by Phil Edwards
“Wait, you could hear that?”
“Of course not. But we’ve been married long enough that I can guess.”
Jake went back outside, dragged all the equipment in, and pulled down the garage door. Gary turned on the light so it wasn’t totally dark. Jake noticed the different stations, perfectly organized. Everything was labeled in glow in the dark pen, which made the labels shine softly in the light.
“So you got some good shots today?”
“Definitely. Do you want to shoot any other banquet halls for this story?”
“I’m going to interview some people, but I won’t bother asking you to photograph them. To be honest, the Palmstead’s as good as it gets. And Thompson just wants a good picture. He doesn’t care if it’s comprehensive.”
“That’s good.”
Jake sighed. He took a quick look at his notebook and then put it away. He was ready to talk about Charlotte.
“The real reason I wanted to come here today is that we have more important work to do. Gary, it’s a little beyond what I’m supposed to be writing. A little beyond my job description. But it’s the right thing.”
“I see.”
“I want you to help me. We need everything we have to try and make this work. Are we on the same page?”
“Of course!” he shouted. His cane was propped against the wall and he kicked it up to his hand. “I’ll be right back. I know just what we need to get started.”
He opened the door to the house and Jake smelled a mixture of garlic and Febreeze. He looked around the dark room. Large, but practical. A whole wall full of different cameras and film. Different types and vintages. A collage of Polaroids, arranged in a circle, each image overlapping the next. It was a nice room. He shrugged. Maybe the man knew what he was doing.
Gary opened the door.
“Jacob, I’m ready to begin.”
He was wearing his 3-D glasses. He waved his arms and whistled.
“Gary, that’s not what I was talking about.”
He was already walking around the room, pitching his head forward and backward at different photographs.
“Jacob!” he screamed. “This palm tree looked like it was grabbing me!”
“Don’t they have to be 3-D images?”
“I don’t think so,” he mumbled. He brought a picture of a vintage car close to his face and then let it fall to the ground. Jake reached forward and took the glasses off his head. Gary’s voice pitched high like a child’s.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Gary, when I said all that, I was talking about Charlotte. I think something happened to her.”
“Right. You said she died.”
“No, I mean that I don’t think that she died of natural causes. And I want to find out what happened.”
“Oh.”
“I know that we can figure it out.”
“I don’t think the 3-D glasses will help with that.”
“I know. We’re done with them.”
“Then why did you take them from me?”
“Gary, focus.” He put the glasses in his pocket. “Now I don’t know how to find out what really happened to Charlotte. But I think a good starting point is to go with what we have. I went to the beach and took photographs there. Can you get the ones you took of her apartment?”
Jake took his digital camera out and put it on the table. He turned it on and set the viewfinder upright. It showed the footprints on the beach, dark and random indentations. Gary came back with three different photographs in his hand, printed on large floppy sheets.
“It was a good experiment.”
“Why do they look like this?”
Each photograph was printed in brilliant color. The yellows looked like chrome and the blues were like the side of a freshly painted car. But they all had a fisheye perspective, centered on Charlotte’s face. Gary shrugged.
“That was my special lens. A fisheye lens. I hadn’t used one in years and thought this would be a good chance.”
“Great,” Jake said. “We need to find a clue and we have a fisheye.”
“You can still see the room.”
He could. In all the photographs, everything in the room seemed to converge on Charlotte’s pale face. She had no expression. Her mouth was flat. Not smiling. Not frowning. She was frozen there, inside the fisheye, and Jake didn’t know how to thaw her out.
“Now, honestly, I have no idea how to go about this.”
“What do you want to find?”
“I want something that tells us what happened.”
“How much do you need?”
“Not much. We just have to have something. Something that shows that Charlotte didn’t die of natural causes.”
“Something.”
“If we don’t, I’ll just decide that she was just crazy, that it was just her time. Unless…”
He stared into the photograph and started making a list. Her hair, her eyes, the fabric of her purple dress. Nothing. He didn’t know what she’d looked like when she died, so he couldn’t infer anything from that. He tried indexing each item in the room, but it all seemed obvious and plain.
“What about this?” Gary asked. He held Jake’s digital camera, which was showing the pictures of the beach.
“It’s the beach. Where she was found. I took a picture of the footprints, but it’s not like we know anything about Charlotte’s brand of shoes. And they didn’t find anything else on the beach.”
“I see why they have me do your photography.” He let out a whistle. “Even if we knew her shoes, we wouldn’t be able to tell which ones were hers. All these footprints are the same...”
Jake looked back at the fisheye picture again. There she was, in the center, her old life spiraling around her. The duck her husband made her. The coffee table where she read. The blinds she’d been afraid to open. The pills she always took. And then he saw it.
“Gary.”
“Yes?”
“You’re right. The footprints do all look the same.”
“So?”
“That’s the problem.”
He ran his finger along the trail of color in the fisheye photograph. Away from Charlotte’s purple dress and around her body. He pointed.
“Now look at the tracks.”
“I see them.”
“So, everyone says that Charlotte just went on a walk. She went for one last stroll on the beach because she knew it was her time. Well, Gary, these tracks show a lot of people walking on the beach.”
“So?”
“Right here,” Jake said and tapped the picture. “You saw her go from the living room to the kitchen. If Charlotte took a walk on the beach, how did she do it without making tracks? The tracks she would have to make?”
“But we can’t tell which shoes are hers.”
“No,” Jake said. “Where are the tracks from this? They didn’t find it on the beach.”
Swirled in color, next to Charlotte’s head, Jake held his finger still. He was pointing at Charlotte’s walker.
CHAPTER 19:
“We solved it!” Gary shouted.
“Not exactly. All we know is that Charlotte was taken to the beach to die. Or she’d been killed already. We don’t know what actually happened.”
“Once we have that, we’ll be finished. We’ll be heroes!”
“We don’t know how it happened, either.”
“And then, a front page story!”
“Not quite. We also don’t know why it happened.”
Gary looked at the picture again, Charlotte still sitting in the swirl. He turned it over.
“Then how do you begin?”
“First, we have to find out Charlotte’s name.”
“You mean you think she has an alias?”
“I wish. I just realized I don’t know her last name.”
“Neither do I.” Gary frowned and silently picked up his cane. Febreeze and garlic wafted into the room. He came back and dropped the Yellow Pages on the table.
“It’s not that easy. We can’t let anyone know that we’re looking into this case.”
“I know.” Gary winked. “I have a plan.”
He turned through the phone book and found the entry for “Sunset Cove.” He started dialing on a cordless phone.
“Gary, wait! We can’t do that.”
“No no. It’s cordless. It works without a wire. It’s amazing!”
“I mean we can’t call without knowing what we’ll say.”
“Jacob?”
“Yes Gary?”
“I forgot my plan.”
The phone was already ringing. Jake ripped the phone away from Gary and put it to his ear. It was Mel’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello, Sunset Cove. How may I help you?”
“Yes, hello.” He paused and made his voice deep, flattening any trace of a New York accent. He was Nebraska now. He looked at Gary, who shrugged and reached for the phone. Jake held on to it.
“I was calling about…my aunt Charlotte. I heard that there was bad news.”
“I’m sorry,” Mel said. Her professional voice sounded smoother. Colder. “She passed away two nights ago.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“I’m afraid I cannot release personal information over the phone, sir. But the designee is visiting sometime this week. She will be able to pass any information on to you.”
“I see.” He waited. “I…just want to make sure. I haven’t heard from my cousin in a while. I can’t believe that it’s the same Charlotte. My aunt Charlotte. She seemed so well when I last spoke with her.”
“I can’t release specifics, I’m afraid. Her medical condition has to remain private.”
He knew her medical condition: bad. Gary was pulling at his hair, trying to listen. Jake ignored him.
“Sir, is there anything else I can help you with?”
“I just can’t believe it’s really my aunt.”
“I know these are trying times.”
“I just don’t believe it’s her. That it’s Aunt Charlotte.” Then he got it. “It must be a different one. It can’t be my Charlotte.”
“Your aunt is Charlotte Ward, correct?”
He wrote it down in the notebook and circled her name.
“I’m just ashamed I didn’t know already.”
It was true.
“I understand.” Her voice got warmer.
“I have to go.” He hung up before she could reply. He handed Gary the phone and looked at the name in his notebook.
“We got it. We got her name.”
He breathed out and brushed back his hair. Gary laid the phone down on the table and looked at the notebook.
“Charlotte Ward is her name. Will that help you?”
“It should.” His heart was still beating quickly. Mel couldn’t have known. Gary arched his eyebrows.
“That made my nerves tingle.”
“Mine too.” This was what being aggressive was like.
“What will her name help with?”
“I don’t think it will give us a lot. I’ll search for her on the internet, but I didn’t even see a computer in Charlotte’s room.”
“Then what will it do?”
“Not much. I don’t think we can use it with her pharmacist. Or the hospital either. I’d like to find out why she died, or what medications she was on. But I don’t think a fake voice will work as well for more official matters.”
“You at least have it for your story.”
“And it’s something,” he said and sighed. “She deserves a starting point. It makes me realize what we need to do next.”
Gary closed the Yellow Pages and rested his hand on the cover.
“Jacob, do you think it matters?”
“That what matters? The name?”
“I just don’t know if anyone will think something happened. I know we discovered about her walker, that she couldn’t have gone out to the beach alone. But do you think that they will investigate?”
“Who? The police?”
“Anyone.”
“Well, we care about what happened, right?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Then we’ll investigate.”
Gary pushed up his glasses and coughed.
“So what do we do now?”
“Now? We make a trip to Sunset Cove and see what we can find. If we get anything good, we’ll be able to take it from there. That community may be large, but it’s tightly knit. We’ll be able to find out something. And I know just the person to ask first.”
Gary looked tired already, with bags under his eyes. His hair frizzed out and he reached up and patted it all down. Then he frowned.
“There’s one thing I want to ask you.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you just call Melissa and ask her yourself? She would have told you Charlotte’s last name, wouldn’t she?”
“Part of the reason I didn’t ask is that you handed me the phone mid-call.”
“Jacob, that cannot be the real reason.”
He didn’t know, at first. He saw the pictures of Charlotte on the desk. He took his own camera and looked at the viewfinder. All those feet. All those steps. The prints on the beach were already gone. The prints in the picture had erased other prints, and there had been prints before them. On the small screen, they were just splotches of black. A code he couldn’t read.
“Really, that’s the only reason I didn’t ask Mel. I was caught off guard.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t think that Charlotte Ward would say you are telling the truth.”
He sighed.
“I don’t think so either.”
They looked at each other. Jake put down the camera and picked up the photo. Charlotte, her dress shining purple. She’d been so afraid. She’d been right.
“The real reason,” Jake said, “is that I think we have to start believing Charlotte. Ms. Charlotte Ward. I thought that she was crazy. But she didn’t know who to trust.”
Gary finished the thought. It was obvious.
“We don’t know who to trust either.”
CHAPTER 20:
They were walking to the common building at Sunset Cove when Gary got cold feet. He tapped his cane on the ground once and waited for Jake to look back. It took him a few steps to notice. He turned back to Gary and asked him what was wrong.
“Jacob, I just don’t know if it is the right thing to do.”
“What?”
“I know you say this woman, Sheryl, she has some sort of information about Charlotte.”
“Right—she may even know what happened. Or worse. She might be a part of it.”
Gary swallowed. He tapped his cane on the sidewalk again.
“Jacob, I don’t feel right seducing this strange woman, even if it is for a good cause.”
Jake put his hand to his head.
“What? Gary, when did I say you had to seduce her?”
“You’ve met my wife Meryl. She is a wonderful woman. Very understanding. She understands much more than I do. I know we are trying to discover what happened to Ms. Ward, but I fear that this might be acrossing the line.”
“Crossing the line, you mean?”
“However you want to put it, it is wrong.”
He looked around. It was late afternoon and the sun had started to set. Few people were walking around. When they’d found Sheryl Goldfein’s condo, they’d been told she was in the common building, planning for a bridge game that night. It wasn’t the normal night. He looked back at Gary, who was struggling with his short sleeve shirt. He was trying to wipe the sweat off his forehead while still holding his cane. It wasn’t working.
“Gary, all I said was that I wanted you to come along so she’d be more comfortable. I don’t think she likes me. Did I ever say that you needed to seduce her? Or flirt with her? Even talk with her?”
“Jacob, pl
ease. It was obvious. I could guess at why you’d want me there. She is a woman and I am a man.”
He dropped his cane and looked at Jake. Jake bent down and handed it back to him. He nodded stoically.
“Meryl and I, Jacob, we have a bond. A wedding ring. All these things. You wouldn’t understand. Your generation. You kiss and hug strange girls, willy nilly. Love is just a joke for you.”
“Gary, I don’t want you to seduce Sheryl.”
“Does she like a man with a sense of humor? Or the strong silent type?”
“I don’t know. You don’t have to do anything at all, if you’re worried.”
“Meryl will have to understand,” Gary said and sighed. “It’s for our friend Charlotte.”
“Wait, I thought you didn’t want to seduce her.”
“Our search for the truth requires bravery. Sacrifice. Seduction.”
He led the way to the building and Jake just followed. Slowly.
“Just remember it’s all informal. We can’t let her know what we figured out. She probably thinks I gave up on the idea that Charlotte didn’t die naturally.”
They went into the building. There was a miniature movie theatre in the center—the one they’d passed over for the picture of Palmstead’s more impressive one. Tables were pushed against the wall, three covered with aqua tablecloths and three bare. A handicapped rail clung to the side-wall—he thought about Charlotte and her walker, rolling down the ramp. Then Sheryl came out from behind an open closet door.
“Slow news day?” She held a tablecloth in her hand, folded into a square. “Or slow news year?”
“How are you?”
“Who’s your friend?”
Gary was walking down the stairs, one foot at a time. He had a grin on his face as he lowered his cane onto each step.
“Hello, a pleasure to meet you.” At first it sounded like he was trying to hide his accent. He gave up quickly. Sheryl started unfolding the tablecloth.
“This is Gary Novak,” Jake said. “He’s my photographer. We’ve been working together today, so I thought I’d bring him along to Sunset Cove.”
“Fine. Can you get that vase in the corner and put it on this table?”
Gary started to walk forward, but Jake cut him off and got the vase first.
