A PRIVATE EYE

by Hamilton Waymire

When I returned from lunch, a young woman—brunette, athletic—was sitting on the floor next to my office door. She wore khaki chinos and a pink T-shirt that had Obama–Biden 08 printed across the chest. The silver jewelry—choker, upper-arm bracelet, rings—contrasted nicely with her tanned skin.

"You waiting for me?" I asked as I unlocked the door.

"Are you Mr. Keirstad?"

I said I was, but to call me Benson.

"My name is Astrid Ingram," she said, following me inside. "The Costa Mesa PD recommended you."

That would've been Sergeant Charley Hoffman. Over the years, he's tossed a bit of business my way. In return, I buy him a beer once in a while.

Astrid plunked down in a client chair. "Look, I know the building is non-smoking and all, but would you mind if I had just one? I'm such a nervous wreck right now."

"Don't mind at all," I said and lit a Marlboro myself. Disconnecting the smoke detectors had been my first order of business when I moved in. "How about some coffee?"

She said that would be nice. Pouring water into my percolator, I asked her what the trouble was.

"My sister, Cheryl." Smoke drifted out of Astrid's mouth and nostrils as she spoke. "She didn't come home on Wednesday."

Today was Friday. I filled the perc's top chamber with ground coffee and set the pot on the hot plate. "Go on."

"I filed a missing persons report, but the officer said there wasn't much they could do."

I nodded. "They've got a lot on their plate. Plus if she's of legal age and there's no evidence of foul play, her case will have pretty low priority."

Astrid lit her second cigarette with the butt of the first. "I'd think her absence since Wednesday was plenty evidence of foul play."

I pushed my cut-glass ashtray over to her end of the desk. "Let's hear it from the start."

Monday night, Astrid explained, she received a call from Cheryl. She was in tears over a major row with her husband, Ryan Edwards, who managed a Horty's Diner franchise. As a result of the quarrel, Edwards had moved out of their Costa Mesa home. Cheryl asked her sister to come stay with her for a few days.

No big deal for Astrid, as she went to graduate school at UC Irvine and lived less than a half hour away. Cheryl took Tuesday off and helped her move in.

Astrid hadn't seen her sister since Wednesday morning, when Cheryl left for work. She herself had stayed around the house, making use of the fitness equipment and pool. At around five-thirty, Cheryl's husband had shown up, with a trailer hooked to his SUV.

"He said he was just going to pack his things. Which he did, at least at first, you know, books, clothes and stuff. Then I caught him lifting the silverware, and I told him to get his dirty hands off Cheryl's property. I mean, it's practically solid silver, and it's been in our family for three generations."

Just then the perc stopped gurgling. I poured her coffee and then filled my own mug. A question had been nagging at the back of my mind. Now it came to the fore. "Sorry to interrupt. Ingram is not a common name. There was a televangelist some years back—"

"That would be our father, yes." Astrid looked less than enthusiastic.

"You know, he was a remarkable man. I mean, I'm not religious or anything, but when he spoke—"

"Benson, I'm not here to talk about my father, okay? Now can we get back to Cheryl?"

I said sure, but Martin Ingram's voice reverberated in my head. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill." It was one of his favorite lines. Never failed to send a shiver down my spine.

Reverend Ingram and his wife had died in a car accident on the 405 some years ago. Their deaths had gotten a lot of media coverage.

"I was saying that the bastard tried to rob Cheryl. I mean, how depraved is that? First he sleeps around, then he leaves her, and then, when she's not even home, he goes and steals her stuff."

I made affirmative noises while sipping my boiling hot coffee.

"So we're getting into an argument, we're yelling at each other, and out of the blue, the son of a bitch slaps me in the face. I locked myself in the bathroom and called the cops."

Not surprisingly, Costa Mesa's finest had pegged Edwards as the aggressor and booked him for a night in jail. By ten o'clock, Astrid was alone again. Still no sign of her sister. Calls to Cheryl's cell were redirected to voice mail. On Thursday morning, Astrid called Cheryl's employer, First Frontier Escrow. She hadn't shown up for work.

"Over breakfast today, I finally decided I had to do something, so I went to the cops. You know the rest."

"Have you tried friends and family?"

"There's no family to speak of." Astrid went to work on her third cigarette. "An aunt in Kentucky, that's all. I called her, but she hasn't heard from Cheryl in months."

She held out her empty mug. I refilled it.

"My sister's a bit of a loner. Me too, actually. Probably because of all the crap we had to take from our old man. Anyway, she doesn't really have any friends. Except Tommy and Hilda Cunningham, maybe, but they're traveling in Europe."

I made some notes on my yellow pad. With a missing persons report filed, the cops would check the local hospitals, so I didn't have to bother.

"I'm going to need all available information about your sister. Social, credit cards, driver's license—"

Astrid extracted a black three-ring binder from her Burberry tote bag. "I've made a folder with everything I could think of."

I leafed through the pages, each of which was protected by a transparent plastic sleeve. Astrid had been thorough, even including a description of the clothing and accessories Cheryl wore on Wednesday.

"Silver upper-arm bracelet with blue glass inlay, solid silver choker, stylized C in center, silver rings on left thumb and pinkie," I read from the file. "That sounds like a description of your jewelry."

Astrid smiled and peeled the bracelet off her arm. It left a snake-shaped impression in her flesh. "Our mother made them," she said. "She learned it in her father's metalworking shop."

She shed the other pieces as I examined the armband.

"Is Cheryl's just like this one?"

"Except for the glass ornament. They match our eyes. Cheryl's is blue, mine's brown." She pointed at an amber-colored glass inlay the size of a marble.

"The rings are pretty much identical to Cheryl's except for small variations in the patterns," Astrid added as she put them on my desk.

I couldn't discern much of a pattern myself, just a bunch of squiggly lines engraved into the metal.

"Are the pieces valuable?" I asked after she'd handed me the necklace. It featured an ornate capital A .

"To us they are," she said and put the bracelet back on her arm. "Our mother was a saint. She was too good for this world."

Aw, shucks, she had tears in her eyes. I hated to bring my fees up now, but a man's gotta eat, after all.

***

First Frontier occupied a suite in an office complex one block south of the Irvine Spectrum Mall. Despite heavy traffic I made it just before five.

"What can I do you for?" a gum-chewing receptionist with big hair asked while putting on her jacket.

I said I'd like to speak with the manager. Monster Hair didn't bother to inquire after my name. She pushed an intercom button and informed a Mr. Brogard that "somebody" wished to see him, then zipped out the door before her boss could reply.

A minute or so later, a stocky man in his mid-forties appeared. Judging from his flushed face, I figured I'd interrupted a naughty dictation session with his secretary.

"Welcome to First Frontier." His beady eyes shone like the glistening lips of a Tijuana whore. "I'm Curt Brogard, manager and owner."

"Benson Keirstad, private investigator," I said as I shook the proffered hand. "I'm looking for Cheryl Ingram."

"She still hasn't shown up? I'll tell you, I was kinda upset with her for letting me down like this, but I sure hope—you don't think—well, what the hell is going on?"

I said I was being paid to find out. Brogard led me into his office and offered me a bottle of Arrowhead water from a tabletop fridge the size of my first cell phone.

Cheryl had worked all day Wednesday, with the exception of her lunch break. She left the office at five-thirty. Brogard remembered because she complained about a client who kept her until twenty past five.

"How would you describe Cheryl?"

Brogard looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Let's not beat about the bush, she's a beautiful woman. You'd think everybody'd love her, but she has a way of... of making it difficult. Reserved, you could say. Aloof. Now don't tell her I said that when you find her, okay? I'm only trying to be helpful here."

I assured him that mum was the word. "Does she do her work well?"

"She's competent enough." Brogard wrinkled his brow. His face was still ruddy. Must've been quite a romp, I thought.

"On the other hand... Well, come along," he said and stood.

I followed him through the hall and into another office. A narrow path led through piles of ledgers, papers, and books, to a cluttered desk. Somebody had placed the phone in a potted plant, for want of space on the desktop.

"She's not very organized." Brogard gestured at the muddle. "It's a real pain, especially now that she hasn't shown up and somebody else gotta find things in here."

I scratched my head. "Geez. Almost looks like she did it on purpose."

"Oh, I'm sure she didn't," Brogard said. "That's just who she is. Forgetful, disorganized, you know. She's been known to show up for work in mismatching shoes."

Meticulous Astrid, sloppy Cheryl. Funny how siblings turned out polar opposites sometimes.

"She friendly with any of her colleagues?"

Brogard shrugged. "Not that I know of."

Without a warning, he yelled, "Gladys! You still here?"

In an instant, Brogard's secretary materialized out of nowhere. Seeing Gladys, I scrapped the notion of an office quickie. She could've been his grandmother. Her white hair was so generously lacquered it posed a fire hazard. Cat eye glasses framed her light blue eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Brogard?"

"Mr. Keirstad here is a detective. He wants to know if Cheryl has any friends among the staff."

Gladys's eyes darted back and forth between me and her boss. She's not sure how much to tell me in front of him, I thought.

"I shouldn't think so," Gladys said. "I've never seen her go to lunch with anyone. And she never talks about anything but business."

"Thanks Gladys. And have a nice weekend." Brogard gave her a phony smile.

"Thank you," she said, shooting me a meaningful glance, and left the room.

I wanted to catch Gladys alone to see if I could coax her into sharing some more information. Unfortunately, dismissing his secretary seemed to have triggered Brogard's garrulous streak.

"She doesn't really have to work, you know," Brogard said.

"Who, Gladys?"

He looked at me like I was a moron. "Cheryl, of course. The sisters inherited quite a bit of money from their old man. Well, actually I'm not sure it was enough to give up their day jobs. Although I don't think her sister works. I think she's a graduate student or something. Now if I could only remember the subject... "

I took advantage of Brogard's momentary puzzlement, shook his hand, and left. He seemed to still be pondering Astrid's major when I yanked open the glass door leading out of the suite.

Gladys was waiting for me in a red 1980s Buick, looking at herself in the rearview mirror and touching up her lipstick. She was tacky as hell, but I couldn't help liking her. I sauntered up to the open window and smiled.

"Mr. Brogard said you were a detective. You don't look like a cop."

"Private."

She dabbed her mouth with a Kleenex, leaving little red kisses on the tissue. "You were asking about friends of Cheryl's."

I waited her out.

"You didn't hear it from me," Gladys said. She wadded up her Kleenex and tossed it on the backseat.

"The one person she gets along with is Zack from the mailroom. That's Zack Murdoch. He's below her station, of course, but she's that kind of girl."

"Where can I find him?"

"He lives in Santa Ana. Look here, you're a big guy, Mr. Keirstad, but be careful. I'm not one to dish the dirt. All I'm saying is, Zack Murdoch is an ex-con, and I wouldn't want to cross him. You catch my drift?"

"Yes ma'am," was all I could say before she started the engine and pulled off, waving a wrinkled hand at me. I stood for a moment and wondered what Gladys had been like when she was young.

I went home, popped open a cold one and did some online research. Ryan Edward's Horty's franchise didn't seem to be doing too well, but that was just about all I got on him. Zack Murdoch, Cheryl's friend from the mailroom, showed up in a couple of databases I subscribed to. He was a tough guy all right. After a stint in the army, including Operation Desert Storm, he tried his hand at professional wrestling for a couple years but never made it beyond regional fame. The second half of the nineteen-nineties he spent in prison, for aggravated assault. He got good time, and Brogard hired him through a rehabilitation program in 2000. His record since then was clean. Which didn't mean squat.

***

Cheryl's husband had relocated to a rented apartment behind the final stretch of the 55, where it peters out into Newport Boulevard. I figured eleven AM on a Saturday was a reasonable time to pay him a call.

Edwards opened the door and looked at me with sleepy eyes. He was the ruggedly handsome type, if a little narrow in the shoulders. A jungle of dark chest hair welled out of his half-closed bathrobe. I flashed my license and introduced myself.

"Whaddaya want? You a friggin' process server?"

"Your wife has been missing since Wednesday afternoon. I'm looking for her. You have a minute?"

He scratched his head, stepped back and led me into the kitchen, where two half-full coffee mugs suggested I'd interrupted an intimate breakfast.

"You want some coffee? It's still pretty fresh."

I'd just told him no thanks when a stacked blonde stuck her head into the kitchen. She was no older than twenty, if that.

"I'll be taking off then, Ryan," she said, cheeks rosy and eyes all dreamy.

"Yeah, yeah," Edwards said absently. "Talk to you later."

The sophomoric beauty beamed and left.

"I thought you ran a Horty's, not a Hooter's," I said.

"Mind your own business." Edwards put the mugs in the sink and turned the water on. "What's the deal with Cheryl? She really not come home?"

"I'm telling you, I'm trying to find her."

"Who're you working for?"

I glanced over the kitchen counter into a small living-room filled with moving boxes. "I'm not at liberty to say."

"I know anyway," Edwards said and made a deprecatory gesture. "That bitch Astrid hired you to get some dirt on me. She's been on my back ever since Cheryl and me got married. She tell you she had me thrown in jail?"

I shrugged. Edwards toweled his mugs.

"Okay, I don't have all day. What you wanna know?"

"For starters, when did you last talk to Cheryl?"

Edwards pulled the plug. The dish water gurgled on its way down the drain. "I called her Wednesday morning at work. Told her I'd be picking up my stuff at the house later."

"Was she okay with that?"

"What the fuck you mean, was she okay with that? It's my house, and my stuff."

I showed him the palms of my hands to placate him. "Any idea where she might be? Friends? A lover, maybe?"

He shook his head. "Look, I still have feelings for her, okay? But to most people, she's a cold fish. She sure ain't got no close friends, not that I know of, anyway."

I thanked Edwards for his time and took off. Now I really wanted to hear Zack Murdoch's side of the story.

***

He lived in an apartment in Santa Ana, in a neighborhood that had been firmly WASP fifteen years ago. Now, between Gomez, Garcia, Catalan, and Flores, Murdoch's name seemed an anomaly on the doorbell tags.

I still had my finger on the button when the door opened. Murdoch was easy to recognize from the mug shots I'd seen online. The top of his bald, perfectly round head missed the door header by less than an inch. He wore an orange muscle shirt that displayed massive arms, replete with a colorful array of prison tats. The only incongruous element was a pair of reading glasses, over the top of which he eyed me calmly.

"My name is Benson Keirstad, Mr. Murdoch. I'd like to talk with you about Cheryl Ingram."

I held my license out to him, but he hardly glanced at it. Pressing his palms together in front of his chest he said, "Namaste," and stretched out an arm in invitation.

The apartment smelled of incense and sported Beach Boys revival decor. I didn't see a TV; instead a corner of the living room had been fashioned into a small photography studio, complete with screen, tripod, and lighting equipment.

Murdoch offered me a seat on an ancient wicker armchair. He sat in the Lotus position on a jute mat and looked at me without blinking.

"You know that Cheryl's been missing since Wednesday afternoon?"

"I know she hasn't been at work since then." His voice had a hypnotic calmness to it. And he still hadn't blinked.

"I understand she was, um, friendly with you. Is there anything you can tell me that might help find her?"

Murdoch continued to look me in the eye, no blinko. After a minute I decided he was a nutcase. Finally he spoke.

"She hasn't been home either? Then something has happened to her." In one motion, he was up on his feet and standing by a book case. "You're not working for her husband , are you?"

I told him I wasn't. He nodded and pulled a photo album off the shelf. "Her sister then. That's all right, I suppose."

Murdoch pulled his mat toward my chair and sat, still holding the album. "Cheryl models for me," he said, gesturing at his little photo studio. "She's so pure. I'm sure people have told you she's arrogant. And she is, because she doesn't understand other people. She's a vulnerable, very insecure woman. Intimidated by people with status, men of achievement, of power. Men like her father. That's why she's comfortable with me. I'm near the bottom rung of American society, so she feels superior, and it allows her to open up."

"You mean she sleeps with you?"

"She does that, too. And she talks to me, like to a friend. I don't think anyone knows her better than I do."

"And you haven't heard from her since Wednesday."

He thumbed through the pages of his album. "No, I haven't heard from her, but then I wouldn't, not outside of work. It's like an unwritten law, you see. We meet here pretty much every day during lunch break, maybe I shoot some photos, maybe we screw, we talk, and return to work as perfect strangers."

Didn't fool good ol' Gladys, I thought.

"I know Cheryl wouldn't be comfortable fessing up to our relationship, such as it is. I don't mind. I love her, but I know I don't possess her. My only hope is that she's well."

He handed me the album. It was opened to a page labeled with Wednesday's date.

"These were all taken on Wednesday," Murdoch explained. "I developed them yesterday."

The first few shots showed Cheryl fully clothed. She wore a dark blue summer dress, white high-heeled sandals, and a white knit bolero, as well as counterparts of the jewelry I'd seen on Astrid. Subsequent pictures showed Cheryl with ever fewer items of clothing; for the final photo she'd posed naked, except for the necklace, rings, and the bracelet with the amber inlay.

Murdoch was a competent photographer, for all I could tell. Then again, with Cheryl as subject, any moron off the street could've shot breathtaking pictures. The nudes in particular blew me away; Cheryl held herself with a natural grace that would've done an angel proud. There was a touch of art to these shots.

"I'm impressed, Mr. Murdoch. What've you been doing since Wednesday?"

He gave me a benevolent smile. "Days I've worked the mailroom at First Frontier. After work I've meditated and practiced the Bansuri." He pointed to a bamboo stick with some holes in it that hung on the wall to my left.

"Wednesday and Thursday nights, I teach Yoga at the Alternative Spirituality Center across the street. Rest assured, I would never do anything that might harm Cheryl."

He stood and bowed his head. "Namaste."

"Yeah, you too," I said and left. Strangely enough, I believed every word he said. Maybe I'd been doped by the incense.

***

When the call came on Sunday morning, it woke me up. Sergeant Jameson of the Orange County Sheriff's Department barked at me to get my ass down to San Clemente. He wouldn't supply any substantive information, other than that Cheryl's body had been found.

I stopped at a Starbucks to get my morning dose of joe and drank it while driving. This had to be hard on Astrid. Somehow I felt even more sympathy for Zack Murdoch though, that big, ex-con mountain of tattooed muscle. He'd be missing those lunch breaks.

Eighteen-eighty-eight Avenida Cicada was a whitewashed bungalow on a hill. You couldn't miss it, what with the squad cars, coroner's van, and mobile crime scene lab all parked in front.

A uniformed officer escorted me into the living room and introduced me to his boss. Sergeant Jameson, short, bow-legged, and square-jawed, would've made a terrific lead in a Western movie. He pointed at the body, slumped in an armchair opposite the plasma TV. With some effort, one could still make out Cheryl's features, despite the gunshot wound that disfigured the left side of her face. The corpse's appearance, not to mention the stench, left no doubt that she'd been dead for a while. I recognized her clothing and accessories from Murdoch's photos: the summerdress, silver necklace and rings, arm bracelet with the inlay matching her eyes, the white sandals. Her knit-wool bolero was draped over the back of one of the bar stools.

Crime scene techs and coroner's men were milling about like at a bazaar. Something about the picture seemed odd, but I couldn't pinpoint it.

Through the living-room's panorama window, I saw Astrid on the patio with a young couple. Everyone was crying and hugging.

"What happened?" I asked Jameson.

"If you don't mind, I'll be asking the questions."

And he did. I told him what I knew. The sergeant was a gruff, no-nonsense guy, but when I asked, he agreed to step outside. The putrid smell was getting to me.

"Now come on, Sergeant," I said after I'd filled my lungs with fresh air. "Why don't you give me the rundown? I've just lost a job, so I'd kinda like to know how that came about."

Jameson put on his aviator sunglasses. The couple on the patio, he told me, were Tommy and Hilda Cunningham. They'd returned from their European vacation this morning, only to find Cheryl, Hilda's college roommate, dead in their living room. She'd been looking in on their house once a week while they were away.

"You got a theory?"

Jameson shrugged. "Too early. We didn't find a gun, so suicide is definitely out. My money's on a robbery gone bad. The sister's putting the blame on the deceased's husband, says he'll profit from a life insurance. He seems to have his ass covered though."

"How so?"

"Got an iron-clad alibi. The Cunninghams' alarm system was disarmed at six-fourteen PM on Wednesday. We figure that's when the victim entered. Seems likely she was killed shortly after. At that time, Edwards was at his house, which Ms. Ingram has confirmed, if grudgingly."

"Right," I said. "No apparent reason for Cheryl to hang around here longer than a few minutes. But what if she did?"

Jameson shook his head. "No dice. The M.E. says death occurred no later than eleven PM on Wednesday. According to Ms. Ingram, Edwards was in his house with her from five-thirty PM until he was picked up by the Costa Mesa PD at around ten. The rest of the night he spent in jail."

***

I didn't sleep well that night. My mind was kicking some inconsistency around, without letting it break through the consciousness barrier. Was it something I'd seen, something I'd heard? At three AM, after hours of tossing and turning, I lugged myself out of bed and donned my running gear. I drove out to the Back Bay. The night air was chilly but clear. The black water surface reflected a bright full moon. It reminded me of Zack Murdoch's head.

After the first few miles of the Back Bay loop, my head began to clear. I let the events at the Cunninghams' house pass before my eyes as I willed my tired legs to eat more ground. After another mile, the epiphany came with such force I almost tripped over my own feet. Now I had to figure out what to do about it.

***

"This better be important," Astrid said as she tossed her tote onto the chair next to mine. She wore black slacks and a long-sleeved black silk blouse. Two geeks at the table across the aisle ogled her. Probably engineering students, I thought.

"Want some coffee?" I asked, gesturing toward the barista in her green apron.

Astrid shook her head. "Cut to the chase. I need to see Sergeant Jameson at eleven and get things rolling for Cheryl's funeral after that."

I took a sip of my espresso. "Sorry to hear you're so busy. I thought the widower would've taken care of the funeral arrangements."

"Yeah, right." Astrid scoffed. "All he's gonna do is pocket the life insurance. I only wish that son of a bitch didn't have such a solid alibi. I'd love to see him in prison."

"Be careful what you wish for," I said and tossed her the photo prints Zack Murdoch had made for me early that morning. "You might see more of him there than you bargained for."

She looked at the pictures, gathered them together and slapped me in the face with them. "That's just tasteless, showing me nude shots of my dead sister. I'm gonna report you to... to whoever issued your license."

The geeks at the other table looked up from their laptops and gave me what they must've thought of as tough-guy looks. I shot at them with my index finger.

"Pipe down," I said to Astrid. "I want you to look closely at those photos. They contain a clue to Cheryl's killer."

Astrid stared at me for a minute. Her lips turned pale. Then she spread the prints out on the table between us.

"Your sister had fascinating eyes." I picked a portrait from the bunch. "A deep blue, playing into green, like the Pacific Ocean. Beautiful."

Astrid arched her brows.

"The human eye is an amazing organ. They use retinal scans for identification now, did you know that? Your retina is even more uniquely associated with you than your fingerprints. The eye is very private, you might say. A private eye."

"Cute, but do you have a point?" She tapped the table with her French-manicured fingernails.

"Oh, there's a point all right," I said. "It's much less complicated than retinal imaging. In fact, it's about eye color. Yours are brown, Cheryl's were blue. Your mother gave each of you a bracelet, distinguished by the color of their inlays. Blue for Cheryl, brown for you, matching eye color."

"So?" She tried to make it sound defiant, but her voice broke and it came out as a croak.

I handed her the nude shot again. "This photo was taken at noon the day Cheryl was killed. You see her armband, here?" I pointed it out with a finger.

"She's wearing the bracelet with the amber inlay. Your bracelet. No big deal. She was a little messy, didn't pay much attention to her accessories. Probably put it on by mistake in the morning, not being used to there being two of those lying around."

Astrid's upper lip twitched. Otherwise, she sat motionless.

"Problem is," I continued, "when Cheryl's body was found, she wore her own bracelet. Now I wonder, how could that be, if you weren't together after Wednesday morning?"

"What do you mean?" She spoke so softly I had to read her lips.

I looked her straight in the eye. "You followed your sister to the Cunninghams' house and shot her. Then you exchanged the bracelets."

"That's ridiculous," she said, but her trembling lip belied her indignation. "I have a witness that I never even left Cheryl's house after six."

I nodded. "Yeah, that's a nice touch. Your histrionics about despising each other were well done. Hiring me also gave you a lot of credibility as the concerned sister. And getting Mr. Edwards booked for the night was brilliant. The husband would be the obvious suspect, of course, especially with the life policy in his name. I just wonder if he's not going to try and save his ass by admitting you weren't actually with him the whole time. You see, Edwards would've had no reason to exchange the bracelets. You, on the other hand, are emotionally attached to the piece. I can picture you standing in front of your sister's body, worried that your precious armband, a gift from your beloved mother, might be collected as evidence and unavailable to you for a long time. Better take it! Who could've known about the photos?"

"What do you want?" she whispered. "We'll have some cash from the life insurance. Cheryl's portion of our trust fund goes to me. If you're reasonable, I'm sure we can work something out between the three of us." Her eyes glowed like liquid copper as she spoke.

I shook my head. "It's over, Astrid. What I want is for you to come with me to Sergeant Jameson and make a confession. It might just save you from the chair."

"Don't be such a damned fool, Benson." She grabbed my arm with both hands. "If you drag me to the cops, nobody benefits. Look here, you can have all the insurance money, half a million bucks. How about that?"

"Your sister is dead. You killed her."

"Good riddance, Benson, I'm telling you. She was a scheming little bitch. Turned everybody against me. First my own father. Then Ryan. Did you know he was my boyfriend first? Didn't take him long to see her true nature though."

I gathered Murdoch's photos into a sheaf. From the top picture, a naked, vulnerable Cheryl Ingram looked at me. I couldn't help contrasting the beautiful features with the disfigured face of her corpse. It made my stomach turn. "Let's go," I said and took Astrid by the arm.

***

Two hours later I left the sheriff's station, alone. Cheryl's murder was solved, but I didn't feel much satisfaction. When I started my Firebird, the engine's rumble sounded like the voice of the late Reverend Ingram. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill."

I shivered, took a deep breath, and pulled off the lot.