Double Image

by David Morrell

  “I told you to shut up!”

  “What’s going on?” a male voice demanded.

  Coltrane shifted his gaze as Nolan pivoted toward the front of the minivans.

  A uniformed security guard studied them nervously. He was in his early thirties, tense-faced, rail-thin compared to Nolan, and shorter. He drew a walkie-talkie from a holster on his belt. “I had a complaint about a disturbance.” His voice was unsteady. “Break it up.”

  “LAPD.” Nolan already had his police wallet out of his windbreaker, opening it, showing his badge. “I just apprehended a suspect. He tried to get away.”

  The security guard narrowed his eyes and assessed the badge. “LAPD?” He looked relieved. “I wasn’t sure what was . . . Do you need any help?”

  “I’ve got everything under control,” Nolan said. “You can go back to what you were doing. I’ll handle this.”

  “Right.” The guard stepped back. “I won’t get in the way.”

  Nolan waited until the guard’s footsteps receded to a faint echo, followed by the thump of a door closing.

  He pointed rigidly at Coltrane. “That was smart of you not to contradict me.”

  Keeping a careful distance, Coltrane wavered to his feet. His head throbbed. “Why would I? This doesn’t involve anybody but you and me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. It involves you and me and Tash. Don’t go near her again or I’ll put you in the hospital. Is that plain enough for you?”

  “Totally.”

  “Then we understand each other.” Nolan turned and walked away.

  Propped against the concrete wall, Coltrane held his stomach. His chest heaved. He fought the impulse to be sick. He listened to Nolan’s heavy footsteps, heard them stop, heard a car door, an engine, and tires squealing.

  Slowly, he pushed away from the wall. His chest continued to heave, no longer because his breath had been knocked out—but because of anger.

  6

  I S THERE SOMETHING YOU FORGOT TO TELL ME ABOUT C ARL N OLAN ?” Coltrane demanded.

  It was ten to four. He was using a pay phone at the outdoor pedestrian mall on Third Street in Santa Monica. Despite his injuries, he had managed to get to the mall before Tash arrived. He had photographed the crowd from as many angles as he could without drawing attention to himself. From a discreet position, he had watched Tash and her escorts approach the clothing boutique and enter. He had crossed the promenade and gotten shots of the crowd on the opposite side. With all of his obligations taken care of, he had then done what he had been determined to do since Nolan had delivered his final warning and stormed away—phone Tash at the store and find out what in God’s name was going on.

  “Mitch? What are you talking about?” Tash’s voice was taut with confusion.

  “Nolan seems to think that you and he are an item. He did his best to beat the hell out of me to prove his point.”

  “He what? Oh my God.”

  Down the mall from the store, Coltrane warily studied the crowd. “For all I know, he’s in the neighborhood, and he’s going to beat the hell out of me again to make sure the lesson sticks. So if it isn’t too damned much trouble, would you mind telling me what’s going on?”

  “This is terrible. I never imagined he’d . . . Are you hurt?”

  “Not as much as I’m confused. Do you have a relationship with him?”

  “No. . . . It’s complicated. I can’t talk about this on the phone.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to talk to me about him sometime.”

  “I will. Soon. I promise.”

  “Could he be your stalker?”

  “Carl? No. He can’t be. I didn’t meet him until a week after I started getting the letters and phone calls. He didn’t know me until then. He couldn’t have started this.”

  “Then maybe he’s continuing it, making himself indispensable. Maybe he’s the one who bugged your house and started the fire last night. No.” Coltrane immediately corrected himself. “If Nolan did those things, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to come at me and risk drawing suspicion. But if he isn’t your stalker and he didn’t plant the microphones, how did he know I was going to be at the Beverly Center?”

  “Walt told him.”

  “Walt?”

  “After you dropped me off at the sheriff’s station, Carl phoned and asked to be brought up-to-date. Walt explained the plan we were trying. There’s nothing mysterious about how Carl knew where you’d be. It’s not like he had to be listening to the microphone in my living room.”

  “I was sure . . .” Head pounding, Coltrane couldn’t resist going back to the same insistent question. “Why does he think I’m interfering with something you have going with him?”

  “Please.” Tash sounded self-conscious. “There are people here. We have to meet so I can explain. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m thinking.”

  “It’s innocent. You’re going to have to take my word until we see each other.”

  “When? You won’t be done at the South Coast Plaza until maybe eight o’clock. That means you won’t get home until around eleven. I need to develop the photographs so you can study them and see if you recognize anybody. That’s going to take until . . . Why don’t you save time and come to my house?”

  “Love to.”

  “Your bodyguards can leave you there and—”

  “Hold it. Does Carl know where you live?”

  “Yes.” Coltrane remembered Nolan’s long wait at Packard’s house while he himself had gone to the Maynard ranch instead of leading Ilkovic to the trap that Nolan had prepared.

  “He might watch your house in case I show up,” Tash said. “I don’t want any more trouble because of me.”

  “I can deal with—”

  “It’s my problem,” Tash insisted. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll phone him as soon as I get home tonight. I’ll settle this. Believe me, he won’t bother you again.”

  “When you finish talking to him, phone me. I want to know what this is all about.”

  “I promise. You’ll understand everything.” Tash hesitated. “I can’t wait to see you.”

  Frustrated, Coltrane listened to the click as she hung up. Slowly, he replaced the receiver. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. Tash and her escorts would soon be coming out of the shop. He had to be ready to photograph the crowd as she appeared and walked toward the parking lot. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.

  7

  P REOCCUPIED , he worked in Packard’s darkroom, filling the time until Tash would phone him. Having purchased the necessary equipment and chemicals on his way back from the South Coast Plaza, he processed the negatives that he had taken at the clothing boutiques. The next step, that of making eight-by-ten enlargements, would be not only time-consuming but tedious. These were snapshots, after all, not composed artistic images. There wasn’t any creative challenge in developing them or stimulation in debating how to manipulate and crop them for the maximum aesthetic impact. Just get the job done, he told himself.

  In this case, a one-hour photo-processing company would probably have done as well, but following Randolph Packard’s example, Coltrane had never used a photo-processing company in his career. Besides, there was always the chance that the film he surrendered would be lost or damaged somehow, and he was too impatient to see the results of today’s effort to take that risk, not to mention be forced to have Tash go through today’s dangerous charade for a second time.

  His thought about Packard made him imagine the countless times that Packard had come into this darkroom and done what Coltrane was now doing, transferring prints from the developing tray to a tray filled with chemicals that stopped the development process. He gently agitated the stopping solution, careful to rotate the prints from top to bottom to make sure that the stopping chemicals touched them evenly. Then he shifted the prints to a tray filled with chemicals that fixed the image on the paper, making it permanent. He repeated
the process of agitation and rotation, finally placing the prints in a tray filled with slowly running water that would wash the chemicals from them.

  He imagined Packard standing in this same spot, lovingly developing the photographs that he had taken of Rebecca Chance. Indeed, he could almost sense Packard within him as he gave in to the irresistible urge to make prints from a different negative entirely, from the film that had been in the camera that he had taken to Tash’s house the previous day. Had Packard felt what he now felt as he made an enlargement and carried the eight-by-ten-inch photographic paper to the developing tray, holding his breath as he gently agitated the solution? Had Packard exhaled as Rebecca Chance’s features appeared before him, just as Tash’s identical features now came to life before Coltrane?

  The alluring posture of the two women as they emerged from the ocean was identical. True, Tash wore a formfitting diver’s suit, whereas Rebecca Chance had a more revealing wet, clinging bathing suit. But for all that, they were the same, just as Coltrane felt eerily that he and Packard were the same. Both loving the same woman. Making love to the same woman—in the same bed.

  The phone rang, its jangle startling. Despite his anticipation, Coltrane had become so absorbed in Tash’s image that he had stopped thinking about when she would call. He jerked his head toward the phone that he had brought from the kitchen and plugged into a jack in the darkroom. As much as he wanted to grab it, he couldn’t bear letting Tash’s image be ruined by keeping it too long in the chemicals. Quickly, he removed it from the fixing solution, shook fluid off it, and set the print in the washing tray.

  By then, the phone had rung two more times. In a rush, he picked it up.

  “I’ve been waiting for your call. How did it go?” he asked.

  The person on the other end didn’t answer right away. The voice was faint. “Somehow I suspect I’m not the one whose call you’ve been waiting for.”

  “. . . Jennifer?”

  “I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.”

  Coltrane felt a weight in his stomach. “How are you?”

  She swallowed, as if trying to suppress emotion. “How do you think?”

  “I meant to phone you today.”

  “But you didn’t,” Jennifer said.

  “I couldn’t. Something interfered.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I wanted to explain about the misunderstanding last night.”

  “Oh?” Jennifer’s voice was strained. “What misunderstanding is that?”

  “Why I was with Tash instead of with you at your parents’ house.”

  “I’m not sure there was a misunderstanding. I think I understood very well.”

  “We have to talk.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Jennifer . . .”

  “Get it over with. Talk.”

  “I . . .”

  “Or maybe this isn’t a good time. Maybe I’m interrupting something.”

  “No. I’m alone.”

  “Then why don’t you let me in? I’m using a car phone. I’m outside your house.”

  8

  J ENNIFER LOOKED SMALL IN THE DARKNESS . In place of last night’s Armani dress, she was wearing faded jeans, an orange Southern California Magazine sweatshirt, and a matching baseball cap—the same outfit she had worn the day she set out with Coltrane to find Rudolph Valentino’s Falcoln Lair. The memory made him ache.

  “Hi.”

  “. . . Hi.”

  “You’re sure it’s safe to come in?” Jennifer’s eyes looked red, as if she’d been crying.

  “The coast is clear.”

  She entered uneasily. The way she peered around made it seem that everything was strange to her, the house unfamiliar.

  “Can I get you something?”

  “Yeah, a little arsenic sounds good.”

  Coltrane didn’t know what to say to that and used the motion of closing and locking the door to mask his awkwardness.

  “I’ll settle for scotch.”

  Coltrane couldn’t help remembering that scotch was what Tash had wanted the previous night. Reaching the kitchen seemed to take forever. But at least it was motion; at least it, too, masked his awkwardness, as did preparing her drink.

  “You’re not going to have one with me?” Jennifer asked.

  “No. I’ve got a lot of work to do in the darkroom, and I don’t want to get sleepy.”

  “This is tough enough as it is. I’m not sure I can get through this if you make me drink alone.”

  Coltrane’s heart went out to her. “Of course. Why not? Let’s have a drink together.” He got out another glass, poured the scotch, added ice, and put in some water, more motions for which he was grateful.

  He raised his glass and clicked it against hers. “Cheers.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe ‘Here’s mud in your eye.’ But definitely not ‘Cheers.’” Jennifer took a long swallow, made a face, as if the drink was too strong, and looked at him. She was standing exactly where Tash had stood the previous night. “Talk.”

  “I’m not sure how to begin.”

  “As long as it’s the truth, however you tell it will be fine. I’ll make it easy for you. The way you looked at her last night—are you in love with her?”

  Coltrane glanced at his hands.

  Jennifer nodded in discouragement. “You fell in love with Rebecca Chance’s photographs. Then you fell in love with Rebecca Chance’s look-alike.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Of course. You’re a complicated man. Is she really Rebecca Chance’s granddaughter? Is that why she looks so uncannily like her?”

  “That’s my suspicion,” Coltrane said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  Jennifer took another long swallow and shuddered. “Well, as I told you on New Year’s Eve, I can’t compete with a woman who’s that beautiful. Not with a ghost. Really, you should have called me today. You should have put me out of my misery.”

  “I never meant to . . . I had a good reason for not calling you.”

  “Make me believe you weren’t planning to dump me without bothering to let me know.”

  “I . . . Can I show you some photographs?”

  “I don’t think I could bear to look at more pictures of her.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Coltrane said. “These are different. Trust me. You’ll understand what I mean when you look at them.”

  “Trust you,” Jennifer said hollowly.

  9

  C OLTRANE ENTERED THE DARKROOM AHEAD OF J ENNIFER . Before she could see the print of Tash in the diver’s suit, he used tongs to turn the print upside down in the washing tray. He hoped that she hadn’t noticed what he was doing, that her attention was directed toward where he pointed, toward prints that were attached by clamps to a nylon cord, drying.

  He turned on the overhead lights.

  “Crowd scenes?” Jennifer sounded puzzled.

  “Those were taken at the Beverly Center.”

  “But . . .” Jennifer turned to him, more confused. “Why would you take them? So many. The compositions are clumsy. Chaotic.”

  “I wasn’t trying for an aesthetic arrangement. I just shot what I saw.”

  “Is this some new direction you’re taking? I hope not. These can’t compare with the photographs you took after you met Packard, before all the trouble started.”

  “It’s a different kind of project.”

  “Different?” Jennifer looked back at the enlargements, walking along, paying closer attention. “Oh.” She had finally seen Tash among the chaos. “Even in a crowd, she stands out.” Jennifer sounded puzzled. “But she doesn’t seem aware she’s being photographed. It’s almost as if . . .” Frowning, she faced him again. “You were following her?”

  “Actually, I’ve been ahead of her.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s going to take awhile to explain.”

  Whe
n he finished, Jennifer shook her head in dismay. “Ilkovic wasn’t enough for you? You have to get yourself involved in a similar situation?”

  “It’s not the same. This time, I’m not the one being stalked.”

  “Unless you count Nolan. The way you describe him, he’s been dealing with stalkers so long that he became one.”

  “Nolan will calm down once Tash makes him understand there’s nothing between them.”

  “But why did he think there was something between them in the first place?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Coltrane said. “Tash told me she’s going to explain.”

  Jennifer took one more look at the photographs, then another look at him. “I give up. I won’t waste any more of your time.”

  “We’ve been through a lot together. I want to make sure everything’s right between us.”

  “That isn’t going to happen, Mitch. Just because I want some closure on this, that doesn’t mean everything’s going to be right between us. And don’t you dare say ‘I hope we can still be friends.’”

  Coltrane nodded.

  “She owns more stores in San Francisco and San Diego?” Jennifer said. “And that doesn’t count the other investments she didn’t specify. She’s not only rich—she’s drop-dead gorgeous? You certainly got lucky.”

  Coltrane shrugged, awkward.

  “How did she get the money?”

  “I don’t know. Her mother died a couple of years ago. Maybe it was an inheritance.”

  “How did her mother get so much money?”

  “I have no idea,” Coltrane said. “I didn’t feel it was any of my business.”

  “Well, the two of you are certainly going to have a lot to talk about. I won’t say I hope it works out for you, because that’s not the way I feel.” Jennifer hesitated, mustering the strength to continue. “But I will say this—I hope you don’t get hurt.” She blinked, unsettled.

  “Jennifer . . .”

  “I’d better go home.” A tear trickled down her cheek.

  They walked upstairs to the front door.

  “Good-bye.”