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“And what happened to him?”
“He died, like, seven years ago but the rent had always been paid through a trust fund. It was in his will to keep it going, and it paid for the year ahead every November first. But I guess the money ran out, and last November no payment came. After three months, Mr. Wax-man went in to clean it out and I happened to come by that day.”
Another coincidence, Ballard thought. They entered through a garage door that had been rolled open. Inside, the large space once used for manufacturing was filled with freestanding rows of shipping containers with an office at the front of one of the rows. Lights hung from the rafters above, but there was not enough illumination to keep back the shadows. The place felt eerie to Ballard. Ominous.
“It’s back here,” Maddie said. As they passed the office, Maddie waved through a window to a man sitting behind a desk.
“Is that the guy who told you about it?” Ballard asked.
“Yeah, Mr. Waxman,” Maddie said.
“He’s not the owner?”
“No, he’s just the manager. The owner is an old lady who lives up by the Greek. He told me she might remember the guy who rented it.”
“Aren’t you creeped out by this place?”
“Definitely. But it’s close by and cheap. I don’t spend much time here—I mean, I didn’t before this thing came up.”
“Tell me about the guy who rented the unit.”
“Emmitt Thawyer. I ran him through our databases and got nothing.”
“Sawyer?”
“No, it’s likeSawyerbut with aT-h. Not a lot of Thawyers out there. I googled him but couldn’t find anything. Mr. Waxman says Mrs. Porter—she’s the owner—ran the place before she hired him and probably met Emmitt Thawyer. Back in the day, he was some kind of photographer.”
The individual storage units had not been updated in years. Rather than roll-up metal doors like they had at the You-Store-It in Santa Monica, these units had the original shipping container double doors secured with locking bars and padlocks. Maddie stopped in front of a door marked 17 and pulled a key ring off her belt.
“This is it,” she said.
Maddie removed a thick padlock, pulled the locking bar up, and swung open the heavy metal doors. The container was pitch-black inside. Maddie reached in and flipped a switch, and a line of caged bulbs down the center of the ceiling lit the space. Ballard was expecting a hoarder’s pile of junk and debris, but the container was neatly ordered with a row of metal file cabinets on one side and old photography equipment on the other. There were light stands andwooden-legged tripods. At the back of the space was a worktable on which stood pans, beakers, and other film-developing equipment.
“At first I thought it was like a meth lab or something,” Maddie said. “But it’s a photo lab. And these file cabinets are full of negatives and photos, contracts for jobs, and invoices. It looks like he did a lot of work for catalogs, shooting products and things like that. It’s all legit work except for what’s in the last cabinet. That was the one Mr. Waxman opened.”
“Let’s see.”
“It’s pretty bad.”
Maddie reached down to the bottom drawer of a file cabinet but Ballard stopped her.
“Wait,” she said. “Did you wear gloves when you went through this place before?”
“Uh, no,” Maddie said. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay. You didn’t know what you’d find. Here.” Ballard reached into her pocket for latex gloves. “I only have one pair,” she said. “Let’s each put a glove on.”
They did, and then Maddie opened the file drawer. It made a sharp screech, which somehow seemed appropriate to Ballard.
The drawer was filled with hanging files with the names of women on the tabs. They were alphabetized and the first one saidBetty. Maddie pulled it out with a gloved hand and gave it to Ballard, who opened it on the worktable.
The file contained eight black-and-white photos, several showing the body of a woman who had been horribly tortured and killed. In an instant Ballard recognized Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia.
“Oh my God,” she said under her breath.
“Yeah,” Maddie said.
22
