Jake took his digital camera out and put it on the table. He turned it on and set the viewfinder upright. It showed the footprints on the beach, dark and random indentations. Gary came back with three different photographs in his hand, printed on large floppy sheets.
“It was a good experiment.”
“Why do they look like this?”
Each photograph was printed in brilliant color. The yellows looked like chrome and the blues were like the side of a freshly painted car. But they all had a fisheye perspective, centered on Charlotte’s face. Gary shrugged.
“That was my special lens. A fisheye lens. I hadn’t used one in years and thought this would be a good chance.”
“Great,” Jake said. “We need to find a clue and we have a fisheye.”
“You can still see the room.”
He could. In all the photographs, everything in the room seemed to converge on Charlotte’s pale face. She had no expression. Her mouth was flat. Not smiling. Not frowning. She was frozen there, inside the fisheye, and Jake didn’t know how to thaw her out.
“Now, honestly, I have no idea how to go about this.”
“What do you want to find?”
“I want something that tells us what happened.”
“How much do you need?”
“Not much. We just have to have something. Something that shows that Charlotte didn’t die of natural causes.”
“Something.”
“If we don’t, I’ll just decide that she was just crazy, that it was just her time. Unless…”
He stared into the photograph and started making a list. Her hair, her eyes, the fabric of her purple dress. Nothing. He didn’t know what she’d looked like when she died, so he couldn’t infer anything from that. He tried indexing each item in the room, but it all seemed obvious and plain.
“What about this?” Gary asked. He held Jake’s digital camera, which was showing the pictures of the beach.
“It’s the beach. Where she was found. I took a picture of the footprints, but it’s not like we know anything about Charlotte’s brand of shoes. And they didn’t find anything else on the beach.”
“I see why they have me do your photography.” He let out a whistle. “Even if we knew her shoes, we wouldn’t be able to tell which ones were hers. All these footprints are the same…”
Jake looked back at the fisheye picture again. There she was, in the center, her old life spiraling around her. The duck her husband made her. The coffee table where she read. The blinds she’d been afraid to open. The pills she always took. And then he saw it.
“Gary.”
“Yes?”
“You’re right. The footprints do all look the same.”
“So?”
“That’s the problem.”
He ran his finger along the trail of color in the fisheye photograph. Away from Charlotte’s purple dress and around her body. He pointed.
“Now look at the tracks.”
“I see them.”
“So, everyone says that Charlotte just went on a walk. She went for one last stroll on the beach because she knew it was her time. Well, Gary, these tracks show a lot of people walking on the beach.”
“So?”
“Right here,” Jake said and tapped the picture. “You saw her go from the living room to the kitchen. If Charlotte took a walk on the beach, how did she do it without making tracks? The tracks she would have to make?”
“But we can’t tell which shoes are hers.”
“No,” Jake said. “Where are the tracks from this? They didn’t find it on the beach.”
Swirled in color, next to Charlotte’s head, Jake held his finger still. He was pointing at Charlotte’s walker.
CHAPTER 19
“We solved it!” Gary shouted.
“Not exactly. All we know is that Charlotte was taken to the beach to die. Or she’d been killed already. We don’t know what actually happened.”
“Once we have that, we’ll be finished. We’ll be heroes!”
“We don’t know how it happened, either.”
“And then, a front page story!”
“Not quite. We also don’t know why it happened.”
Gary looked at the picture again, Charlotte still sitting in the swirl. He turned it over.
“Then how do you begin?”
“First, we have to find out Charlotte’s name.”
“You mean you think she has an alias?”
“I wish. I just realized I don’t know her last name.”
“Neither do I.” Gary frowned and silently picked up his cane. Febreeze and garlic wafted into the room. He came back and dropped the Yellow Pages on the table.
“We’ll call.”
“It’s not that easy. We can’t let anyone know that we’re looking into this case.”
“I know.” Gary winked. “I have a plan.”
He turned through the phone book and found the entry for “Sunset Cove.” He started dialing on a cordless phone.
“Gary, wait! We can’t do that.”
“No no. It’s cordless. It works without a wire. It’s amazing!”
“I mean we can’t call without knowing what we’ll say.”
“Jacob?”
“Yes Gary?”
“I forgot my plan.”
The phone was already ringing. Jake ripped the phone away from Gary and put it to his ear. It was Mel’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello, Sunset Cove. How may I help you?”
“Yes, hello.” He paused and made his voice deep, flattening any trace of a New York accent. He was Nebraska now. He looked at Gary, who shrugged and reached for the phone. Jake held on to it.
“I was calling about…my aunt Charlotte. I heard that there was bad news.”
“I’m sorry,” Mel said. Her professional voice sounded smoother. Colder. “She passed away two nights ago.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“I’m afraid I cannot release personal information over the phone, sir. But the designee is visiting sometime this week. She will be able to pass any information on to you.”
“I see.” He waited. “I…just want to make sure. I haven’t heard from my cousin in a while. I can’t believe that it’s the same Charlotte. My aunt Charlotte. She seemed so well when I last spoke with her.”
“I can’t release specifics, I’m afraid. Her medical condition has to remain private.”
He knew her medical condition: bad. Gary was pulling at his hair, trying to listen. Jake ignored him.
“Sir, is there anything else I can help you with?”
“I just can’t believe it’s really my aunt.”
“I know these are trying times.”
“I just don’t believe it’s her. That it’s Aunt Charlotte.” Then he got it. “It must be a different one. It can’t be my Charlotte.”
“Your aunt is Charlotte Ward, correct?”
He wrote it down in the notebook and circled her name.
“I’m just ashamed I didn’t know already.”
It was true.
“I understand.” Her voice got warmer.
“I have to go.” He hung up before she could reply. He handed Gary the phone and looked at the name in his notebook.
“We got it. We got her name.”
He breathed out and brushed back his hair. Gary laid the phone down on the table and looked at the notebook.
“Charlotte Ward is her name. Will that help you?”
“It should.” His heart was still beating quickly. Mel couldn’t have known. Gary arched his eyebrows.
“That made my nerves tingle.”
“Mine too.” This was what being aggressive was like.
“What will her name help with?”
“I don’t think it will give us a lot. I’ll search for her on the internet, but I didn’t even see a computer in Charlotte’s room.”
“Then what will it do?”
“Not much. I don’t think we can use it with her pharmacist. Or the hospital either. I’d like to find out why she died, or what medications she was on. But I don’t think a fake voice will work as well for more official matters.”