The Dark Room(4)

Castelli took the top page from the stack and passed it across, closing the folder before Cain could get a good look at the photograph underneath it. Cain took the letter and turned it around.



Mayor Castelli:





1 – 2 – 3 – 4!





All this time, and you’re really surprised? Or are you just feigning it, like everything else? Nothing stays in the dark forever.





I’ll give you until Friday. Or else: 5 – 6 – 7 – 8. Those go to everybody. Even if they’ve never seen you that way, they’ll recognize you. You didn’t forget 9 – 10 – 11 – 12, did you?





When it’s dark, you think about her. You imagine what it must have been like. Should your wife start thinking about it too? What about your daughter? Could she be the next Sleeping Girl?





There’s an easier way out: bang!





—A FRIEND





Cain read the note twice, then put it on the desk in front of him. He studied Castelli for a moment. He looked at the note and read through it once more.

“The numbers—one, two, three, four—those are photographs?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

Castelli passed him the folder. Cain put it on the desk’s edge, then flipped the cover back and looked at the first photograph. It was a copy, but a good one. A glossy, full-page print on good photo paper.

“You sent this out, had it done somewhere?”

Castelli shook his head.

“One of my staff—he’s got a photo printer. Here, in the office. Melissa used that.”

“It was black-and-white to start with, or just after she copied it?”

“Black-and-white.”

“It would be,” Cain said, speaking mostly to himself. “Wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t understand.”

Cain lifted the photograph from the folder and laid it on the desk, sideways, so that they could each lean in and look at it.

“These distortions,” he said, touching the photo with his fingertip. “Here, and here.”

“Yeah?”

“This isn’t digital, unless it’s seriously touched up.”

“It was shot on film, is what you’re saying.”

“You get an amateur in a homemade dark room, you see things like that—ripples, bright spots. And it’s easier to develop black and white than color.”

“You’re a photographer?”

Cain shook his head.

“My line of work, I see a lot of photos,” he said. “You know what it tells me, that he didn’t shoot color? He didn’t want to take these out, let someone else see them. He used black-and-white, and developed them at home. Your friend has his own dark room.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“That’s not what he thinks,” Cain said. “He’s pretty familiar.”

“Not to me.”

“And what about her?” Cain asked, touching the young woman in the photograph. “You know who she is?”

“All this, it’s bullshit. I told you already. I don’t know anything about this.”

The mayor stood up and went to the cabinet behind his desk. He opened it, his back to Cain. When he turned around he was holding a bottle of bourbon and a pair of tumblers.

“Drink?”

“I’m on duty.”

“And I’m your boss. Have a drink with me.”

“I’m on duty, sir.”

Castelli put one of the tumblers away, then poured three fingers of bourbon into the other. He sat again, putting the open bottle and the glass in front of him. Cain looked back to the picture, let himself go into it. The young woman wore a one-sleeved black dress held together at the front with a jeweled clasp. She held her hands out in front her, her fingers splayed in a gesture of self-defense. He couldn’t read the look on her face. She hadn’t expected the photograph to be taken, and she was afraid. But it wasn’t the camera that frightened her. It was the man holding the camera. She was begging him not to come any closer. That was it—that was the look: she hadn’t given in to full terror yet; she thought she might have a chance.

She still thought she could beg.

Behind her was a brick wall. In the middle of it, a padlocked steel door. It might have been a warehouse, the storeroom of a bar. The basement in a forgotten apartment block. It probably hadn’t mattered to her where she was. She just wanted a way out, but there wasn’t one.

In the left corner of the photograph, someone had used a black marker to write the number 1. There was a loose circle drawn around it.

“You’ve never seen her?” Cain asked.

“No.”

“She look like anyone you know?”

“No.”

“Could she be someone’s daughter—a niece, something like that?”

“I said I’ve never seen her before.”

“Listen to the question,” Cain said. “I didn’t ask if you’d seen her. I asked if she looks like anyone you know. If she could be related to someone you know. Look at the picture—look at her face, and answer the question.”