“You’re getting real good at the news photo business.”
“I’ve been hanging around you too long, Eddy.”
Eddy glanced at the picture again and shook his head. “Like a scene from one of her own movies.”
Vivian studied the print. Her inner vision stirred and whispered to her.There are always secrets. You just have to look for them.
“Yes,” she said. “It almost looks like a scene from one of her own films.”
Secrets.
Chapter 2
Exhaustion finally hit on the drive back to the beach house. Vivian parked the speedster in the small attached garage and let herself in through the kitchen door.
She headed for the bedroom. The night shift was over. She needed sleep because she had a busy day ahead.
She kicked off the slip-ons, undressed, and fell into bed. She contemplated the shadowed ceiling while she reviewed her schedule. She had a studio portrait booked at ten o’clock. Like her crime-and-fire pictures, portraits were bread-and-butter business, albeit far more respectable. Successful art photographers often did portraits. Charged a lot for them, too.
She had cleared her afternoon to devote to her art. A model was due at two for the next picture in her new series.
It took about twenty minutes of staring at the ceiling before she abandoned the attempt to sleep. She was tired but every time she closed her eyes she saw the scene of the Carstairs murder. As Eddy hadpointed out, it could have been a stage set from one of the actress’s own movies.
No, not a stage set. The lighting and the sight lines were not right, not for a movie.
But they were perfect for a photograph.
She pushed the covers aside, stepped into her slippers, pulled on a robe, and made her way down the hall to the living room. She paused to turn on a lamp.
Shortly after moving in a few months ago she had converted the front room into a studio. Lights, cords, tripods, and a variety of props littered the space. Black cases containing her precious lenses, light meters, film, flashbulbs, and all the rest of the equipment required for her work were lined up against one wall. Backdrops and swaths of fabric were suspended from a series of movable rails. A large, freestanding mirror stood in a corner. She had discovered early on that it was easier to get a good portrait if the sitter could see his or her own reflection.
She left the studio, went into the small dining room that now served as her office, and switched on a lamp. The table was covered with folders filled with photos and newspaper clippings. Most were her own work but some were pictures taken by other photographers that she deemed worth a closer study. Photography was an art. There was always something to learn, always a new way to see beneath the surface. A way to discover and reveal secrets.
She opened the file labeled WASHFIELDMURDERand dumped the contents onto the table. Leonard Washfield had been a wealthy and well-connected socialite. The family money had come from the railroads. Leonard had been born and raised in San Francisco but he had moved to Hollywood after graduating from college. He had financed a couple of successful motion pictures and soon became known for his extravagant parties. He had been photographed at the hottest nightclubs, where he always seemed to have a beautiful actress on his arm. A month ago his dramatic death had been front-page news.
For a moment she stood looking down at the little pile of photos and clippings. There was a certain sameness to them because the photographers were mostly using the same kind of camera and had shot mostly from a distance of about ten feet. But there were some pictures, including her own, that had taken advantage of the unique lighting at the scene.
After a while she picked up the folder labeled ATTENBURYMURDERand examined the pictures. Sarah Attenbury had been a glittering fixture on the Los Angeles social scene. Invitations to her parties were coveted by everyone who moved in high-flying circles in Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
The first faint light of a foggy dawn was illuminating the sky when Vivian concluded that she was certain of what she was seeing in the pictures. She went back into the living room and picked up the phone.
“Operator, please connect me with the police,” she said. “Yes, I’ll hold.”
A short time later a gruff voice came on the line. “Adelina Beach Police Department.”
“Detective Archer, please. Tell him it’s about the Carstairs murder.”
“He just left. Been a long night. Hang on, I’ll see if I can catch him.”
The phone on the other end clattered on a desktop. After a couple of moments a man with a smoker’s rough voice came on the line.
“This is Archer.”
“Detective Archer, my name is Vivian Brazier. I’m a photographer. I was at the Carstairs house earlier this evening taking news photos.”
“I remember you. The lady with the camera. What’s this all about?”
“I have been looking at the pictures that appeared in the papers after the Washfield and Attenbury murders and there are some striking similarities between those two homicide scenes and the one at the Carstairs mansion.”
