The Dark Room(103)

“Do you know what month she rented it?” Cain asked.

“I think it was October. I can get you the signature card. It’ll have the exact date.”

There was a long teller counter in the back of the room, and behind it, lit now by overhead spotlights, was the door to the vault.

“You understand I need to document this,” the lawyer said. “Since you’re basically breaking into the safe and taking something that belongs to a customer.”

“You didn’t call her, did you?” Fischer asked.

Cain saw the vice president glance downward but didn’t catch what he said.

“What was that?”

“It’s policy,” the vice president said.

“You tipped her off.”

“On the phone, you didn’t say not to,” the lawyer said, looking at Ryan Harding. “I’ll need photographs of your badges and IDs.”

She nodded at one of the security guards, who was holding a small video camera. “And this gentleman will film us. No objections?”

“None,” Cain said. “But let’s do this. We haven’t got much time now.”

He got out his badge and his driver’s license and held them side by side while the lawyer photographed them. While she was doing the same with Fischer, and then with Ryan Harding, Cain went to the counter and leaned on it to watch the vice president open the vault. He dialed the combination, then spun the polished steel spindle wheel. The round door, when he pulled it back, was a foot thick.

Everyone moved into the vault now, stepping over the high threshold and then down a set of stone stairs to the polished concrete floor. There may have been other rooms in the back of the vault, but the doorway there was blocked off by a velvet rope hanging between two brass poles. The first room was where the safe deposit boxes were. Hundreds of them lined the walls on either side of the entrance.

“It’s 1206,” the vice president said. “Here.”

He took another set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the front panel. He pulled it open, then slid a steel drawer out of the wall and carried it to a high wooden table in the center of the vault. He set the drawer down and Cain and Fischer came next to him so they could see. It was a little larger than a shoebox. The guard with the video camera came around the other side, filming.

The only thing in the drawer was a legal-size manila envelope.

“May I?” Cain asked.

“Go ahead,” Fischer said. “Let’s see.”

Cain took a set of latex gloves from his coat pocket and pulled them on. He picked up the envelope and knew what was inside from its weight and stiffness. When he turned it over, the other side was speckled with brown-black stains.

“Is that blood?” the vice president said. “Dried blood?”

“Probably,” Cain said.

He unwound the string clasp and opened the flap. He tilted the envelope, letting its contents slide out onto the table. There were a dozen black-and-white photographs and a small plastic canister with the negatives. The photographs that had come to Castelli with the blackmail notes were copies. These were the originals. The first print was one he knew well. Carolyn Stone was backed against the brick wall, her hands held up in fear. Cain set it to the side, going quickly through the first eight pictures because he’d seen them all before. The lawyer and the vice president hadn’t seen them, though, and he saw the way they each stepped back when he came to the rape.

“Is this what you were looking for?” Cindy Wang asked.

“It is.”

He turned to the ninth photograph, one he hadn’t seen yet. It must have been taken in the preparation room at the Fonteroy Mortuary. Carolyn Stone was holding herself up, leaning over a steel undertaker’s table. She wore nothing but bruises, and her eyes were half closed. There was fresh blood on her lips. She held her left arm protectively across the front of her stomach.

An open casket waited on the table behind her.

“Jesus,” Fischer said. “They even photographed this.”

Cain turned to the tenth photograph. Three men were manhandling Carolyn into the casket. They wore pantyhose over their heads to hide their faces. Two of them had her arms and shoulders, and a third was struggling with her legs. Her feet were a blur of motion. She had gone in kicking. Cain turned the picture over. The eleventh photograph showed the men pushing the casket lid down. One of Carolyn’s hands was visible through the crack. Part of her face rose into the last light she would ever see, her mouth open in a scream.

In the twelfth photograph, it was all over.

The casket was closed. There was a small metal plaque on the lid, engraved with Christopher Hanley’s name. The dates of his birth and death. Cain turned the photograph over. There was handwriting on the back, in faded pencil.



Harry,





We’ll need to talk about this, and agree on a price. You have a young wife who doesn’t know, and that’s worth something, isn’t it?





If they dig her up, they’ll find out about the baby. And if they find that, they’ll find you.





—L.F.





Cain eased everything back into the envelope and looked up.

“We need to go,” he said to Fischer. “Right now.”