We Know

Chapter 16

I sat in my car in the sweltering Valley heat, the photo package in my lap. The cheery yellow envelope featured sample photos of a hot-air balloon and a golden retriever shuddering off sprinkler water. But I wasn't looking at the samples. I was looking at the one slot on the front form that had been filled out, the handwritten block letters that spelled out NICK HORRIGAN.

Breaking the gummy seal, I extracted the inner envelope. I ran my thumb under the flap, hesitant to lift it. What if it contained pictures of a mangled corpse? Someone being shot? A child being molested? I hadn't considered a frame-up. Charlie probably hadn't either. My heart thudding, I glanced around the parking lot but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Bracing myself, I tugged the set of pictures from the envelope. Whatever I was expecting, it was nothing compared to the jolt I got from looking at my own face.

A zoom-lens close-up of me walking down the street, hands shoved in my pockets.

I jerked my head around, craning to take in the full parking lot. The mother loading groceries, the kids angling in on tacos outside the comic-book store, the businessman at the meter-all of a sudden, no one was outside suspicion. It wasn't until I looked back at the photo that I saw that it captured me passing in front of Charlie's house. The picture had been taken from a good distance. Although it was blurred at the edge of the frame, I could make out a sliver of the Dumpster that the photographer had hidden behind. A second shot showed me ducking the crime-scene tape into the garage. Then there I was, coming back out with a rucksack hanging heavily off my shoulder.

With shaking hands I flipped to the next picture.

A nighttime shot of the Sherman Oaks post office, no more than ten blocks from here. The flash illuminated the Magnolia Boulevard address painted on the beige wall.

The burn in my chest alerted me that I'd been holding my breath. I shook my left Puma, felt the rattle of the key there inside the air pocket.

The rest of the pictures were black. Unexposed.

Eager as I was to get moving, I headed back inside the photomat, passing the overnight drop box outside the front door where the film had been left last night. The guy behind the counter was overweight, a wispy blond beard framing his round face.

I handed him the film and asked, "Is there any way you can tell what kind of camera was used to take these pictures?"

The guy studied them. "Not really. He's got a pretty good zoom lens going, maybe a Canon, but you can't really tell."

"You mean a zoom lens separate from the camera?"

"Yeah, there's no way he got this clarity from a built-in."

He handed the pictures over, and I caught the faint lettering on the back of the top print. Kodak Endura. I pointed to it. "What can you tell me about this type of film?"

"That's just the kind of paper it's printed on. But let me see the slides." He removed from the envelope's inside pocket a few old-fashioned slides-I hadn't thought to look. "Since there were only a few shots, I just tucked the slides back here." His tongue poked out as he squinted at them. "Kodak Ektachrome 100. A daytime-balanced color transparency. Fine grain, high sharpness, makes your colors pop."

"So someone who uses this knows what they're doing? This isn't a film you'd pick up to snap casual pictures?"

He shook his head, used his cupped hands to slide his dangling hair back over his ears. "Nuh-uh. Mostly commercial photographers use it."

"Would you choose this film if you were a paparazzi? Or a cop on stakeout or something?"

He gave me a weird look. "Paparazzo's the singular. And not really. More like if you're shooting clothes or curtains or something where you need really accurate color."

I thanked him and walked back to my pickup.

Five minutes later I was parked outside the post office, staring at the same view as the photograph in my hand. Casting glances over my shoulder, I entered. The sudden chill of the air-conditioning underscored the dead heat outside. There was a line of annoyed customers, people bickering over forms. I veered left, into the banks of P.O. boxes. The second alcove held Box 229, a double-wide bottom unit. The half walls afforded privacy and muted the sounds from the rest of the building. I crouched and worked the key from my shoe.

I slid it home, paused for good luck, turned it.

The little door swung open.

The box was empty.

I sat, putting my back against the wall, allowing myself a few moments of despair. Then I sighed and started to swing the door closed so I could retrieve the key.

A yellow edge protruded ever so slightly from the roof of Box 229. Getting down on all fours, I peered in. Taped to the top of the unit, a manila envelope. I reached in, tugged it free, and opened it. A partial sheet of paper covered with columns of numbers slid out. I scanned down the rows. 1.65, 4.05, 3.49, 1.80, 2.71-they were all numbers less than five, not a single integer. Only one stood out, both in size and in its own column: 99.999. The top part of the page had been torn off, and the paper was brittle with age. An electronic date stamp on the bottom read DECEMBER 15, 1990.

About five months before Frank was murdered.

Holding the stiff sheet in my hand, I slumped back against the wall. "Well," I said, "this clears up everything."