When she had everything ready she turned off the lights, closed the heavy black curtain as an extra precaution against light, and went to work.
* * *
An hour and twenty minutes later she was in the office of the photo editor of the Adelina Beach Courier. Eddy Banks—middle-aged, reeking of cigar smoke, and endowed with extremely poor taste in clothes—studied the prints of the Carstairs murder.
“These are damn good,” he said. “Her fans are gonna be in tears tomorrow when they see this shot.” He narrowed his eyes. “Carstairs will go on the front page. I’ll use the house for page two. Nice bit of atmosphere. Did you give either of these to one of the syndicates?”
“No,” Vivian said. “They’re all yours if you want them. But these aren’t my five-dollar celebrity-seen-in-a-nightclub shots. I want seventy-five for those two pictures.”
“I’ll give you thirty bucks for both.”
“Fifty.”
“Consider ’em sold.” Eddy eyed her. “These photos are going to go national. You ought to demand a photo credit as well as the cash.”
“You know the last thing I want is to have my name associated with newspaper photos.”
“Still dreaming of making it big in the art world, huh?” Eddy shook his head. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Because I’m not good enough to be an art photographer?”
“Hell, no.” Eddy snorted. “Because the art world is never going to take photography seriously, especially not the kind you do.”
“Times are changing.”
“Some things never change.” Eddy took another look at the picture of Clara Carstairs on the sofa. “She was a real beauty, wasn’t she? She looks so young. Downright tragic. Do the cops have any leads?”
“I don’t think so, not unless Archer found something at the scene tonight. From what I could see it was the same setup as the Washfield and Attenbury murders. No signs of a struggle. Celebrity victim in a dramatic pose. Bloodstained antique dagger at the scene.”
Eddy shook his head. “Can’t be that many expensive old daggers around.”
“According to the cops, none of the museums or antiques galleries in the Los Angeles area have reported any thefts of daggers. Whoever is doing this probably has access to a private collection.”
“Sounds like it.”
“He must be wealthy, too,” Vivian added. “Rich enough not to care about leaving a valuable antique at the scene of a murder.”
“Good point.” Eddy planted his cigar in his mouth. “Well, looks like we’ve got our headline.”
“Clara Carstairs Murdered by Dagger Killer, Police Baffled for the front-page shot,” Vivian suggested. “Mansion of Doom for the second photo?”
“You’re getting real good at the news photo business.”
“I’ve been hanging around you too long, Eddy.”
Eddy glanced at the picture again and shook his head. “Like a scene from one of her own movies.”
Vivian studied the print. Her inner vision stirred and whispered to her. There are always secrets. You just have to look for them.
“Yes,” she said. “It almost looks like a scene from one of her own films.”
Secrets.
Chapter 2
Exhaustion finally hit on the drive back to the beach house. Vivian parked the speedster in the small attached garage and let herself in through the kitchen door.
She headed for the bedroom. The night shift was over. She needed sleep because she had a busy day ahead.
She kicked off the slip-ons, undressed, and fell into bed. She contemplated the shadowed ceiling while she reviewed her schedule. She had a studio portrait booked at ten o’clock. Like her crime-and-fire pictures, portraits were bread-and-butter business, albeit far more respectable. Successful art photographers often did portraits. Charged a lot for them, too.
She had cleared her afternoon to devote to her art. A model was due at two for the next picture in her new series.
It took about twenty minutes of staring at the ceiling before she abandoned the attempt to sleep. She was tired but every time she closed her eyes she saw the scene of the Carstairs murder. As Eddy had pointed out, it could have been a stage set from one of the actress’s own movies.
No, not a stage set. The lighting and the sight lines were not right, not for a movie.
But they were perfect for a photograph.
She pushed the covers aside, stepped into her slippers, pulled on a robe, and made her way down the hall to the living room. She paused to turn on a lamp.
Shortly after moving in a few months ago she had converted the front room into a studio. Lights, cords, tripods, and a variety of props littered the space. Black cases containing her precious lenses, light meters, film, flashbulbs, and all the rest of the equipment required for her work were lined up against one wall. Backdrops and swaths of fabric were suspended from a series of movable rails. A large, freestanding mirror stood in a corner. She had discovered early on that it was easier to get a good portrait if the sitter could see his or her own reflection.
She left the studio, went into the small dining room that now served as her office, and switched on a lamp. The table was covered with folders filled with photos and newspaper clippings. Most were her own work but some were pictures taken by other photographers that she deemed worth a closer study. Photography was an art. There was always something to learn, always a new way to see beneath the surface. A way to discover and reveal secrets.
She opened the file labeled WASHFIELD MURDER and dumped the contents onto the table. Leonard Washfield had been a wealthy and well-connected socialite. The family money had come from the railroads. Leonard had been born and raised in San Francisco but he had moved to Hollywood after graduating from college. He had financed a couple of successful motion pictures and soon became known for his extravagant parties. He had been photographed at the hottest nightclubs, where he always seemed to have a beautiful actress on his arm. A month ago his dramatic death had been front-page news.
For a moment she stood looking down at the little pile of photos and clippings. There was a certain sameness to them because the photographers were mostly using the same kind of camera and had shot mostly from a distance of about ten feet. But there were some pictures, including her own, that had taken advantage of the unique lighting at the scene.
After a while she picked up the folder labeled ATTENBURY MURDER and examined the pictures. Sarah Attenbury had been a glittering fixture on the Los Angeles social scene. Invitations to her parties were coveted by everyone who moved in high-flying circles in Hollywood and Beverly Hills.