“Damn it, China,” Sheila said. “You know better than—”
China raised a hand. “Yes, I know. Not my job. But hear me out. There were four. The first was a girl, at twelve twenty, saying she’d left a gold bracelet here and hoping that George had found it. The second and third were from Charlie Lipman, at two forty-five and three fifteen, wondering where Timms was. The fourth one was from Charlie, too, at three fifty. He was pissed. He told Timms that if he didn’t show up for the surrender, he could kiss his lawyer good-bye.”
“But by that time,” Sheila said thoughtfully, “Timms must have been dead for several hours.”
“Exactly,” China replied.
“He didn’t pick up at twelve twenty,” Sheila went on. “So maybe he sat down around noon to eat a sandwich, with chips and beer. Saw something at the bottom of the hill, went to investigate, and died there—well before Kirk was killed.” That twelve-twenty phone call might eliminate him as a suspect in Kirk’s homicide.
China pursed her lips. “Wonder if that girl will ever get her gold bracelet back.”
Sheila went out to the Impala, where she radioed Dispatch and was patched through to Meacham. Without going into detail, she asked Martha to telephone the sheriff’s office, find out what was going on, and get her assignment. She signed off, knowing that the dogs and their handlers would be on their way as quickly as possible, with a backup team ready to go if they were needed.
While Sheila was down at the creek with the deputies, an EMS van had pulled in and the medics were waiting beside it, talking to another pair of deputies who had just arrived. As she finished with SAR and got out of the car, Jack Bartlett pulled into the parking area. He stopped beside her and got out, patting the pocket of his brown corduroy jacket.
“Got the warrant,” he said. “The judge was happy to oblige.” He looked over his shoulder. “In fact, she’s not far behind me. The sheriff’s office notified her of the death while I was there with the warrant. She’s on her way out here to officiate.”
“Good,” Sheila replied. “Did you bring your camera?”
“Yep.” Bartlett lifted his briefcase. “Am I photographing the body?”
“No,” Sheila said. “We’ll let the sheriff’s team take care of that.” She beckoned. “Come on—we’re going inside.”
As she spoke, she heard the sound of a chopper and looked up to see a news helicopter from Channel Four in San Antonio circling overhead. The sheriff’s office obviously hadn’t been able to keep the story contained. Timms’ killing by a mountain lion would be the lead story on the network news that night.
As they walked, Bartlett said, “Blount called as I got about halfway out here, Sheila. She’s been working for the past hour on Timms’ computer. She’s found some photographs that she thinks might have been a motivating factor.”
“Lewd?” Sheila asked quickly. “Pornographic?”
“I haven’t seen them yet. All she would say was that she thinks she’s got something. Plus, she says that the photos are linked to names in Timms’ email address book, which may be helpful. Butch dusted before Annetta got started,” he added. “He said he picked up several prints. He didn’t have any luck with Hatch on AFIS, though. Looks like he’s not in the system.”
“Disappointing,” Sheila said. The AFIS fingerprints and criminal history information were submitted voluntarily by state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies. Smaller jurisdictions didn’t always submit.
“Yeah,” Barlett said, as they went around the house. “We’re calling this a separate investigation?”
“Yeah,” Sheila said. “We don’t know where it’s going or how it’s connected to our other two cases. The Kirk homicide, the break-in.”
“Agree,” Bartlett said. “You’re taking the lead?”
“On this one, Jack,” Sheila said. She’d already thought about this. It wasn’t that she was giving in to Blackie—this just made sense, that’s all. But she felt the need to add an explanation. “There’s likely to be interface with the sheriff’s office.”
“No problem as far as I’m concerned,” Bartlett said. “Just keeping us straight.”
They were on the deck. Sheila pointed out the food on the table and told him about the calls on the answering machine. “Looks like we might be able to eliminate Timms in the Kirk homicide,” she said, and Bartlett nodded, agreeing.
“Sounds like he was here when Kirk was killed,” he said. “And likely already dead.”
In the kitchen, China was still on the phone to Charlie Lipman. “No, he wasn’t a suicide,” she was saying, “unless he walked down there, shot himself, disposed of the gun, and was then attacked by a mountain lion. Which doesn’t seem at all likely, from the evidence on the ground.”
Lipman must have asked her when this had taken place, because she said, “Before he finished his lunch, looks like. Your messages were on the answering machine, unplayed, plus a twelve-twenty message from a girl about a bracelet. Since he didn’t pick up that call, it’s possible that he was already dead by that time.”
Sheila tapped China on the shoulder. “I’d like to talk to Lipman when you’re finished, China.”
China nodded, listened a moment, then said, “Anyway, that’s the story. I thought you ought to know. Chief Dawson’s here. She’d like a word with you.”
Sheila took the phone China held out to her. “Good morning, counselor.”
“Not a good one for Timms,” Lipman growled.
“No, sir,” Sheila said. She cleared her throat. “I hope you’re not going to tell me that Timms’ secret died with him. The motivation for his break-in at the computer shop, that is.”
Lipman was gruff. “Chief Dawson. If that was a question, there’s no point to it. I know that you know that attorney-client privilege extends beyond the client’s death.”
“I understand,” Sheila said. “But there’s a chance that whatever information you have about the blackmail—the alleged blackmail, that is—might help us to clear the Kirk case. You know about that, I suppose,” she added. She gave China an eyebrows-raised glance, and China nodded.
“I thought Kirk shot himself.” Lipman’s tone was guarded.
“The cause of death has not yet been identified,” Sheila said. “We’ll have the autopsy report sometime later today.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Ah,” Lipman said. “Yes, I see.”
Sheila said. “What about it, counselor? Can you help us out?”
Lipman was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, he was gruff. “I figure you had my client fingered as your chief suspect in Kirk’s homicide, Chief—since that’s what you obviously think it was. Now that he’s out of the running, you’ll be moving somebody else into that slot. But I can’t tell you any more than I told Detective Bartlett when I set up the surrender. Timms liked to play his cards close to his chest. He never got around to telling me the whole story.”
Sheila wasn’t sure whether to believe him. “Too bad. Detective Bartlett and I are here with a search warrant this morning. I thought maybe you could see your way clear to giving us some context for what we’re looking for. But since that’s not the case—”
“Related to Timms’ death?” Lipman asked, sounding startled, then puzzled. “I thought he was killed by a mountain lion. You’re not telling me that—”
“No,” Sheila said firmly. “The warrant is related to possibly illegal activities in which the man was engaged. I don’t suppose you know anything about that,” she added.
She could hear the lawyer’s chair creaking as Lipman sat back. Instead of answering her question, he posed one of his own, warily. “What are you looking for?”
Sheila didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. The warrant satisfied the requirements of the court. It didn’t need anything else.
The silence lengthened. When he spoke, Lipman’s voice carried a wry chuckle. “Well, now that we’ve settled the matter, I’ll wish you good hunting.” There was a definitive click.
/> “So much for that,” Sheila said, still holding the receiver. “I was hoping he might be at least a little forthcoming.”
China looked regretful. “He’s a tough nut, Sheila. But he’s fair.”
“Says you,” Sheila said dryly, and put down the phone. “That’s because he’s on your side of the fence. You lawyers all hang together.” She nodded at Jack. “You and Detective Bartlett have met, I take it?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” Bartlett said. “Hello again, Ms. Bayles.” If he was curious about China’s presence here this morning, he didn’t mention it. He glanced around admiringly. “Very nice place Timms had here.” He bent to look at a wooden cabinet filled with wine bottles, appropriately slanted necks-down. The adjacent shelves were stacked with sparkling glassware. “Quite the pad, huh? He must’ve been a real party animal.”
“Let’s get to work,” Sheila said. “China has to get back to town. She has something she thinks we should look at.”
China led the way down the hall. “I made a quick tour of the house when I first got here this morning, looking for Timms.” She paused beside a door and turned to face them. “I saw the uneaten food on the table outside and thought he might be somewhere here in the house, sick or injured. I called and shouted but couldn’t raise anybody. So I came in and looked around. I didn’t touch anything but the doorknobs. And this is what I found,” she added, and opened the door. “In plain view. Having seen it, I felt I had a responsibility to let you know.” China was saying what a lawyer ought to say. Practicing or not, as long as she kept her bar membership current, she was an officer of the court. And Timms was not her client.
“Damn,” Bartlett said roughly, under his breath.
China had already given Sheila an idea of what they would be seeing, but still, the magnitude of it struck her almost dumb. All four of the room’s white walls were lined with erotic photographs, hundreds of them, most framed in either clear plastic frames or in simple black frames. They were artistically presented photographic studies of nudes of both sexes, provocatively posed, voluptuous, beautiful. Most photos featured one figure, some two, in various positions, at various angles. Most were black-and-white or sepia, a few were full-color. Some were quite small, others poster-size.
Timms had obviously been into nude photography for quite some time, and in a big way, Sheila thought. He must have been the photographer—at least, he owned a great deal of photographic equipment, as Sheila saw when she opened a door to a closet, and he had signed and dated some of the photographs, perhaps the ones he was most proud of. But he had apparently taken some pains to preserve the models’ anonymity, for of the hundreds of photographs, most were of adult torsos, legs and arms. Rarely were the faces pictured, so if you wanted to know the identity of the subject, you were out of luck—unless, of course, the names were on the back of the photographs or Timms had kept a log of his photographic activities. Either was possible, Sheila thought. And Blount might have found something that would help with names.
But while many of the good citizens of Pecan Springs and all the members of Timms’ church would undoubtedly be horrified if they ever learned about Timms’ private passion, they were no more illegal than the XXX-rated films sold in the truck stops all along Interstate 35. Or so Sheila thought, until—
She moved closer, pulling in her breath, frowning. On a section of the wall, beside the bathroom door, a couple of dozen smaller photographs were displayed—and they were not adults. They were nude children, mostly girls but a few boys, around the ages of eight or nine, engaging in some sort of sexual play. The faces were elfin and smiling or deeply serious and sad, the eyes large, the mouths tender, the nude bodies slender or rounded but always supple and lovely, fragrant with the bloom of youth. Unlike the other photos, there was no effort made to preserve the children’s anonymity—on the contrary, the faces were an important element of the photographs. They were documents of a fey and fragile innocence on the cusp of becoming aware of something quite, quite other.
There was another thing different about these photographs, too. Most of them involved a nude adult male, as well, back always to the camera—and not always the same man. At a glance, she thought there might be three, maybe four different men involved. The male presence seemed to fall like an ominous shadow across the children’s innocence, a threatening portent, artful and symbolic—and pornographic.
Beside her, Bartlett spoke in a thin, metallic voice. “Like I said, quite the party animal.” He set down his briefcase, opened it, and took out a digital camera.
“Make sure the time-date stamp is set,” Sheila told him as he got ready to take photographs of the walls. She heard her voice trembling, and there was a sharp, sour taste in her mouth. She wished she could turn away and run from the photographs, wash the images out of her mind. But she couldn’t. This was part of the job. Even more, these children deserved her closest attention, her passionate attention to every detail of the activity that was on display in front of her. They demanded that she do her job with as much determination and skill as necessary. She was their advocate now—she and the people who worked with her.
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “This is the section we’re after,” she added, “but let’s photograph the entire room, including those shelves of photographic equipment. Don’t try to capture the details of every image. What we want is a preliminary survey record of everything here, just as it is, so that we have the full context. I don’t want there to be any questions after we’ve taken some of them down for more processing.”
“Gotcha,” Bartlett said, beginning to take photographs.
China came over to stand beside Sheila in front of the display of children’s photographs. “So what do you think?” she asked bleakly. “Selling photos on the Internet?”
“Maybe,” Sheila said. But even if there was no distribution involved, the children’s photographs could have brought multiple counts of second-degree felony under Section 43 of the Texas Penal Code, as well as under Title 18 of the United States Code. Because of the federal sentencing guidelines, conviction under the federal law usually resulted in an even harsher sentence. And then there were the child-abuse charges, on top of that. Timms was immune from prosecution now, but not the other men involved. Who were they? What else was going on here?
“I’m guessing that it’s not so much an Internet ring as a private club,” she added. “Maybe a small group of like-minded guys who took turns with their cameras. This could be just the tip of the iceberg.” She shook her head, feeling her stomach turn. “Displaying the photos—that’s got to be some kind of special fetish.”
“And now he’s dead.” China turned away with the same expression she had worn when she turned away from Timms’ mutilated body. “Is this connected to anything you’re finding on Timms’ computer? Or to Kirk’s death?”
“It’s possible,” Sheila said. She’d have liked to be able to share the whole story with China, but that would have to wait until the case was wrapped. China would understand.
She took a deep breath and spoke over her shoulder to Bartlett. “We’re going to treat this as a separate crime scene, Jack. Timms is dead, yes—but it looks like other people may be involved. There are the men in the photographs. And in addition to those who are obviously children, some of the young women in the other photographs may be underage—or underage at the time their pictures were taken.”
“We’re going to seal the house?” Bartlett asked.
“Yes. The sheriff’s office and Parks and Wildlife can handle the scene by the creek, but I’ll ask Sheriff Chambers to turn this place over to us. It’s his territory, but our case, since it’s related to our other ongoing investigation. I’d prefer that our people process it, if we can.” There was no murder victim and no obvious violence. The forensics ought to be manageable.
“Good deal,” Bartlett said from behind his camera. “I’ll get Matheson, Blount, and Bedford out here.”
“Right. But let’s no
t do it now,” Sheila said. “Our plates are pretty full at the moment, with both Kirk’s homicide and the blackmail. I’d like to see us make more forward progress with both of those cases—especially the homicide—before we start processing this scene. And in the meantime, let’s tape both front and back entrances to this house and post a patrol officer out front, as well. There’s going to be a lot of traffic related to Timms’ death and Parks and Wildlife’s hunt for that cat.” She gestured toward the wall. “And once the news hits the wires, some of the people who were involved with Timms may attempt to retrieve their photographs.” Which might be a good thing, she thought grimly. She’d tell the officer to bring in for questioning anyone who showed up out here—anyone who wasn’t connected with the investigation.
“Understand,” Bartlett said, going back to his photography.
“And as soon as you’ve got a good documentation,” she added, “please seal this room. And seal that outer sliding door, too. We don’t want anybody coming in that way.”
China had taken several steps away, toward the door. “This whole thing makes me absolutely sick,” she said thinly. “If somebody like Timms ever got his hands on Caitie, I’d kill him.”
“You do that, you’d better get yourself a good lawyer,” Sheila said with a small grin. “But we’re in your debt, China. If you hadn’t walked through the house and seen the photos, they might have disappeared.” She shook her head. “And we may find other incriminating material, when we have the time to get enough people out here to do a thorough search.”
“I shudder to think what that could be,” China said as they went down the hall. “The stuff in that room is the worst I could imagine.” Her voice was gritty.
Yes, what was in that room was awful, unspeakably awful. But Sheila knew she couldn’t predict what a full search would turn up here. It looked like Timms was a pedophile. What else was he? Who else was involved?
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