Free Stage Fright by Gabrielle Holly Page B

going to develop film at this hour?”
    “Police station,” Mike said. “Bridge can you call Schmidt and tell him we’re on our way?”
     
    * * * *
     
    It was snowing again when they pulled up in front of the police station. They hurried up the wide steps and into the warm building. The officer at the front desk greeted them with raised eyebrows. “You’re the ghost hunters, right? Here to see Schmidt?”
    Mike nodded and the officer depressed a series of buttons on the phone in front of him. A voice crackled through the speaker. “Schmidt.”
    “The ghost people are here.”
    “Send ‘em back.”
    The officer jerked his head towards a windowless steel door behind him. “Through there, second office on the left.”
    Detective Schmidt sat at a cluttered desk. He was wearing jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and a baseball cap and looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.
    “We woke you,” Bridget said, cringing.
    ”Well, you said it was urgent,” he answered then stared at her.
    Thomas broke the standoff. “We think we’ve found something.” He nodded to Bridget who pulled the file from her bag and handed it to the detective. He flipped open the folder, glanced at the negative inside then looked up, his face was expressionless.
    I wouldn’t want to play poker with this guy , Thomas thought.
    “We were hoping you could take that to your photo lab and develop it for us,” Mike said, “We found an old photo album belonging to Priscilla Stringman and that was hidden behind one of the pictures.”
    “We don’t have a photo lab,” Schmidt said. “Nobody does anymore.”
    A knot formed in Thomas’ stomach and Toni squeezed his arm.
    Schmidt closed the folder and stood. “Everything is digital now. We can scan it into the computer and see what you’ve got.”
    The four followed him down the corridor and through a door marked Digital Forensics.
    Schmidt walked to a piece of equipment and laid the strip on a scanner and lowered the lid. He punched out a sequence on the computer keyboard and the equipment began to hum. He drummed his fingers on the scanner and locked his gaze on the album in Toni’s hand. “It was in there?” he asked.
    Toni nodded and flipped to the page where the negative had been hidden. She passed the open book to Schmidt.
    He laid it out on a desk. “Not exactly an ideal chain of evidence,” he muttered. He studied the photos of the Rialto then opened a paperclip and used it to lift one with the freed corner. “Under here?” he asked.
    “Yes,” Thomas said.
    “Hm.”
    The scanner stopped groaning and Schmidt settled into the desk chair. The others gathered behind him and watched the computer screen as the scanned image appeared in remarkable clarity, one vertical line of pixels at a time, crawling left to right. The first photograph was of the alley between the Bijou and the Rialto. It was stuffed with a tangle of boxes and moving crates. A lone figure, a man with his back to the camera, was leaning with his left shoulder against the back wall of the Bijou. He wore a fedora, Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and the stub of a fat cigar dangled from his right hand. His head was tilted back and slightly to the side, framed by a plume of smoke as if he’d just blown out his last drag.
    “That’s Stringman,” Bridget said quietly.
    “Let’s see what else we’ve got before we jump to any conclusions,” Schmidt said. He crossed his arms over his chest and leant back in the chair, never taking his attention from the screen. The second image emerged more slowly than the first. When it was fully revealed, Thomas felt Toni lean against him and heard her whisper, “My God.”
    The figure still had his back to the camera. He was leaning over a box, his right leg bent and lifted in mid-stomp. Flames from a small fire licked up towards his foot.
    “He must have tossed his cigar butt without thinking,” Mike said.
    The final photo left no question as to the identity of the subject. A