The Fourth Perspective

by Robert Greer

  “A half-dozen. Close to three hundred and fifty photos all told.”

  Billy, who had a lifelong interest in silversmithing, spur and bit making, and saddlery and a minor interest in photography, whistled loudly. “Quite a stash!”

  CJ held the baseball-card-sized photograph he was holding up to the subdued light and moved it in and out of focus. He’d seen metal-plated daguerreotypes before, but he’d never seen three hundred fifty of them in one place, and he clearly lacked Billy’s and Amanda’s familiarity. “Mind clueing me in on what makes these little puppies so desirable?”

  “They aren’t by themselves,” said Amanda. “A single photo’s probably worth three, four hundred dollars. But according to my grandfather, my Uncle Jake produced close to a thousand of them. What you’re holding is a daguerreotype ‘whole’ plate. It has a fifty-four-inch viewing surface that’s cobbled together in a frame with a mat. In essence, it’s a one-of-a-kind photograph on a copper-plated surface that has been silver coated.”

  “Heck of a process,” said Billy, admiring the daguerreotype of the Grand Tetons that he was holding.

  “My grandfather said Uncle Jake always referred to the daguerreotype process as a mixture of mechanical tinkering and chemical magic. He brought the technique out West with him after learning it during his medical school days back East. The process had been first successfully demonstrated in France in the late 1830s by the French painter Louis Daguerre. According to my grandfather, the process both mystified and mesmerized my uncle, who before his medical studies had been a graduate chemist. I’m told that when he wasn’t practicing medicine, Jake was using the magic of the daguerreotype process to take pictures of the land and the landscape he loved.”

  CJ stroked his chin thoughtfully. “But that Montana medicine book claims he lost all of his photographs in a hotel fire in Helena.” He slipped the folded photocopies he’d taken of the book’s important pages and endboards out of his shirt pocket.

  Amanda smiled. “Nope. What he lost in that fire were his albumen prints, and a few of his daguerreotypes. Like I said, Jake was a very stubborn man. The newfangled albumen-print process never caught on with him, so he stuck with what he knew. But the daguerreotype’s popularity only lasted in the U.S. for about twenty years, roughly 1840 to 1860, when the process was replaced by albumen-print photography. Uncle Jake, however, continued using the daguerreotype process as his staple well into the early 1870s.”

  “What process did he use after that?” asked Billy.

  “None.” Amanda’s eyes glazed over. “He spent most of the time in the late 1870s and early 1880s, after the Helena hotel fire, practicing medicine. That’s why your lawyer’s Internet search turned up nothing. In 1881 he was nearly killed in a buckboard accident here on the ranch. For the rest of his life, all twenty-nine years of it, most of it spent right here, he was a severely brain-damaged invalid. When my granddad said Jake practiced photography, his passion, till the very end, what he meant was that he practiced it in his head.”

  “Sad for such a brilliant man,” said Billy.

  Amanda nodded without responding.

  CJ gave Amanda a moment to compose herself before asking, “What do you think all of these photos are worth?”

  “My friend Loretta Sheets, a former University of Wyoming museum curator, claims that what you see here’s probably worth about a hundred thousand. If his life’s work had been photography alone and not a mixture of photography and medicine, she claims you could pretty much double that.”

  CJ made a mental note of the woman’s name, shook his head, and eyed Billy knowingly. “Money, money, money.”

  “Ain’t it always?” said Billy.

  Turning his attention back to Amanda, CJ said, “Think I have a handle—at least a partial one—on why Luis Del Mora was murdered.” He unfolded the photocopy of the back endboard of the Montana medicine book he’d been holding, and centered the daguerreotype photo on top of it. “Have a look,” he said, motioning for Amanda and Billy to look closer. “The sheet beneath the daguerreotype is a photocopy of the endboard from the Montana medicine book that Luis Del Mora stole. Notice anything strange about it?”

  “Not really,” said Billy. “Except for them four faint black lines on your photocopy. The ones shootin’ out at forty-five degree angles from the corners of the daguerreotype.”

  “Uh-huh,” said CJ. “Those lines represent photocopies of pieces of string or fishing line or something pretty close that were taped to the endboards of the book. Now, one of you remove the daguerreotype.”

  Amanda reached over and lifted the daguerreotype photo plate. There was a faint gray outline on the photocopy that coincided exactly with where the daguerreotype had rested. “Damn,” said Amanda, running a finger gingerly over the photocopy’s surface. “Pretty close to a perfect match. Do you think somebody secured one of my uncle’s photos to the back of that book?”

  “More than likely,” said CJ.

  “But why?”

  “Money, money, money.”

  Amanda shook her head. “What single photograph could Jake have possibly taken that would be worth killing someone over?”

  “I don’t know,” said CJ. “But there was a daguerreotype photograph strung to the back of that Montana medicine book. I’m certain of it.” He paused and thought about a couple of the rare finds he’d stumbled across during his forty-plus years as a collector. A 1915 porcelain Denver municipal license plate worth $1,200 that he’d bought at a yard sale for $11. A 1920s-era Navajo wedding basket that had cost him fifty cents at a flea market outside Phoenix that turned out to be worth $750. “And I’d be willing to bet it’s probably worth a lot more than the hundred thousand that museum curator quoted you for everything you’ve got here.”

  “What kinda photo could be worth that?” asked Billy.

  CJ shrugged. “Don’t know. But I’ve got a feeling that Luis Del Mora’s term paper is a blueprint for where we ought to be looking.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Celeste Deepstream stood tapping her foot and fuming in the living room of Alexie Borg’s Lower Downtown Denver condominium, $750,000 worth of high-rise real estate a stone’s throw from Coors Field. “No more excuses, Alexie. You screwed up.”

  “No, Moradi-Nik screwed up. And he paid for it,” said Alexie, his tone unsympathetic. He’d learned while cruising South Broadway earlier that morning for his usual postmission confirmation to make certain that things had gone as planned that Moradi-Nik had bungled his assignment and blown himself up. When he’d seen a half-dozen police cars and a coroner’s wagon lined up in front of the target, he’d known he had trouble. The job had called for Moradi-Nik to make certain that no one was killed in the bombing. Murder always brought far too much scrutiny. When he’d stopped to ask a bystander what had happened, the woman, her hair adorned in curlers and sporting a frayed terrycloth robe, had said, “Somebody blew themselves up.”

  Alexie didn’t wait for details. He left the scene in a rush and, monitoring the police-band radio airwaves for the next hour, confirmed that Denver police had a South Broadway bombing and perhaps even a homicide on their hands.

  Aware that Alexie, who never took the blame for anything, wasn’t about to take the blame for Moradi-Nik’s death, Celeste said, this time in a hushed tone, “Your screwup, Alexie,” and casually walked over to the condo’s floor-to-ceiling dining room window to drink in the view of the Rockies.

  She had once dreamed of living on Colorado’s Jurassic-rich Western Slope and working as an archaeologist until CJ Floyd had dashed her dreams and taken away Bobby. The only thing she dreamed of now was seeing Floyd dead, and she knew that the same inner drive that had delivered her from reservation poverty, molded her into an Olympic-caliber swimmer, and made her a Rhodes Scholar would assure her of eventual success. She knew it. Just as she knew that she’d had it with Alexie, his incompetent friends, and his insatiable need for sex.

  She turned to see him walking toward her, his pants front bu
lging, his eyes glazed with desire. “We can settle our little difference of opinion with a refresher sprint,” he said, using the phrase that Russian coaches had used to describe the final endurance challenge they required of Olympic-caliber athletes when capping a grueling workout. He wrapped an arm around Celeste’s waist.

  “Sorry,” she said, spinning away. “I’ve got work to do.”

  Offended, Alexie said, “I’ll get a replacement for Nasar.”

  “You had your chance, Alexie. And you muffed it.” Celeste sidestepped the big Russian’s attempt to grab her arm.

  “I can fix it,” Alexie said in a near whine as he trailed Celeste toward the door.

  Like you can fix your ill manners, your premature ejaculations, your incompetence, and your oafish ways? “No, thanks. I’ll handle the problem myself.” She swung the front door open and stepped out into the corridor. “I’ll call you if there’s a need,” she said, walking away, leaving the still aroused Alexie staring at her backside, angry and befuddled.

  CJ was in the midst of releasing a twenty-inch rainbow, his fourth twenty-incher of the morning, when Billy, standing in swifter, waist-deep water thirty feet away, screamed, “Son of a bitch!”

  CJ looked up to see a football-shaped two-and-a-half-foot trout knife out of the water until, at Billy’s chest level, the huge rainbow plunged headfirst into the safety of the cold rushing waters of the Laramie River.

  The fish knifed out of the water three more times. Each jump was nearly equal to the first as Billy tried to gain control. His line screamed as the fish submerged and made a new run. “Tied into a lunker!” Billy hollered to CJ. “I’ll work him toward the shore.” In the five minutes it took Billy to land the rainbow, the fish never again showed itself, and neither man saw its real girth until Billy, as wily and cagey a fly fisherman as he was a cowman, his arms tired from playing the fish, netted the big rainbow a few yards from shore. “Monster,” he said, looking up at CJ, who stood just a few feet away. Billy snapped a surgical hemostat off a metal loop on a pocket of his fishing vest, clasped the number-16 Adams fly that had been the fish’s undoing with it, and removed the hook from the corner of the fish’s mouth. Shaking his head, he said, “Must be my lucky day; sucker was barely hooked.” He moved the spent fish back and forth in the current, forcing water into its gills. “One more good jump and he’d’a slipped me for sure.”

  “But he didn’t.” CJ watched the rainbow swim in place for several seconds before darting away to blend in with the rocky river bottom.

  “Hell of a fish.” Billy grinned. “Ain’t hooked one that big in a long time.”

  “Premium water,” said CJ. Stepping out of the river and onto the grassy bank, he watched the Laramie ripple by.

  “You got that right. I’d wager ain’t nobody but Amanda Hunter and her hired help fished this stretch in the past twenty years.” Billy rested his fishing net against a nearby rock and unbuttoned the bottom button of his vest. “What did you think of her?”

  “Tough lady.”

  “And real class,” Billy added.

  CJ hesitated before offering a second response, suspecting that Billy had come as close as he believed Billy could ever come to being smitten. “Think she told us the truth?” he asked finally.

  “Yep.” The short, clipped answer was clearly meant to end any debate.

  “What about that story of hers about some librarian calling her and asking about her uncle’s photos months before the break-in? Awfully coincidental. And she didn’t bring it up until we were about to leave.”

  “It probably slipped her mind,” Billy said defensively. “Remember, she was dealin’ with some hurtful family history. Besides, in case you missed it, the lady’s already rich, and she’s got her uncle’s whole daguerreotype collection sittin’ right under her nose. Why would she want one more?”

  “Money, money, money.”

  “Horseshit! If you want to look at somebody closer, try that librarian lead she gave us. Didn’t you say on the way that Flora Jean was sniffing up the shorts of some library type back in Denver?”

  “Yeah. A guy named Counts.”

  “Then that’s the trail I’d ride,” said Billy. “Let’s stick to what we agreed on earlier. I’ll try the Sheets woman over in Cheyenne at that museum Amanda told us she runs, and you follow up with Flora Jean on the library guy. Trust me, Amanda’s clean on this, CJ. And on top of everything else, she never heard of that guy whose books were stolen, Stafford.”

  “That’s a little bothersome, don’t you think, Billy? Money runs with money. That’s always been my experience.”

  “But ranchin’ money ain’t Howard Stafford’s kinda money. He and Amanda ain’t cut from nowhere near the same cloth.”

  “No argument from me,” CJ said, suspecting he’d ruffled Billy’s feathers enough. “Think we should head back south while our fishing luck holds?”

  Pleased that CJ was off Amanda Hunter’s case, Billy grinned. “Fair enough. That way when we get back home and spin our fishin’ tales, there’ll be no need for lies.”

  CJ winked, leaned against a boulder, and started taking off his waders. Amanda Hunter is an unusual breed, he thought, watching Billy break down his fly rod—but then, so was Billy DeLong, and CJ trusted Billy’s judgment with his life.

  Billy was behind the wheel of the Jeep, fighting a thirty-five-mile-per-hour crosswind just south of Wheatland, when three chimes from CJ’s cell phone signaled that he had voice mail. “Four calls,” said CJ, looking surprised as he eyed the message screen. “Must’ve been out of signal range.”

  “Mavis?” asked Billy, his eyes glued to the road.

  “Probably.” CJ called up the first message from Rosie Weeks. There was an urgency in Rosie’s voice. “CJ, call me back as soon as you get this. Got a problem at your store.” Rosie’s next two identical messages, “Call me back, CJ. It’s important,” had CJ gnawing nervously at his lower lip. Rosie’s final message, “When you get this, head straight home. Somebody’s bombed Ike’s,” drew a “Shit!” as CJ’s eyes widened and every muscle in his face went taut. He glanced at Billy, looking bewildered. “Step on it, Billy. Got a serious problem back home.”

  “Mavis?” asked Billy, drinking in the look of anxiety on CJ’s face. The Jeep’s speedometer nosed past ninety.

  “No. The messages were from Rosie. Somebody bombed Ike’s.”

  Billy gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “You’re shittin’!”

  CJ stared straight ahead without responding, his eyes fixed on the stark Wyoming landscape. His left eye suddenly began to twitch, the way it had since Vietnam whenever stress over-whelmed him. Running his tongue slowly and thoughtfully around the inside of his lower lip, he punched Rosie Weeks’s number into his cell phone as a cold, detached look spread across his face. It was the same look he’d worn every day for close to two years after coming home from Vietnam.

  The grease monkey who answered the phone had Rosie on the line within seconds. “Where you been, CJ?” asked Rosie, wiping a glob of grease off his forearm with a shop rag.

  “Wyoming. What happened?”

  “Somebody tried to take you out.”

  “Are Morgan and Dittier okay?”

  “Yeah. They’re fine. They’re the ones who spotted the bomber. And the dumbass SOB blew hisself up. By the time I got to Ike’s after Morgan called me, cops were all over the place.”

  CJ shook his head. Floating on a sea of disbelief, he stared out the window and watched the Wyoming scenery rush past. “How bad’s the damage?” he asked finally.

  “Yours ain’t that bad. Mostly your back porch. But that guy next door to you, McCabe, he’s outta business for sure.”

  When a waggle of static interrupted the conversation, CJ yelled, “Rosie? You there? You there?”

  “Calm down, man. Like I said, your store’s okay.”

  “Have you said anything to Mavis?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Won�
��t matter. The bombing was the lead story on the noonday news. She’s bound to find out.”

  CJ sighed and slumped in his seat.

  “Want me to head back to Denver with you?” asked Billy, eyeing his despondent friend.

  “No. You go on ahead and check on that museum lady, Loretta Sheets.”

  “Who the heck are you talking to, CJ?” asked Rosie.

  “Billy DeLong. He’s with me.”

  “Good,” said Rosie, sounding relieved.

  CJ checked his watch. “We’re thirty miles north of Cheyenne. I should be back in Denver by six.”

  “No rush,” said Rosie. “Morgan and Dittier have pretty much secured everything at Ike’s. Even stuffed a few of your most valuable things in a shopping cart and hauled ’em off before the cops showed up. I’ve got the stuff here at the garage.”

  “Thanks for looking out for me, Rosie.”

  “No problem.”

  “Any leads on the bomber?”

  “No. But they’ll ID him soon enough.”

  “Anything else I need to know?” asked CJ.

  “Only that that red-headed cop who showed up at lunchtime the other day showed up and grilled the hell outta me and Morgan.”

  “Commons? Wonder why he was there.”

  “I think he was checkin’ out a homicide angle for your bomber.”

  “And probably looking for a tie-in to another murder,” said CJ.

  “Why’s that?” asked Rosie.

  “I’ll tell you when I get home,” said CJ. “See you about six.”

  “Gotcha,” said Rosie, hanging up, leaving CJ looking as frustrated as he was confused.

  CJ didn’t utter another word, nor did Billy, until Billy eased off the accelerator on the outskirts of Cheyenne.

  “How bad’s the damage?” asked Billy.

  “Survivable.”

  “Any line on the bomber?”

  “Nope. He blew himself up.”

  The two friends eyed one another, looking as if they’d both found the answer to some long-held secret. “Somebody out there doesn’t like me, Billy,” CJ finally said wryly.