Wings to the Kingdom (Eden Moore 2)

“What’ve you got there?”

“Your pictures. Or my pictures, from my camera—however you choose to look at it. ”

“Let’s say they’re ‘our’ pictures, and call it a draw. ”

He slid his thumb underneath the sticky seal. “For the sake of argument, then. But if they sell to the Enquirer, profits are going sixty-forty in my favor. At least. ”

“But I bought the film!” I argued, mostly joking. “What’s on those prints, anyway?”

“Much weirdness. Some of it’s going to have to go to the cops, I think. I don’t know what they’ll be able to get out of it, but I wouldn’t want them to accuse you of withholding evidence. They don’t need to know I had doubles made, though. ”

He slapped a short stack of pictures into my hand. Benny swooped in close to look over my shoulder. Together we withdrew to the couch and began shuffling through the prints.

The first three or four were exactly what you’d expect—dark blobs upon dark blobs. But then shapes began to appear, including the very distinct outline of a human being in a loose-fitting jacket. He was carrying something, maybe two somethings. From one hand hung a baggy teardrop bag, and over his other shoulder there was something long and thin.

“A rifle?” Benny asked, poking the edge of the outline with his finger.

“Maybe, I don’t know. ”

Dave held the photo out at arm’s length. “What did it sound like he was shooting with?” he asked.

I knocked him with my shoulder. “As if I have any frame of reference to answer that question. It sounded like he was shooting with a gun. That’s the best I can tell you—except he had to keep reloading it. It held six shots—I’m almost sure of it. But I couldn’t tell you what kind it was. ”

Lu joined us, leaning herself against the doorway and sipping on a beverage she’d retrieved while we were seeing the newsmen off. “That shouldn’t be too hard to find out, should it?”

“How you figure?” I wondered aloud.

“That Marshall fellow got shot, right?”

“Oh, yeah. ” Benny snapped his fingers and aimed them at her with an excited waggle. “There’s a bullet in him. Once they dig that out, they’ll be able to tell what kind of gun he was using. ”

“But that’s not to say the police will share that information with us,” I felt compelled to point out.

Lu nodded to concede the possibility, and came over to sit beside me on the arm of the couch. She peered over my shoulder at the photos, her hair falling almost down into my face.

Dave moved on to the next picture. “Right. So let’s guess for guessing’s sake that he’s carrying a revolver and the long thing is something else. And he’s also got a tote, or a sack or something. ”

“Could be anything at all,” I said, and everyone agreed.

“The question is, is he bringing stuff to the battlefield or is he there to take things away from it? There’s no telling. ” The next picture wasn’t too much more enlightening. The same warm shape in the dark, posed in a crouch as if he was picking something up—or, as Dave had suggested, perhaps he was putting something down.

Benny ducked his head in close and said, “Look at that. ”

Lu swept her hair over her shoulder and off the back of my head. “It’s someone’s profile, pretty clear. That’ll be something to hand the police. It’s too bad you didn’t zoom in closer on him. ”

“I didn’t know how close I needed to zoom. I couldn’t see anything at all. ”

“It’s not a bad job, for a shot in the dark. ”

“Thanks, Dave. ”

“The profile’s not what I meant,” Benny corrected us. “I meant beside his face. Look at that. You can barely make it out but it’s there. ”

We all squinted at the print. “What is that, an arm? A shoulder? Is there someone else with him?” Lu asked.

“Not someone else—something else,” Benny announced. “We’ve got proof. Evidence, even, of life beyond the grave. That, my friends, is a ghost. ”

Lu performed her notorious shrug of indifference. “Looks like an arm to me. ”