Games to Keep the Dark Away

Cala wasn’t too bright. Probably Snelling had recognized him too and later lured him to the old amusement park with a promise of money. They were both from the area, and the boarded-up park was a likely place for a secret meeting at which cash was to change hands. But instead of cash…

I pulled off the freeway and turned into the gas station where I’d stopped earlier in the week. While the attendant filled my gas tank and radiator, I went to the phone booth and called Snelling. Again the phone rang unanswered. I hurried to the car, paid with a credit card, and was soon back on the freeway.

Salinas slipped by. Gilroy. Morgan Hill. It was rush hour in San Jose. I fretted and cursed and my temperature rose, but at least the car’s gauge remained constant.

I should have the radiator fixed, I thought. No, I should buy a new car. I had money in the bank, a fairly large reward from a grateful shipping company for whom I’d recovered a stolen consignment of cargo. It was more than enough for a new car. But then, it was almost enough for the down payment on a house. A house would solve the apartment problem…

Now I was through San Jose and speeding up the freeway, where tract homes gave way to rolling hills and expensive estates. How many times had I driven this route in the past week? One, two, three, four. Lord, I was sick of the freeway!

One thing was certain: no one was going to be grateful and give me a reward for solving this case. No one was even paying me. So why was I doing this? Why was I rushing up here to face a dangerous man, putting myself in jeopardy? Why didn’t I just call the police, tell them I’d located a fugitive, and let them handle it? I knew the number for San Francisco Homicide, had called it often in my year-and- a-half with Greg. I wouldn’t have to talk to him; I knew most of the men on the squad. So why not pull off this endless freeway and make the call?

Was it because of the photos? Or because Susan Tellenberg had called Andy Smith a nice coward, a gentle man? Or was it because there were things that still didn’t fit?

The last thirty miles went quickly. Route 280 rejoined 101 near the Daly City line, and soon I was exiting at Army Street and scaling the steep streets of Potrero Hill. It was after six; the demolition had stopped. The shells of houses stood dark and silent. So did the top story of Snelling’s, but that didn’t mean anything; the fence obscured the first floor. He could be there, or downstairs on the bedroom level.

I got my gun out of the glove box and stuck it in the outer compartment of my shoulder bag, where I could reach it quickly if I had to. Then I went up to Snelling’s gate, keeping in the shadow of the fence.

The first thing I noticed was that the gate was open.

I paused, listening, then pushed it with my fingertips. It swung all the way back, revealing the overgrown yard. No lights were on in the lower windows. I started down the path.

There was a rustling in the shrubbery to my left. I whirled, hand poised over my gun. A cat jumped lightly to the fence and down onto the other side. I relaxed, but only slightly, and kept going.

The front door was also open, the security chain hanging limp.

I stepped inside, waited until my eyes adjusted to the gloom, then went down the hall. The living room was dark, the draperies open. I could make out the photos on the wall, the chrome-and-leather furniture, the stairway to the top story. Everything seemed as it should be.

And then I noticed that the desk to the side of the fireplace had been ransacked. Its drawers were pulled out and their contents lay scattered on the desk itself, the chair in front of it, and the floor. A trail of papers led from there to the stairway. I listened, heard nothing, and decided to risk turning on a lamp.

Its soft glow filled the stark white room, and I could now see that books had also been removed from some shelves by the stairway. They were piled haphazardly on the floor, and a few were open, as if someone had been rifling through their pages. There was still no sound and, although I couldn’t be sure, I felt the house was empty. Slowly I went to the stairway and climbed to the studio.

There was nothing there but the stool in the center. I glanced up at the skylights and saw a few wispy clouds highlighted against the early-evening sky. The door to the darkroom was wide open and, taking my gun out, I walked across the room.

It was pitch black. All I could hear was the bubbling of the print washer. I reached inside the door, found a light switch, and flicked it on. It was the switch for the safelight, and the room was bathed in its red glow. It illuminated the enlarger and the stainless steel tanks and the dryer and the light table. A couple of prints floated face down in the washer. There was nothing amiss here.

Or was there? I found another switch and flicked it, this time getting white light.

There was a strip of negatives in the enlarger’s holder, and more of them, in protective plastic, spread out on the light table. In one corner, I spotted a file cabinet with its drawers open: Inside were folders full of prints, some of which had been emptied out onto the floor. Ransacked, just like downstairs.

But where on earth had Snelling been while this had been taking place?

I put my gun into my purse and, leaving the light on, went back downstairs to search the bottom floor. As I passed through the living room, something caught my eye-a crumpled piece of photographic paper, lying on top of a disordered pile of canceled checks. I squatted down and reached for it. It was damp, as if it had recently been pulled out of the print washer.

The picture was of The Tidepools. It must have been taken on a day when it was going to storm, because there were dark clouds in the sky and the trees looked bent from a strong wind. It was a haunting photo and artistically I could appreciate it-but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was doing here in the living room. After studying it for a moment, I looked up at the stairway, then went back to the darkroom.

The other prints in the washer were similar-all of The Tidepools and all taken on the same storm-threatening day. They told me nothing. Neither did the photos that were spilled out on the floor. They were all of Snelling’s clients, many of whom I recognized as celebrities. Finally I went back to the door, shut it and put out the lights, and then found the switch on the enlarger.

The image of the negative in the holder blazed up on the board beneath the lens. It was out of focus and, after some fumbling, I corrected it. Since the blacks and whites were reversed, it would have been difficult for anyone who couldn’t read negatives to distinguish who the people were.

A bearded, dark-haired Abe Snelling-Andy Smith, as he had been known then-stood with his arms around two women. One was Susan Tellenberg; the other I had never seen before, but I guessed it was Barbara Smith. She bore a close resemblance to her sister. In the background, I could make out a cypress grove, probably one of those on the grounds at The Tidepools.

So what did all of this tell me? That Snelling had been taking a nostalgic look at his past?

I took the holder out of the enlarger and examined the other negatives on the strip. They were variations of the same pose. I wondered who had held the camera or if Snelling had used a timing device and jumped into the picture at the last second. But did it matter? The negatives told me nothing except what the dead woman had looked like. I reached under the edge of the light table and felt for a switch so I could see what else Snelling had been working on.

The white Plexiglas glowed softly. A magnifying loupe lay to one side, and I picked it up so I could see the negatives more clearly. In one of the protective plastic sheets there were more of The Tidepools and more of Susan and Barbara. Snelling must have taken his camera when he fled Port San Marco, with this roll of film inside it. I turned to the other plastic holder. In it were scenes of San Francisco. I leaned over them with interest, realizing one was the negative of the photo that had made Snelling famous.

There, in reverse black-and-white, was the anguished face of the restaurant proprietor’s wife. And the still face of her husband. There were twelve shots that must have been taken in rapid succession, and I marveled at how Snelling had known exactly which one to pick to give him that essential quality of pain and horror.

But there were more shots that had been taken that day. Shots that, by the sequence of the numbers printed on the film, had been taken before these. They showed the rest of the cafe, the striped umbrellas, the little flowers in vases on the tables.

And they showed another face I recognized.

I stared down, gripping the edges of the light table. That face was the reason Snelling had stopped at the Blue Owl that day and inadvertently become famous.

I didn’t have time to search Snelling’s files for prints of these, and I was fairly certain they wouldn’t be there anyway. The person who had ransacked the house would have taken them. But the negatives lying on the light table hadn’t meant anything to the ransacker. Someone unfamiliar with the photographic process wouldn’t be able