Episode 9 · What She Remembered

The river workshop was shut when Soles and Maxim drove past the next morning. Before they went back, Soles wanted something better than a name attached to a broad face.

Varren had arranged an introduction at the botanical garden that morning. Kerr had worked on its old pavilion, he had said. Krista might remember him.

Maxim waited by the truck while Soles went through the public entrance. The path led to the pavilion, where photographs were being hung for an exhibition.

Krista was standing on a chair when Soles found her, trying to stop a man from taking a photograph off the pavilion wall.

— That one stays, she said. The damaged frame is in the office.

— They’ve both got a crack.

— In the office, the crack goes through the man’s face. This one goes through a cloud. Leave the cloud alone.

The man lowered his hands. Krista climbed down, took the replacement frame from him and turned toward Soles.

— Varren’s friend?

— Soles.

— Krista. Give me a moment.

She carried the frame to the office, spoke briefly to someone inside and returned with her phone.

She led Soles toward the benches outside the pavilion. She was slim, with an oval face and straight brows. Her hair was tied back unevenly, and a pale line of dust crossed one sleeve. She brushed at it once and made it worse.

— Varren said you had a question about someone who worked here.

— Kerr.

Her hand stopped against the dusty sleeve.

— What do you need to know?

Soles told her why he was looking. He had prepared a short version on the way there. It still felt brutal to put it between them on a sunny path, with people going past to look at flowers.

Krista sat beside him without offering a quick answer.

— You don’t know for certain it was him?

— I saw the man who shot me. Someone gave me Kerr’s name yesterday. I need to find out whether they’re the same person.

— Have you told the police?

— Yes.

She considered him, then opened the pictures on her phone.

— He came to the pavilion for collections and repairs. I saw him at the committee’s dinner as well. I can show you what we have. You decide what you recognize.

She found a group photograph. Several people stood beneath the terrace columns, some still holding glasses. A man at the edge had turned partly away from the camera.

Soles leaned closer. The shape of the cheek was familiar. He waited for the whole face to become certain and felt his chest tighten instead.

— Can you enlarge it?

Krista did. The face broke into squares.

— There’s a better copy, she said. This is the image they used online. The original includes the tables on the left.

— You’ve got it?

— In the exhibition files.

She rose, then glanced at the way he had lowered himself onto the bench.

— Stay here. I’ll bring it.

While she was gone, Soles looked back at the photograph still hanging inside the pavilion. He could see the crack in the glass, high above the heads of the men standing in a row. One held a spade. Another had a hand resting on a wheelbarrow.

His father should have been able to grow old enough to look like that.

Krista returned with a slim folder and sat down. Inside was a clear print of the dinner photograph. She placed it between them, holding down the edge when the breeze lifted it.

— The man you asked about is here.

She indicated him without touching the face.

Soles saw the short hair, the set of the mouth, the heavy cheek. The kitchen door seemed to stand behind the printed shoulder. He let the picture rest against his knees until the feeling passed.

— He looks like him.

— Enough to tell the investigator?

— Yes.

She gave him the date and the name of the event. When he asked her to repeat the date, she did it without looking at the folder.

— You remember all these things?

— Things I’ve actually seen, usually.

He pointed toward the picture on the wall.

— Including which glass is cracked?

— The frame in the office has a split down the right side too. The backing is green. Someone wrote a price on the corner and crossed it out twice.

Soles turned to look at her.

— That sounds inconvenient.

— Depends what I’m trying to forget.

The man from the wall came out carrying the damaged frame. Green backing showed beneath a loose corner. He stopped by the bench to ask where the replacement fittings were.

— In the shallow drawer under the counter, Krista said. Beneath the folded cloth.

He went back inside. Soles caught sight of the crossed-out prices before the frame disappeared through the door. She had remembered it without leaving him to check, and while her attention had seemed entirely occupied with his photographs. He wondered how much of their conversation would stay with her just as clearly.

She had said it lightly, but she let him decide whether to ask. He stayed with the photograph.

— Then you must remember talking to Kerr.

— Bits. Seeing him doesn’t tell me what he was thinking. I remember a man being unpleasant about an access form. That isn’t evidence he killed anyone.

She pulled a second photograph from the folder. Same evening, another angle, Kerr nearer the stairs. Soles compared them slowly. Neither gave him the expression he remembered from the yard. They showed a man waiting for food or someone else’s attention.

— He looks ordinary, he said.

— What did you expect?

He could not answer that without sounding foolish. Something visible, perhaps. A sign that other people would have recognized before letting him through a gate.

Krista took out a sheet listing the photographs and marked which copies she was lending him.

— I need these returned. The people putting up the exhibition can’t hang my memory on the wall.

He smiled despite himself.

— I’ll bring them back.

— Preferably with the cloud still intact.

He gave her the investigator’s contact details. She offered to send the original files directly and kept the list with the folder.

At the gate, Soles stopped to check the clearer picture once more. Then he called Maxim.

— I’ve got a photograph.

— Is it him?

Soles watched a couple pass through the entrance, their heads bent over the garden map.

— I think so. I want to look again before I say it to anyone.