Out of Season by Steven F. Havill

wouldn’t be a problem to come and get it later.”
    “Wonderful.”
    “And then I came back and heard about the film. I helped Sergeant Torrez get the prints ready. Sir, the department needs a new print drier. The old one is shot.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said and glanced at Estelle. “So, Robert, what have you got?”
    He had already opened the folder on my desk, and he handed me an eight-by-ten print. Linda Real reached across and pointed. “The surface gloss is blotched here and there. That’s the old drier,” she said.
    “Thank you.” I leaned over so that I could focus the correct part of my bifocals on the print.
    “That’s the first one on the negative,” Robert Torrez said. Estelle came around behind me so she could see the photos at the same time. “It looks like his brother-in-law posed by the airplane.”
    “That is Philip Camp, sure enough,” I said. I reached out a hand for the next one. Instead, Torrez handed me a set of three.
    The terrain in the photos was rugged, and in the first of the three, I could see the road cutting through the trees. “That’s taken from just beyond the mine,” Torrez said.
    “And the others are from on top,” Estelle added.
    “An aerial tour,” I muttered. “What the hell was he doing?” The next four photos were of prairie—open, rolling prairie. At least, that was my guess. “Are these out of focus, or is it me?”
    “Some of them are really bad,” Linda said.
    “That,” Torrez said, tapping one of the photos with his index finger, “is Boyd number-two. One of Johnny Boyd’s windmills and stock tanks. I recognize the sharp turn of the two-track just to the south of it.”
    “I don’t even see the windmill,” I said. “Where is it?”
    Torrez pulled a pen from his pocket and used it as a pointer. I grimaced and shook my head. “I’ll take your word for it.”
    “And this looks like the country just to the north of where the plane eventually crashed,” Torrez said. “This black line is one of the boundary fences. Or a section fence. Something like that. It’s a fence, anyway. And those”—he leaned close and jabbed at the tiny figures with the tip of the pen—“are cattle.”
    “Whoopee,” I said. I straightened up, and my back popped with an audible crack. “You need to tie these things down and go over them inch by inch with the stereo viewer. I can’t see much detail, but maybe you’ll turn up something. There’s no reason for Martin Holman to be taking aerial photographs of creosote bushes and cattle on a gusty, bumpy afternoon…or at any time, for that matter. We need some hint of what he was about. That’s half of it.”
    Torrez glanced at me, questioning.
    “The trouble here, folks,” I said to the three of them, “is that the odds of there being any connection—any at all—between what Martin Holman was trying to see yesterday afternoon and the bullet that killed his pilot are slim and none.” I picked up one of the photos again and looked at it. “Unless there’s something here that we’re not seeing.”
    “Maybe we could blow up each negative, a little at a time. You’ve got a pretty good enlarger in the darkroom,” Linda Real said.
    “Why don’t you do that,” I said. “That film is evidence, so make sure it stays in the department’s possession at all times. It doesn’t leave the building for any reason, and it doesn’t leave your possession unless it’s locked in the evidence locker.” I reached out a hand and took Linda’s in mine. It was tiny—and clammy with excitement. “Which means that as of now, your soul is ours, my dear. Welcome aboard.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You may regret it, but for now, you’re welcome. And I want to be able to see every grass blade by midnight.”
    “I can do that.”
    “I know you can. And while you’re waiting on the chemicals, cruise through a catalog and find a new drier.”
    She grinned, gathered up the prints and folder, and shot out the door.
    “And