Proof Positive: A Joe Gunther Novel (Joe Gunther Series) by Archer Mayor Page A

kitchen, but I doubt it was. You couldn’t really tell what most of the rooms were anymore. He’d created his own miniature neighborhoods—where he slept, where he ate. He reminded me of an animal that way. I mean, in the best sense,” she added quickly. “Anyhow, to answer your question, it was musty, but that was it. This is way worse.”
    She reached where the tunnel opened onto the waist-high, undulating field that Joe had encountered a few days ago. He kept playing the light around.
    Her voice hesitant, she turned and asked, “Could I have the light? There’s something weird.…” She left the sentence hanging.
    He passed it over and watched as she not only shone it on various aspects of their view, but suddenly scampered up onto the pile in order to check out a few details.
    “What’re you finding?” he asked.
    She looked back at him, resting on her knees, her expression baffled. “It’s changed. It’s not the way he had it.”
    Joe gazed across what looked like a sea of rubbish. “You can tell that?”
    “I was here so often, studying it through a lensfinder. It sort of got in my head. Remember when I told you that Ben may not have been neat, but did have a sense of how things were in relation to each other?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s why he hated people messing with his stuff.”
    “Okay,” Joe coaxed her.
    “That’s what I’m saying,” she stressed. “It has been messed with. Almost everywhere, things have been moved.”
    “They did have to get him out,” Joe said delicately.
    But she wasn’t deterred. “No. I thought I noticed it outside, too. It’s like when somebody goes through a drawer of your private things, you know? Nothing’s missing, but everything’s been shifted a little.”
    Spurred on by her discovery, they proceeded to other parts of the house, including areas Joe had never visited. Rachel had the surefootedness of a seasoned cave guide, and shared her knowledge throughout. In the process, she helped Joe shape a better picture of the man who had once called this home.
    Also, far to the back of the house, she found support for her earlier statement.
    “There,” she said, shining her light at a blank patch of wall. “He had some pictures there. They’re gone.”
    “What did they show?” Joe asked, wiping his damp forehead.
    “A woman. She was young and pretty. They were old black-and-whites. I asked him about her, ’cause there were no other decorations like them anywhere else, but he wouldn’t say more than, ‘A friend.’”
    Joe looked around the room. “What did he use this spot for?”
    “I always called it his bedroom,” she said, adding, “Not that you can tell.”
    By the end, dirty and sweaty despite the cool weather, they found themselves back outside, wiping their hands on their pants and stretching out their kinks.
    “That’s what it was like every day,” she said, almost happily. “It brought out the kid in you.” Her expression grew somber again as she restated her earlier premise. “Except for that weird shifting thing. I think I know how I can prove it to you.”
    “Oh?” Joe asked.
    “Compare how it looks now to what you can see in the video. Room by room, you’ll see what I mean.”
    Joe considered the exploration they’d just completed, along with the hours he’d already spent on her video. “I’ll take your word for it, Rachel. Still, what you’re saying would’ve taken somebody a lot of time.”
    “I know.”
    He nodded. “Okay, then. All the more reason I’d like you along with your camera when we take the place apart.”
    *   *   *
    Neil Watson was pissed. “It takes him a week to call a meeting, and now he wants it at two in the morning. What the hell’s that about?”
    His partner turned off the car’s ignition. “Give it a rest. He was out of town. Why do you care, anyhow? You been dying to break the latest news to him?”
    Neil stayed quiet. The other man, Frank Niles, opened his door and stepped out onto