Something about him alarmed me. Reluctantly I led him back through the house to the studio.
He said, “Mr. Fletcher, I just want to work something out. That’s all. I don’t want you should get the wrong idea about anything. It’s just one of those things. And we can work something out. The thing is, to talk it over.”
I’d had my share of bad dreams about this kind of situation. My voice sounded peculiar to me as I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He had put the envelope on a work table. He said, “What I do, I’m an assistant manager, Thrifty Quick. My brother-in-law, he’s a doctor, got a home right over there across the way. You can’t see it today, it’s too misty. The thing is, I was laid up in April. Dropped a case on my foot, and I stayed over there with my sister. I guess I’m what they call a shutter bug. I’m a real nut on photography. It keeps me broke, I’m telling you.”
“Mr. Walsik, I haven’t the faintest …”
“What I was fooling with, long lens stuff on thirty-five millimeter. I was using a Nikon body and a bunch of adaptors, a tripod of course, and I figured it out it came to f22, sixteen hundred millimeters, and I was using Tri-X. I don’t suppose the technical stuff means anything to you, Mr. Fletcher.”
“You don’t mean anything to me, Mr. Walsik.”
“Figuring back, it had to be April tenth. A clear morning and no wind. Wind is bad when you use that much lens. You can’t get sharpness. The thing is, I was justexperimenting, so I had to find some sharp-edged object at a distance to focus on, so I picked the edge of that terrace out there. I took some shots at different exposures, and after a while I thought I could see somebody moving around on the terrace. I took some more shots. I made notes on exposure times and so on. You know, you have to keep track or you forget.”
I sat down upon my work stool. This was the monstrous cliché of all murders. I had thought it a device of scenario writers, the accidental little man, the incongruous flaw. With an effort I brought my attention back to what he was saying.
“… in the paper that she was all alone here, Mr. Fletcher, and you proved you were somewhere else. Now I got to apologize for the quality of this print. It’s sixteen by twenty, which is pretty big to push thirty-five millimeter, and there was some haze, and that fast film is grainy, but here, you take a look.”
I took the big black and white print and studied it. I was at the railing, leaning, arms still extended. He had caught her in free fall toward the rocks, some six feet below my outstretched hands, her fair hair and nylon peignoir rippled upward by the wind of passage. It brought it all back—scooping her up from the drugged and drowsy bed, walking with her slack warm weight, seeing her eyes open, and hearing her murmurous question in the instant before I dropped her over the wall. The print was too blurred for me to be recognizable, or Gloria. But it was enough. The unique pattern of the wall was clear. It could no longer be “jumped or fell.” And with that picture, they could go back and pry at the rest of it until the whole thing fell apart.
When he took the picture out of my hands, I looked up at him. He stepped backward very quickly and said a shaking voice, “I got the negative in a safe place with a letter explaining it.”
“What do you want?” I asked him.
“Like I said, I just want to work something out, Mr. Fletcher. The way I figure, if I try to push too hard what I’ll do is spoil everything. What I want is for life to be a little easier. So I could get a little bit better apartment in a handier neighborhood. And there’s somelenses and camera equipment I want to buy. I won’t be a terrible burden, you understand. But I don’t want to sell you the negatives. I want like a permanent type thing, the way people got an annuity. I’ve got some bills I want to pay off, so the first bite, believe me, is
He said, “Mr. Fletcher, I just want to work something out. That’s all. I don’t want you should get the wrong idea about anything. It’s just one of those things. And we can work something out. The thing is, to talk it over.”
I’d had my share of bad dreams about this kind of situation. My voice sounded peculiar to me as I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He had put the envelope on a work table. He said, “What I do, I’m an assistant manager, Thrifty Quick. My brother-in-law, he’s a doctor, got a home right over there across the way. You can’t see it today, it’s too misty. The thing is, I was laid up in April. Dropped a case on my foot, and I stayed over there with my sister. I guess I’m what they call a shutter bug. I’m a real nut on photography. It keeps me broke, I’m telling you.”
“Mr. Walsik, I haven’t the faintest …”
“What I was fooling with, long lens stuff on thirty-five millimeter. I was using a Nikon body and a bunch of adaptors, a tripod of course, and I figured it out it came to f22, sixteen hundred millimeters, and I was using Tri-X. I don’t suppose the technical stuff means anything to you, Mr. Fletcher.”
“You don’t mean anything to me, Mr. Walsik.”
“Figuring back, it had to be April tenth. A clear morning and no wind. Wind is bad when you use that much lens. You can’t get sharpness. The thing is, I was justexperimenting, so I had to find some sharp-edged object at a distance to focus on, so I picked the edge of that terrace out there. I took some shots at different exposures, and after a while I thought I could see somebody moving around on the terrace. I took some more shots. I made notes on exposure times and so on. You know, you have to keep track or you forget.”
I sat down upon my work stool. This was the monstrous cliché of all murders. I had thought it a device of scenario writers, the accidental little man, the incongruous flaw. With an effort I brought my attention back to what he was saying.
“… in the paper that she was all alone here, Mr. Fletcher, and you proved you were somewhere else. Now I got to apologize for the quality of this print. It’s sixteen by twenty, which is pretty big to push thirty-five millimeter, and there was some haze, and that fast film is grainy, but here, you take a look.”
I took the big black and white print and studied it. I was at the railing, leaning, arms still extended. He had caught her in free fall toward the rocks, some six feet below my outstretched hands, her fair hair and nylon peignoir rippled upward by the wind of passage. It brought it all back—scooping her up from the drugged and drowsy bed, walking with her slack warm weight, seeing her eyes open, and hearing her murmurous question in the instant before I dropped her over the wall. The print was too blurred for me to be recognizable, or Gloria. But it was enough. The unique pattern of the wall was clear. It could no longer be “jumped or fell.” And with that picture, they could go back and pry at the rest of it until the whole thing fell apart.
When he took the picture out of my hands, I looked up at him. He stepped backward very quickly and said a shaking voice, “I got the negative in a safe place with a letter explaining it.”
“What do you want?” I asked him.
“Like I said, I just want to work something out, Mr. Fletcher. The way I figure, if I try to push too hard what I’ll do is spoil everything. What I want is for life to be a little easier. So I could get a little bit better apartment in a handier neighborhood. And there’s somelenses and camera equipment I want to buy. I won’t be a terrible burden, you understand. But I don’t want to sell you the negatives. I want like a permanent type thing, the way people got an annuity. I’ve got some bills I want to pay off, so the first bite, believe me, is
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