The Man From Primrose Lane Part 39

"He said he would hate you forever."

David shrugged.

"Any idea who he might think it is?"

"No."

"Well," said Larkey, exhaling a smoke ring that wobbled up to the ceiling, "let's put it all on the table. We're three smart guys with some inside information on these cases, right?" He looked at me across the table with a slight smile. "For instance, I bet you could tell us a thing or two about the Man from Primrose Lane and who might want to kill him and this guy's wife."

"Maybe," I said. "And maybe there's some information the police haven't released about Elaine O'Donnell's abduction that you could share with us."

"I don't wanna see this in some book unless we catch Trimble and the guy who shot the Man from Primrose Lane, all right?"

"Okay," said David.

"Don't f.u.c.k me over," he said.

"Okay."

Larkey sucked smoke into his lungs, exhaled, then snubbed out the remainder. "First, let's say what we mean to say, right? We think there's one man out there responsible for the abduction of Elaine-her murder, actually, because her body's out there somewhere even if we haven't found it yet-the murder of her twin sister Elizabeth almost twenty years later, the attempted murder of the Man from Primrose Lane, and the abduction of Erin McNight."

"Right," said David.

"And the attempted abduction of Katy Keenan," I interjected.

"That right?"

"I think so, yes."

Larkey nodded. "All about ten years old at the time. All with straighter than straight red hair."

The lawman's eyes wandered to the wall, where a large ceramic dragon held roost. Finally, he pursed his lips. "Fine," he said. "I'll share it with you. Something about Elaine's abduction was never released."

"What?"

"Little slip of paper found in that parking lot she was yanked away from. Slip of paper with a perforated edge. Number on it."

"Like a ticket from a butcher?" asked David.

"Sort of. But it wasn't. We traced it back to a photo lab in Berea."

"Did you pull the records for whose pictures they had developed? I mean, you had that number?" I asked.

"We tried. But they didn't keep good records. They didn't write the numbers down anywhere. Just matched it up with the photo packet and handed it to the customer who gave them the corresponding tab. We pulled all their credit card transactions for that date, but..."

"But how many people used credit cards for small transactions back in 1989?" said David.

"Right. Mostly businesses was all we got back."

I sighed. My blood pressure was beginning to concern me. My heart was beating so hard and fast that my hands undulated with each new pump.

"What do you guys got?" asked Larkey.

"A man using an alias-Arbogast-attempted to track down the ident.i.ty of the Man from Primrose Lane a few months before he was shot," said David.

"How do you know that?"

"I talked to the man who made the fake IDs. He'd already spoken to this Arbogast guy."

"Don't suppose you want to tell me the counterfeiter's name?"

"Not unless it's important."

"Arbogast," said Larkey.

"It's from Psycho," I said.

"Right. So the target was the Man from Primrose Lane, and your wife may have just been in the wrong place at the right time."

"One more thing on that front," said David. "The guy who made the ID said this Arbogast guy was driving a van with one of those handicap permits hanging from the mirror. Except the man was in no way physically handicapped."

"That match up with anyone you know?" I asked.

"No," he said. Larkey laid his hands on the table and rubbed them against the wood. "Somebody is connected to all of these girls. There's some common thread we're not seeing."

"I agree," said David.

"What did you tell Riley before he got this 'idea'? What were you talking about right at that moment?"

"I don't know," said David. "The girls."

"What was he doing?"

"Looking at their pictures."

"Here," said Larkey, slapping the table. "Let's see them."

From his satchel, David removed Elaine O'Donnell's and Erin's pictures.

"Katy, too."

David brought her photograph out as well.

"Jesus," said Larkey. "They could be sisters. This man knew these girls. Had to."

"It could almost be the same picture," said David. "Even the background's the same."

Larkey looked closer. Each girl sat in front of a blue backdrop covered in fluffy white clouds. Except David was wrong. Even from where I sat I could tell it wasn't the exact background in each one. Erin's school picture had an extra cloud in the top right corner that was whiter than the others.

"Holy f.u.c.k," said Larkey.

"What?" asked David, getting up and jogging around the table to where the man sat. I leaned over the table from where I was seated.

"Look," Larkey said, pointing to the upper right corner of Elaine's picture. There was no cloud. Just a tiny black spot against the blue there. Then, Larkey pointed to the upper right corner of Katy's school picture. There was a black smudge there. Not a smudge, I saw. A tear. The background's fabric was ripped a little, worn with age. An imperfection no bigger than a dime. But it was there. And in its place in Erin's photo was a white cloud that appeared whiter than all the others.

"Same backdrop," said David. "The exact same. Someone patched the tear and painted a white cloud overtop of it."

"That list of businesses," I said. "Was there a school-picture company on the list?"

Larkey swallowed and looked up to me. "Fabulous Pics," he said.

David flipped each picture upside down. On the top right corner of each sheet, the name FABULOUS PICS was stamped in ink the color of steel. He turned and ran back around the table to get his bag. "It was the f.u.c.king school photographer!" he shouted.

David drove while Larkey relayed directions from the back seat.

"Exit at 480. Go west," he said. The man was on his phone, speaking in harsh tones to the Berea chief of police. "Stay back! Just stay back until we get there!" He hung up and immediately started dialing again. "His photography studio is right in Berea. Small operation. Apparently it's a father/son team. Guy who owns the place, his name is George Galt. He developed Parkinson's about twenty years ago. His son a.s.sists him with the photo shoots. Son's name is Dean."

"But who is Dean Galt?" I asked.

"No one," he said. "No record of any kind. Not even a speeding ticket. Never married. No home address. He must live with his father. The mother died years ago. Or maybe he lives at the photo studio. The studio has a darkroom, but according to the landlord they haven't developed their own pictures since 1975. They subcontract most of their developing to Dodd Camera in Cleveland but have been known to use News and Photo in Berea, the lab we traced the tickets to. If he's got the girl, he'll be keeping her at the studio, I guarantee it. He's not going to take her into some residential neighborhood. Downtown Berea is pretty quiet after six p.m. Could have walked her in the front door and no one would have noticed. Anyway, we have an agent driving out to the home, just in case." His attention switched back to the phone. "Sackett, it's Larkey. I'm with the writer. We got a lead on ... Would you shut the f.u.c.k up and listen? We got a lead on Erin. You better get up here. Berea. I'm texting you the address." He hung up again. "Hardheaded motherf.u.c.ker!" he said. He dialed numbers into his cell.

David rocketed toward Berea at eighty-five miles per hour.

Three patrol cars were parked a quarter mile down the road from the Fabulous Pics photo studio, a second-story loft situated over a brewery in Berea's business district, a false-fronted square no bigger than a city block. David pulled beside the cruiser closest to the square. Larkey rolled down his window and leaned out.

"n.o.body f.u.c.king move, okay?" he said to the officer. "I'm going to knock on the door. You hear shots, come running. But if you don't, just sit still. I can't have a contaminated crime scene."

"Isn't that the guy you charged with murder a couple days ago?" asked a wide-mouthed officer, looking at David.

"Yeah. Gonna use him as a human shield. Kill two birds with one stone. d.i.c.khead. Come on, let's go." Larkey rolled his window up and then slapped David in the head from the back seat. "f.u.c.kin' move, Professor!"

David took off down the road and pulled to a stop in front of the brewery.

"Don't you need a subpoena?" asked David.

"I thought you were a true crime writer. It's called a warrant," said Larkey, checking the clip in his sock Glock. "And there's nothing prohibiting me from knocking on his door or busting it down if I hear her screaming inside." He got out of the Cadillac and headed for the door beside the brewery. A sign on the wall read FABULOUS PICS. I followed David, but remained a few steps behind, as my knee protested against the unexpected exercise.

The stairs were steep and went on for what seemed like two flights before coming to an end at a tall wooden door.

Larkey knocked loudly.

"h.e.l.lo?" he shouted.

Nothing.

"h.e.l.lo? Dean? h.e.l.lo? Erin?"

"What now?" asked David.

"What do you mean, what now? We go in."

"Isn't it locked?"

"What do you mean? The f.u.c.king door is wide open!"

"Looks open to me," I offered, catching my breath.

With impressive and sudden force, Larkey kicked the door to the left of the k.n.o.b with one booted foot. It exploded inward with a blast that shook the stairs. He leapt into the dimness, drawing his Glock and a pen-sized flashlight he held below the weapon.

The studio was wide, about a hundred feet across, filled with rows of aluminum shelving upon which sat boxes of floppy middle-school yearbooks and binders full of loose pictures. A wall of windows painted-over white let in just enough sunlight to see. It was like a world illuminated by an eclipse, where matter seems ethereal, dreamlike. It smelled of grease and earth and vinegar.

"Look," said David. He pointed at a sofa sitting against the wall of windows. On the cushions was a pink and blue backpack. McNight was written on it in dark Magic Marker.

"Erin!" yelled Larkey. "Dean, it's the FBI. Are you in here? I don't want anybody to get hurt."

There came a muted rustling from the corner of the room, beyond a black door set into the wall.

"The darkroom," said David.

Larkey led the way. He put the flashlight in his mouth and used his free hand to push through the revolving door. "Stay here," he mumbled. Then he replaced the light below the sidearm and jumped into the darkroom.

We couldn't see anything inside because of that revolving door but the smell of vinegar was much stronger and that rustling suddenly grew louder.

"David! Get in here! Help me! Help!"

David went first and I rushed in as fast as I could after him, knocking the cane against the floor. It took a second for my eyes to adjust. David, with his younger eyes, was faster. He was already at Larkey's side when I could see again. They stood on either side of a metal cart. They were rapidly untying the small body that lay there.

Erin appeared unscathed. Physically, at least. There was no sign of blood. No sign of trauma at all except for a pair of particularly nasty bruises along her ankles where the clothesline had been tied tight around her. She wore green shorts and a purple top. Her red hair hung around the top of the table like the impression of blood.

Larkey sat her up and, with one quick jerk of his hand, pulled the duct tape off her mouth.

Erin screamed in pain and cried with relief. She wrapped her arms around Larkey's neck and sobbed into his shoulder.

"Shhh," he said, rubbing her hair. "Shhh."

For the first time, we looked around the room. The walls were covered in photographs of a common theme: redheaded beauties. Not just school photos. Candid shots, taken with a long-lens camera. There were Elaine and Elizabeth playing on a slide. Katy climbing onto a boat. Erin, through a window, watching TV in her bedroom. Several other girls I did not recognize. Hundreds of photographs. Dozens of girls.

"Let's get out of here before he comes back," I said. "In bad mystery novels, the killer always comes back just when the heroes save the damsel in distress."

Larkey laughed but started for the door.

David hung back with me, his eyes wide, his face full of some emotion I could not read.

"What?" I asked.