Claire looked around her at all of the cops. If this had happened to anyone else on the block they never would have sent more than one car. The place was all lit up. Spaces in the house were lit that never had been lit all at one time before. She looked around for the Mayor. There he was, sitting squarely on the porch watching the great to-do with big brown eyes and a broken heart. He’d missed the whole thing. Claire shot bolt upright. “My cameras!” she whispered and ran.
A few moments later she reappeared at the top of the stairs. “They’re gone. All my lenses. Everything. They took my cameras.” She sat down quickly before she fell down.
Now that they knew that something had been stolen, everyone else felt better. Something substantial had happened, a crime of reason, and they could handle that better than an eerie breakin where a small child lived. Detective Ryan came up to her, his little pad and pencil in hand, his blue seersucker puckered, his shoulder holster wetting the line of his white shirt with perspiration. Claire, in her mind’s eye, was following the thief—which was what these cops were supposed to be doing, correct? Out looking for him instead of in here politely taking cider from her accommodating mother, who was, without a shadow of a doubt, enjoying this. She was lit up like a firefly. And the thief most likely comfy in some car on the Van Wyck, heading for the city with a Nikon, a Hasselblat, four lenses, and the rest of the loot.
The Mayor sensed Claire’s misery right away. He came up and stepped on her foot as if to say, Here I am. Don’t you worry, here I am. Your fella.
Carmela was tickled because her jewels were all there: she carried her velvet box down the stairs as though in a procession. This worried the detectives. They wondered why the hell the thief would make off with some “lousy cameras” when there were jewels plain as day on the bureau?
Lousy cameras? Claire staggered back out to the porch. Most of the cops were gone now (“Long as no one was hoit”). The porch boards creaked beneath her. The air stank of urine. Life was an irrevocable mess. On top of it, what if that Johnny Benedetto showed up? Claire rummaged through her purse and came up with her lip gloss, then angrily put it back without using it. Upstairs she could hear Zinnie tucking Michaelaen into bed. Her father had the detectives in his study. Gee, they couldn’t get over those cannons! Mary came up from the cellar brushing her hands on her bowling tournament skirt. The silver was all there, mind you, and the cash, still buried deep in the Brillo box, but … I don’t know … it’s always a mess anyway down there, but … something’s not right …
Claire stood up hastily and went back down the stairs. It couldn’t be. She snapped on the light and a hole dropped from her stomach. The line full of black and whites—the whole lot of them—were gone. Claire blinked. There were color slides scattered all over the floor. Claire turned gray. Detective Ryan, right behind her, put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t touch nuthin’,” he said. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Somebody hadda been watching the house,” the cop was saying. “How else would he know they were all gone? Somebody … who knew all about her.”
“Oh, come on,” Claire said.
Detective Ryan bit his lip. This was a riot. Somebody was actually after this girl and she was telling him to “come on.” He felt like slapping her in the face to wake her up.
“Listen,” Zinnie told him, “Those were the pictures she was taking up in the woods. Somebody didn’t want their picture around, savvy? This was the thing. Whose ever picture that was … was the murderer.”
Ryan winced. No point in scaring the shit out of her.
“I can’t believe it!” Claire was saying. “My best shots. Gone. I think I must have been a thief in another life for this to happen to me again.”
“So this happened before?”
“Mmm. In India.”
“Oh. That lets that out.”
Zinnie stared at her. “God, Claire, at least you’re all right. Anybody crazy enough to come into the house has got to be desperate. We could have walked in at any moment. As it was, Daddy just missed whoever it was. He said he heard the back door slam and thought it was one of us.”
“Miss Breslinsky, think real hard. I want you to try and remember who was in those shots.”
“How am I supposed to know which shots are missing if you won’t let me go through the darkroom? Oh, Lord. I feel as though I’ve been raped.”
“Just let the print guys in there and then you can have your turn.”
“My turn.” Claire nodded her head and sat down. It was going to be a long night.
Next door, Mrs. Dixon peeked out through her clean vinyl blinds.
Captain Furgueson knocked on the screen and walked on in.
“Holy Christmas,” Stan marveled. “If it isn’t the brass.”