Chapter 16: Suspicions

SUNDAY WAS NEW YEAR’S DAY and it almost seemed like the preacher and her family were the only ones who made it to church. I guess I couldn’t blame anyone else. I was yawning all the way through the service. It took about three minutes to greet the dozen or so people who attended. We went home and while Mom put a meatloaf and baking potatoes in the oven, Kat and I started taking down and putting away the Christmas decorations. I hauled the tree outside and wasn’t sure what we’d do with it. In Calumet you just put it on the curb and it disappeared the next day.

After dinner, I excused myself to go to the studio. I wanted to develop the pictures of Christine that I took the day before. I got the three rolls of film processed and was just focusing the first frame when I heard the outside door open.

“Nate? Are you up here?” I was pretty sure that was Mr. Barkley’s voice. I snatched the negative out of the enlarger and grabbed an innocuous negative of a still life to put in it. I always kept one close by. The other negatives, I just pushed aside.

“I’m in the darkroom. Be right out,” I called. I looked quickly to see that there were no nude photos lying about. I walked out of the darkroom to see Mr. Barkley and another person I didn’t know. “I was just setting up to do some printing,” I said. “How can I help you?”

“Nice setup you’ve got here,” the other guy said. “Get a lot of girls to come up here?”

I waved over at my gallery.

“A lot of the seniors at school were upset with their senior photos for the yearbook. I’ve been busy doing retakes. I’ve had a slow week this week when it comes to school. I’m usually up here almost every afternoon developing photos for the yearbook.”

The guy looked over the photos.

“I haven’t seen a photo like that in any high school yearbook I ever saw,” he said, looking at Pam’s glamor photo.

“Most of the seniors want both a yearbook photo and a senior photo that’s a little more glamorous. My standard package includes a sitting, a 5x7 yearbook photo, and an 8x10 glamour photo. They can buy additional copies or enlargements of any of the photos I take,” I said. I held up a copy of my contract from my desk. He glanced at it, but that was all.

“Where were you last night, Nate?” he asked.

“I went to a New Year’s Eve party at the Huffington EUB Church. What’s going on? Who are you?”

“Nate, this is Constable Warren. Clyde, you should have introduced yourself before you started throwing questions around,” Mr. Barkley said.

“Yeah, yeah. I just want to know where every gang member was last night,” the Constable said. “Who was with you?”

“I took Christine Evans to the party. We got home a little before one. What gives? Is something wrong? Is she okay?” I asked. I was beginning to panic.

“Look, we know you run with the Tony Kowalski gang. I just want to know where everyone was last night.”

“Not that I’d know. Tony’s a friend and his girlfriend Patricia is in my class in school. They’re nice people. Not really a gang. They just like to ride motorcycles.”

“Troublemakers and I’m going to catch them eventually.”

“Well, I know one of the bikers was at the same party I was at over in Huffington. I think his name is Eric something. His girlfriend is Donna. I don’t know where anyone else was. It’s not like we run around a lot. You can see on the wall that Patricia sometimes models for me. That one won the state championship at the fair this fall,” I said, pointing at the motorcycle photo.

“Nate, I sold you some purple paint last summer,” Mr. Barkley said. “Do you have any left?”

“Probably. I painted my sister’s bicycle. There wasn’t much left.”

“Where is it now?”

“Um ... on a shelf in the garage. I suppose that isn’t smart. Probably frozen.”

“I think we should take a look at it to make sure it’s there,” Constable Warren said.

“Sure,” I said. “But before we go into my home, I want my mom and dad to know what’s going on. This room belongs to Mr. Barkley and if he gave you permission to come in, that’s his business. My family’s home is different.”

“Don’t be difficult.”

“Clyde, the boy’s got a point. You can’t just walk in on people or their garage.”

“Okay. Let’s get it done.” I grabbed my coat and slipped on my boots. I didn’t appreciate the snow they’d tracked in and left water standing all over on the floor. I also grabbed the 35mm camera, still loaded with a partial roll from the party last night. I stopped and locked the door before I turned and went downstairs.

“Got a lot of drugs in there?” the Constable asked.

“What? Really? Where would I get drugs and why? You’re really fishing for anything, aren’t you?”

“Attitude just like Tony’s.”

I got home and called for Mom and Dad from the front porch without letting anyone in the house. Not that that lasted long.

“Mom, this is Constable Warren and Mr. Barkley from the store. They want to investigate our garage for some reason. They haven’t told me what’s going on.”

Dad showed up at the door before Mom could do more than say hello. She didn’t get a chance to invite them in.

“If you want to see in the garage, let’s just go around. No sense coming through the house and tracking more snow in,” he said. “I’ll take care of this, Joyce.” He stepped outside and left Mom standing at the door. We walked around the house to the garage and Dad opened the door. The Constable looked at the tire tracks.

“What time did you come in?” he asked, looking at my footprints headed to the back door.

“I told you. About one o’clock,” I said.

“Notice anything else?” he asked. He moved to the other side of the garage where there was another set of footprints leading around the garage.

“No. I didn’t turn on any lights or anything,” I said. Dad grabbed the string on the light on the workshop side of the garage.

“My bike!” I yelled.

The bike had its lock holding it from being wheeled anywhere, but there were streaks of purple paint across the gloss black and gold trim.

“You didn’t notice this last night?”

“No. I told you I didn’t turn on a light. All I did was get out of the car and come out and close the door.”

“What about your can of purple paint?” I looked along the shelf where the partial cans of paint were. It included the black Rust-Oleum, the gold trim paint, and the black paint I used on the darkroom. No purple.

“It’s not here.”

“So, we know where the paint came from. Looks like your friends don’t like you all that much,” the Constable said.

“Why do you keep talking about my friends? Tony wouldn’t do this. He and his girlfriend like my bike as much as I do. He had me paint his motorcycle like the bike.”

“You didn’t paint your bike to match his motorcycle?”

“Other way around.”

“All right, I think we’ve gone far enough without knowing exactly why you are so liberally throwing around accusations. You owe us an explanation or I’ll be calling the mayor in about two minutes,” Dad said.

“Things have been happening ever since the Kowalski kid got to town. His family are gypsies and everyone knows they lie and steal. Your son has been running around with him and his girlfriend. Last night purple paint that apparently came from your garage was used to paint a huge phallus on the front window of the bank. If your son was a little more cooperative, I’d have that kid in jail by now,” Warren said. I was really getting pissed, but Dad put a hand on my arm.

“I want you to write up a report on this,” Dad said, waving a hand at the damage to my bike. “We’re citizens of this town and deserve to be protected, not bullied by a racist cop.”

“I’m not racist!” Warren yelled.

“You gave yourself up when you started talking about what everyone knows about gypsies. That’s racist. I’ll petition the town council to have an investigation opened into your hard-on for the motorcycle riders. It seems you’ve decided who’s responsible for this based on your prejudices and not on doing any actual police work. Now write this vandalism and theft report up and then get out of my garage.”

Whoa! I had no idea if Dad had any idea what was going on, but I’d never heard him come to anyone’s defense like he was right now. The constable glared at him and just turned around and stalked off.

“I’m sorry, Nate,” Mr. Barkley said. “It’s not really a reflection on you. You’re right, Mr. Hart. Clyde’s been trying to nail the Kowalskis and the motorcycle riders for anything he can get them on. I believe they ride through town on a regular basis just to aggravate him. They never speed. They come to a complete stop at stop signs. They just ride around the town, maliciously obeying every law,” he laughed.

“I service them at the station regularly,” Dad said. “Respectful. Nice guys who like to ride their motorcycles. I envy them, both their bikes and their girlfriends. And I’ve met Jim Kowalski. Good, hard-working man. Gave me a reference for a possible job up at that construction site south of Huntertown. Might be able to do some heating and air conditioning work up there this summer.”

“Well, I’ve got nothing against them. I’ll back you up if you go to the town council. I think Clyde’s gone too far on this. He recognized the paint right away. We had a float painted in that a few years ago. Came straight to me and wanted to know who I sold it to. That’s why we came up to the attic,” he said. “I thought he’d just ask you about the paint and we’d settle that part of it. I didn’t expect him to start throwing accusations around. Sorry about that.”

“No problem, Mr. Barkley. If you’d like to come up and take a closer look at some of the photos I’ve been taking, please do. I can show you all the proof sheets of the school photos and some of the glamour shots I’ve taken,” I said. I turned around and took a couple of pictures of my bike, then of the paint shelf. I stepped outside and took pictures of the footsteps that went around the other side of the garage and disappeared at the road where there had been traffic.

“Forensic photography,” Mr. Barkley said. “You might want to go down to the bank and take a couple of pictures there, too.”

“Good idea,” I said. I paused long enough to rewind the film and pop in a new cassette. I walked downtown and had to snort at the picture on the bank. I assumed it would be an erect phallus from what the constable said. Instead, it was flaccid. Limp dick. I looked around on the ground. There had been some foot traffic around the bank, but I identified a set of foot prints leading away from the bank that looked like they matched the ones at our garage. They disappeared out into the street, too, so I couldn’t follow the trail.

I wasn’t exactly in the mood, but I really wanted to finish printing the photos of Christine, so I went back to the studio. The first thing I had to do was find a rag and mop up the wet tracks the constable left all over the studio.

Then I went back to print the proof sheet of the film. I could get all twelve frames of a roll of 120 film on a single contact sheet. It took half an hour to get all the sheets done and rinsed. I took them out to the table and examined them before they were really dry. There were some real duds. Exposure, focus, depth of field. A little bit of everything. But there were a few real gems. The image of Christine looking back over her shoulder as she answered the phone when I called her name looked great. Of course, part of the appeal was her bottom with the garter strap running down it to her hose. The picture of her beckoning me with her top off was definitely going in my collection. There was a nice portrait shot that showed her down to her tummy. Her arm blocked a clear shot of her nipples. She had the receiver in her hand and was dialing.

I found the matching negs and went back to the darkroom to print the enlargements. While they were drying, I started assembling the images of Lori’s photo shoot. She could choose any one of a dozen shots for a yearbook photo. They were great. The series of Attic Allure shots were all good. Then there were the nudes. Each one in the sequence got closer to the look I wanted, but there was nothing like that last photo that captured absolute perfection. Instead of just printing a proof sheet, I printed pocket photos of the entire Attic Allure series, up to the time she got naked. The rest, I just proofed. I had Monday at two o’clock in the studio marked for Lori’s photo selection.

I was scheduled to meet Allison after school on Wednesday. I got her presentation package ready and included the Attic Allure photo in an 8x10 glossy. It really turned out cute. I’d deliver Ronda’s photos as soon as I saw her at school this week. She’d made it clear that I was to just choose the best shots of her and print them. She didn’t want to go through the whole selection process.

I had Avery’s photos ready to deliver and would give them to her as soon as I saw her. She’d already paid for the big order. I had everything organized and was ready for Monday, so I went home for Sunday night ice cream and TV.

The first thing I did on Monday was go to the service station with Dad.

“Henry, you know my son, Nate?” Dad called when he got there.

“Oh, I’ve seen you around. Nice to meet you formally. Are you looking for a job?”

“No, sir. I’m a photographer, you know.”

“Yes, I’d heard that. Making a living?”

“Enough to be able to do a special project for a friend,” I said. I handed him the big envelope with the calendar in it. He opened it and looked at the photo I’d laminated to the top of the calendar. He turned and carried it into the garage.

“That’s my car!” he said, returning to the counter. “And this calendar ... It’s not 1955, but is that ... Burt Graham’s daughter? And she posed for this? Is it safe for me to hang it up here?”

“Hi, Mr. Deloit,” Janice said as she walked in the door. “Do you like your new calendar?” Behind her was a big guy I took to be her father.

“Burt? Are you okay with this?”

“Oh, Jan and her friend Jude love their costumes. Yep. I’ve seen that one. Gonna look good hanging back there,” he said. I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure what his response would be to the sexy photo of his daughter.

Henry turned around immediately and hung the calendar on the hook where his old 1955 calendar had been.

“Anybody touches that will answer to me personally,” he declared.

“Maybe I should be asking this young man here,” Burt said turning to me, “what your intentions toward my daughter are.”

“Intentions, sir? Um ... Janice is my friend. She’s a great model. I intend to take more pictures of her,” I stammered.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Burt said. “I was afraid you intended to woo her and she’s already got a young fellow interested. So don’t you interfere with that.”

“No, sir. I won’t sir,” I said. “Um ... Mr. Deloit? I’m collecting photos of townspeople where they work. Could I possibly take your photo here behind the counter?”

“Well, I suppose so. But you kids know it’s just Henry in here. Now do I need to cut off my britches?”

“I think you’re dressed just fine. Don’t you, Janice?”

“He looks great.”

I was carrying a small bag I’d found in the attic and carefully pulled my Hasselblad out of it. If I did much location work, I was going to need a custom bag so I didn’t need to carry the metal suitcase with me. I focused in on the man behind the counter, proudly standing beside his new calendar. There was a perfect amount of light coming in through the front windows to give him good definition.

“Hey, Janice, why don’t you slip around there behind the counter and stand beside him?” I said.

“Okay!” She pulled off her winter coat and was standing there in the outfit from the photo shoot. Wow! Right in front of her dad. She slipped around the counter and stood beside Henry with the calendar between them and slightly above her head. Behind me, I heard Burt whispering to my father.

“Seems she grew those things overnight. I just haven’t gotten used to her with them yet. You have older daughters, Rich. Does it ever get better?”

“Nope. They start off little girls and just become more beautiful women every day.”

We finished up the photos and I pulled out a model release.

“Henry, could you sign this release that says I can exhibit your photo? I’m hoping to do a display of prominent townspeople someplace.”

“Well, if Jan here has a release, I certainly won’t object,” he said. He filled out the information and signed the copy. I told him I’d get him a print of the photo.

We bid everyone goodbye and Janice left the garage with me. Burt and Dad and Henry were still laughing and pointing at the calendar.

“I was worried about your dad coming in,” I said when we got to the car. “Um ... can I drop you at home?”

“Unless you want to take some more racy pictures of me. I showed Dad the outfit before I came to model. He was a little bewildered, but said okay.”

“I heard him say to Dad that it seems you grew those overnight and he hasn’t gotten used to them yet,” I said gesturing at her boobs.

“Well, I don’t usually give him such a good look at them. Um ... How’d the other one turn out? Our private photo.”

“I printed it for my private collection and have looked at it frequently.”

“Is it all sticky now?”

“No! What do you think? I’ve got better aim than that!” I looked at her and we both started laughing. “Did you want a copy of it? I’ve got a copy of the calendar photo for you.”

“No. Just keep that one for your private collection. I’m happy to know you have it and that it’s inspirational.”

“You can really be evil, you know? Um ... Like, things are okay between you and your dad, aren’t they? I mean, he doesn’t do anything inappropriate does he?”

“Nate! No! Oh, geez! I suppose it sounds all kinds of suspicious, doesn’t it? My father is great. He’s done his very best to raise me alone. I’m a little wild and I guess that spills over in what we say to each other, but he’s my father. He’d protect me with his life. But without a mother, you know, we’ve probably had talks that most girls don’t have with their dads. I mean, can you imagine twelve-year-old me having to ask my dad how to use a tampon? Turned out he had a kind of doll model all blown up and prepared so he could show me exactly what to do. He took me shopping for my first bra. He sat up all night when I was sick. He listened to me complain about dumb boys and cry about losing Patricia as a best friend. My dad is everything in the world to me. But absolutely nothing he shouldn’t be.”

“I’m so glad, Janice. I’ll never mention it again. I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I said, pulling up to her house.

“Thank you, Nate. It’s what makes you a good friend. See you later.”

She jumped out of the car and ran up the steps to her house. Just at the top, she stopped and pulled her coat up to her waist so she could wiggle her butt at me. That girl!

I continued my quest for photos and headed for the library. It wasn’t empty. There was a group of little kids sitting in one corner while a volunteer mother read to them.