The Third Exposure

The camera kept whirring inside the evidence bag.

Ruth stared at it as if a machine could be intimidated by a badge. The plastic tightened around the old Polaroid, then bulged. Something pale pushed through the camera’s front slot and struck the counter.

Iris caught the photograph before it fell.

Ruth’s hand closed around her wrist. “Don’t.”

“You said it was evidence.”

“I said I was bagging it.”

“Then photograph it in the bag.”

Ruth let go. Iris held the square by its edges and watched the blank surface begin to gray.

The deputy turned toward the front windows. The substation occupied a former insurance office, all glass and thin walls. Across the street, the town’s only pharmacy was closing. A man in a red cap stood beneath the awning, looking at the rain. He did not look toward them.

“Lock the door,” Iris said.

Ruth gave her a hard glance. “You saw someone?”

“No. I saw a door.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It is the answer that requires the least speculation.”

Ruth locked the front door anyway. Then she took the photograph from Iris and held it beneath the counter light.

The image came into focus in layers. First the black outline of a desk. Then the shelves behind it, crowded with ledger boxes. Then Iris’s father’s study, exactly as she had left it that morning.

Iris lay face down across the desk.

One arm hung toward the floor. Her fingers nearly touched the carpet. Her jaw was turned enough for the camera to catch one eye, open and clouded. A dark stain spread across the back of her gray blouse.

The date surfaced along the bottom border.

OCTOBER 16.

Ruth’s thumb shifted against the photograph. “You own a gray blouse?”

“Several.”

“Do you own that stain?”

“Not yet.”

Ruth looked up. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

“I’m not enjoying it at all. I’m refusing to give it the satisfaction of changing my vocabulary.”

“Your vocabulary isn’t going to keep you alive.”

“No. But it may help identify whoever is trying to frighten me.”

Ruth put the photograph beside the first two. October 18 on the embalming table. October 17 on the staircase. October 16 in the study. The locations formed a route through the funeral home, as though someone were walking Iris backward through the building.

“Your father’s study,” Ruth said. “Who has a key?”

“I do.”

“Who else?”

“My father did.”

Ruth waited.

Iris looked at the dead man’s office in the photograph. “No one else should.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Then the answer is no one else.”

Ruth pulled a latex glove from the dispenser and picked up the bagged camera. “We’re going to open this in the interview room.”

“Why?”

“Because if it produces another one, I want a camera pointed at it.”

“You don’t have a camera pointed at it now?”

“The substation security system has been broken since March.”

Iris studied her. “You have a remarkable talent for making my decisions look responsible.”

“Keep talking and I’ll make one for you.”

The interview room had a table bolted to the floor, two chairs, and a dark dome camera in the ceiling. Ruth placed the evidence bag beneath it and called the county dispatcher. She spoke in clipped phrases, giving the time, the evidence number, and the existence of a third image. When she finished, she sealed the door from the outside and waited for the camera to stop.

It did not.

The whirring came through the bag in short mechanical bursts. Iris watched the film compartment through the clear plastic. There was no cartridge inside. She could see the empty chamber, the curled black backing paper, the dry rollers.

A fourth white square emerged.

Ruth swore under her breath.

Iris stepped closer. “Open it.”

“Not yet.”

“If it’s going to produce another photograph, it will do so whether the bag is sealed.”

“I’m establishing a chain of custody.”

“You’re establishing a delay.”

Ruth’s jaw tightened. She took a knife from her belt and slit the bag open. The Polaroid clicked once. The new photograph slid onto the table.

It was not a picture of Iris.

The image showed the preparation room from the doorway. The stainless-steel table stood beneath its lamp. The drainboard was clean. The cabinet with the dented left door was open.

A man stood at the sink.

His face was turned away, but Iris knew the shoulders, the narrow neck, the white hair combed over a bald crown. Her father wore the brown cardigan he had been buried in.

He was holding the Polaroid camera.

The date appeared beneath him.

OCTOBER 15.

Ruth reached for the image. Iris took it first.

“No,” she said.

Ruth’s fingers remained suspended above the table. “That’s your father.”

“Yes.”

“Your father died last year.”

“I was present for the funeral.”

“Then explain the picture.”

Iris turned the photograph toward the overhead light. The image was sharp enough to show the chipped enamel on her father’s wedding ring. His left hand rested against the sink. His right held the camera at waist height, pointed toward the preparation table.

Behind him, the basement door stood open.

Someone had written on the wall beyond it.

Not in paint. Not in blood. The letters had been scratched directly into the plaster, three words running vertically beside the doorframe.

DON’T BURY ME.

Iris felt the room contract around that sentence. Her father had been buried eleven months ago. She had signed the cremation authorization herself after the funeral director found a heart attack had destroyed most of his heart. Ruth had signed the death report.

Ruth saw the writing. Her face lost its color.

“You knew about that?” Iris asked.

“No.”

“You were at the house that night.”

“I was at the house after the ambulance left.”

“You signed his death.”

“I signed what the coroner gave me.”

“Did you examine him?”

“Not my job.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

Ruth’s eyes stayed on the photograph. “I noticed the back door was open.”

“That isn’t in the report.”

“No.”

The answer landed harder than an excuse. Iris set the picture beside the others. Four photographs. Four dates. The first showed her seven days ahead. The second six. The third five. The newest showed her father four days ahead, standing in a room where he should have been nothing but ash.

The camera clicked again.

Neither woman moved.

Another photograph began to emerge. This time it came slowly, grinding against the rollers as if the mechanism had finally met resistance.

Ruth drew her weapon.

Iris reached for the camera.

“Don’t touch it,” Ruth said.

“My father used it to take these.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know what it shows.” Iris pulled the camera free of the torn bag. “And I know the next photograph will be dated October 14.”

The white square slid onto the table.

Its image was already visible.

Iris saw the funeral home’s front entrance. The brass bell. The dead security camera above the door. The rain-slick sidewalk outside.

A figure stood on the other side of the glass, facing in.

The face was hidden by the reflection of the room, but one hand pressed against the pane. On the ring finger was her father’s chipped wedding ring.

The figure lifted its other hand and wrote across the fogged glass from the outside.

IRIS—COME HOME.

Ruth grabbed the keys to the substation.

Iris picked up the photograph.

“I’m going with you,” Ruth said.

“No.”

“I am not asking.”

“I’m not going home.” Iris looked at the image of the hand against the glass. “I’m going to the cemetery.”

Ruth stopped at the door. “Why?”

“Because my father told someone not to bury him.” Iris slid the Polaroid into her coat. “And I want to know who ignored him.”