28
Reid’s search of Martin Harris’s room at Osprey House four days earlier hadn’t turned up anything of interest, but that of the shared bathroom at the end of the hall had. The walls were lined with blue tiles probably as old as the two-hundred-year-old hotel itself—some of them cracked, pieces missing, caulk chipped away. The housekeeper obviously tried to keep it clean, but the mildew created by years of seaside fog and the steam of thousands of showers made it a losing battle.
The floor was covered with yellowed linoleum. Reid noticed how the corner under the sink was curled up, so he pulled on the edge and found a cache of porn. Whole magazines wouldn’t fit, so pages had been torn out and slid under the loose floor. Reid called for a team to process the scene.
The pages came from different kinds of publications, from soft- to hard-core porn, suggestive photos of celebrities and models ripped from mainstream magazines, and even photos of models in pajamas and bathing suits ripped from the J. Jill and Sundance catalogs. Among the stash were images of naked women tied up, bound with their own underwear, gagged and blindfolded.
Because the bathroom was shared by all eight rooms on the fourth floor, and residents from the other three floors could use it as well, Reid couldn’t immediately link the pages to Harris. The state police lab found twenty-two different sets of fingerprints—the Osprey House version of a dirty magazine being passed around a camp cabin—and one was Harris’s.
Harris had not been sent back to Ainsworth, the state’s highest-security prison, but he was being held at Avery, the local jail on the road between Silver Bay and Black Hall, used to hold prisoners waiting for trial, usually on lesser offenses. Reid had checked his alibi for Beth’s last day; Harris claimed to have been drinking with some Osprey House buddies in the first-floor TV room. Three of them confirmed it, but all three admitted to having passed out drunk, so how good were their stories?
“This isn’t looking good for you,” Reid said, sitting opposite Harris and Lisa Lewiston, his attorney.
“I didn’t do anything,” Harris said.
“Mr. Harris,” Lewiston said, her hand on his arm.
“I need to tell him,” Harris said. “So he understands. And I’m going to.” He gave his lawyer a stern look. He hadn’t had a drink in the four days since he’d left Osprey House and been held at Avery, and his eyes looked clearer. His voice had an echo of the authority it might have had when he was still a professor.
“I’m listening,” Reid said.
“Those were not my pictures,” Harris said.
“But your fingerprints were on them.”
“I know.” Harris took a deep breath. “I can’t help what other people do. There are plenty of guys not on parole at Osprey House, and they can buy whatever magazines they want and keep them in their rooms.”
“But not you.”
“Right. But not everyone can afford to buy magazines, so when people are finished with theirs, they share. Doris, the housekeeper, wouldn’t allow things like that lying around, so guys tear out the pages they like and hide them in the bathrooms.”
“Where you found them.”
“Yes,” Harris said. “I didn’t know what it was at first. I saw the corners of some papers sticking out from under the linoleum, and I pulled them out. Detective Reid, I was shocked.”
“I bet.”
“No, I mean, really. I haven’t looked at pornography in twenty years. Since I was arrested. With all the treatment I’ve been through, honestly, it makes me sick.”
Honestly.Reid kept a straight face.
“So that’s what happened. I saw the pictures, and I put them right back. It was only that one time. I should have reported it to Robin, or even Paul downstairs, but I just wanted nothing to do with it. Wanted to wipe the whole thing from my mind.”
“Mr. Harris, do you think you’re in jail because of those pictures?”
“Yes,” he said, looking confused.
“They’re just the reason we can put you in jail. But the real trouble is, you had that postcard of the art gallery in Black Hall. You know, the one Beth Lathrop’s family owns.”
“I told you I just like pretty towns.”
“Yes, you did tell me that,” Reid said. He opened his briefcase and took out the postcard in a cellophane wrapper. He felt confident but on edge. What Harris had to tell him would make or break the theory that had been growing stronger. “But I’m wondering why you wrote the names Beth, Judy, Alissa, Gennifer, Rose, and Faith on the back? And at the top of the card, the names Pete and Martin?”
Reid stared at Harris as the blood drained from his face. He pushed the postcard, picture side down, across the table.
“That is your handwriting, isn’t it?” Reid asked.
“Hmm,” Harris said.
