Elizabeth George - I, Richard

“They the Lawtons?” Henry Leel said, and when Bethany nodded, he cast a sympathetic gaze on Charlie. “She looks mighty young to be a widow, poor thing.”

“She is mighty young to be a widow. And like I say, she's been sick.”

“Bring her behind here then and sit her down. Mugs, get off that chair and give it to the lady. Go on. You heard me. Here. Let me get the pillow off, Miss… Mrs… What'd you say the name was?”

“Lawton,” Charlie said. “Forgive me. I haven't been feeling well. His death… It was sudden.”

“I'm sure sorry about that. Here. I'm making you some tea with a tot of brandy in it. It'll set you up. You stay where you are.”

He locked the front door of the shop and disappeared into the back. When he returned with the tea, he brought a local telephone directory with him, eager to be of help to the ladies. But a search through its pages turned up no Lawtons in the area.

Charlie quelled her disappointment. She drank her tea and felt revived enough to tell Henry Leel how she and Bethany had come to choose this shop in Temecula as the jumping-off point to find Eric's family. When she'd completed the story and brought forth the wedding picture of Eric's parents, Henry gazed at it long and hard, his brow furrowed as if he could force recognition out of his skull. But he shook his head after a minute of study. He said, “They look a touch familiar, I'll give you that. But I wouldn't want to say that I know them. Sides, I sell old pictures not much different from this, so after a while everyone in a picture looks like someone I've seen somewhere. Here. Let me show you.”

He went to a dark far corner of the shop and brought out a small bin that stood on the shelf of a kitchen dresser. He carried this back to Charlie and Bethany saying, “I don't sell many. Mostly to tearooms, theater groups, frame shops wanting to use them for display. That sort of thing. Here. Have a look-see yourself.” He plopped the bin on the desk. “See. This here one of yours… it fits right in with this last bunch in the bin. A little more recent, but I've got some that age. Looks like… let me see for a second. Yep. It looks like a fifties shot. Late fifties. Maybe early sixties.”

Charlie had begun to feel uneasy with the first mention of the photographs. She didn't want to look at Bethany, afraid of what her own face might reveal. She fingered through the photographs cooperatively, unable to avoid noticing the fact that they represented all styles and all periods of time. There were tintypes, there were old black and white snapshots, there were studio studies, there were hand-tinted portraits. Some of them had handwriting on the back, identifying either the subjects or the places. Charlie didn't want to think what this meant. Jessie-Lynn just before Merle's wedding.

Henry Leel said, “So how'd you come to think these Lawton folks'd be here? At this shop in Temecula.”

“There was a receipt,” Bethany responded. “Charlie, show him what you found in that frame.”

Charlie handed over the slip of paper. As Henry Leel squinted down at it, she said, “It must have been a coincidence. The picture… this one of his parents… it was a bit loose in the frame, and he must have been just using it to fill in the gap. I saw it and… Since I was hoping to track down his family, I made a leap that wasn't warranted. That's all.”

Henry Leel pulled thoughtfully at his chin. He cocked his head to one side and tapped his index finger-its nail blackened by some sort of fungus-against the receipt. He said, “These're numbered. See here? One-oh-five-eight in the top right-hand corner? Just hang on a minute. I might be able to help you.” He rustled within his rolltop desk, rousing Mugs from her slumber at its side. She lifted her head and blinked at him sleepily before pillowing herself once again in her paws. Her master brought forth a worn, black, floppy-covered book of an official nature and he plopped it onto his desktop, saying, “Let's see what we can come up with in here.”

In here turned out to be copies of the sales receipts for merchandise for Time on My Side. Within a moment, the shop owner had leafed back through them to find what was on either side of 1058. 1059 had been made out to a Barbara Fryer with a home address in Huntington Beach. “Not much help there,” Henry Leel said regretfully, but he added, “Say now. Here's what we want,” when he saw the receipt that preceded it. “Here's who you're looking for. You said Lawton, didn't you? Well, I've got myself a Lawton right here.”

He swung the accounts book in Charlie's direction, and she saw what she'd anticipated seeing-without knowing or understanding why she would be seeing it-the moment she began fingering through the old pictures. Eric Lawton was written on receipt number 1057. Instead of an address anywhere at all, there was only a phone number: Eric's work number at the pharmaceutical company where he'd been director of sales for the seven years that Charlie had known him.

Beneath Eric's name was a list of purchases. Charlie read gold locket (14 ct), 19 th century porcelain box, woman's diamond ring, and Japanese fan. Beneath this last was the number ten and the word pix. Charlie didn't need to ask what that final notation meant.

Bethany pointed to it, saying, “Charles, is this-”

Charlie cut her off. Her limbs felt like lead, but she moved them anyway, turning the account book back to the shop owner and saying, “No. It's… I'm looking for Clark or Marilyn Law-ton. This is someone else.”

Henry Leel said, “Oh. Well, I s'pose it wouldn't be this fellah. He was too young to be who you're looking for anyway. I remember him, and he was… say… fortyish? Forty-five. I remember because look here, he spent near seven hundred dollars-the ring and the locket were the big-money items-and you don't see that kind of sale every day. I said to him, ‘Some lady's going to get lucky,' and he winked. ‘Every lady's lucky when she's my lady,' he said. I remember that. Cocky, I thought. But cocky in a good way. You know what I mean?”

Charlie smiled faintly. She got to her feet. She said, “Thanks. Thanks so much for your help.”

“Sorry I couldn't've been more of a one,” Henry Leel replied. “Say, you want to head off right now? You're looking green around the gills. Ask me, you need a straight shot of brandy.”

“No, no. I'm fine. Thanks,” Charlie said. She gripped Bethany's arm and drew her steadily from the shop.

Outside, an old-time hitching rail ran along the wooden sidewalk, and Charlie clutched onto this, looking out into the street. She thought about 10 pix and what that meant: a family conveniently purchased in Temecula, California. But what did that mean? And what did it tell her about her husband?

She felt Bethany come close to her side and she blessed her friend for the gift of her silence. It continued while out in the bright street, cars cruised by and pedestrians dodged between them to dart into yet another shop.

When she was finally able to speak, Charlie said, “What happened was that I accused him of having an affair. Not that night. A week or so before.”

Bethany said, voice glum, “He never gave you that locket, I guess. Or the ring.”

“Or the porcelain box. No. He didn't.”

“Maybe he sent them to Janie? Trying to be a good dad?”

“He never said.” In spite of an attempt to control them, Charlie's tears welled anyway, spilling onto her cheeks in a silent trail of misery. “He'd been acting different for about three months. At first I thought it was work-sales being down or something. But there were the phone calls he hung up on when I walked into the room. There were the times he came home late. He always phoned me, but the excuses were… Beth, they were so transparent.”