The Father Hunt

"Me too. But intuition hasn't told her who it was. She has made a list of names, twenty-eight of them, people who were friends of her mother, everybody who had personal contact that could be called close even by stretching it, and she has said no to all of them. She says none of them could possibly have had a reason, so it must have been someone she doesn't know about-someone connected with her work here, or someone from many years ago when she was too young to remember. Therefore I come to you first, naturally. She worked here, and you knew her-how long?"

"More than twenty years." He had his head cocked. "Do you think it was premeditated murder?"

"Mr. Wolfe would say it's 'cogitable.' He likes words like that. It could have been; none of the facts say no. If we find someone with a healthy motive that will make it interesting. The first thing I would like from you is a photograph of Mrs. Denovo. You must have some."

His eyes left me for a quick glance down and to the right, then up again. "I don't think…" He let that go. "Didn't you get one from Amy?"

"She hasn't any. There aren't any in the apartment. Surely you have some. At least one."

"Well…" He glanced down again. "I'm not surprised that there are none in the apartment. Mrs. Denovo had a thing about photographs-I mean of her. When we wanted pictures of the staff, for promotion, we had to leave her out. She couldn't be persuaded. Once we got up a folder with separate pictures of seven of us, but not of her, though she should have been up front, after me. No picture of her at all, period." He rubbed his chin with fingertips, eying me. "But I've got one."

"Yeah." I gestured with a hand. "There in the bottom drawer."

His head jerked up. "How the hell do you know?"

"Any detective just learning how would have known, and I've been at it for years. When I said 'photograph' you glanced down there; you did it twice."

His head went back to normal. "Well, you're wrong. They're in the next to the bottom drawer. Two of them. They were taken years ago by a camera man trying angles, and she didn't know they existed. A week or so after her death I remembered about them and took a look in the old files and found them. But I don't think I should… Well, if she had known they were there she would have destroyed them long ago. Wouldn't she?"

"Probably. But she's dead. And if Amy's intuition happens to be right and it was murder, and if the photos would help us get him, do you want to destroy them?"

"No. Of course I don't."