1 Depth of Field

by Audrey Claire

  “I’ve confirmed your meeting with Alvin Aston was probably chance.”

  “Probably?” I settled back into my seat and crossed one leg over the other. Then I got right to the point. “I want to help you with the investigation.”

  “You are a civilian.”

  “The police use civilian consultants all the time.”

  “When needed,” he shot back. “Besides, I can’t involve you when you’re a suspect.”

  I frowned and sat forward. “I had nothing to gain by Alvin’s death. You said yourself, you know our meeting was chance.”

  Teetering on a tirade, my temper bubbling higher, I came to an abrupt halt and fell silent. Spencer had been feeling me out. As he said, he could tell when I was lying, and it occurred to me that he was laying aside the last of his reservations when it came to me. While I came to this conclusion, it didn’t lessen my annoyance. I knew I was innocent.

  “Do you have a forensics photographer?” I inquired.

  He didn’t appear startled by my question, which meant he had done a thorough background check on me. “One of the deputies took a class.”

  I laughed. “I’m sure you know I worked with the police in New York for about three years in that role. I’ve seen it all. That’s part of the reason I came here, so I wouldn’t keep seeing it all. Anyway, I can help you, Spencer.”

  “I’m sure you can.” Was there a slight pause after this assertion? “However, we’ve taken all the photos of the scene, and there are no new cases requiring detailed photography at this time.”

  I grumbled beneath my breath. “It’s obvious someone went through my pictures.”

  “Is it?”

  I clenched my hands in my lap. “Yes, they were everywhere, even on top of the body, and just like you said, Alvin was clutching my photo when he died. You need someone with an eye for detail going through the pictures with you.”

  He started to speak, but I rushed on, selling my case.

  “Someone who knows what she’s looking for.”

  This time he narrowed his eyes at me. “Go on.”

  “I know those pictures because I took them, and I was there with every model. I will know if pictures are missing too.” My claims were lofty. Sure I had an eye for details. I had to in my line of work, but in a single shoot, I might take three hundred to seven hundred pictures. I didn’t keep them all, of course, and many were duplicates with minute changes in lighting and positioning. However, since we were dealing with the citizens of Briney Creek, things should be easy enough.

  “You present a convincing case,” Spencer said, amused.

  I raised my hands, palms facing up. “I’m determined. The sooner this mess is dealt with the sooner I can get back to normal. I don’t like feeling helpless in a situation such as this, and I won’t ever allow…”

  I clamped my lips together, not wanting to bring up the past or refer to it. Spencer noticed, but I blew out a breath of relief that he didn’t comment. He probably wanted to know more about what happened between Colin and me but I wasn’t ready to discuss it with him.

  “All right.”

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  He stood up. “I said I agree. Stay put. I’ll pull what we took from the scene from evidence.”

  I couldn’t believe it had been that easy, and when Spencer left the office, I fidgeted. To think any second, I might review photos and find a murderer among them. Heck, I might have chitchatted with one earlier that morning. Having spoken to half the town in the Hole, it wasn’t unlikely. Yet, the thought produced goose bumps on my arms and made it impossible to stay seated.

  I paced the tiny office, hugging myself. Sure, I had taken crime scene photos for years. I had seen dead bodies, but at some point along the way, I had detached myself as the policemen must do. I had seen them as subjects, dismissed the meaning of the gore and violence. I had no need back then to interpret what I saw or give it an artistic spin. Just point and click, my unconscious eye for detail kicked in and helped me to include what needed to be in the photos.

  Then came the day my brother-in-law betrayed my precious sister and me. Everything changed. I couldn’t look at murder scenes the same, and even if I could, the police had no desire to work with me. My name was cleared, but I had associated with a criminal. I had loved a killer. When I found Alvin Aston, all the betrayal and fear came flooding back, sending me into shock. I didn’t relish my new little world being destroyed, so I had to help fix it.

  The door opened, and Spencer reappeared carrying a portable file box. He set it on his desk and used a key from his pocket to unlock it. The key reminded me of my shop. “I spoke with Ollie Sandstone about the key to my shop. He said the key has never left his supervision. I also spoke with my landlord. He claims no one but him and Ollie had a copy, and his is still with the others to the various buildings he owns in town.”

  Spencer looked up from the file box. “You’ve been asking around? That’s not a good idea, Makayla.”

  I bristled. “I haven’t been ‘asking around’ as you put it. I talked to two people that had to do with my studio.”

  He eyed me, and I hoped my trying to question Susan and her friends didn’t count enough in my own mind to reflect as a lie on my face. I hadn’t gotten very far, after all.

  Spencer held up a key. “The locks have been changed, and now I’m the only one with a key. When I’ve finished my investigation and determined you’re safe, I’ll give it to you.”

  “When you’re finished? Who knows how long that will be?” At his frown, I bit my tongue. “I’m sure you’re great at your job, but I need to get back to work. No one is paying me as long as I can’t take photos. All of my equipment is in my shop, including my cameras and my laptop. Now I regret thinking they were safe there.”

  “Go through these pictures with me,” he said, “and I want to do one more sweep of your studio before I release it to you. I must be thorough.”

  I started to sense the pressure that must be on him. “How new are you to Briney Creek?”

  He grunted and pulled a stack of photos from the box. I winced, seeing there was absolutely no organization or protection for them whatsoever.

  “Two weeks,” he said, and my sympathy for the poor man increased.

  “Well, let’s hop to it.” I sat down and drew a stack toward me. Handling each photo with care, I separated them into piles of events and then locations and models. When that was done, I began to sort through each stack more slowly. Shots of town hall and the mayor, along with the crowds of tourists and citizens of Briney Creek at the last summer festival topped one good-sized stack. There were shots of The Donut Hole, inside and out, the gym, just the outside. I had hopes of setting up the project for John’s advertising campaign soon.

  Spencer picked up a photo and frowned at it. “What’s this?”

  I stood and moved around the desk, standing close to him. A deep breath brought in his aftershave lotion and the shampoo he must have used that morning.

  “Makayla?”

  I gave my head a shake and focused on the picture, then smiled. “Oh, that’s Inna Brinlee. Just caught her on the street and clicked.” Inna had stuck her tongue in what at the time I had thought of as a Gene Simmons move, but now that I looked at the picture again was more a mocking of Miley Cyrus. “You haven’t met her?”

  “I have,” Spencer said, but he tapped the blurred background. “I mean these people.”

  I pointed. “John Brinlee, Allie Kate Brinlee, and Alvin.”

  John was just exiting the gym, and Allie Kate stood with Alvin on the front, obviously talking. Because the picture was blurred in the background, as intended to cause Inna’s vivid personality to stand out even more, we couldn’t make out the others’ facial expressions or even their posture.

  “Do you have a clearer shot of this?” he asked.

  “Maybe on my computer.”

  “Okay, we’ll take a look later.” He eyed me. “You don’t go there without my accompanying you. Got
it?”

  “What would it matter if you’re the only one with the key, sheriff?”

  He was not amused with my sass, and I returned to my seat to continue looking through photos. Although I had physicals of virtually everyone in town—most indistinguishable among festival crowds—we found nothing significant, and I was disappointed I couldn’t be of more help.

  “Well, it was a long shot,” Spencer assured me. “I still have some questioning to do and motives to establish.”

  “Like who?”

  “Thank you for your help.” I sighed, realizing he didn’t intend to share what he knew right now.

  “You know, we could exchange information.” I waited, hoping he would take the bait.

  “If there’s something you want to share…”

  I folded my arms across my chest and sat back in my seat. “Oh no, buddy, this works both ways.”

  Spencer stood up and stretched long arms over head. I became aware of him on a level that had little to do with him being a man and everything to do with him being a cop. I didn’t know him well enough to tease about his job. The weapon strapped to his side seemed larger than life at that moment and very threatening. His next words confirmed my trepidation.

  “The difference is if I keep what I know from you, I’m doing my job. If you keep what you know from me, it’s obstruction of justice. Now, is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  I shivered but stiffened my spine and stood up. “No, sheriff. Have a nice day.”

  As I started for the door, he called after me. I had reached the exit with my hand on the knob when he stopped me. “I apologize,” he said.

  I glanced up at him, questioning.

  “It’s wrong to encourage you one minute and use my badge to hold you off the next.”

  The small sound I made was one of agreement, but I wasn’t ready to forgive him.

  “It’s both unprofessional and, well, the actions of an ass. I don’t want to be that kind of man.”

  I grinned at this admission. He was forgiven. “So long as you know.”

  He smirked.

  We agreed that Spencer would call me when he was ready to visit my shop together and that he would not keep me waiting long. I had to be satisfied with that much, but I made a decision then and there. Spencer needed to impress his boss, the mayor, since he was so new on the job. I had needs, too, and they included eating and paying my bills. He would get more than my help looking through photos. I would find out as much as I could about who killed Alvin Aston and put this matter to rest.

  Chapter Seven

  My investigation began in what I felt was the most logical place—the hair salon. Not only was Louisa’s shop right next door to mine. She and the two women who rented booths from her also worked long hours, sometimes late into the evening. The problem with this plan though was that Louisa did nothing that didn’t benefit her. She didn’t give anyone who she considered to be the little guy even an ounce of consideration. I had seen that for myself at the Hole when she dismissed me from the table she had occupied with her friends Susan and Pattie.

  What I determined to do about this dilemma was to visit the salon on the pretext of needing to cover my roots. I believed it was a foolproof plan. Rather than call, I drove to Louisa’s and parked in her lot. The space allocated for customers outside the salon was triple that of what I had available at the photo studio. A neon sign was illuminated with Style With Louisa despite the sun having not descended yet in the sky. I stepped through the glass door and was immediately assaulted by the scent of chemicals and hair products. Louisa or perhaps one of her contract stylists had tried to minimize the impact of the chemicals by adding scented candles to the mix. I liked the scent of the lavender and frankincense, but it didn’t lessen the shock at all.

  The salon consisted of three stations for styling hair, three industrial dryers, a massage chair with tub attached to the bottom for pedicures, and a sink for washes. Along the walls were racks holding hair products and nail polishes, and near the door, a simple counter behind which a receptionist spoke on the phone. When I stepped inside, she offered me a smile and waved me forward. I took a moment to adjust both to the scent and the explosion of lilac on the walls, the smocks the ladies wore, and the capes draped over the customers. Even the flowers in the vase on the reception counter’s edge were lilacs. I was surprised Louisa herself didn’t wear the color or that her hair wasn’t dyed in a shade of purple.

  “Makayla?” the receptionist called after she hung up the phone.

  I stepped forward, smiling. Over the last three months, it disconcerted me less and less when strangers knew my name. This woman was not the receptionist from the last time I had been inside the salon.

  “Hello,” I said, “um…”

  “I’m sorry,” the young woman said. “I’m—”

  “I’ll take it from here.” Louisa swept over, blocking my view of the receptionist “What can I do for you, Makayla?”

  Irritated at her rudeness, I swallowed and forced my smile to remain in place. With any luck, Louisa didn’t have Spencer’s knack for reading me, and she would believe my lie. “I was thinking I’d like to cover my roots and hoped you would have some time on your schedule.”

  Her gaze skittered up toward my hair, and she frowned. Self-conscious, I raised a hand to it and fluffed the curls a bit. Having a simplistic style that came from being more interested in studying others, I didn’t have a solid routine. In fact, I colored my hair infrequently, so if my story depended on the two-inch roots for believability, well I was a shoe-in.

  “How long were you planning on waiting?” Louisa snapped. “You can’t depend on the length and thickness for everything.”

  “Thanks,” I said, choosing to take her words as a compliment that I had a good head of hair despite my neglect. She narrowed her eyes at me. I flashed a higher wattage grin.

  “Hm, well, you’re kind of an emergency case from the look of it.” She ran fingers through my hair, tugging locks out to study them. “You need a trim!”

  “Can you fit me in?” I asked hopefully. Now that I was here, I realized she might schedule me for two weeks from now, and how would that help the case?

  “You’re in luck.” She spun on her heel and pointed to station three where one chair sat empty. “We just had a cancellation.”

  I thanked her as I headed to the chair. Familiar faces and smiles greeted me as I made my way. Two of the ladies from Talia’s group sat beneath dryers, and Allie Kate occupied the chair next to mine. Her locks were being tamed by a curling iron while she sat shoulders hunched and fingers gripping the chair. When I raised my eyebrows in question, she offered a hesitant smile. “I’ve been burned one too many times.”

  The stylist grunted.

  “Not by you, sweetheart, of course,” Allie Kate rushed to say. “I’m not very good at doing my own hair, but I try my best. This was a special treat I had already set up.”

  I wondered at her choice of phrasing. “What do you mean ‘already’?”

  A fleeting glance toward Louisa. “I mean before Alvin passed.”

  Allie Kate wanted to be considerate of Louisa’s feelings. Even I would have—not that I’m the insensitive type—but I mean Louisa had sobbed uncontrollably when she saw Alvin dead on my studio floor. Anyone who didn’t know before a couple days ago that she loved Alvin knew now. Recalling this, I wondered how I would ever broach the subject.

  “I was so sorry to find…learn about his death,” I bumbled. Okay, I’m not as sensitive as I’d like to believe.

  “Don’t be silly, Makayla. Call it what it was—murder.” Edna Butler stuck her head out from beneath the dryer. I was beginning to think all the elderly ladies of Briney Creek, and Ollie, weren’t human. How had she heard our conversation with the dryer blasting all around her head?

  “Back under there,” Louisa ordered, and Edna ducked beneath the dryer’s cover. This time, I noticed she kept an ear pressed below the transparent dome and dismissed m
y suspicions in that area. Louisa strode away from the general vicinity to speak to the receptionist. I watched as she gave orders in a low voice with a terse expression on her face. The receptionist, whose name I hadn’t caught before Louisa interrupted us, appeared to brace against Louisa’s harsh tone of speech. Her attitude might be why the previous woman had left, that or Louisa had fired her. As the two continued to talk, I turned my attention back to the group of ladies nearer to me.

  Allie Kate pressed a hand to her chest, and her eyes were full of unshed tears. The woman who looked to be in her mid-forties seemed genuinely sad, but not heartbroken like Louisa. “Everyone loved Alvin. He was my friend, and it’s a great loss.”

  Her friend, she’d said. I recalled the picture Spencer and I had found earlier and wished I could get to the digital version sooner. I had manipulated the printout using my favorite software, but I didn’t recall how the original appeared. I desperately wanted to find out and complained in silence for having to wait on the authorities, Spencer in particular.

  “Not everybody.” Edna cackled. “He liked the ladies though.”

  My interest perked up as my stylist began pulling a comb through my hair. “I had heard something like that. I know how quickly things can go downhill when a woman opens her heart to the wrong man.”

  “Did you fall in love with a cheater?” Edna asked.

  “Edna!” Allie Kate chastised her.

  “What?” Edna asked, wide-eyed. Once again the dryer had been forgotten. “Makayla is a beautiful woman, and there’s a little bit of an innocence to her. It stands to reason some snake in the grass tried to jump out at her.”

  I laughed at the expression and warmed to the older woman. Her tone had remained conversational and not confrontational or bitter in any way. Her forthrightness was her nature, but the compliment showed she wasn’t unkind.

  “Thank you, Edna, but I don’t have a lot of experience with cheaters.”