St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

become really popular until people figured out how to make multiple images. Prints. Then you had people making visiting cards and cabinet cards and stereographs. Unfortunately, everyone collected cards of the rich and famous and bought stereographs for the fun of it. Stuff you have in your family history box might have no more actual relationship to your family than I have to a postcard of Queen Elizabeth.”
    Dan started to ask another question.
    “But right now,” Carly said firmly, “I want to concentrate on describing Winifred’s dags for my file.”
    She opened her computer to the file that held photographic forms for the Castillo project. Then she hesitated and looked up at Dan before she handed over the computer.
    “You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said. “It’s really boring.”
    “Groundwork often is,” he said, taking the computer, “but without it you don’t have anything except hot air.”
    She let out a long breath. “Not many people understand that.”
    “See?” He settled cross-legged on the floor near her. “Just one more thing we have in common.”
    Carly looked at his innocent expression and crystal green eyes. “You’re laughing at me.”
    “No, at me. I’m going to spend the next few hours working my ass off with a pretty lady instead of being all smooth and seductive and getting her in bed.”
    “Can I have that in writing?”
    His smile was as real as it was slow. “No.”
    She felt like fanning herself but didn’t want to encourage him. He was way too sexy as it was. Why did my hormones decide to wake up now? Is it my biological clock running amok?
    She wanted to believe that. She really did.
    And she was afraid the truth was that Dan pushed her female buttons just by being alive. Handsome she could shrug off. Intelligent with a wicked sense of humor slid right past her defenses.
    I’m in trouble. Then she smiled. About time, too.
    “What?” he asked, seeing her smile.
    “Ready to type?”
    He started to pursue the source of that secret feminine smile, then decided against it. He didn’t want to crowd her.
    At least not too much.
    Yet.
    “Sure,” he said.
    “Winifred Simmons y Castillo File. First image. Daguerreotype, half plate, frame is wood with embossed leather, hook-and-eye clasp, no photographer name or studio embossed on the velvet backing. Standing woman, dark hair, probably a riding hat. Costume simple, low waist, long, full skirt, slightly fuller sleeves on the forearms, large decorative buttons down the front, possibly a type of gathering or bustle behind, fabric is medium to dark with dark accents, backdrop is painted columns and drapery…”
    As Carly continued describing the contents of the photo, she took several views of it with her digital camera, which was connected by cable to the computer Dan was typing on.
    “Hey, you’re fast,” she said, watching him.
    “Only for some things. For others, I’m slow and thorough.”
    She opened her mouth, closed it, and told herself that she was imagining a double meaning. Then she saw the curving line of his mouth and knew that anything she was imagining, he was, too.
    And she couldn’t even call him on it without putting both feet in her mouth.
    “Right,” she muttered. “Date assigned to first image is tentatively mid-1840s, based on the case and the costume.”
    Dan started to ask a question, then didn’t. They would be up all night if he let his own curiosity off the leash. Even so, it was hard not to ask. Expertise of any kind fascinated him.
    And he could have sworn some of those images looked familiar. It couldn’t have been family photographs from his own past, because his mother didn’t have any that were older than her children.
    Carly downloaded the digital images of the daguerreotype into the appropriate part of the e-form Dan had just finished filling in. “Second image. Daguerreotype, half plate, wood case, embossed leather, rose motif. Standing woman, not the same person as in first image, appears old enough to be the mother of the first, same style of costume…”
    Dan called up another blank form, typed quickly, and thought about how different this was from his usual reports, which were a combination of political rumor and innuendo, facts and body counts, educated insights and outright hunches, players and police and the poor sons of bitches caught in between. Those were the people he felt sorry for, wanted to help, and all too often had been able to do little more