Or was there? I found another switch and flicked it, this time getting white light.
There was a strip of negatives in the enlarger’s holder, and more of them, in protective plastic, spread out on the light table. In one corner, I spotted a file cabinet with its drawers open: Inside were folders full of prints, some of which had been emptied out onto the floor. Ransacked, just like downstairs.
But where on earth had Snelling been while this had been taking place?
I put my gun into my purse and, leaving the light on, went back downstairs to search the bottom floor. As I passed through the living room, something caught my eye-a crumpled piece of photographic paper, lying on top of a disordered pile of canceled checks. I squatted down and reached for it. It was damp, as if it had recently been pulled out of the print washer.
The picture was of The Tidepools. It must have been taken on a day when it was going to storm, because there were dark clouds in the sky and the trees looked bent from a strong wind. It was a haunting photo and artistically I could appreciate it-but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was doing here in the living room. After studying it for a moment, I looked up at the stairway, then went back to the darkroom.
The other prints in the washer were similar-all of The Tidepools and all taken on the same storm-threatening day. They told me nothing. Neither did the photos that were spilled out on the floor. They were all of Snelling’s clients, many of whom I recognized as celebrities. Finally I went back to the door, shut it and put out the lights, and then found the switch on the enlarger.
The image of the negative in the holder blazed up on the board beneath the lens. It was out of focus and, after some fumbling, I corrected it. Since the blacks and whites were reversed, it would have been difficult for anyone who couldn’t read negatives to distinguish who the people were.
A bearded, dark-haired Abe Snelling-Andy Smith, as he had been known then-stood with his arms around two women. One was Susan Tellenberg; the other I had never seen before, but I guessed it was Barbara Smith. She bore a close resemblance to her sister. In the background, I could make out a cypress grove, probably one of those on the grounds at The Tidepools.
So what did all of this tell me? That Snelling had been taking a nostalgic look at his past?
I took the holder out of the enlarger and examined the other negatives on the strip. They were variations of the same pose. I wondered who had held the camera or if Snelling had used a timing device and jumped into the picture at the last second. But did it matter? The negatives told me nothing except what the dead woman had looked like. I reached under the edge of the light table and felt for a switch so I could see what else Snelling had been working on.
The white Plexiglas glowed softly. A magnifying loupe lay to one side, and I picked it up so I could see the negatives more clearly. In one of the protective plastic sheets there were more of The Tidepools and more of Susan and Barbara. Snelling must have taken his camera when he fled Port San Marco, with this roll of film inside it. I turned to the other plastic holder. In it were scenes of San Francisco. I leaned over them with interest, realizing one was the negative of the photo that had made Snelling famous.
There, in reverse black-and-white, was the anguished face of the restaurant proprietor’s wife. And the still face of her husband. There were twelve shots that must have been taken in rapid succession, and I marveled at how Snelling had known exactly which one to pick to give him that essential quality of pain and horror.
But there were more shots that had been taken that day. Shots that, by the sequence of the numbers printed on the film, had been taken before these. They showed the rest of the cafe, the striped umbrellas, the little flowers in vases on the tables.
And they showed another face I recognized.
I stared down, gripping the edges of the light table. That face was the reason Snelling had stopped at the Blue Owl that day and inadvertently become famous.
I didn’t have time to search Snelling’s files for prints of these, and I was fairly certain they wouldn’t be there anyway. The person who had ransacked the house would have taken them. But the negatives lying on the light table hadn’t meant anything to the ransacker. Someone unfamiliar with the photographic process wouldn’t be able to read them or realize they were there because Snelling had been going over them, looking at them through the magnifying loupe, getting ready to print them. Before…
Before what?
I whirled and ran from the darkroom and down two flights to the lower level. I glanced in to the first door off the hall and saw a bedroom furnished in light-colored Danish modern. Snelling’s, probably. A couple of suitcases stood on the floor by the dresser, and a third was open on a chair. It was partially packed. I went inside and turned on a light. There was a thick film of dust-due to the nearby demolition-around it. The suitcase had not been packed today, and most likely Snelling had been taking things out rather than putting them in.
So he’d been prepared to run. What had changed his mind?
I left the room and hurried down the hall to the bedroom Jane Anthony had occupied. It was the same as when I had last seen it, except the phone book was on the bed, open to the notations on its front pages. I leaned over it, reading them more carefully than I had the last time I’d come here.
It leaped out at me, the final fact that made everything come clear. I would make a telephone call to confirm it.
But I was already certain I knew.
Chapter 19
By the time I got back to Salmon Bay, I was physically exhausted. The tiredness I’d felt on the trip north was nothing to the bone-weariness I felt now. My arms and shoulders ached from steering; my right leg was stiff from pressing the accelerator; even my eyes burned from peering into the darkness through the headlights’ glare.
But my mind was alert, primed by questions answered and suspicions confirmed-and by fear.
A dark green VW was parked near the end of the semi-circular driveway at The Tidepools. I drove past and left the MG several yards down the highway, then walked back and looked at the other car. It was pulled in at an odd angle, its rear end sticking out and nearly blocking the drive.
The Tidepools itself seemed unnaturally quiet now, at a little after ten. The front wing, where the reception area and offices were, was dark except for small security lights set at intervals under the eaves. They did little more than illuminate the juniper shrubs that screened the windows. Brighter light shone from the rear wings where the patients presumably were, but even these were filtered through a thin sea mist.
I hesitated, checking the gun in my purse, then went up the drive to the VW. Its door was unlocked, the window on the driver’s side partly rolled down. In the glove compartment I found a registration made out to Abe Snelling at his Potrero Hill address.
As I’d suspected, Snelling had come to the place that-as indicated by the prints I’d found in his darkroom-had been very much on his mind all afternoon. And I thought I knew why he’d come. But where was he now? From the way he’d left the car, he’d taken no pains to cover his presence. But, then, he didn’t have to; the people here had probably never heard of Abe Snelling. Even if they had, they would never connect the car registration with Andy Smith. And I was pretty sure Snelling had arrived in a hurry and not planned to stay long.
But when had Snelling gotten here? He’d left his house early enough for both the ransacker and me to search it thoroughly. And for both of us to guess where he might be headed.
I looked around at the three other cars in the driveway. Two were station wagons with the name of the hospice painted on their doors. The other was a new-looking Jaguar XKE. All three cars had been in the drive on my previous visits.