Fiction River Special Edition: Crime, page 23
“Stanley! It’s Stanley, you stupid whore!”
She took a surprised step back and he seized control, the inferno inside him consuming him. “Your sister screamed as I killed her.” He didn’t shout, he was done shouting. Shouting was for people who lacked control. He saw her flinch. Good. “They all screamed,” he said, taking a step toward her. She took a step back. “They all cried. They all begged me. Begged me to stop. All those places. All those women, not just girls. Even my fucking mother begged me. But I got her too. I got—”
Her lips had curled into a snarl, her hands clenched into fists at her side. “You son of a bitch,” she murmured. She advanced on him and he saw the murder in her eyes.
He recoiled in shock. What had he done? This was not control. He had never had it, not for a single second since he got out of the car and saw her on the porch.
She took another step. And as sure as he could list the tools in his bag, he knew she was going to kill him.
He flung his bag at her and fled toward his car.
***
“Crap! Mike, he’s running! Wine cooler! Wine cooler!”
Mike keyed the switch. “He’s running! Everyone in!” He scrambled to the front of the van, cranked it up and floored the gas. The back wheels spun dirt then caught and the van roared down the drive and onto the gravel road. He slewed to the left, barely missing a thick trunk on the far side—oak, a tiny detached part of his mind said—and the van rocked back the other way as it righted.
In front of him, fifty yards up the road, Stanley’s Rabbit shot backwards out of the drive. It slid to a stop in a shower of gravel. Mike saw Stanley’s pale face turn toward him for an instant before he turned the car the other way and fishtailed away from him.
***
Even in the midst of his panic, his utter failure, his mind clicked with facts and possibilities. Six cops had come out of the woods, at least one more in that van. All were local boys. If they hadn’t called anyone else in—but they would have come from the woods if that were the case.
The entire department had turned out. Which meant nobody on the road. Most likely.
He kept the gas pedal mashed, his little VW protesting on the gravel, fighting him for control. He passed a drive on the left.
The road would be curving around any second now. Looping back toward Porter Road.
Movement in the rearview. A police cruiser behind him, another one coming out behind that. That was okay. He could lose them, he knew it. He just had to get to Porter. The road would curve to the right at any time, and his little car would cut through the woods, go where the cruisers couldn’t and he’d lose them.
The road didn’t curve. The trees closed in. This wasn’t right. He eased off the gas, peering ahead to—
—nothing. Green and trees in front of him where the road ended.
***
She was already out there, standing in the middle of the gravel road so that he had to brake hard or hit her. Christ on a stick. She jumped in and slammed the door as he floored it.
“Goddammit, what the fuck were you thinking!” he shouted, fighting the ungainly van on the gravel.
She laughed. It had a hysterical edge. “Hi Britney, thanks for getting Stanley to confess on tape.” She turned to him. “You did get it on tape, didn’t you?”
He’d left the tape running, so he didn’t say what he wanted to.
***
Britney didn’t even let the van stop completely before she jumped out. She heard Mike cussing behind her as she ran past the two cruisers, toward the steam rising from the smashed front end of the VW.
Mike’s deputies surrounded the car, guns drawn. Two of them had yanked the door open.
A strong hand pulled her back. “Goddammit, I said stop,” Mike said.
“We’re secure, boss,” said one of the officers. Jim Something. “He isn’t going anywhere.”
Mike’s hand on her arm relaxed and she pulled it away.
“He alive?” said Mike.
“Unfortunately,” said Officer Jim.
Britney moved forward to stand next to Officer Jim, who had his gun trained on a bleeding and groggy Stanley sitting inside.
“You fucker,” she said to Stanley.
He turned his head to her and gave her a puzzled, almost faraway look. “Your map,” he said. “The road should have curved. It should have gone back to Porter Road. I don’t understand.”
“Jokers,” she said, a ferocious satisfaction making her voice rough. “You showed me yourself, remember? When I first started. You showed me how maps can lie. My map lied, asshole.”
Jokers. She remembered his reaction from yesterday. There was a connection there. “What’s out Hilltop Road?” she asked him. “Why did you pan the map?”
“Britney, what the hell are you talking about?” asked Mike.
“Yesterday, he was placing jokers on the new Crawford County map.” At his questioning look she said, “Fake streets. There’s always a couple on printed road maps. But he got all flustered when I saw him doing it. Tried to hide the location.”
“Fake streets,” said Mike. “Huh.” He leaned down toward Stanley. “What’s out there? Huh? Should we go and check? Think we’ll find bodies? Maybe the three local girls you killed twenty years ago?”
“Bodies,” muttered Stanley, his eyes glazing. “All the pretty bodies, with jokers on top. It’s poetic.” His eyes closed.
“I’ll be godddamned,” said Mike.
***
Britney sat in her little Subaru in front of Map Resources, poking her cellphone, the AC running full blast against the heat that rose off the asphalt parking lot.
“I still can’t believe that asshole worked under my roof for twenty years and I didn’t know,” the Boss had said.
Britney couldn’t believe it either but she hadn’t said that.
“I heard that the FBI is coming in to help figure out who all Stanley killed and where he stashed the bodies.”
“He was at it for a long time. They’ve got a lot of work ahead of them.” She didn’t mention that Mike had kept her filled in on the developments over the past week. Once Stanley had figured out he was caught and not ever, ever getting out of jail—served him right, the bastard—he was talking. A lot.
“Sure you don’t want to stick around?” the Boss had said. “Apparently I’m in the market for a head cartographer.”
“I’m sure,” she’d told him.
He’d shaken her hand and wished her well, and she’d parted ways with the map industry.
Now she was trying to figure out where the Java Bean in Macon was while the car cooled down.
Somewhere along the line Deputy Pratt had become Mike. She was meeting him for coffee in thirty minutes.
The Boss had given her a map of Crawford County on her first day—one of the old ones. It was under the seat, never unfolded. She’d use her smartphone to find her way, thanks very much.
Introduction to “Photo World”
“Photo World” marks JC Andrijeski’s second appearance in Fiction River. She appeared in Moonscapes with a literary science fiction story. She provides a historical mystery for Crime.
It’s not unusual for Julie to write in a variety of genres. She’s currently writing a new adult series called Allie’s War that’s romantic alternative history, a dystopian series called The Slave Girl Chronicles, and the Gateshifter series about shape-shifting aliens and a tough-girl PI from Seattle. In addition, she writes nonfiction for such places as NY Press and holistic health magazines.
Like Megan in “Photo World,” Julie worked as a senior photo printer in high school and college, and in that job, printed photos for the police departments in Santa Cruz and Los Gatos, California.
“Of course, these jobs don’t exist any more,” she writes. “With the advent of digital, that whole industry went the way of the dodo. At the time, however, we had more work than we could handle….We did get murders, along with suicides, break-ins, overdoses, drug deals, motor accidents…and a heck of a lot of birthday parties and weddings.”
Photo World
JC Andrijeski
“Blue roll,” Devin said, handing her the roll, his voice indifferent. “Five of them, this time. Looks like a doozy...”
“Today?” She grimaced. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A sardonic smile touched Devin’s lips when he saw her wince. “Jeez, Meg. Since when are you squeamish?”
“Was Dave here?”
“Yeah. He asked about you. You guys screwing or what?”
Rolling her eyes, Megan DeLaney didn’t dignify that with an answer.
“You were out back...mixing. Esteban didn’t want to bother you,” Devin added, still grinning like a fool. “Next time I’ll come get you when you’ve got a gentleman caller...”
Meg only nodded to that, too. Maybe it was the egg sandwich she got through the fast food drive-thru that morning. Or maybe (more likely) it was the six or seven tequila shots she’d downed the night before, cushioned by five cans of cheap, Black Label beer. Whatever the reason, nothing was sitting in her stomach right at the moment, not even the coffee she practically lived on as a student at the local UC.
She really should have called in sick today, but Megan figured Laurie, her manager, would have completely lost her shit if she’d tried it. Not only was it New Year’s Day, so a dead-giveaway for a fake sick day, but Laurie would have heard all about the crazed festivities in the UC dorms the night before.
The big bash to signal the end of the 1980s and entry into the 1990s had been posted in flyers all over the college town of Santa Cruz for weeks.
Unfortunately, it would probably be a busy day in this crap-hole of a job. People would still want their holiday and party pictures developed today, even if most of the world got to spend it moaning over Bloody Mary’s—or their toilets, if they’d really let things get out of hand night before.
Or, in the case of Santa Cruz, lying facedown on the beach, hoping the January sun would burn away the worst of their hangovers.
They’d probably all want one-hour rush jobs, too.
Frowning a bit as the doorbell rang to signal another incoming customer, Meg turned up her portable cassette player rebelliously, mainly to drown out the sound of piped Muzak in the other room. She knew no one would complain since she was the head printer and the queen of this—admittedly crappy—domain.
Really, she probably could have called in sick and not gotten more than an irritated tongue lashing and a lot of guilt trips about lost customers and the lack of decent printers on staff. They couldn’t afford to fire her. All of the local photo jerks would throw a fit if they lost their favorite printer.
Sighing again, Meg picked up her lukewarm coffee in its chipped, ‘Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’ mug with the picture of the Coconut Grove on the front and the beach in the background. She took another grimacing sip before tackling the blue roll, blowing on the surface of the brown liquid absently despite the absence of steam and glancing around the lightless cave that formed her primary hangout when she wasn’t in school or studying at the UC Santa Cruz library.
Cracked linoleum covered the floors, what had been white but now looked like a camouflage pattern of stains and dug in dirt from their shoes. The low, painted ceiling shone with bare bulbs in a few places, but the hulking printing machine blocked a fair bit of light, giving it a blue-tinted cave vibe, even in the dead heat of summer when yellow sunlight streamed through the glass front doors of the customer service area that started a few feet away from where Megan sat.
The printing room smelled sharply of chemical developer and bleach from where they had to scrub the floors and the mixing vats every night.
You had to be careful with both, because if you used the wrong solvent you could end up with a poison gas that might knock you out or even kill you, if you were stupid enough to do it without all the fan vents open. Even then, it probably sucked at least a few hours or even weeks off Megan’s life every time she did it. She might only be in her early twenties, but she wasn’t too keen on ending up with emphysema—or sterile, for that matter.
Especially not from something that wouldn’t even give her a decent buzz before it knocked her down for the count.
She knew she was lucky, though, really.
This was a temporary gig for her, only there to provide gas, beer and grocery money while she finished up her degree. Devin, even though he was still only a senior in high school, was probably in for a longer haul, since he barely managed to remain un-stoned long enough to make it to class.
He’d already told her he wasn’t bothering to apply for colleges, but would just take a few classes at the local JC so he could keep sponging off his parents and surfing.
Taking a final sip of tepid, bitter coffee, Megan made a face, plunking the mug down on the counter by the color buttons for the printer, which was already stained with similar, coffee-colored rings from countless other times she’d left the same mug in roughly the same spot...even though she wasn’t technically supposed to have any liquids near the machines at all.
Giving an internal sigh, she resigned herself, clicking her fingers for Devin to hand over the first reel of the cop’s evidentiary roll.
The printer was a hulking monster of a thing, and took up the vast majority of the room, leaving only a small corridor all the way around it. That corridor existed mainly to feed chemicals in at various times when the beeper warned that this or that mixture was running low, but also to re-program the thing or adjust the overall settings, which she did on occasion, mainly because she’d figured out how and the maintenance guy took forever to get there. Waiting for him could back them up for hours, even days, during the summer crunch months, so she’d gotten in the habit of doing a lot of things herself, even though she’d nearly been electrocuted twice, and no one had ever actually trained her on any of it.
Megan did 70 or 80% of the actual printing that came through, too, and more like 90-95% of the difficult stuff, which the other printers would leave for her between shifts, at least when they could get away with it.
She also got stuck with 100% of the ‘blue rolls,’ meaning the rolls they got from their contract with the local police, which had them processing most of their crime and other evidentiary shots. The local police department was too small to have their own dark room, and they often couldn’t wait for the time it took to send it out and back to the San Jose cop labs, so Photo World got stuck with anything they needed in the interim.
Anyway, the cop rolls were often tricky to print, too.
Not everyone had the eye for this kind of work. Megan did, a fact for which she was grateful, mostly because it meant she didn’t have to work in the crappy restaurants around town, like most of her friends. It also meant she could crouch in the back room of Photo World and blast the college radio station and her own mixed tapes, instead of having to listen to that zombie music out front and worse, having to deal with any actual customers.
Of course, they still dragged her out there to deal with one of their ‘difficult’ people, who seemed to think their crap-tastic pictures were somehow the fault of the people who printed them. Which yeah, okay, sometimes that was true, but most of the time they wanted Megan to make a Van Gogh out of a pig’s ass, which wasn’t going to happen, no matter how good she was.
She actually had some jerk complain at her the other day because the heads were cut off in his photos. She had to show the guy the missing heads in the actual negatives before he believed that it hadn’t been her doing. Even then, he seemed to think she could have magicked the missing heads out of her asshole if she’d been remotely competent at her job.
Morons.
Ironically or not, the worst ones were usually the ‘professional’ photographers, mainly jackasses who hung out a shingle with zero credentials, then charged suckers an arm and a leg for underexposed wedding pictures with half the heads cut off. Those same ‘professionals’ then came to Photo World and other cheap-o printing shacks and screamed at people like Megan to make their crap viewable before going back and charging those same suckers a 400-500% mark-up before they’d cough up so much as a wallet-sized image from their lousy prints.
Megan knew most of those jokers on sight by now. Every time one of them came in and smugly handed over another ten rolls of crap, for which they were probably making more money than Megan saw in six months, she couldn’t help thinking she was in the wrong end of this stupid business.
Sighing a bit, she lifted the metal mask around the main light of the printer and threaded the negative strip through, past the first few junk frames until she got to the first real print. Lining it up with the metal frame, she frowned down at all of the cyan in the image, assessing it clinically.
The reason they called them ‘blue rolls’ was that red showed up as a kind of turquoise blue in negatives before they got printed.
So yeah, Megan had a pretty good idea what she’d been seeing when it popped out on the other side. Motorcycle accidents, like Devin said, were the worst. This didn’t look to be one of those, but it still had an awful lot of cyan in most of the frames that passed under her eyes.
Pushing aside the probable content of the images, for now at least, she squinted down at the negatives, hitting plastic-coated and only slightly-raised buttons to correct for the excess of red, which the machine itself would over-compensate for and wash out with too much cyan, thus tinting the final print with a bluish hue. Jacking up the contrast levels a touch and adjusting the color to compensate for that, too, Megan darkened the whole thing with a plus five on the overall print exposure to clean up the main subject from where it had been washed out by the bright flashes of the police cameras.
Devin hung around, bored probably, but more likely morbidly curious.
