by Alex P. Berg
Moss pulled the magnifying glass back her way. “It’s part of it. As I said, based on the angle of the photo, we can guess the photographer was tall. And the picture quality isn’t great, but if I had to guess, I’d say that forearm belongs to someone with skin on the darker side of the color spectrum. It’s not a ton, but it’s something. Although…”
Moss put the magnifying glass down and held one of the photographs to the lights above.
“What is it?” I asked.
Moss squinted as she looked at the picture. “Most professional photoshoots have tons of light on the subject so the photographer can get a clear shot. This was anything but professional, though. The photos are too dark, too grainy. My bet is the photographer only had a single light on in the room and a weak one at that. Not good for picture quality, but it might be a boon for us nonetheless. Take a look and tell me what you see.”
Moss handed me the photo and pointed to Stella’s side. To the left of the nightstand was a window. The shades were drawn of course—even an amateur photographer wouldn’t advertise a pornographic shoot to the world. They didn’t look particularly notable, either.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?” I asked.
“The light,” said Moss. “Is it just me, or is something bleeding through from outside?”
I looked closer and held the photo to the light, same as Moss. Now that she mentioned it, I did see something. “I think it’s part of a word, maybe from an illuminated sign. I see a pair of capital O’s, or maybe they’re Q’s or D’s. It’s hard to tell. And part of another letter. Something with angled lines. An X or a Y would be my guess.”
“I thought they might be C’s instead of O’s, but I’m with you.” Moss took the photograph back. “How many hotels do you think there are in this city with names that fit those combinations of letters?”
“Ones with Q’s and X’s? Probably not any,” I said. “O’s and C’s and D’s? Maybe a few. Still not many.”
Moss smiled. “Exactly. Time to make some phone calls.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Moss parked her Howardson Hornet along the barren stretch of sidewalk in front of the Brody Hotel, a place with as much charm as the makeup crusted faces of the prostitutes who stood on the nearest street corner. A vertical sign hung from the facade at a worrisome angle, as if it might pull free of its anchors and crash to the street at any moment. Half of the letters in the word Hotel had burned out, but the O, D, and Y in Brody burned bright orangish red, in plain view of the third and fourth story windows. Though the sign had seen better days, I wasn’t sure the rest of the hotel ever had. Graffiti sprawled across the concrete walls at ground level, cracks laced the exposed foundation, and the emergency fire escape that zigzagged to the top floor was more rust than metal.
As I stepped from the Hornet, I nearly fell into a crack in the sidewalk that could’ve swallowed me whole. Though Moss had parked a good twenty feet from the sign, I could nonetheless hear its incessant mosquito-like buzzing.
I eyed the place with distaste. “I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but this sure looks like the kind of hotel a sleazeball would pick for a porno shoot.”
The Hornet clanged as Moss closed her door behind her. “I think it’s the type of flophouse in which every kind of illegal activity has taken place at one point or another.” She nodded toward the women standing by the roadside, all of whom had taken a few paces from the street and were now laboriously engaged in pretending we didn’t exist.
“Speaking of,” I said, “you want to do anything about that?”
“Not really,” said Moss as she came around the car. “Even on my meanest days, I’m not keen on criminalizing sex work. Besides, we haven’t caught them doing anything but loitering, which I doubt the owners of the Brody would want to prosecute given how much business those ladies provide. Come on.”
Moss nodded toward the front door. No shop bell sounded as she pulled it open, though the hinges squealed in despair. The room that greeted couldn’t be called a lobby. It was more of a pass through to the stairs in back. There wasn’t anywhere for guests to sit and little more to stand, though it appeared the rail-thin guy working the check-in counter had a stool on which to rest his bony behind. He sat behind an iron grate, staring at a magazine while a radio blared out a tune with a bluesy flair.
The guy didn’t look up from his glossy pages as we approached the counter. When he spoke, it was with a voice that was rough and tired. “You want to rent for the night or by the hour?”
“Neither.” Moss slid her badge onto the counter through the pass through at the bottom.
“Great.” The guy looked up, revealing himself to be at least two decades younger than his voice. He had a few wrinkles on his forehead, and his cheeks sagged underneath a layer of salt and pepper scruff, but it was the deadness of his eyes that bothered me. “What happened this time?”
“This time?” I said. “Are you really that jaded?”
The guy stared at me, silently judging me and answering me at the same time.
“We have reason to believe one of your rooms was used for a pornographic shoot,” said Moss as she slid the badge back inside her jacket.
One of the guy’s eyebrows inched up. “You don’t say.”
“You shouldn’t be so cavalier,” said Moss. “It’s illegal.”
“Oh, we don’t condone that behavior. In fact…” The attendant pointed to the side of his enclosure. A sign hung on the wall outside it. It proclaimed, in faded red letters, that harassment and threats against staff or customers, solicitation, prostitution, indecent exposure, public intoxication, distribution and or consumption of narcotics, begging, gambling, distribution and production of pornography, and cruelty against animals were all strictly prohibited at the Brody Hotel.
I blinked at the last one. “Cruelty against animals?”
“Just covering our bases,” said the attendant.
I snorted. “You forgot apostasy and payola.”
The guy lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t make me tap the first offense on the sign.”
“You and I both know that notice is for liability purposes,” said Moss. “Frankly, I don’t care what happens in these rooms so long as it doesn’t affect someone else. Unfortunately, the pornographic shoot I mentioned has affected someone else, to the tune of blackmail and murder. You follow me, Slim?”
The guy sighed and closed his magazine. “You’ve got my attention.”
“Do you keep track of who rents the rooms?”
“We have a ledger,” said the guy. “But I don’t check ID’s. People can write down whatever name they want, if you catch my drift.”
“I want to see it anyway,” said Moss.
The attendant sighed and hopped off his stool. He bent over and came up with a tome that might’ve survived the last theological inquisition. It scraped against the bottom of the iron grate as he shoved it through the pass-through. “Knock yourselves out.”
Moss grunted as she slid it across the counter to me. “Vernon said the photos arrived a month ago. Add a few days for the photos to develop and a couple more for everything to work through the mail. See if any names sound familiar. Even an alias would be something.”
I nodded and cracked open the leather-bound doorstop while Moss kept talking. “Do you work nights?”
“Sometimes,” said Slim.
“Were you here four to five weeks ago?”
“Hmm. Let’s see. The night of August twelfth to twenty-sixth-ish? Yes, I remember that vague two week period well.”
“Don’t be a dick,” said Moss. “Were you working or not?”
The guy sighed. “It’s fifty-fifty. I’m here about half the nights.”
“Did you see a guy with a camera come in? Perhaps with a petite blonde on his arm? Mid-thirties?”
“Does it look like I pay a lot of attention to who walks in and out?” Slim picked up his magazine and dropped it on the counter for emphasis.
I
found the final page of entries and worked my way back as Moss continued her interrogation. “Answer the question, Jack.”
The attendant shook his head. “I didn’t see anyone with a camera, but a guy coming to shoot nudie pics isn’t going to make a production of what he’s up to. Our patrons tend to value their privacy. People come in, they get their key, they head to their rooms, and I ask as few questions as possible.”
Moss scowled. “Don’t hold out on me, Slim. You see who comes in and out. Have you got cameras hidden in the rooms? ‘Cause if you do, I’ll drag your ass to jail so fast and hard that you’ll wish the guys you bunk with overnight are half as nice as me.”
“What?” said the attendant. “No. This isn’t some peeping tom operation. We’re just a shitty hotel. We cater to desperate middle-aged guys and drunks and working girls. Most of the time, I barely look at the folks who check in. I swear!”
Moss gave me a nod. “Phair?”
I shook my head as I scanned the pages. “I’m not seeing anything. No Vernon. No Stella. No names of anyone we bumped into at the circus. Maybe if we knew Stella better, we might able to decipher some hidden message from this jumble of names, but I doubt it. The entries are mostly John and Jane Smiths.”
Moss’s lips flapped as she blew her breath out forcefully. “To be clear then, Slim, you don’t know anything about a boyfriend or some sleazeball scammer who came in a month ago and took nude pictures of a slim blonde woman?”
“Can’t say I do,” he said.
Moss shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
Moss gave me a nod. It seemed as it the whole building shook as I shut the ledger.
“That said,” continued the attendant, “if you’re looking for a sleazeball photographer, there are a couple who do shoots for the working girls for their promo materials.”
Moss planted her hands on her hips. “Are you kidding me? Why do you think I’ve been standing here grilling you for the past five minutes?”
“You asked if a guy came in with a camera and a blonde woman on his arm. You never specifically asked about photographers.”
Moss pressed her face into her palm for a moment before bringing it back up. “The names, Slim. Give me the names!”
The attendant put his hands up. “Alright, cool it. You want the short dumpy guy or the tall dark elf?”
Moss and I shared a look. “I think the latter will do just fine.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Moss pushed into the interrogation room on the first floor of the precinct, and I followed. A tall dark elf in a paisley silk shirt and grey slacks sat at the steel table in the middle of the space. He had his chair angled to the side, his legs crossed at the knee, and was stroking his pencil mustache as we entered.
“Finally,” he said, flicking a hand into the air. “I’ve been in here for hours. Am I finally free to leave?”
There were two empty chairs opposite the dark elf. Moss settled into one, and I settled into the other.
I glanced at the rap sheet in my hands. “Gunter Illuvar?”
The dark elf gave his head a bob. “Yes? Can I go?”
A couple of patrol officers had dropped by his place and brought him in. This was the first time I’d set eyes on him. “Not yet. And for the record, you’ve been here forty-five minutes. We can keep you for forty-eight hours without charging you.”
“Forty-eight hours?” said Illuvar. “You’ve got to be joking! I haven’t done anything!”
“Maybe not recently,” I said, glancing at the sheet. “But you’ve done plenty wrong. Violation of censorship, distribution of obscene materials, multiple instances of fraud. You served ten months of a two year sentence before being let out on parole.”
“And?” said the elf. “I served my time. That doesn’t justify my perpetual harassment on behalf of the city’s bluecoats, you know.”
“No one’s harassing you, Mr. Illuvar,” said Moss. “We just brought you in to ask a few questions.”
“For two days?” said Illuvar. “That doesn’t sound like harassment to you?”
“We’ll happily release you as soon as you give us the answers we’re looking for.”
Gunter shook his head. “You could’ve at least brought me a glass of water.”
I ignored the man’s request. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Illuvar?”
It seemed like the guy wasn’t too into eye contact, as he gazed idly at an imaginary spot on the wall. “I’m a freelancer.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
He shrugged. “I write. Paint. Do a little consulting.”
“Any photography?” I asked.
The spot on the wall must’ve been very interesting. “Sometimes.”
I pulled the envelope with the nude photographs of Stella Vernon from under my rap sheet and dumped them onto the tabletop, spreading them out so they were easy to see. “Do these photographs look familiar to you?”
“They do not.”
The elf hadn’t pulled his eyes from his preferred wall. “You didn’t look at them.”
Gunter wrinkled his lips as he took a glance at the photos, dedicating less than a second of his time to the task before returning to the wall. “Never seen them.”
“You might want to take a closer look,” said Moss. “There’s a mirror visible in each of those photos. In that mirror, you can make out part of the photographer. Tall. Slender. Dark skin. Sound familiar?”
Illuvar bypassed the table entirely and fixed his gaze on Moss. “Lots of dark elves in the city, Officer.”
“It’s detective,” said Moss. “And while there might be plenty of dark elves in New Welwic, there are fewer who frequent the Brody Hotel to snap dirty pics of prostitutes for their pimp’s flyers. Even fewer who have darkrooms in their apartments. I wonder how many might have the negatives to these photos hanging in said rooms.”
The officers who’d picked Illuvar up hadn’t mentioned anything about a film studio or negatives, but apparently Moss decided to take a shot based on the guy’s history.
Based on Gunter’s reaction, it was a miss. He raised an eyebrow and sneered. “You want to get a warrant to search my apartment? Go for it. You won’t find any negatives for those. No prints. Nothing.”
If Moss was willing to take a shot in the dark, I figured I was allowed to as well. “Maybe we won’t find the negatives to these photos, but what do you wager we’ll find others? Or perhaps we might find a patterned shirt that resembles the one in these photos?” I picked one up and held it to Moss. “What do you think? His style?”
Moss smiled. “Could be. And could be some of the undeveloped film in his apartment features subjects who haven’t reached adulthood either.”
That got Illuvar’s attention. “Hey! I do not take pictures of kids. Never have, never will.”
“Implying you do take nude photographs of adults.”
Illuvar sighed. “Look. Even if I had taken these photos—which I didn’t—there’s nothing illegal about it. These photos are clearly part of a private collection. Creation of pornography isn’t a crime, only distribution and sale of it is.”
I snorted. “He seems to know the law on pornography pretty well for a guy who doesn’t snap nudes for a living.”
“Going to prison for it once will do that to a guy,” said Moss. “Look, Illuvar, since we finally seem to be making a modicum of progress, let’s cut the fat and get to the meat. We know you took the photos, and while you’re correct that taking obscene images isn’t a crime so long as you keep them to yourself, even you would have to admit that blackmail is a form of distribution.”
The dark elf blinked. “Blackmail?”
“You know,” said Moss. “Where you demand money in exchange for your silence? It’s often accomplished using embarrassing photographs such as these.”
“I’m not blackmailing anyone,” said Illuvar. “I don’t know anything about blackmail!”
I turned to Moss. “I wonder if his bank statements would agree. Fifty thous
and crowns are hard to hide.”
Gunter’s eyes widened. “Fifty thousand crowns? Look, I promise you, I’ve never blackmailed anyone in my life. I took those photos, yes, but on commission. They were supposed to be for private use.”
“Aren’t they always?” said Moss. “So who hired you? And who drugged the girl?”
Gunter grew more confused. “Drugged what girl?”
“The woman in the photos, genius,” said Moss. “Or are you going to claim she took part in these of her own free will?”
“Well, of course she did,” said Illuvar. “She’s the one who hired me, after all.”
I paused with my mouth open. “Wait… come again?”
“The woman in the photos,” said Illuvar. “Her name was… Vernon, I think. She hired me to take the photos. We met once to hash out the details and a few nights later for the shoot. I guarantee you, she was completely lucid the whole time. I don’t think she’d even been drinking. If she had, I wouldn’t have taken her money. That’s not how I operate.”
Moss’s furrowed brow suggested she was as confused as me. “Was there anyone with her? A boyfriend? Someone coercing her into doing this?”
“Not that I met,” said Illuvar. “It was just her. She hired me, and when it was over, I gave her the negatives. Said she could develop the photos herself. For what it’s worth, her behavior didn’t suggest to me that she was scared or under stress. If anything, she was… into it. I assumed the photos were for her husband.”
Moss and I locked eyes, but it was Moss who spoke. “Well, they were for her husband… in a way. The question is why?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
My desk chair groaned as I leaned into it. Stella Vernon’s diary lay open before me, one of many pieces of evidence Moss and Justice had bagged and brought with them from their visit to Vernon’s. When I’d found it was among the pieces recovered, I’d lost my mind, but Moss had quickly beaten out my nascent flame. Apparently, she’d reacted similarly when she and Justice found it, but a quick perusal of it at Vernon’s had revealed it wouldn’t answer any of our most pressing questions. Indeed, Stella had mostly stopped adding entries about a year ago.