Chapter 8
With TJ’s help, Paul packs the eleven boxes into his trunk as quickly as he can.
He doesn’t really think Tom Senior will change his mind, but the man hovers in the doorway, looking like someone who’s ingested poison.
Paul thinks he’s gotten everything—except for whatever was in the filing cabinet down in Judith’s darkroom.
When he spotted the cabinet, he asked Tom about it, but he said it was full of Judith’s “personal things,” and the police had already been through it.
No photographs in there—only bills, medical records, and memorabilia.
Nothing of Paul’s concern. Tom sounded defensive and ill at ease, and Paul didn’t quite believe him.
But he hesitated to push Tom at a crucial moment and decided to leave it alone, to stay focused on what he had: the photographs, the negatives, the film rolls. A treasure trove.
When the boxes are all loaded, the two Toms stand awkwardly by the car. Only TJ shakes Paul’s hand.
“You’ll let us know when you’ve made your selection and come by to show us, right?” Junior asks, glancing at his father.
“Yes. Absolutely. Wouldn’t think of doing otherwise,” Paul lies.
He’s thought plenty of doing otherwise—of driving off into the sunset with the boxes and never having to deal with Tom Senior again.
But in reality, he needs him. In reality, Tom is the one and only owner of Judith’s photographs—however much it rankles Paul to acknowledge it.
“I’ll treat everything carefully. And I’ll be in touch.
Soon.” Paul thanks both men again and begins to back the car down the drive.
Just as he senses the onset of blissful freedom and fumbles across the seat for his cigarette pack, Tom Senior’s face appears in the passenger-side window, his hand on the car.
Paul tenses immediately. Here it comes—either a retraction of permission or a whispered threat—or both.
Tom looks uncomfortable as he leans in, leans closer, and speaks low.
“Hey, if you happen to see anything out of the ordinary in those pictures she took of herself, will you let me know? Anything like…a man lurking in the background? The police have looked, but I thought maybe with your, you know, expertise…” He lets it trail off.
It takes Paul a moment to realize what Tom is asking.
“Did Judith think she’d gotten a picture of him?
Of the stalker?” Tom nods. He looks sick again, either from sharing this personal information or just from the mention of Judith’s killer.
Paul feels a bit ill himself, but it’s an illness tinged with excitement.
A picture of the stalker, possibly in one of the boxes in his trunk. What a sensation that would cause.
“She said he showed up in the background of those pictures. In all of them. She cropped him out every time, so the ones you saw were—fixed. After she died, the police reprinted some of her film, but they said they found nothing.”
“Really?” Paul says, stunned. “Not a single one?”
“Nope. But I don’t trust them. They’ve been nothing but sloppy.
And if Judith said she saw it, it must be there.
” There’s defiance in his voice, though it shakes a little.
Here is a man who loved his wife, Paul thinks with real feeling.
A heartbroken man who’s been cold to him, and dismissive, too, but if he could satisfy Tom Senior in this, it would be nothing but beneficial to them both.
Paul says he’ll examine the self-portraits with exquisite care, reprinting the negatives if he needs to. Tom looks relieved—grateful, even. His face disappears from the window, leaving Paul to back the car out and drive off at last. Tom and Tom fade to blips behind him.
As he winds through residential streets toward the highway, Paul mulls over Tom’s solemn request and wonders if he’ll really find proof of the man in her pictures.
He imagines how Marty would react…and the public, too.
He gets carried away thinking about it until he merges with the highway.
The flow of cars returns him to the present, to what he’s gotten: every last roll, negative, and print of Judith Stanley’s.
Pure elation takes hold of him, sends him speeding along.
He turns on the radio to hear the Doors. He doesn’t love the Doors, but he pumps the volume anyway: Come on, baby, light my fire, / Come on, baby, light my fire. He feels ignited by the lyrics, for once. He feels like a fucking king.