‘I probably would have.’
I got two mugs out of a cabinet.
‘How do you take it?’
‘The way it comes out of the pot,’ said he.
‘Would you like some toast or anything?’
‘Oh no. But thank you.’
We sat at the table before the window, and I opened the door leading outside because my house suddenly seemed warm and stuffy. Misgivings raced through my mind as I was reminded that Sparkes was a suspect in a homicide, and that I was deeply involved in the case, and here I was alone with him in my house on a Saturday morning. He set the portfolio on the table and unzipped it.
‘I suppose you know everything about what goes on in an investigation,’ he said.
‘I never know everything about anything, really.’ I sipped my coffee.
‘I’m not naive, Kenneth,’ I said. ‘For example, if you didn’t have clout, you wouldn’t have gotten inside my neighborhood, and you wouldn’t be sitting here now.’
He withdrew a manila envelope from the portfolio and slid it across the table to me.
‘Photographs,’ he said quietly. ‘Of Claire.’
I hesitated.
‘I spent the last few nights in my beach house,’ he went on to explain.
‘In Wrightsville Beach?’ I said.
‘Yes. And I remembered these were in a filing cabinet drawer. I hadn’t looked at them or even thought of them since we broke up. They were from some photo shoot. I don’t recall the details, but she gave me copies when we first started seeing each other. I guess I told you she did some photographic modeling.’
I slid what must have been about twenty eight-by-ten color prints from the envelope, and the one on top was startling. It was true what the governor had said to me at Hootowl Farm. Claire Rawley was physically magnificent. Her hair was to the middle of her back, perfectly straight, and seemed spun of gold as she stood on the beach in running shorts and a skimpy tank top that barely covered her breasts. On her right wrist she wore what appeared to be a large diving watch with a black plastic band and an orange face. Claire Rawley looked like a Nordic goddess, her features striking and sharp, her tan body athletic and sensual. Behind her on the sand was a yellow surfboard, and in the distance a sparkling ocean.
Other photographs had been taken in other dramatic settings. In some she was sitting on the porch of a decaying Gothic southern mansion, or on a stone bench in an overgrown cemetery or garden, or playing the part of hardworking mate surrounded by weathered fishermen on one of Wilmington’s trawlers. Some of the poses were rather slick and contrived, but it made no difference. In all, Claire Rawley was a masterpiece of human flesh, a work of art whose eyes revealed fathomless sadness.
‘I didn’t know if these might be of any use to you,’ Sparkes said after a long silence. ‘After all, I don’t know what you saw, I mean what was . . . Well.’
He tapped the table nervously with his index finger.
‘In cases such as these,’ I told him calmly, ‘a visual identification simply isn’t possible. But you never know when something like this might help. At the very least, there’s nothing in these photos that might tell me the body isn’t Claire Rawley.’
I scanned the photographs again, to see if I noted any jewelry.
‘She’s wearing an interesting watch,’ I said, shuffling through the photographs again.
He smiled and stared. Then he sighed.
‘I gave that to her. One of these trendy sports watches that’s very popular with surfers. It had an off-the-wall name. Animal? Does that sound right?’
‘My niece may have had one of those once,’ I recalled. ‘Relatively inexpensive? Eighty, ninety dollars?’
‘I don’t remember what I paid. But I bought it at the surf shop where she liked to hang out. Sweetwater Surf Shop on South Lumina, where Vito’s, Reddog’s, and Buddy’s Crab are. She lived near there with several other women. An old not-so-nice condo on Stone Street.’
I was writing this down.
‘But it was on the water. And that’s where she wanted to be.’