Mystery fiction; Trials (Murder) -- Fiction; United States -- Fiction
_So I held her in my hand._ Ann's arms reached upward in rigor out of
the shadow of earth, for in that first photograph they had let the
drowned girl lie on her back while the camera peered impersonally at wet
skirt tumbled down from flexed thigh (the knee discolored), and soaked
white underpants, the position pointlessly (accidentally?) erotic:
_Death, my lover_. Accidental surely, for the camera had given a sharper
focus to the bedabbled mouth, darkened cheeks, empty eyes. Why must the
small breasts push up so urgently? Why, a happen-so: she was drifting
face down, arms and bent knee probably holding her up a little from the
pond's bottom, when rigor began--_all right, I understand_. The lifted
hands were a blur, foreshortened, ghostly; innocently acquisitive hands
transformed to shadows incapable of holding fast to anything, even pity.
The second picture was an enlargement of the face to life size, no
detail spared. Drops of pond water blurred the eyes; a black twig was
caught in water-soaked hair. Discoloration, and foam.
The third picture was one taken at the morgue, after rigor had passed
off, and though the face was still a comment on the brevity, the
insecurity of beauty and warmth, Ann's no longer vulnerable nakedness
conveyed no great sorrow. It was just a portrait of death; apart from
the drowned face, not unlovely. Callista remembered that in Mr. Lamson's
office she had very nearly remarked aloud: "Never knew she'd had an
appendectomy." The lividity, yes; but one could think of that as simply
the shadow of death. This photograph, Callista supposed, would hardly go
to the jury, for in the morgue nobody had bothered to toss a prudish
towel over the innocent little triangle. Maybe they had fixed up another
one for the purpose, that wouldn't distress the sensibilities of Mr.
Emmet Hoag. Yes, granted, certainly, that Ann had been very pretty and
desirable, a long time ago.
Callista recalled what it was she actually said aloud in Mr. Lamson's
office: "I'd like to be sure I understand. If these pictures shock me,
that's evidence of remorse, in other words guilt. If I don't display any
shock, that means unnatural coldness; in other words, guilt. Is that
correct?"
Someone behind the chair in Lamson's office where she sat facing the
desk light had made a noise. Not T. J. Hunter; Sergeant Rankin maybe;
or could it have been that young Sergeant, Samuel Arthur Shields? An
indistinct word or suppressed grumble; not significant, but Mr. Lamson's
cool gaze had flicked upward at the sound, not liking it. "No, Miss
Blake, I don't think you have it quite correct. A girl of your
intelligence and background ought not to be taking that
world-is-all-against-me attitude. One expects it from common
criminals--we look for it--but surely not from you."
"I've never thought the world was all against me. I used to think it was
a place where you could get by fairly well by telling the truth, minding
your own business, trying not to hurt anyone."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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