The Narrows - Michael Connelly [21]
Following the procedure I had watched Lockridge use, I printed the two desert photos and then went back to review the other photos to choose a sampling of shots to print. I sent two photos from the ferry and two photos from the mall to the printer. While I waited I enlarged several of the mall shots on the screen in hopes of seeing something in the background that would identify what mall Graciela and the children were in. I knew I could simply ask her. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
In the photos I was able to identify bags carried by various shoppers as coming from Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barnes & Noble. In one of the photos the family walked through a food court that included the concessions Cinnabon and Hot Dog on a Stick. I wrote all of these down in my notebook and knew that with these five locations I would probably be able to determine in which mall the photos had been taken, if I decided it was necessary to know this information and I did not want to ask Graciela about it. That was still an open question. I did not want to alarm her if it was not necessary. Telling her she may have been stalked while with her family—and possibly by someone with a strange connection to her husband—might not be the best avenue to take. At least at first.
That connection turned stranger and more alarming when the printer finally spit out one of the photos I had chosen from the mall sequence. In the picture the family was walking in front of the Barnes & Noble bookstore. The shot had been taken from the other side of the mall but the angle was almost perpendicular to the storefront. The front display window of the bookstore caught a dim reflection of the photographer. I had not seen it on the computer screen but there it was in the print.
The image of the photographer was too small and too whispery against the display behind the window—a full-size stand-up photo of a man in a kilt that was surrounded by stacks of books and a sign that said IAN RANKIN HERE TONIGHT! I realized then that I could use the display to place the exact day that the photos of Graciela and her children were taken. All I had to do was call the store and find out when Ian Rankin had been there. But the display also helped hide the photographer from me.
I went back to the computer and found the photo among the miniatures and enlarged it. I stared at it, realizing I didn’t know what to do.
Buddy was in the cockpit using a hose attached to a gunwale faucet to spray the eight rods and reels leaning against the stern. I told him to turn the water off and to come back down to the office. He did so without a word. When we were back in the office I signaled him to the stool and then leaned over him and outlined the area of the photographer’s reflection on the screen.
“Can this be enlarged here? I want to see this area better.”
“It can be enlarged but you lose a lot of definition. It’s digital, you know? You get what you get.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I just told him to do it. He played with some of the square buttons that ran along the top of the frame and started enlarging the photograph and then repositioning it so the area of the reflection stayed on the screen. Soon he said that he had maximized the enlargement. I leaned in close. The image was even murkier. Not even the lines on the author’s kilt were crisp.
“You can’t tighten it up any?”
“You mean make it smaller again. Sure, I —”
“No, I mean like bring it more into focus.”
“No, man, that is it. What you see is what you get.”
“Okay, print it. It came out better before when I printed it. Maybe this will, too.”
Lockridge put in the commands and I spent an uneasy minute waiting.
“What is this, anyway?” Buddy asked.
“A reflection of the photographer.”
“Oh. You mean it wasn’t Terry?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think somebody took pictures of his family and sent them to him. It was some sort of message.