Portrait In Death

"Ah, yes. This is a very old technique." Leea

"That box is taking my picture."

"Yes. It's the light, you see, that creates the miracle here. I ask each of my students to make a pinhole camera like this, and to experiment with it. Those that don't understand the miracle, well, they may go on to take good pictures, but they'll never create art. It isn't all technology and tools, you see. It isn't all equipment and manipulation. The core is the light, and what it sees. What we see through it."

"What we take out of it?" Eve asked, watching her. "What we absorb from it?"

"Perhaps. While some primitive cultures feared that the camera, by reproducing their image, stole their souls, others believed that it gave them a kind of immortality. We have, in many ways, blended those two beliefs. Certainly, we immortalize with imaging, we steal moments of time and hold them. And we take something from each subject, each time. That moment again, that thought, that mood, that light. It will never be exactly the same again. Not even a second afterward. It's gone-and it's preserved, forever, in the photograph. There's power in that."

"There's no thought, no mood, no light in a photograph of the dead."

"Ah, but there is. The artist's. Death, most certainly death, would be a defining moment. Here, let's see what we've got."

She covered the hole on the box again, then slid out a sheet of paper. On it, Eve's image was reproduced, almost like a pale pencil sketch.

"The light etches the image, burns it into the paper, and preserves it. The light," she said, handing the paper to Eve, "is the tool, the magic. The soul."

"She's really interesting," Peabody commented. "I bet she's a terrific teacher."

"And as someone who knows how to manipulate images, she had the skill to dick with the security discs on her building, shift the time stamp. Her alibi, therefore, has holes. So we give her, potentially, opportunity. Means-she clicks there. Method, another click. Give me motive."

"Well, I don't…"

"Set aside the fact you like her." Eve merged into traffic. "What's her motive for selecting, stalking, and killing two attractive college students?"

"Art. It all deals with art."

"Deeper, Peabody."

"Okay." She wanted to take off her cap, scratch her head, but resisted. "Controlling the subject? Controlling the art in order to create?"

"On one level," Eve agreed. "Control, creation, and the accolades that result. The attention, anyway, the recognition. In this case we have a teacher. She instructs, she gives her knowledge, her skill, her experience, and others take it and go on to become what she hasn't. She's written a couple of books, published some images, but she isn't considered an artist, is she? She's considered a teacher."

"It's a very respected, and often under-appreciated vocation. You're a really good teacher, for instance."

"I don't teach anybody. Train maybe, but that's different."

"I wouldn't have the shot at a gold shield, not this soon, if you hadn't taught me."

"Trained you, and let's stay on target here. The other level is taking from the subject and seeing them as just that. A subject, not a person with a life, a family, with needs or rights. A subject, like-I don't know-a tree. If you've got to cut down the tree to get what you want, well, too bad. Plenty more trees."

"You're talking to a Free-Ager here." Peabody shuddered. "Talking about indiscriminately mowing down trees hits me in a primal area."

"The killer isn't killing just for the thrill of taking a life. It isn't done with rage, or for profit. It isn't sexual. But it is personal. It's intimate-for the killer. This person, this specific person, has what I need, so I'll take it. I'll take what they have, then it becomes mine. They become mine, and the result is art. Admire me."

"That's a pretty twisted route."

"It's a pretty twisted mind. And a smart one, a cool one."

"You think it's Professor Browning?"

"She's co

She started at Juilliard, at the theater department. At some point in their young lives, Rachel Howard and Kenby Sulu had intersected.

She sent Peabody off to make the rounds with the photograph of Rachel while she made her own.

When her 'link beeped, she was standing at the back of a rehearsal hall watching a bunch of young people pretend to be various animals.

"Dallas."

"Hello, Lieutenant." Roarke's face filled her screen, and almost immediately shifted from an easy smile to puzzlement. "Where are you? The zoo?"

"In a ma

"Well enough. Eve, I have to go out of town for a few days."

"Oh." It wasn't unusual for him to have to buzz around the planet, or off it. The man had interests all over the developed universe. But the timing was poor. "If you could-"

"I have to go to Ireland," he said before she could finish. "I need to go back, and deal with this."

Stupid, she thought immediately. Stupid to have this blindside her. Of course he'd need to go back. "Look, okay, I can see how you'd feel that, but I'm in the middle of things here. I need to stick with this until I close the case, then I can take some time. I'll put in for it when I get back to Central."

"I need to deal with this myself."

She opened her mouth, ordered herself to breathe before she spoke. "Right."

"Eve, it has to be done, and isn't something you need to worry about. I don't want you to worry about it, or me. I'm sorry to leave you to handle Summerset, and I'll try to make it as quick as I can."

She kept her face blank, her voice even for both their sakes. "When are you leaving?"

"Now. Immediately. Fact is, I'm on the shuttle now. I can't tell you precisely where I'll be-I don't know yet. But I'll have my personal 'link with me. You'll be able to reach me anytime."

"You knew you were going." She lowered her voice, turning her back on the corridor as students rushed by behind her. "You knew this morning."

"I had to see to some details first."

"But you'd already made up your mind to go."

"I had, yes."

"And you're telling me like this so I can't do anything to stop you."

"Eve, you wouldn't stop me. And I won't have to put your work in a holding pattern so you can come along and nurse me through this."

"Is that what you did when you went with me to Dallas? Nursed me through it?"

Frustration ran over his face. "That was a different matter."

"Oh yeah, with you being a man and all, with unbreakable balls. I keep forgetting."

"I have to go." He spoke coolly now. "I'll let you know where I am as soon as I can manage, and I'll be back in a few days. Probably sooner. You can kick my unbreakable balls then. Meanwhile, I love you. Ridiculously."

"Roarke-" But he'd already ended the transmission. "Damn it.Damn it." She kicked the wall, twice.

She marched back into the rehearsal room and vented her frustration by stalking through the slinking tigers and leaping chimps.

The instructor was a pencil-thin woman with a high shock of blue hair. "Ah," she said, "and here we have the lone wolf."

"Shut them down," Eve ordered.

"Class is in progress."

"Shut them down." Eve whipped out her badge. "Now."