I held the negatives up to the table lamp, but it wasn’t possible to make them out. I’d have to find someone with dependable skills and a real darkroom, not an ordinary photo shop. The Cheviot Labs, a forensic engineering lab I use, was the only place I could think of. They were in the northwest suburbs, which meant risking a trip down near Lionsgate to pick up my car. It was better for me to gamble on being spotted than for me to entrust the negatives to a messenger.

I called Karen, who was just finishing her meeting, and told her I was going to pick up Morrell’s car. “I’ve found something that I need to get to a lab. I’m going to leave it at your place while I fetch the car because I can’t afford to be found with it on me. I’ll write down what you should do with it in case I don’t make it back here.”

“Vic, is this about Lamont? If it is, it was me who started you on this journey. I’m going with you to the end. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes. Wait for me in the alley.”

I didn’t put up even a token argument. I was glad to have my personal pastor take charge. I wrapped the negatives back in their onionskin, then slipped them between the pages of a copy of Harper’s.

I watched for Karen through the kitchen window, and, as soon as her turquoise Corolla appeared, I ran down the back stairs. While she drove, I told her about the pictures that Steve Sawyer-Kimathi had thought would clear him in court forty years ago.

She nodded and pushed harder on the accelerator. We reached the Cheviot Labs industrial park a little before eleven. I had called my contact in the company, Sanford Rieff, from Karen’s cell while we were en route. Sanford brought Cheviot’s photography expert out to the lobby with him, introduced him as Theo, and hurried back to a meeting of his own.

Theo, dressed in black as behooved a would-be auteur, spoke in a rumbly Slavic accent. He had crooked teeth, and a silver pentacle in his left ear, but he handled the negatives carefully, slipping them out of the brittle onionskin Lamont had wrapped around them and into a plastic sleeve.

“These pictures may provide evidence of a murder,” I said. “One that took place forty years ago. And they’re going to be needed as part of a trial, so do your best. They’re all that remains in the way of evidence, so please—”

“Don’t screw up? I understand.” Theo smiled reassuringly. “These come from Instamatic camera, my own first camera, a used one I found on black market in Odessa. I treat as my own.”