Followed by a candid shot of Ralph Doleson, sitting on the seat of the sleigh. He was looking up at the camera as if surprised, and he was holding a boot in his hand.
“What’s that?”
I jumped a foot. I’d been staring so intently at the camera’s tiny LCD screen that I hadn’t even heard Rob open the door and walk in.
“You scared me to death,” I said. “I’m definitely going to get Michael to rearrange his office furniture before one of his students sneaks up and gives him a heart attack.”
“I bet he doesn’t spend much time on the computer with his back to the door like that,” he said. “I wouldn’t, if I were him. You’re the one who gets so wrapped up in the computer that you don’t notice what goes on around you.”
“Did you at least bring the key?” I asked.
“Key?”
Okay, so Michael hadn’t sent him.
“Never mind,” I said looking back at the camera.
“What’s so interesting?”
“It’s a picture of Ralph Doleson,” I said, handing him the little camera.
Rob peered at the screen and frowned.
“He’s sitting in the sleigh where he was killed,” he said. “With one boot on and one off. I only got a quick glimpse through the door, but doesn’t this look a lot like . . . ?”
“Like a picture of Santa taken just before the killer staked him,” I said. “I got a lot more than a quick glimpse, and that’s exactly what it looks like to me, too.”
“What’s it doing in your camera?” Rob asked.
“This is Werzel’s camera,” I said. “It only looks like my camera.”
“You switched cameras by mistake?”
“That’s what it looks like,” I said. Which wasn’t precisely a lie, but it kept Eric’s secret. “Let me see that again.”
“No wonder he was so frantic to find this,” Rob said.
He handed the camera back. I studied the picture of Ralph Doleson for a few more seconds, and then clicked the button to see what was next.
Yet another of Werzel’s badly shot mistakes. A blurry brown shape on the right, a blurry red blob on the left. I squinted, to see if I could figure it out. Rob leaned over my shoulder.
“Closeup of Rudolph’s nose?” he suggested.
“No,” I said, as my stomach turned over with a wrenching twist. “Blood spatter on the lens.”
“Are you serious?”
I turned the camera over and peered at the lens.
“Maybe it’s my imagination,” I said. “But there is something crusted around the edge of the lens. See?”
I held it out for his inspection. He stared for a few seconds, then turned pale and sat down in one of Michael’s guest chairs.
“That’s really blood?” he asked, in a slightly choked voice.
“Put your head between your legs and breathe slowly,” I said, mentally kicking myself for having forgotten Rob’s notorious squeamishness at the very thought of blood.
“Maybe we both just have overactive imaginations,” he said.
“I doubt it. No wonder Werzel was so frantic to get it back. He’s the killer—and this camera proves it!”
“Wait a minute,” Rob said, sounding stronger. “That can’t be blood. How could there be blood spatter on the camera, when there wasn’t any on his clothes? I think someone would have noticed if he was running around looking like Sweeney Todd.”
“I bet there was blood on his clothes,” I said. “That’s why he suddenly showed up in one of the county-issue shepherd’s robes.”
“I just thought he was trying to blend in and get into the spirit of things,” Rob said. He shook his head which looked rather odd, since he was still hanging upside down in fainting prevention mode.
“Maybe you thought that,” I said. “I knew he had a sneaky reason for doing it, but I just assumed he was trying to make us forget he was a reporter so he could catch people doing embarrassing things.”
“We have to tell—”
“I know, I know.” I automatically reached into my pocket and took out my cell phone.
And got absolutely no signal, of course.
“You’ll never get a signal in this weather,” Rob said, peering up at me. “I’m even having trouble on the iPhone. This whole county might as well be back in the twentieth century. Use the land line.”
I nodded, and used Michael’s phone to dial the police station’s non-emergency number.
Debbie Anne, the dispatcher, answered. She’d have answered 911, too, but she’d be less apt to gossip about my calling if I used the non-emergency line.