at the menu she noticed her nails remained chipped and stained from work. Cassidy had called her this morning and told her she’d scheduled an appointment for Friday morning.

  Lara studied her chewed and chemically darkened fingernails. She used to care about makeup, manicured nails, and pretty clothes when she’d lived in Seattle. She’d been in fashion, and appearance mattered. Clothing stores, shoes, and accessories had driven her days. It had been her eye for structure and assembling quirky combinations that had won her the job with the Seattle-based fashion company Forward. She’d gone for an interview with the company’s marketing department, not sincerely believing she had a shot at the job. But the director had liked her mix of vintage and modern and suggested a second interview. A week before the holiday break she’d been offered a job to start after graduation. It was entry level and paid little, but it had been a first huge step toward the rest of her life.

  Her life had all been blue skies in those days. Danger and death were reserved for movies and novels. She’d been such a different person then.

  “What can I get you, Ms. Church?” Danni said.

  Lara glanced up at her student. “Danni, I didn’t know you worked here.”

  “Almost four months now.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in school this morning?”