Raveled (31 page)

Chapter 45

Allison… present

The VideoMagic shop opened just two months ago, according to the faded Grand Opening banner hanging limply above the door. They specialized in converting old videotape formats that had become obsolete. Technology’s lightning advancements had created a new niche of companies that could help the perennially behind humans keep up. The metallic sign in the front window boasted that the
videomagicians
could convert any medium, including last century’s VHS tapes, into DVD’s, YouTube clips, Flash Drives, or whatever cloud-like technology was invented the day before. They also developed photos, retouched wrinkled and torn memories of yore, and could Photoshop you onto Mount Rushmore if you so desired. The sooner the record of one’s memories became archaic, the faster VideoMagic’s cash registers opened, ready to aid in the hamster wheel race against progress.

To add to my
delight in finding them, VideoMagic was run by two non-native college grads who hadn’t spent their childhoods marinating in Lavitte’s sordid history. They’d no doubt chosen our fair town because they sensed the prevalence of dusty closets, rife with ancient footage of birthdays, weddings, first steps and graduations. No one ever recorded deaths, divorces, last steps and failures, but if they had, then in Lavitte’s dark basements they would remain.

I entered
the store. It smelled of new carpet, Freon, and photo processing chemicals. My lungs would pay for an extended stay at this establishment but I wasn’t leaving without my prize.

“
Hey,” said a hirsute young man sitting behind the counter. His flat voice suggested he preferred sleep over customer service and that all his enthusiasm for the store had been used up on the exclamation points on the signs. “Help you?”

“Can you develop the pictures in
this?” I held out Jasper’s camera.

One
barely detectable glance at the flimsy device told him enough. “Sure.”

“The film insid
e is over fifteen years old.”

“Whatever,” he said.

“I can’t chance ruining it. Are you sure you guys can handle it?”

His
glimpse at the camera was more detectable this time, but barely. “Yup.”

I considered walking out and taking it to the police. They would at least have specialists in this area
who would be vigilant with potential evidence, but the childhood fear of Mayor Kettrick and his rangy influence remained rooted in me.

“I need it today,” I said. “Right away.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

That one really flummoxed him. He looked around but the only other human in the store sat in the back drinking coffee and rubbing his head. Staring at the camera instead of me, he said, “Uh, it’s policy to say we need forty-eight hours to turn jobs around.”

“I absolutely need the photos today. I
’ll pay extra.”

He seemed so
baffled, I almost felt sorry for him. “Hold on.” He swayed into the back room, consulted the other dude, who never stopped massaging his temples, and returned. “Okay, we can do it today.”

“And the camera will stay here, on-site?”

“Yup.”

“I’ll wait,” I said.

“Really?” he said, showing his first sign of life with a couple blinks and a modicum of eye contact.

I supposed that in a generation where there
was always an update to be posted, a text to be returned, or a photo to upload, the concept of doing nothing but sitting and waiting seemed foreign to him. But I wasn’t about to let that camera out of my sight. Plus, if the photos were gruesome or disturbing, or if these yahoos happened to recognize Shelby Anderson, I wanted to be the one they asked for an explanation—not the police. Though really, would either of these guys have the energy or inclination to pull out their phones and call the cops?

“It’s pretty urgent
,” I said. “And the photos might be of a sensitive nature.”

“Okay.”
And with that, he disappeared into the back, his torn rear pocket trailing behind him.

I found an empty display area where I could
sit and stare out the window and still remain a quick head-turn away from Cheech and Chong while they treated my evidence like a kid’s birthday photos. Other customers came and went, the energy of the counter dude increasing as the minutes ticked by. His Red Bull must have kicked in.

As I gazed out the window, m
y eyes locked onto a big rock disrupting the edge of the parking lot between VideoMagic and a neighboring drug store. Fences changed in Lavitte, kittens replaced worn-out cats, and new babies filled old cribs, but the rocks stayed put, as if an ancient decree mandated that all structures must give right-of-way to these hunks of mineral composites and their comfort. The rocks might not grow roots, but they surely harbored twisted secrets. Remembrances of who kicked them, sat on them… leaned a bike against them. Last night, I’d found a picture in my dad’s evidence box of Shelby’s bike. It leaned against a sturdy boulder with a concave top that practically begged a weary bottom to rest on it. In the photo, a round, white stick remained stuck to the side of the rock, like a finger pointing to a clue, glued in place by a remnant of the lollipop that had once topped it. According to Mrs. Anderson’s statement, she’d
just bought a big bag of mixed candy and my Shelby, she’s got quite the sweet tooth
. I’d noticed her use of the present tense, even though, unbeknownst to her, Shelby had plummeted to the barn floor by then. Some intuitive officer must have sensed that the abandoned bike meant more than just another kid wandering off or hiding at a forbidden friend’s house. Either the terrified tone of Mrs. Anderson’s call to the police or the cold solitude of metal against rock had stirred enough passion that he’d snapped a photo that very night, lit solely by his camera’s flash because the sun had long set.

The VideoMagic dude finally
appeared with my envelope of photos. I walked to the counter. “Here’s the best we could do,” he said. I had expected judgment, maybe disgust, but he seemed unfazed. “Normally, we have to call it in if we suspect child porn or something, but since that film is like, ancient, we’re letting it go.”

Wow. Good to know our children were safe in the hands of these guys. What if I’d lied about the age of the camera? What if I
still had the girl from the photos locked in my basement all these years? I decided not to press the issue as the police were the last thing I needed.

“That’ll be $26.50
,” he said. “Considering the rush.”

Figured I was getting
off cheap. I paid and left as fast as I could without appearing suspicious and took off in my car. I parked in a barren lot four blocks away and quickly opened the packet, squeezing the narrow ends of the inner, cardboard envelope. It felt like birthing a baby as I pulled out the small pile of 4”x 6” photos, giving new life to a moment in which so many lives had changed. In my hands, I held the power to travel back in time and change history, to rewrite the outcome of a tragic play. Some would like the new ending. Others wouldn’t. And at least one person may have deemed it worth murder to maintain the current narrative.

The first picture
showed Shelby on that swing. Contrary to what I’d expected, she looked joyful and glassy-eyed. And oh so young. Had I looked that innocent at her age? Her shirt made a blur off to the side, like a ghost swooping in. It must have been in motion. Her full breasts, far nicer than my own at any age, served as the focal point of the picture. It was difficult not to stare at them, the bra made nearly translucent by its sheerness and the flash of the camera.

To think, s
he’d be dead within the hour.

The picture and the fate seemed
utterly incongruous to me. Inside, my intestines felt like a boa constrictor wrapping around my stomach, contracting for dear life and telling me to hurry up and save that girl. I wanted to reach out to the happy, spacey face and scream at her to get the hell out there, to jump if she had to, to charm Bobby’s stupid ass if necessary. Whatever she had to do to avoid the horrible events coming her way. This girl had hardly begun. Not even old enough for the brutal North Carolina sun to have taken its toll on her fair skin. God damn you, Bobby Kettrick, for denying her a chance—at everything.

Then it hit me. God had da
mned him. About half a mile from the site of the photo. But He’d unfortunately chosen my dad as the instrument of His wrath. Ha. Imagine. My dad being feted, maybe even sainted, as a direct tool of the Lord. Dad might have liked that. He’d used it as an excuse a few times himself.

The second photo appeared to
have been taken immediately after the first. The angle varied by only a few degrees, but it captured Shelby staring right at the camera’s lens, her expression no longer emanating joy. She hadn’t known about the first picture but she’d caught on by the second and didn’t like it one bit. Probably felt like an animal trapped in a cage, unable to do anything except be on display for the human parasites. Bobby played the latter role to a tee, no doubt. And why had Shelby been on display in the first place, subjugated to this bestial treatment? For the crime of carrying an X chromosome. For the crime of puberty.

Fury boiled beneath my skin.

The third picture showed a clump of hay and the toe of a scuffed white tennis shoe. Must have been Jasper’s foot when he first found the camera and tested it out. The fourth was taken from far below, with Jasper aiming the camera above his head, disbelieving of the disrobed, floating seraph soaring above him. Maybe the angle or the cheapness of the camera had enhanced Shelby’s precarious altitude, but a chill shot through me when I saw how high up she was. Christ, boys, have a heart. Even with the distance between lens and subject, it was obvious Shelby had removed her bra by the time this photo was snapped. She couldn’t have appeared more vulnerable than if they’d bound and gagged her.

The next two p
hotos confirmed the content of Jasper’s letter. Smitty, in three-quarter face, and Bobby, oblivious to the camera with a half-empty vodka bottle upside down on his lips. What a pair. Smitty’s youth shocked me, having just seen him as a weary father holding down a stressful job. But if you added in a few wrinkles from carrying a heavy burden of guilt, plus the dull sheen of a man with little imagination and a murderous inclination, you’d get present-day Smitty.

Bobby, on the other hand, looked exactly as he’d been preserved and mounted in Lavitte’s memory. Youthful, carefree, strong, touched by the light of the gods. No doubt taken from the world at the height of his physicality. And the Kettricks would have him no other way
for all eternity. Forget the path of destruction left in his wake, the simmering hate of those who’d felt his wrath, and the girls on whose hearts he’d trampled. Forget the real Bobby Kettrick. Lavitte’s legendary, ethereal Bobby Kettrick would live on forever in his falsely earned, elevated status, far higher than the loft on which he’d stranded a little girl.

S
adly, even with proof positive, Lavitte was not one to let go of its legends without a fight, be they praiseworthy or horrid. I needed more. I checked the envelope one last time. That was it. This was all I had to go on. No more photos.

Or
so I thought until my phone rang.

Chapter
46

Allison… present

Before I could even get in a courtesy hello, Ray found himself halfway through his second sentence. I slowed him down and made him start over.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” he said. “I’m just excited. Or maybe that’s rude. I mean, Jasper’s dead and here I am feeling excited. Smart guy, that Jasper.”

Now I’d regressed Ray too much. He’d started off saying something about a photo.

“Okay, so here’s the story
,” he said. “Remember I told you how I had to file a warranty claim today?”

“Yes.
Sort of. For what?”

“
The automatic front door! Remember how it wasn’t working when you first came here?”

“Yes,
sure.”

“Well,
we don’t know if it was faulty installation or a defective door, but we have to submit all this paperwork to get a replacement.”

Couldn’t imagine the relevance, but I knew Ray
well enough now to let him go on.

“
So Julia started filling out this ridiculous, ten-page claim the other day and it required photos of the door from the outside and inside. Well, it takes Julia forever to do anything. She finally got out her phone on Thursday and took the photos. Had to do it a few times because of glare and whatnot. Then last night, she hooked up her phone at home where she has a printer with photo paper—ours here is terrible—and she brought the photos in this morning. I was stapling them on just now when I noticed a driver pulling into the Ravine parking lot in the background of one of the photos. Driving right past the door as Julia took the picture.”

My eyes went wide and my ears
zoomed in. Was Ray about to say he had a photo of Smitty pulling into Ravine?

“I checked the time stamp and it was four minutes before
—”

“Was it a green Jeep Grand Cherokee?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Ray said. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. Like he’d raised his hand to answer the tough question and blurted out the wrong response in front of the whole class.

“Okay, sorry,” I said. “Go on.”

“Well, I hope this is helpful. Maybe not.” His voice deflated like a sliced tire.

“Please, Ray,
continue. This is very exciting.”

“Okay.
Turns out the photo was taken four minutes before that Shawn Smart person signed in. I’m thinking it might be his car.”

“What kind of car?”

“Hard to tell because it’s blocked by the bottom half of the door where we have that frosted glass. Some kind of SUV, I guess. Not green like you’d hoped. But here’s the thing. If you look hard, you can see the driver.”

“
What does he look like?”

“Impossible to tell from the photo in my hand.”

I became the tire, flat and limp on the ground. “Major bummer, Ray. You really had my hopes up.”

“
Allison, don’t you watch the good crime shows?”

“Not really. I
work nights.”

“Ever heard of a DVR?
Videostreaming?”

“
Yes. What about them?”

“
In the shows, the cops are always able to enhance the photos and zoom in on people who appear blurry in the original.”

“You think we can enhance this one?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“
You’ve got to send me that photo, Ray. The digital copy from Julia’s camera.”

“I hope she didn’t erase it.
She’s not here right now.”

“
Can you call her? I have just the place to get it analyzed.”

Looked like
I’d be a repeat customer at VideoMagic today.

Ray
agreed to drop everything and have the hard-to-reach Julia send me the photo as soon as possible. I stared at young Smitty in my hand. Perhaps I’d have an updated photo of him in a few minutes. Only one glitch—he was probably headed out of town. Should I confront him now and give him a chance to come clean? Go straight to the police? Call Kevin? Tell my mother everything first?

No, there was
one other stop I had to make first. It was only a mile away.