Page 70 of The Family Plot
Pathological, Elijah said in describing Edmond.Malicious.
Is it possible he, too, has considered Greta’s theory—that there was more to Edmond’s obsession, more to Edmond overall? Is Elijah disturbed enough by that possibility that he’s forced his attention onto my father, hoping to find something that will quell his suspicions of his own?
I study his face, darker now, but find no answers. Instead, he says, “We’re here.”
All around us, there’s nothing but the same sand, same rocks, the spot indistinguishable from the rest of the shore.
“Do you know this place?” he asks. “Do you know what it is?”
I turn my back to the water, inspecting the landscape: hard sand that yields to tall, spiky grass, and behind that, trees that shoot up, eventually blending into the woods that fill out the center of the island.
“No, I’ve never been here,” I say. “Andy and I never went to the ocean.”
“What about Charlie?”
I look at him, puzzled, until he opens his folder and pulls out an 8 x 10 photograph.
I recoil, thinking it’s one from the shed. But Elijah waits for me to examine it.
The shot was taken low to the ground, as if the photographer were crouching in the water, the bottom of the camera licked by the waves. The angle allows for a glimpse of the landscape in the background. And in the foreground—I swallow—there’s a dead woman.
She’s a Blackburn victim, identifiable by the blue gown. But unlike the pictures under the shed, she isn’t segmented into parts; she’s photographed as a whole, her body flat upon the shore—this spot of shore, I realize, as I match its giant rocks to the ones behind the woman. Her knees are slightly bent, and her arm is flung out beside her, like she’s reaching for something she’ll never be able to touch.
It’s Claudia Adams. The fourth victim. Her red hair gives her away.
“This was taken by one of the first officers on the scene,” Elijah says, “before the public knew about the body. Except—check this out.”
He jabs the upper-righthand corner of the picture, pointing at a tree that’s shorter, darker, than the rest. But no—I squint closer—it’s not a tree. It’s a small, thin figure.
It’s somebody watching.
“I asked some of the officers who were part of the investigation. They admitted they flat-out missed it. He kind of blends in.”
“He?” I say.
“And most likely,” Elijah continues, “they were using this photo to focus on the body itself, the area just around it. In pictures like these, we check for footsteps, other disturbances, details about the victim. There were others photos of just the surrounding area, and he wasn’t in any of those.”
“He?” I repeat.
“We blew it up as best we could. The quality isn’t great, but—here. See for yourself.”
He shuffles through the folder again and yanks out another photo. When he hands it to me, it’s only a moment before recognition, sharp as a gasp, jolts through my body.
“That’s Charlie,” I say.
Elijah was right; the quality is terrible, shadowy and pixelated. But I know this teenage shape of him, skinny as a sapling. I know this sideways slouch.
In the photo, he’s watching the scene below him: the woman’s body splayed out on the sand, her damp hair draped over her face.
“Charlie?” I say again. It comes out as a question this time.
“I think so, too,” Elijah agrees. “Did he ever mention seeing one of the crime scenes, one of the women’s bodies?”
I shake my head, glaring at the photo, the stick-thin shape of my older brother. Then I look at the woods above us, as thick and tangled as they are in the picture, and I try to fathom why he even would have been there.
“My first thought,” Elijah says, “was maybe he took an early morning walk. Maybe he stumbled upon the commotion down here and stayed to watch the officers work. I can see that being of interest to a kid. Hell, it would’ve been of interest to me.”
He pauses now, the moment stretching wide.
