All Dressed in White

53

Laurie knocked on the door for the third time. “I know you’re home.” She peered through Jeremy Carroll’s front window, but couldn’t see anyone in the living room. At least it didn’t look as though he had thrown out his photo collection.

She stepped toward the edge of the front porch to make sure that her father was staying put in the rental car parked across the street. She wanted him within view in case things went terribly wrong, but she thought she had a better chance of getting Jeremy to open up if she talked to him alone.

She’d seen a curtain part when she walked up the driveway. She wasn’t going to leave until he answered.

“I know you didn’t hurt Amanda,” she cried out. “I’m sorry that we were so pushy last time, but I think you want to help. Please!”

The front door cracked open by an inch. Jeremy peered out from beneath unkempt brown bangs.

“Are you sure you’re alone?” he asked fearfully.

“Yes, I promise.”

He opened the door fully and stood back, allowing Laurie to step inside. She hoped she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

“I didn’t like that man who was with you,” he said once she was settled next to him on his living room sofa. “He seemed like a police officer or something.”

“He’s actually my father,” she said, allowing that to serve as a response. “You were right to worry that people would be suspicious of you if they found out you were taking photographs of Amanda and her friends when they weren’t looking. But I understand now. You take pictures because you care about people. You want to see them in their most honest moments, not just when they’re smiling for the camera.”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. I don’t want to see the faces that people put on for the world. I want reality.”

“You said you got rid of the photographs you took of your neighbors once you realized that they were truly upset. What about the pictures of Amanda?”

He stared at her, blinking. He still didn’t trust her.

“I saw you in the hotel surveillance footage. She walked past you, and you turned around to follow her. You had your camera. You’re an artist. You must have taken a few snapshots.”

“They’re not snapshots, like some amateur Instagram account. They’re my art.”

“I’m sorry, Jeremy, I didn’t mean to use the wrong words. But Amanda was a beautiful and, more important, smart and complicated woman. Did you know that she had been diagnosed with a very serious disease?”

He shook his head.

“Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She was terribly ill. She lost twenty pounds and could barely get out of bed most days.”

“That sounds terrible,” he said sadly.

“It’s a cancer of the immune system. It keeps your body from fighting infection. She was lucky to make a full recovery, and she knew it. She told her friends she wanted to live her life to the fullest.”

He nodded. “I knew she was special.”

“You must have some…,” she struggled to find the right word, “portraits of her. You kept them, didn’t you?”

He nodded slowly. She was beginning to earn his trust.

“You kept them for a reason. You think maybe there’s something in those images that might lead us to the truth about Amanda?”

“Do you promise this isn’t a trick?”

“I swear, Jeremy, I only want your help.” It was only a matter of time before reporters found out that Amanda’s body had been located, but so far, the story hadn’t broken. “There is new evidence that I’m not allowed to tell anyone. Based on that evidence, I don’t think anyone’s going to believe that you did anything to harm Amanda.”

Next to her on the sofa, he began breathing so quickly that she thought he might be having a panic attack. When she reached over and placed a hand on his arm, he felt both warm and clammy.

“It’s okay, Jeremy,” she assured him. “You can trust me.”

He stood quickly, as though he was trying to act before he changed his mind. He walked to the dining room and began sifting through a tower of newspapers and magazines. Holding her breath, Laurie followed him into the room. From the bottom of the stack, he pulled out an oversized mailing envelope and handed it to her. Clear, block letters on the front read “GRAND VICTORIA,” with the date when Amanda was last seen.

“May I open this?” she asked.

He nodded. His face looked pained, as though he was expecting her to turn on him.

Laurie slid the pile of photographs from the envelope and began to spread them across the dining room table. There have to be at least a hundred pictures, she thought. A few looked like the posed shots that the wedding party had taken with Ray Walker, but most of them were obviously taken without the subjects’ knowledge.

As she flipped through the images, Laurie saw one of the entire wedding party gathered at a large round table near the pool. She could tell from the picture that it had been taken from a distance with a long-range zoom lens. Jeremy was actually a very good photographer. The focus was perfect. She was surprised to see two people holding hands beneath the table. There was no mistaking who they were. Trying to keep her expression impassive, she pulled it from the pile.

“Do you mind if I keep this one?” she asked.

“That’s okay.”

Laurie hesitated, then said, “Jeremy, I want to hire you to do exactly what you did last time. Come back to the hotel now and take pictures of people on the set and also take some long-distance shots of those people when they don’t know you’re doing it.”

“I’d like to work for you. Does that picture have anything to do with Amanda?”

“In a way it does,” she said, even though she was sure that the picture bore no relation to Amanda’s murder. She wanted the photograph because she knew someone who would want to keep this image private.

She realized as she continued scanning the pictures that Jeremy had filed them in the progression of the day. The sunlight grew dimmer toward the bottom of the pile. She paused on an image that appeared to be of Amanda, taken from behind. She was in the sundress she’d worn for their afternoon session with the photographer, and the hotel bar was visible in the background.

Laurie held up the photo for Jeremy. “This is when you saw her in the promenade and turned around.”

He nodded.

“Jeremy, this is so important. It’s just as you said. You were able to see beyond the false faces people put on for the public. Did you see Amanda and the groom arguing? Is it possible she was going to call off the wedding?”

He shook his head, moved close to her side, and began sorting through the pictures himself. She could almost feel his breath on her neck.

“Here, let me help you,” he said as he began pulling individual images from the ones she had already bypassed. “See how they look at each other? They had no idea I was looking. People don’t fake these feelings.”

Jeremy was right. The pictures he singled out showed undeniable affection. Jeff wrapping his arm around Amanda’s waist as she stepped into the pool. Amanda looking up adoringly while Jeff took the seat next to her at the restaurant. Their fingers entwined as they strolled next to each other on the beach. Amanda and Jeff would have had no idea they were being photographed, but they appeared to be head over heels in love.

“But here’s the thing,” Jeremy said, pulling out a new subsample from his collection to tell a different story. “I don’t think the bride and groom, and the two lovebirds holding hands beneath the table, were the only people in love that week.”

Laurie now understood what he meant when he said that his photographs captured the truth about people. “Can I take these, as well?” she asked.

“Yes, you can have anything that’s helpful,” Jeremy said.

Laurie could tell that he finally felt at ease with her.

He volunteered one last image. “And I know you’ll want this one.”

The final photograph he handed to her showed two people. One of them was Amanda. She was pulling her arm out of the other person’s grip. Her mouth was open. She looked angry. Hurt. The two were clearly upset. But the other person in the photograph was not Jeff.

“What time was this?”

“Not long after I saw her in the courtyard. It was around six o’clock, before they all left to get ready for dinner.”

“What happened after that?”

“The other college friend came down to meet them. Her name was Kate? It looked like they forced themselves to act like everything was fine once she was there.”

“Did you take any pictures after that?”

He shook his head. “No, they were wearing false faces again. There was no point.”

“And did you leave the hotel after that?”

“No. I stayed. The Grand Victoria is a beautiful place to be. It was nice to just walk around and take pictures of people on vacation.”

“Did you see Amanda again that night?”

“Yes, I did.”

Laurie couldn’t believe her ears.

“You know how when she disappeared they kept playing the video of her walking with her friends to the elevator and then turning around?” he asked.

“Of course. It’s the last time anyone ever saw her.”

“No it’s not. I saw her.”

“What happened next?” Laurie was practically screaming she was so excited.

“She was alone, heading down to the parking garage.”

“Did you see her get into a car?”

“No, I followed her to the staircase and then stopped.”

“Why? Why didn’t you keep following her?”

“It’s so quiet down there. Every noise echoes. I was afraid she’d hear my footsteps. I didn’t want to scare her.”

Laurie could only imagine how different it might have been that night. If the killer had been lurking in the garage, the sound of Jeremy’s footsteps might have frightened him off.