The Phantom Photographer: Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 3 (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (9 page)

“Not quite,” Michael said, hesitantly sensing from Paul’s playful tone that perhaps something had gone terribly wrong.

“Well, that’s one of my little sweeties,” Paul explained with a wondrous smile. “Her name is Carla. You wouldn’t happen to have any more of these? I mean, did you take any other pictures? We shared a shower later, but I wouldn’t imagine you got any of those shots, frosted glass window kind of ruins the opportunity.”

“Do you and Carla get to do this a lot?”

“As often as we can. My wife and I have an open marriage. She goes out and does her thing one night a week, and I do mine. She’s not into things like threesomes, so when it comes to play dates, we just go our separate ways. But tell me about your thing. What would you call it? Some sort of photo erotic fantasy play?”

After an awkward pause in the conversation, Paul continued to voice his curiosity over what he assumed was Michael’s sexual fetish.
 

“But, listen, Michael, this is not cool. I don’t have any problem with you doing your own thing, but if you’re going to take pictures of me, well I want to know next time. For one thing, I could have made the lighting a little better, which would have helped give you a better view of the action.”

The last thing Michael wanted to share with Paul was that he was trying to build a list of victims he could blackmail in exchange for keeping secret the photographic evidence he had gathered. He had no intention of providing Paul and his wife with a secret portfolio they could share with their various lovers.
 

“Well, I was driving down your block and I saw this really hot girl going into your place and, well…I was just curious. I’m sorry I snuck around the back and took the photos that I did. I know it was wrong of me. I’ll never do it again.”

“Hey, man, it’s okay. You like to watch. I get it; we’ve all got our own thing. I’m sure that there are a lot of people who wouldn’t approve of what Bev and I do for fun, but just like you, we’ve all got our own little secrets.”

Michael had no choice but to stand there and look both embarrassed and humbled. Clearly, it was better for Ablow to see him as a peeping tom than an extortionist.
 

“Maybe you should speak to Bev. She might like you to get some photos of her as well. I really admire your work. If you’ve got any more of Carla and me from that night, I’d be happy to pay you for them. You do really great work!”

Michael could not get out of Paul’s Patio World fast enough, even though Paul insisted that Michael stay and complete the stated purpose of the business meeting they were supposed to be having.
 

Later, in the car, driving over to Mary’s Pizza Shack, which was in the same strip mall where the camera shop was located, Michael could not believe what had just happened. He was aching to tell someone, but of course there was no way to explain why he had taken these pictures of Paul and his attractive young lover in the first place. Perhaps, at some point, he could tell his brother Christopher this story and they could share a good laugh. But certainly no one else.
 

It just didn’t seem fair. He did everything right and got the wrong result. It was a powerful lesson to him about the rules of the game he had decided to play. Secrets worth paying for were only those worth hiding. Certainly release of the photos of the local Rotary president at play would cause a stir among the members, but it would be the ruin of Michael in both his job and his standing in the community. It was far wiser, he knew, to file this away under funny things that happen when you enter the business of extortion.
 

Michael quickly adjusted to a more philosophical view of the whole episode. It was like one of the many hunting trips Christopher and Michael had gone on with their father in the years after Barbara had left. So often, when they thought that big buck was in their sites, something went wrong.

Every business has time, money, or both, invested in some pursuit that fails to yield its expected return. Michael had the sophistication to realize that he was still in the process of building a business. Setbacks and unexpected developments were part of the process. He needed to set Paul and his wife aside and move on to others who most assuredly had secrets they’d pay to keep.

CHAPTER
NINE

In time, and by practicing patience, Michael found two more targets over the following year. Both were a result of his time working for the chamber and the Rotary.

The first was a popular certified public accountant, Ward Wilson, who had just been elected treasurer for the chamber. Word had it that he and his wife were, “just the cutest couple,” but he had an apparently irresistible urge to pursue a male bedmate every now and then. Michael locked onto him at the chamber’s holiday party when he put his hand firmly on Michael’s thigh and said, “I’m guessing you’d be a fun guy to get to know better. Has anyone ever told you have a wonderful smile?”
 

Michael had to dodge a couple of offers to join him at his office after hours for some “free pointers” on how to reduce his taxable income. He suspected this was a ploy Wilson used on other potential partners, who no doubt had equally wonderful smiles.

He staked out the perfect location to shoot photos from a rooftop location across from his admirer’s one-man office, and found out that Wednesday, the night his wife had a standing date with three girlfriends to play mahjong, was the night he was most likely to be giving some gentleman, “free tax advice.”

After a month of empty Wednesdays, Michael and his telephoto lens struck gold. Six weeks later, he received the first of Ward’s four-hundred dollar monthly payments. Given the long hours he worked at the camera store, Michael happily thought of this as the easiest money he ever made.
 

The second was Sheila Grimes, who was married, had twin boys in the local middle school, was active in the Rotary, and was also manager of the Novato Savings Bank branch on Grant Avenue. There were rumors that her “behavior around other men was not always proper,” but no names and no details came attached to that speculation. If she was having an affair, she was being very discreet. Nothing like Fred or Marv, who were both too arrogant to consider the consequences of their actions; or Paul, who with his open marriage found it arousing that he was being secretly spied upon; or Ward, who was blind to the obviousness of his actions. If Michael were to achieve success uncovering Shelia’s secrets, he would have to be willing to invest the time of a private investigator.
   

Michael, with little social life of his own, and having nothing he enjoyed more than tracking his prey, was up for what he told himself would be a more challenging assignment.
 

He began by waiting in his car and watching as Sheila left the bank, usually about thirty minutes after its six o’clock closing time. Monday through Thursday, she followed the same road home, with Michael dropping his tail of her at various spots, then driving by her house minutes later to find her car parked on the left side of the home’s carport.
 

But, to Michael’s surprise, that pattern changed on Friday. At about her usual time, Sheila left work, but once on her way, she quickly turned left rather than right. Michael, at first, was excited, but told himself that she was likely headed to pick up one of her boys or perhaps do some last minute grocery shopping. He followed her up DeLong Avenue and onto the southbound entrance to 101. Eight miles later, in moderately heavy traffic, she exited at Freitas Parkway and turned left and then right again onto Civic Center Drive. Sheila entered and circled the parking lot in front of the San Rafael Embassy Suites. Michael pulled up just outside the property and watched as she found a spot and walked inside.
 

Michael drove into the lot, parked quickly, and hoped that he had not lost her. If it was a rendezvous, perhaps she had already vanished into one of the hotel’s many floors, but hopefully she was still in one of several public areas. He slung his camera over his shoulder, ready to tell Sheila, should they meet, that he was there grabbing a bite before a nearby photo shoot that was slated to start at eight.
 

Once inside, he walked quickly to the elevator and rode to the third floor, where, because of the hotel’s open atrium design, Michael had an excellent view of the entire lobby. He carefully scanned the registration area and the business people standing with cocktail glasses, gathered around the coy pond. Then he found her, seated in the hotel lobby’s lounge, a popular destination because they offered two for one drinks from five to eight every evening. Sheila was relaxed and smiling as she patted the hand of the man sitting opposite her. He, like her, was dressed in business attire.
 

Who was he? Michael lifted his camera and balanced its telescopic lens with his right arm, which was supported by the safety rail that wrapped each of the hotel’s floors. People with cameras photographing the center expanse of the hotel was a common site, although the size of Michael’s camera suggested that he was more passionate about photography than most.
 

The man Michael was staring at through his lens was a distinguished late forty- something to Sheila’s late thirty-something. After just a couple of minutes of considering the numerous business people he had met doing monthly photo shoots at chamber and Rotary gatherings, he was reasonably convinced that Sheila’s close friend was not someone he knew from Novato. Well, fortunately, he had the equipment to get a close up profile of his face from over two-hundred feet away. Someone, he thought, must know this guy.
 

After finishing a second drink and choosing not to order another round of doubles, they left their table and walked toward the elevators. Michael felt fine about running into Sheila in the hotel’s lobby, but in the middle of one of the guest floors, perhaps near the room where he assumed their tryst would take place, was entirely too awkward. Of course, the chance was remote in a hotel with many floors, but to play it safe, Michael quickly ducked into a stairwell and waited there for a few minutes before exiting and taking an elevator down to the lobby.
 

Now what? He wondered. It was unlikely that Sheila and her gentleman friend would be in the lobby in the next hour, so Michael wandered into the hotel’s restaurant and ordered the Friday night special, an all you eat shrimp marinara pasta.
 

Full after two and a half helpings, Michael looked at his watch. It was nearly nine. They’ve been at it for well over an hour, he thought. Michael walked out to his car and moved up to a closer spot, many of which were available now that happy hour was over and there were only a handful of diners left in the restaurant.
 

He backed into his spot, giving him an excellent view of the hotel’s front lobby. While the exit was well-lit, his car, parked eighty feet away, was not. He didn’t know about her gentleman friend, but he reasoned that Sheila had a family to get home to and now, two hours after they left the bar, it was reasonable to assume their passion was played out. Approximately three hours after he had followed Sheila into the hotel, she left with the same distinguished man he had photographed her sharing drinks with at the hotel bar. They nodded, shook hands, looked about, and then kissed passionately in what appeared to be a quiet parking lot. Michael caught their kiss on film. He followed her home, mindful of keeping a respectful distance, splitting off a half mile from her home and then circling back around to confirm that Sheila was now home with her family. He then headed to his own home, fully satisfied that he had done a good night’s work.
 

He played solitaire on his nearly new IBM PC, which came with an impressive 512K processor. Around eleven-thirty, he got into bed, clicked off the light, and went to sleep, wondering, who was Sheila’s lover?