CHAPTER ELEVEN
They climbed the front steps and found the security door propped open with a folded newspaper—a convenience for residents, a liability for everyone else.
The lobby smelled of old carpet and something that might have been cabbage, the overhead lighting casting everything in a sickly yellow glow.
A row of mailboxes lined one wall, their brass nameplates tarnished with age.
The stairs creaked beneath their feet as they climbed, each step protesting decades of use.
Isla kept her hand near her service weapon out of habit, though she didn't expect trouble.
Thomas Kramer was seventy-two years old, according to his records.
A retired academic with a grudge against modern photography.
Not exactly the profile of a violent threat.
But two people were dead, and she'd learned long ago never to assume.
Isla knocked.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then she heard shuffling from inside—the slow, careful movements of someone who took their time getting anywhere. A chain rattled, a deadbolt clicked, and the door opened to reveal Thomas Kramer.
He looked older than his faculty photo—thinner, grayer, more fragile.
His wire-rimmed glasses sat slightly askew on a face that had gone gaunt with age, and his cardigan hung on shoulders that seemed to have shrunk since it was purchased.
But his eyes were sharp, alert, taking in Isla and James with the particular wariness of someone not used to unexpected visitors.
"Yes?" His voice was thin but precise, each syllable carefully enunciated.
"Mr. Kramer? I'm Special Agent Isla Rivers with the FBI. This is my partner, Special Agent Sullivan. We'd like to ask you some questions."
Something flickered across Kramer's face—surprise, maybe, or something harder to read. He studied their badges for a long moment, then stepped back from the door.
"FBI," he repeated. "I suppose you'd better come in."
The apartment was a time capsule.
Isla stepped through the door and found herself surrounded by photographs.
They covered every wall, filled every available surface, created a maze of images that seemed to press in from all sides.
Vintage prints in antique frames. Modern reproductions mounted on foam board.
Framed newspaper clippings and exhibition catalogs and what looked like original glass plate negatives displayed in protective cases.
And everywhere—everywhere—the landscapes of Duluth.
Lake Superior in all its moods, captured across more than a century of photographic history.
The harbor in winter, choked with ice. The ore docks at sunset, their skeletal frames silhouetted against crimson skies.
Hawk Ridge in autumn, when the birches turned to gold.
The Lester River cascading over frozen rocks.
Split Rock Lighthouse standing sentinel against storms that had raged before anyone living was born.
"Quite a collection," James said, echoing his words from Marcus Lang's gallery. But his voice carried a different weight now—not admiration, but assessment.
"My life's work." Kramer shuffled toward a worn armchair positioned near the window, moving with the careful deliberation of someone whose body had started to betray him.
He lowered himself into the chair with a soft grunt, then gestured at a threadbare sofa across from him.
"Sit, please. I assume this isn't a social call. "
Isla remained standing, her eyes still cataloging the photographs that surrounded them. "We're investigating the murders of Derek Paulson and Jennifer Hayes. You may have heard about them on the news."
"The photographers." Kramer's voice carried no surprise—no emotion at all, really, just a flat acknowledgment. "Yes, I've heard. Terrible business."
"You knew them?"
"I knew of them." The distinction was deliberate, precise. "I've followed photography in this region for fifty years, Agent Rivers. I know every photographer of any significance. Their work, their styles, their contributions—or lack thereof—to the art form."
"And what would you say about Derek Paulson's contributions?"
Something shifted in Kramer's expression—a tightening around the eyes, a slight curl of the lip that might have been contempt.
"I would say that Derek Paulson built a career on recycled compositions and derivative vision.
He won awards for photographs that would have been considered clichés fifty years ago.
Sunrises over the harbor, ice formations on the shore—images that have been captured thousands of times by photographers with actual talent.
" He paused. "Is that what you wanted to hear? "
"I want to hear the truth."
"The truth." Kramer let out a sound that might have been a laugh, if it hadn't been so bitter.
"The truth is that modern photography has lost its soul.
Everything is digital now—point and shoot, auto-focus, auto-exposure.
Anyone with a smartphone thinks they're an artist. And the ones who get celebrated, the ones who win prizes and hang in galleries—they're the worst of all.
They've turned landscape photography into content. Into product."
Isla moved closer to the wall, studying a cluster of photographs that seemed older than the others. Black and white prints, their edges yellowed with age, showing compositions she recognized.
Hawk Ridge at sunrise. The rocky outcropping in the foreground, the harbor lights below, Superior stretching toward a horizon line that divided the frame into precise thirds.
The exact composition from Derek Paulson's crime scene.
"These are beautiful," she said carefully. "When were they taken?"
Kramer's gaze followed hers to the photographs.
Something softened in his expression—pride, maybe, or something deeper.
"The Hawk Ridge image is from 1978. Taken by Harold Benson, one of the great landscape photographers.
He spent three years studying that overlook, learning its moods, understanding how the light changed with the seasons.
" Kramer's voice had taken on a lecturing quality, the cadence of someone who'd spent decades in classrooms. "Benson understood something that modern photographers have forgotten—that the landscape reveals itself to those who are patient, who are willing to become part of it rather than merely observing it. "
Become part of it.
Isla felt a chill that had nothing to do with the apartment's drafty windows. "What do you mean by that? Becoming part of the landscape?"
"I mean exactly what I said." Kramer leaned forward in his chair, his eyes bright with the intensity of a true believer.
"The great photographers didn't just capture images—they merged with their subjects.
They spent years at a single location, learning its rhythms, understanding its essence.
They became extensions of the landscape itself, their vision inseparable from the terrain they documented. "
"That sounds almost spiritual."
"It was spiritual. It is spiritual." Kramer gestured at the photographs surrounding them.
"Look at these images. Really look at them.
Each one represents a communion between photographer and place.
The artist didn't impose their vision on the landscape—they allowed the landscape to speak through them. "
James had been moving slowly around the room while Kramer spoke, studying the collections with apparent casualness. Now he stopped before a photograph that Isla hadn't noticed—a view of a meadow near the Lester River, captured through bare winter trees.
"This one," James said. "The angle is very specific."
Kramer's attention shifted to the image James had indicated.
"Another Chambers piece. The Lester River meadow, 1958.
He spent two winters photographing that location, waiting for the precise conditions—the frost on the grass, the angle of morning light through the trees.
It took him forty-seven attempts to capture that image. "
The Lester River meadow. Where Jennifer Hayes had been found.
Isla exchanged a glance with James. His expression was carefully neutral, but she could read the tension in his shoulders, the slight tightening of his jaw.
"Mr. Kramer," she said, keeping her voice even, "do you own photographs from the exact locations where Derek Paulson and Jennifer Hayes were killed?"
The question hung in the air. Kramer was silent for a moment, his thin fingers plucking at the arm of his chair.
"I own photographs from every significant location in Duluth," he said finally. "That's what it means to be a collector. If those locations happen to coincide with where people were killed—" He spread his hands, a gesture of helpless innocence. "That's hardly my doing."
"But you do own images from those specific spots. The specific angles, the specific compositions."
"I've already told you—I own the collection. One of the most comprehensive bodies of work documenting Lake Superior's shores. If modern photographers choose to imitate his compositions—poorly, I might add—that's not something I control."
"Imitate." Isla seized on the word. "You think photographers like Derek Paulson were imitating older work?"
"I don't think it. I know it." Kramer's voice sharpened, some of the frailty falling away to reveal the academic underneath.
"I've spent fifty years studying the evolution of landscape photography in this region.
I can trace every significant composition back to its original source.
Paulson's 'award-winning' sunrise at Hawk Ridge?
Hayes's wildlife photographs at Lester River?
Derivative of work that was being done in the fifties and sixties, before she was even born. "
"And that bothers you."