She took the handful of snapshots and leaned over to put them down, one by one, on the coffee table. Ryall leaned over to look at them and stiffened.
“Do you know what these are?” she asked.
“They’re very murky snaps,” Ryall said. “It’s not possible to see much of anything in them, is it?”
“It is if you blow them up.” She reached into her tote bag again and came up, this time, with an eight-by-eleven glossy.
“It’s still murky,” Ryall said, after he’d had a chance to get a look at it. Still, it wasn’t as murky as the other one. It was just—but not absolutely—identifiable. “Maybe you ought to take lessons on how to operate your camera. You seem to need instructions on using a flash.”
“I was there, you know. I took these pictures myself. I stood just three feet from you on the night my brother Tony died and watched you take Patsy Lennon into that car.”
“I don’t know anybody named Patsy Lennon.”
“I’m sure you don’t. God only knows what name she’s using on the street these days. Did you know she was just thirteen?”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ryall said. “If you’re insinuating that these are pictures of me, I’ll ask you to leave right this minute. I don’t think I’ve ever been this insulted in all my life.”
“I’m not going to leave,” Anne Ross Wyler said, “and you’re not going to throw me out. I was there. I stood on that stretch of sidewalk and watched you pick up a minor—more than a minor, what’s technically a child—and get her into your car to blow you. I moved in and looked through the windows and saw her.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“You had a rental car. Don’t bother to whine. I checked.”
“You didn’t find my name on a rental agreement,” Ryall said. “I assure you, I did not rent a car.”
“Do you mean you did it under an assumed name? That won’t be hard to unravel. Maybe I’ll ask that Mr. Demarkian to do it for me. Don’t bother to protest, Mr. Wyndham. You’re not James Bond. I’m sure you’ve left traces a backward four-year-old could follow.”
“You’ve got nothing at all but a lot of murky pictures. It’s impossible to identify anybody in them, except of course the girl, who, I’ll admit, looks very young. But if you seriously think you can get me arrested on that kind of evidence—”
“Oh, no,” Anne said. “I don’t want to get you arrested. What would be the point? I followed you afterwards, you know. I followed you right up to the gate of Tony’s house. I know what you saw.”
“What are you trying to do? You know what would happen in books at a time like this, if what you’re alleging is true. I’d kill you now and dump your body in the incinerator.”
“You won’t kill me. And this building doesn’t have an incinerator.”
“Well, Mrs. Wyler, I really don’t see the point to your visit here. You don’t want to get me arrested. You’re not trying to get me to kill you. What do you want?”
“I want you to keep your mouth shut.”
“About what?”
“About everything that happened on the night Tony died. About who else you saw there. About what was going on at the gate when you arrived. About all of it. I saw it too. And I want you to do the one thing you’ve never been able to do in your life. I want you to shut up. Because if you don’t, I’ll use these pictures.”
“There’s nothing in those pictures to use.”
“Not for the police to use, no,” Anne said. “But I can think of a few other venues where they might be useful. I could, for instance, file suit against you for endangering the safety of a minor. Patsy Lennon has spent quite a lot of time at Adelphos House, did you know that? She’s a very troubled and fragile girl. The court might not grant me standing, or it might, but it wouldn’t matter, because I’d have made the charge a matter of public record. Then all I’d have to do would be to make sure it’s reported.”
“You couldn’t get a charge like that reported. The papers would be afraid of lawsuits. And besides, they’d find it trivial.”
“They’d find it trivial that their new media star and prominent witness to the Tony Ross murder is being sued on charges that he enticed a child into sex?”
“She wasn’t a child,” Ryall said, and bit his lip.
“She was thirteen,” Anne said. “And don’t kid yourself that the newspapers wouldn’t be interested, or the television news shows, either. Even the ones I don’t own significant stock in would be interested. The ones I own significant stock in might see some reason to make the story a priority. Did you know that I still had all that stock?”