Photo Finish (9781101537510) Read Free Page A

of.”
    â€œHelen Alder’s son? That the two of you produced after you married in Vietnam?”
    â€œHelen Alder? I never heard of a . . .” His voice trailed away, and then he said with a ferocious urgency that astounded me, “Where are you really from?”
    â€œCould we go where we can hear each other?”
    His mother watched suspiciously when he pushed himself up from his chair, but she stayed behind when he led me to the kitchen. The stuffy air was larded with stale dishwater. The window had a two-by-four nailed across it to keep it from opening. Sweat started to gather at the back of my neck.
    â€œWho sent you to me?” His teeth showed, crooked and tobacco-stained, through the stubble.
    â€œYour son.”
    â€œI don’t have any children. I never married. I never was in Africa.”
    â€œWhat about Vietnam?” I asked.
    He shot me an angry look. “And if I say, ‘Yeah, I was there,’ you won’t believe I didn’t marry this Helen whosis.”
    â€œTry me.” I wanted to keep my voice affable, but standing in the musty room was hard on my back as well as my manners.
    â€œI was a photographer. For the old Chicago American before it folded. I covered the war for them from sixty-three to sixty-nine. Sur Place bought a lot of my shots—the French were more interested in Indochina than we were. After the paper collapsed, I signed on with them as a freelancer.”
    â€œWhere were you in 1986? Here?”
    He shook his head. “Europe. England. Sometimes New York.”
    I took a notepad from my handbag and started fanning my face with it. “When did you come back to Chicago? Do you work for Sur Place out of here?”
    His face contorted into a sneer. “I haven’t worked for anyone for a long time. My mother doesn’t like me sponging off her, but she’s paranoid about burglary, and she thinks a man around the house, even a washed-up ex-photographer, is better than living alone. Now it’s your turn. And don’t give me any crap about being a freelance writer.”
    â€œOkay. I’m a private investigator. A man claiming to be Hunter Davenport Junior asked me to find you.” I showed him my license.
    His face began to look like dull putty. “Someone was pulling your leg. I don’t have a son.”
    â€œFair, very good-looking, most people would be proud to claim him.”
    He began to fidget violently with the utensil drawers. “Get the guy to give you a blood sample. We’ll compare DNA. If his matches mine, you’re welcome to my whole portfolio. How’d you find me?”
    I told him: county birth records followed by tracing Wayland Davenport through old phone books. He’d gone from Cottage Grove Avenue to Loomis, then Montrose, stair-stepping his way up the northwest side until landing at a bungalow in this tiny suburb in 1974. His wife had moved into this little apartment four years ago.
    â€œSo anyone could find me,” he muttered.
    â€œAnd is that a problem?”
    He gave an unconvincing laugh. “No one wants to find me these days, so it’s no problem whatsoever. Now, you’ve wasted your time and mine enough. Go hunt up some real mystery. Like who your client is and why he’s stolen my name.”
    I stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked back at him. “By the way, who is Helen Alder?”
    He bared his teeth, showing a broken chip on the left incisor. “The figment of your client’s imagination.”
    I put a business card on the countertop. “Give me a call if you decide to tell me the truth about her.”
    As I made my way through the dim passage to the front door, someone on television was extolling a drug whose side effects included nausea, fainting and memory loss. Over the cheerful tout, Mildred Davenport’s voice rose querulously, demanding to know whether I was going to buy any of his pictures. Her son said