Failure to Appear by J. A. Jance Page B

16-mm snuff film that featured a twelve-year-old Seattle girl who had disappeared on her way home from school. I barfed my guts out the first time I saw it. My partner, a world-weary old guy named Bert Claggerhorn, sat us down in the film room, and we watched that damn movie over and over, hour after hour.
    Finally, I raised hell and said I'd be damned if I'd watch it one more time, and I didn't. But Bert went right on ahead without me. The amateurs who specialize in pornographic films are just exactly that—amateurs. They're not overly concerned about production values. After watching the film enough times, Bert finally noticed that an overlooked television set was playing in the background. Either the cameraman forgot to turn it off, or, more likely, he was using the volume to help mask the sounds of what he and his pal were doing.
    After spotting that one telling detail, Bert ordered blowups made, one from every foot or so of film. When the blowups came back, some of them showed soaps and afternoon game shows that can be seen on television sets anywhere in the country. But filming must have run long, with occasional pauses in the action. Toward the end, the programming carried on over into the evening news, and that's how Bert nailed those bastards.
    Studying the blowups, he was able to identify several newscasters and a weatherman who appeared only on the local Bellingham station. Armed with that knowledge, we zeroed in on the Bellingham area. Once we narrowed down the locale and trained the full focus of our investigation there, it didn't take long to flush out our two "movie-mogul" creeps. A bloodstained mattress, the same torn one that was clearly visible in Bert's blowups, was still on the bed. Eventually, those bloodstains were traced to the victim. Thanks to Bert's detailed study of that film, the killers were found and put away for good.
    Fraymore seemed bemused by the intensity of Dinky's reaction. "I'm conducting an investigation here, Ms. Holloway," he said. "I understand your abhorrence toward this particular film, but we have to be thorough. That movie gives us something we didn't have before—motive."
    In view of the first skirmish in Fraymore's and my little turf war, I should have kept my mouth shut altogether, but keeping my mouth shut has never been one of my strong suits.
    "What are you going to do about Tanya Dunseth?" I asked the question straight out, recognizing my blunder as soon as Fraymore turned his narrowed gaze in my direction.
    "What business is that of yours?" he demanded.
    With Alex looking on, I didn't want to back down. I shrugged noncommittally. "I just want to know, that's all."
    Fraymore's thick neck bulged over his eighteen-inch collar. "Did I miss something here?" he asked. "Did I turn my back and all of a sudden you hired on as an investigator with the Ashland Police Department?"
    The sarcasm wasn't lost on me. There was no humor in his delivery. Fraymore was the local chief dog, and I was a mangy, out-of-town cur encroaching on previously marked territory.
    "I don't believe I have to remind you that you have no legal standing whatsoever in this jurisdiction, Mister Beaumont," Gordon Fraymore continued. "The City of Ashland has no letter of mutual aid on file with the City of Seattle. In other words, butt out. That badge of yours is no good here. Furthermore, I don't appreciate interference from visiting firemen. You just go on about your business—see some plays, get your daughter married off, do whatever it is you want to do while you're down here, but leave the law enforcement end of things to me."
    I may be slow, but I got the picture. "Right."
    Fraymore's and my verbal scuffle went right over Dinky Holloway's head. "You wouldn't really arrest Tanya, would you?" Dinky asked, as though it were only a remote possibility, if that.
    Listening with a cop's ear, I knew better. It wasn't just what Fraymore said, it was also how he said it. Tanya Dunseth was in deep trouble. Dinky