Page 97 of The Night Island
“A fresh lead?” Pallas asked, looking hopeful.
“Maybe.” Luke opened an envelope and took out the contents. “We got the film in Keever’s camera developed by a firm that does specialty work here in Seattle. We were able to supervise the process to make sure there were no copies made, and we got the negatives back.”
Amelia was suddenly riveted. “You have photos?”
“We do,” Luke said. “Keever used black-and-white film, and most of the shots were done underground in the lab. He had to deal with the weird light down there, which meant extended exposure times. The result is that the images are grainy, not sharp and clear. Most of the photos are pictures of mushrooms, but there are some of the interior of the lab where Pomona Finch did her work.”
He held the photos up to the laptop camera.
Ambrose leaned closer to his screen to get a better look. “Definitely mid-twentieth-century tech.”
“Nothing digital works down there or anywhere else on the island,” Talia explained. “Probably something to do with the paranormal environment.”
“The most interesting shots are the ones taken on the surface,” Luke said. “They are also black-and-white, but unlike the others, they are sharp and clear.”
He held up one of the prints.
“Two men standing on a dock,” Pallas said. “Why are they important?”
“That’s the dock at Night Island,” Luke explained. “The individual on the left is Nathan Gill. We don’t know who the older man is but we think he’s important. In the background you can see two cabin cruisers. The first is the one Gill used. We are assuming the other man arrived in the second boat.”
Ambrose studied the photo. “You’re sure the unknown man wasn’t a guest who had booked the Unplugged Experience?”
“Chef Octavia was adamant that the guests always arrived on the chartered ferry,” Talia said. “She did not know who the man was, but she said he was definitely not a guest. He did not stay very long.”
“According to Octavia, the unknown man made two visits to the island while she was there,” Luke added. “Each time Gill met him at the dock and took him straight through the gardens and into the conservatory. Presumably they went down into the lab. When the two emerged from the conservatory, the visitor went back to the dock and left. He never came into the lodge.”
“How did Gill explain the visits to Octavia and Clive Venner?” Pallas asked.
Talia answered as she replaced the coffeepot on the burner. “He told them that the stranger was a research scientist from the Institute and that he came occasionally to get progress reports.”
“The Wynford Institute for the Study of Medicinal Botany is a fake operation,” Luke added. “It exists only on the internet. It was a cover for Gill’s project.”
Talia went back around the counter and perched on the dining stool. “The unknown man has to be important.”
“We’ve got the hull identification numbers of the two boats tied up at the dock,” Luke added. “They’re both rentals, but I’m going to try to track down the people at the marina who dealt with Gill and the unknown individual. There has to be a paper trail. Both men had to sign rental agreements and buy fuel. Someone may remember something.”
“Anything else of interest in the prints you made from that roll of film?” Amelia asked.
“We don’t think so, but we can’t be sure,” Talia said. “As you can see, the underground photos are not good quality. We think the photos of the two men and their boats are the critical shots, mostly because they are the exceptions to the mushroom shots.”
“Send the negatives to me,” Amelia said. There was a fierce urgency in the words. “I need to develop them myself and take a close look. I’ve got some software that will enable me to enhance the images.”
“Will do,” Talia said. “When it comes to photography, you’re the expert.”
“I feel like we’re making some real progress at last,” Pallas said. “We’ve got the list, thanks to our new semi-virtual assistant, and we’ve got photos of two people we know are involved in this thing.”
“I can’t wait to get my hands on those negatives to see if I can find something else that might help us,” Amelia said.
“I’ll overnight them to you today,” Luke promised.
Pallas shook her head. “I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that Nathan Gill and his little team of whack jobs were trying to create psychic assassins.”
“Not just trying,” Ambrose said. “Sounds like they succeeded in creating one—Jasper Draper.”
“He was a killer before he was enhanced,” Talia said, determined to stomp on any conversation that involved the wordassassin. “The drug apparently gave him some temporary ability to commit murder with his paranormal senses, but it’s obvious he couldn’t handle the sensory overload.”
Pallas shuddered. “Thank goodness you failed to respond to the drug, Luke.”