Negative Image by Vicki Delany Read Free Book Online Page B

working for Mr. Steiner?”
    “About six months. It’s my way of trying to get my foot in the door. I’m a crackerjack photog myself, but it’s tough to get a break. I lug his stuff around, scout locations, admire his crap pictures, and hope to hell to get someone to look at mine.”
    “You don’t think he was a good photographer?”
    “He was on the way down, and let me tell you, it’s a long way down. But he still has the connections, you know. Had the connections, I guess. I’m sorry he’s dead, but he was just a job to me.” She shrugged and took a bite of a thick sandwich, roast beef on whole wheat.
    “Tell me about his wife.”
    Diane laughed around a mouthful. “She married him because she couldn’t get anyone with real influence. She married him because it beats working on your back.”
    “Are you saying Mrs. Steiner was a prostitute?”
    She threw up her hands. The rings reflected light from the lamp on the table beside her. “No, I’m not. Sorry. I don’t know much about her. She did some modeling—Wal Mart flyer type of stuff. Crotch shots of sturdy white cotton underwear. She wanted to do better, hell we all do. Sometimes a girl’s gotta sleep with the movers and shakers, or so they tell me. Which is why I prefer to be behind the camera, not in front of it.”
    “You don’t like her?”
    “I can’t stand the freakin’ bitch. Knows nothing about photography but is always sticking her surgically-altered nose in and telling me what would look good. He was loaded and connected, I’ll tell you that. Can’t imagine that had anything to do with her ‘falling in love’ with him.” Diane wiggled her fingers in the air to make quotation marks around the words.
    “What about him? What did you think of Mr. Steiner?”
    “I didn’t like him or not like him. He was the boss. I did my job.” Sandwich finished, she studied the array of food again, and settled on a Nanaimo bar.
    “What time did you leave Mr. Steiner’s room?”
    “Five-thirty, probably. Around then. It hadn’t taken long. Rudy hated the pictures so there wasn’t much to discuss. I told you that.”
    “Did you see him again?”
    “No.”
    “What did you do after leaving him?”
    “Went to my room for a while, read. About eight I went out to eat. Had dinner, by myself as per normal, and then back to my room.”
    “What time did you get back?”
    She looked toward the window. “Ten-thirty, eleven maybe. I had nothing better to do, so had a couple of beers with my dinner, and went for a walk.”
    “Which restaurant?”
    “Something Thai.” She shrugged again. “They might remember me, it wasn’t busy.”
    “Did you see Mrs. Steiner at any time?”
    “Nope. But I wouldn’t expect to see her hanging around any place I might frequent.”
    “I’ve been told he rarely went out to eat.”
    “Oh, yeah. He was a weirdo all right.”
    Winters’ ears pricked up. “In what way?”
    “Scared of germs, like that millionaire guy who never left his hotel room, but not so bad. Rudy didn’t eat in restaurants because who knows what germs are floating around and landing on the food. He didn’t like ordering from room service, but he had to eat when he traveled, didn’t he? It was better than going out. I’d been here a couple of weeks before they got here, scouting out locations mostly, and picked them up at the airport in a rental car. Before he got into the car for the first time, I had to wipe the whole interior down with disinfectant. While he watched me doing it.” She snorted. “He didn’t trust me not to say I’d done it when I hadn’t. It was always like that, some things he’d freak over. I suspect that’s why Josie had a separate room. Women are okay for, you know, sex, but you don’t want them spreading their yucky female germs around. Just my opinion, mind, he never said that.”
    “Sounds like an interesting man.”
    She popped the last bite of the square into her mouth and wiped her fingers on her