The Devil’s Darkroom

 

The first photograph appeared on a Tuesday. I'd just poured my third whiskey when I noticed the corner of something glossy peeking out from under the stack of unpaid bills in my desk drawer. It showed a body sprawled in an alley, face-down in a puddle of something dark. I didn't take the picture. Nobody did.

The next morning, the body was on the front page of the Herald. Same alley, same angle, same corpse. Only difference was, the photograph in the paper was taken by the police photographer at dawn. Mine had developed six hours before the murder happened.

I've seen enough weird things in this business to fill a carnival sideshow, but this was different. By Friday, I had three more photos, each one showing up in my drawer hours before the victims made their appearances in the obituaries. Each one perfect in its composition, like Death himself had taken up photography as a hobby.

The trail led me to Daguerre's Studio on 23rd Street. It had been closed for months, ever since old man Daguerre disappeared. The windows were covered in newspapers yellowed by time and rain, but there was a light coming from somewhere inside. A faint red glow, like the dying embers of a cigarette.

The lock was cheap. Two seconds with my picks and I was in. The darkroom was at the back, its door slightly ajar, leaking crimson light into the dusty studio. The place smelled like chemicals and something else – something metallic and familiar.

"I've been expecting you, Mr. Marlowe."

The voice came from the darkroom. Female, smooth as aged bourbon, with an edge that could cut glass. I hadn't heard it in fifteen years, not since the night Emily Daguerre disappeared from my life without a trace.

"Emily? They said you were dead."

"Did they? I suppose that's what Father told everyone when I ruined his precious reputation."

She stepped into the red light. Time had been kind to her – she still had that face that could launch a thousand alibis. But her eyes were different. Harder. Like bullets in a velvet case.

"The photographs," I said. "How?"

She smiled, moving to an enlarger where a print was developing in a tray. "Father always said photography was about capturing moments in time. He never understood it was about creating them."

The image in the tray was getting clearer. My stomach turned when I recognized the subject.

It was me, sprawled across the darkroom floor.

"You see, Jack, these aren't predictions. They're appointments."

I reached for my .38, but Emily was faster. The syringe found my neck before I could clear the holster.

"Developing fluid," she purred. "A special formula. Father discovered it just before he... retired. It doesn't just fix images, it fixes fate. But it needs a catalyst – the iron in human blood."

The room started to spin. Through blurring vision, I saw the photographs on the wall. Dozens of them. Everyone who'd gone missing in the last three months.

"Why send me the photos?" I managed to ask as my knees buckled.

"Because you left me, Jack. Fifteen years ago, when Father threatened to ruin your career if we stayed together. You chose your badge over me. Now you'll help me create my masterpiece – a portfolio of perfect moments, each one composed with exquisite precision."

I hit the floor, my body arranging itself exactly as it appeared in the photograph. The last thing I saw was Emily adjusting her camera, making sure everything was perfect.

"Don't worry, darling," she whispered. "Art is forever."

That's when the door burst open, flooding the room with harsh white light.

Emily screamed as her photographs began to fade, fifteen years of carefully composed death dissolving in the sudden glare. She lunged for the camera, but froze when she saw who was standing in the doorway.

"Hello, Emily." Old man Daguerre stepped into the ruined darkroom, looking exactly as he had fifteen years ago. "You always were impatient with the developing process."

"Father? But... you're dead. I killed you."

He smiled sadly, holding up a photograph. "Did you really think you were the only one who knew the secret?"

What happened next, I still can't explain. There was a flash of light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. When my vision cleared, both Emily and her father were gone. All that remained was the acrid smell of chemicals and a single photograph lying face-down on the floor.

I keep that photograph locked in my office safe now, behind steel and a combination that only I know. Sometimes late at night, when the whiskey's not enough to blur the edges of memory, I can hear the faint sound of a shutter clicking in the dark. And sometimes, when I pass by Daguerre's old studio, I swear I see a red light glowing behind those yellowed newspapers.

I've never looked at that last photograph. Never want to. Because deep down, I know that whatever moment it captured – or created – is still developing somewhere in the dark. And in this business, some mysteries are better left unresolved.

The cases keep coming, and I keep taking them. But these days, I stick to the cases that come with crime scene photos already taken. And I never, ever open my desk drawer before sunrise.