Dalkow didn’t look much more than a high-school student himself, Eve thought. He was small, thin, with wild red hair that was spiked with mousse. He was dressed in jeans and an orange T-shirt. His left earlobe sported a tiny rhinestone earring. “I believe we can meet your schedule. It shouldn’t take long.” She glanced around the studio. A few landscapes, but most of the photos were portraits of children and teenagers. “You do very good work.”
“You bet I do. But you’re not here to hire me, are you?” He glanced at Joe. “You want to know about that creep who came here and wasted my time.” He scowled. “Just like you’re doing.”
“You’re talking about Walsh? How did he waste your time?”
“He came in here and wanted to see examples of my work. He said that he was thinking of opening a studio of his own and might want to hire me part-time. He looked at everything in sight. Then he asked me to pull out examples of past work.” His lips curled. “He was lying. He didn’t know anything about photography.”
“He didn’t specify anything in particular?” Eve asked.
“He said he’d heard I specialized in school pictures and that there was good money in it. He wanted to see all of those.”
“And you showed him?”
“Some. Then I threw him out.”
“Why?”
“I told you, he was a creep.” His lips tightened. “Look, I may not look like what you’d call— I’m my own person. I go my own way. But I take good photos, and those kids are safe with me. I know there are lots of sickos out there, and I didn’t like Walsh’s poring over all those school photos. Particularly the young kids.”
“And you reported him to the police?”
“Not then. What grounds? Suspicion? I just threw him out.” He shook his head. “But two days later, I came out of the dark room and found him going through the photos in my file cabinet. That’s when I called the police.” His lips twisted. “I thought that Walsh was going to go for me. Ugly. Real ugly. But then he apologized, said that he didn’t think I’d mind, and walked out. But I still reported him to the cops when they came.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
“One more thing. Which school pictures was Walsh looking at in that cabinet?” Eve asked.
“Brownroot Elementary.” He shook his head. “I told the cops that was where he was digging. And I kept an eye out to see if there was any fallout from his coming here.”
“No fallout?”
“Nope.” He headed for the door. “Come on. You’ll make me late. I have a reputation.”
And he also had scruples and integrity, Eve thought. She could see why he was able to overcome that bizarre appearance to become popular in his profession. “I wouldn’t think of it.” She moved toward the door. “But we may have to call you if we run across anything on which we need help.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He was locking the door. “I didn’t like Walsh. I hope you put him away.”
“So do we,” Joe said. “But first we have to find him. You don’t have any idea where he is?”
“He said he lived here in Sacramento.” He turned toward his van. “But he showed me a couple of his photos, and they weren’t cityscapes. They were just pretty vineyards and rolling hills.”
“Vineyards?”
“Uninteresting, and the composition wasn’t even that good.”
“Sonderville,” she murmured.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” He jumped in the van. “All that matters is that I protected those kids from him.”
“Yes, that’s what matters.” Eve watched the van go down the street before she turned to Joe. “I think we need to go back to that precinct and look through those records again. Walsh was obviously interested in locating a child or children in the area. You said that there was no sign that any child at Sutter Elementary had been targeted. But what about Brownroot Elementary? He was looking at those photos when Nick caught him in the act.”
“And he may not have found what he was looking for.” He took her elbow and propelled her toward their car. “And, if he did, he might not have acted. But we’ll definitely check it out.”
* * *
“There’s nothing here,” Joe said in disgust as he shut down the precinct computer two hours later. “The captain was right. No sign of any serial killings or child attacks of any kind in the city during the period that Walsh was here.”
“No.” Brownroot Elementary had been a complete failure, so they had meticulously gone through the other elementary and private schools in the area. They had found zilch there also. “I’m going to start calling other photographers and see if they had visits from Walsh.”
Forty-five minutes later, she struck pay dirt.
She turned back to Joe, excited. “Josiah Tierney Studios. Four weeks after Walsh was almost arrested, he tried again. The Tierney Studios aren’t in the city. They’re in a small town, Milsaro, north of here. Walsh asked Tierney the same thing that he asked Nick. Class pictures. Tierney wasn’t as careful as Nick. He didn’t see any harm in letting him just look at the photos.” She swallowed. “My God, I hope he was right.”
He reached for his cell phone. “Did he give you the names of the elementary schools in Milsaro?”
She nodded. “There were only three. McKeller, Davis, and Campbell. I’ll take McKeller.”
“No, I’ll have to identify myself and maybe tap one of the local law authorities to get the information I need from them. Not everyone in the school systems is as trusting as that ass Tierney.”
She leaned back in her chair and watched him go into high gear. She didn’t like this. It was driving her crazy not to be busy and help. She wanted desperately to know what mischief Walsh had been up to and was equally frantic to know that he had not been successful.
That there had not been another Jenny.
There were lots of them, Jenny had said.
But maybe in his past, maybe not here in this sunny California town.
She jumped to her feet. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. I’ll bring one for you. Call me if you need me.”
She stood at the coffee machine a long time, sipping black coffee and thinking about Walsh. Nick had thought he was an ordinary pervert, but there was nothing ordinary about him. Why had he been looking at all those photos? Did a certain feature appeal to him when he chose a victim? That could be it. She knew that some killers were drawn to a hair color or the color and shape of the eyes. There was no telling what physical feature might draw them. What had Walsh been looking for when he had taken that second risk after Nick had almost had him arrested?
“Eve.” Joe was standing in the doorway.
Her hand tightened on the cup as she saw his expression. “You found one?”
“Maybe. I can’t be sure.”
“What do you mean?” She followed him back to the desk. “Why aren’t you sure?”
“Because there was the death of a child shortly after Walsh examined those school photos Tierney took.” He pulled up the report on the computer. “An eight-year-old student from McKeller Elementary School three weeks later.” He nodded at the report. “But no foul play was suspected. Donna Prahern drowned in the pond in back of her house early one Saturday morning.”
“Then it was a coincidence. Poor little girl.”
“Except that she could swim like a fish, and no one could figure why she’d be walking along the edge of the pond by herself. The consensus was that she’d slipped on the edge of the pond and hit her head on the rocks bordering the water.”
Her gaze narrowed on his face. “But you have doubts?”
“You know what a suspicious bastard I am. It was too close to the time that Walsh was doing his search.” He was typing into the computer. “So I decided to check and see if there were any other curious coincidences.” He pulled up another report. “Candace Julard, another eight-year-old girl. Another unfortunate accident. She died of smoke inhalation a month after Donna Prahern’s death, when Candace’s mother’s house caught fire from faulty wiring. Again, no foul play suspected; her mother also died in the fire.”
“Candace went to the same school?”