And it was a face that I recognized. It had accompanied the article in The Suburban about the death of Willow Creek’s best friend, Samuel Spender.

It was Roger Carpington, Oakwood town councilman.

I felt-and I know this is going to sound awfully trite-dirty. Working alone here in the darkroom, no one else in the house, developing pornographic images. Not that I’m a prude about such things, but I think that if you’re going to have your picture taken screwing somebody else’s brains out, you should at least have the right to know there’s a camera in the room. Somehow I felt ol’ Roger here didn’t know. And I was betting that Mrs. Carpington didn’t know, either.

I wanted several prints of the shots where he was most identifiable. I was sorry, for the first time, not to have a digital camera. I could have displayed all these images on a computer screen, selected the ones I wanted, and printed them off in a couple of minutes. Doing things the old-fashioned way was going to keep me down here a bit longer, which was frustrating because I was itching to move forward with a plan that was slowly taking shape in my head.

And then, upstairs, a noise.

It was the front door opening. The darkroom was right under the front hall where you stepped into the house.

I’d locked it. I was sure I’d locked it. I’d double-checked every door after coming in from delivering Angie and dropping off Paul’s stuff. Maybe my worst fear was true. Rick did have master keys. He could get into any house in Valley Forest Estates.

The door closed. The sound of footsteps followed. But once they moved away from the front door and were no longer over the darkroom, I couldn’t track them.

Maybe I could stay right where I was. Rick might stick to the main floor, go back into the study and look for the purse, never come down here.

Get real. He would have seen the car in the driveway, suspect that I had to be in the house somewhere. He’d want to find me first, use his powers of persuasion to get me to hand over the film. Maybe arrange an encounter between me and Quincy in the trunk of his car.

Careful not to bump into anything, I shifted over to the corner of the darkroom, where a tripod was leaned up against the wall. It would make a good weapon, I figured, with its three metal legs, once I could get out of the confines of the darkroom and had enough room in which to swing it.

I thought I could hear the door to the basement open, someone coming down the steps. The element of surprise was everything. The darkroom door was only a couple of paces from the bottom of the stairs. I’d spring out, tripod in hand, maybe catch Rick on the side of the head this time.

I held my breath. Counted to myself. On the count of three.

One.

Size things up as fast as you can. Watch for a gun. If he’s got a gun, try to swing for his arm.

Two.

If he’s got someone with him, an accomplice, try to take out the bigger guy first. Go for heads. Go for their fucking heads. Okay, this is it, pal. It’s showtime.

Three.

I burst out of the door, screamed something along the lines of “Ahhhh!” and, grasping the tripod legs down at the end, swung them back over my shoulder like a baseball bat, putting all my energy into the swing, getting ready to let loose with all the power I could muster.

“Dad!”

Paul sprang back, flinging himself into the stairs, raising his hands defensively. I put the brakes on halfway through the swing, which threw me completely off balance, and I staggered into the wall. The top of the tripod crashed into the drywall, creating a deep gash.

“Jesus! Dad! It’s me!”

I stumbled onto the floor, threw my arms out to brace myself. “Paul!” I gasped. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I live here!”

I was trying to catch my breath. “You’re supposed to be at Andy’s! I told you to stay there!”

“I forgot to ask you to bring some video games.” He was as out of breath as I, still sprawled out across the stairs. “We needed some games. Andy’s mom drove us over. They’re out in the car, waiting for me.”

Slowly, I got back on my feet. “Okay, go get your games.”

“What were you doing in there? Were you hiding or something?”

“I was just developing some pictures, that’s all.”

“What pictures? Are you doing Angie’s assignment for her?” Of all the things I’d done tonight, Paul would consider giving his sister an unfair advantage at school my worst crime. I decided to go with it.

“I was just doing up a couple of prints for her, that’s all.”

Paul was still breathing heavily. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

“I was not going to kill you. You just startled me.” I was rubbing my hand across my face. “Come here.” Paul got to within a foot of me and I pulled him closer, threw my arms around him, patted his back a couple of times. “I wasn’t going to kill you. Now get your games.”

As I pushed him away, he looked at the hole in the wall. “Mom’s going to love that.”

“Yeah, no doubt.”

Paul studied me for a moment and said, “Angie’s right.”

“What do you mean, Angie’s right?”

“You’re turning into some sort of crazy person.” He went into the rec room, grabbed three game cartridges, and met me again at the base of the stairs. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you then.” And he mounted the steps, two at a time. I heard him go out the front door, but I couldn’t be sure he’d locked it, so I ran up, threw the deadbolt just as Andy’s mother’s car backed out of the drive and headed off.

Back in the darkroom, I dried half a dozen prints with Carpington’s face fully visible. In the study I found a regular letter envelope for the negatives, and a larger one for the eight-by-ten glossies. I dug out the phone book and opened up the Oakwood pages to the C’s, running my finger down the column until I encountered “Carpington R.”

I glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten. I dialed.

After the third ring, a woman answered. “Hello?”

“Hi,” I said. “Is this Mrs. Carpington?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Sorry for calling so late, but I wondered if I could speak to Councilman Carpington.” Make it sound like official business, I figured.

“I’m sorry, but he’s not in. He’s at a council meeting this evening, and they can run pretty late.”

“A council meeting? That’s going on now?”

“That’s right. It started around six-thirty.”

“At the municipal offices?”

“Yes. Of course. Would you like to leave a message? I’m sure Roger would be happy to get back to you, if not tonight, certainly by tomorrow.”

“No,” I said. “That’s okay. Maybe I’ll see if I can find him over at the meeting.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, and hung up.

I took the negatives and tucked them into the hull of my still-unassembled Seaview submarine model, then carefully glued the bottom in place, sealing them inside. And once again, I scooped everything back into Stefanie Knight’s purse and took it with me, as well as the brown oversized envelope with the prints of Roger Carpington’s rendezvous with Stefanie. From the front-hall table I grabbed my cell and slid it into my jacket pocket, double-checked that the front door was securely locked behind me, and went out to the car.

The municipal building, designed with as much style and imagination as the new developments in Oakwood, sat across from the mall where Angie had been picked up for passing counterfeit money. It was a redbrick-and-black-metal eyesore, sitting on the landscape like a big shoebox. There was a large parking lot around back, but it was mostly empty. Most of the town’s employees were home and presumably getting ready for bed at this hour, but there were a handful of cars, belonging no doubt to the mayor and members of the town council and a few town administrators, plus a few taxpayers with some particular axe to grind or request to make.