Free Dead to Me by Mary McCoy Page B

cleared my throat and delivered my message loudly enough that it would require no intermediary to reach Mr. Fleming.
    “I WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS A SITUATION INVOLVING PHOTOGRAPHS OF A PORNOGRAPHIC NATURE TAKEN IN THIS STUDIO.”
    The customers browsing in the showroom froze and turned to stare at me. One woman grabbed her child by the elbow and dragged him out of the shop. The bell hanging above the door trilled on their
way out.
    “PERHAPS YOU’D LIKE TO SEE SOME OF THEM.” I started to reach into my purse, and the receptionist’s hands flew to her face.
    Before she could speak, though, the office door swung open and Mr. Milton Fleming appeared, in the flesh.
    “What the hell is going on out here?” he wheezed.
    I nodded politely and extended my hand. “Mr. Fleming. If you have a moment, I’d like a word in your office.”
    “And who the hell are you?”
    “A concerned party.”
    He snorted. “Concerned party, my foot. Who put you up to this?” He stepped forward and stuck a finger in my face. I held my ground and pulled the picture of the underage girl in the
pinup lingerie out of my purse.
    “Who put
her
up to this?” I said, holding it up to make sure he got a good look at it.
    The few remaining customers did not even attempt to conceal their eavesdropping.
    “I’ve never seen that girl before in my life, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now, get the hell out of my shop before I call the cops.”
    Then I took out the picture of Ruth.
    “I’ve never seen her, either,” said Milton Fleming.
    “Look behind her,” I said. “What do you see there? How do you explain that?”
    Poring over the photographs in the hospital room, I’d been focused on the girls, looking for the clues in their faces and body language. But that’s not where the clues were. The
photographs were poorly lit and sloppily composed—the photographers had barely bothered to conceal where they were taken. In Ruth’s photograph, they hadn’t bothered at all. The
stencil on the door was nearly washed out by the spotlight that shone up from below, bathing her face in a sickly light, but I could still make out the letters, reversed in the frosted glass:

    It took a moment for Mr. Fleming to see what I was pointing at, caught up as he was in the sight of a winking and scarcely clad Ruth. He gaped for a moment before suddenly remembering that he
was a respectable citizen and family man looking at dirty pictures in the presence of a minor. The moment his eyes lit on the stenciled letters, I saw his lips begin to form a protest that died in
his throat. All that came out was a long, high-pitched wheeze.
    “Girly, I don’t know anything about this.” His panicked eyes met mine and begged me to believe him. I almost did.
    He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me in close enough to whisper in my ear, “Please.”
    Please?
I scowled at him.
    “Please, not in front of these people, not now,” he said. “I could lose my contract with the schools, and I swear I didn’t have anything to do with this. There’s a
back door to the shop off the alley. Come back in an hour, and I promise, I’ll give you anything you want.”
    “One hour,” I whispered back. The people in the store froze in place, hanging on the sight of Mr. Fleming, muttering in my ear. He nodded, gave my shoulders a shake, and gave me a
shove that looked rougher than it really was.
    “Get out of here now, girly,” he bellowed, chasing me toward the door. “Next time you play a prank like that, I call the police.”
    We put on a good show for them. At the last minute, I spun around and stuck out my tongue at him, then slammed the door hard behind me.
    Since I had an hour to kill in the neighborhood, I found a diner around the corner from Fleming’s and helped myself to the first meal I’d had since yesterday’s breakfast. I
shouldn’t have bothered. My toast was cold and the coffee tasted vaguely of dish soap, which at least served to