Impossible Things by Connie Willis Page A

percent Formica shower stall.
    “The Society already thinks the tanker did it. The only one I’ve got to convince is my editor.” I reached across to the phone and took the exclusion off. “Ramirez,” I said, “wanta go after the Society?”
    Jake’s back. Cups, spoons, and Sanka.
    “I did,” Ramirez said in a voice that could have frozen the Salt River, “but your developer was broken, and you couldn’t get me a picture.”
    Mrs. Ambler and Taco.
    I hit the exclusion button again and left my hand on it. “Stop,” I said. “Print.” The screen went dark, and the print slid out into the tray. “Reduce frame. Permanganate bath by one percent. Follow on screen.” I took my hand off. “What’s Dolores Chiwere doing these days, Ramirez?”
    “She’s working investigative. Why?”
    I didn’t answer. The picture of Mrs. Ambler faded a little, a little more.
    The Society
does
have a link to the lifelines!” Ramirez said, not quite as fast as Hunter, but almost.“That’s why you requested your old girlfriend’s line, isn’t it? You’re running a sting.”
    I had been wondering how to get Ramirez off Katie’s trail, and she had done it herself, jumping to conclusions just like the Society. With a little effort, I could convince Katie, too: Do you know why I really came to see you today? To catch the Society. I had to pick somebody the Society couldn’t possibly know about from my lifeline, somebody I didn’t have any known connection with.
    Katie watched the screen, looking like she already half believed it. The picture of Mrs. Ambler faded some more. Any known connection.
    “Stop,” I said.
    “What about the truck?” Ramirez demanded. “What does it have to do with this sting of yours?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “And neither does the water board, which is an even bigger bully than the Society. So do what the chief says. Full cooperation. Case closed. We’ll get them on lifeline tapping.”
    She digested that, or maybe she’d already hung up and was calling Dolores Chiwere. I looked at the image of Mrs. Ambler on the screen. It had faded enough to look slightly overexposed but not enough to look tampered with. And Taco was gone.
    I looked at Katie. “The Society will be here in another fifteen minutes,” I said, “which gives me just enough time to tell you about Aberfan.” I gestured at the couch. “Sit down.”
    She came and sat down. “He was a great dog,” I said. “He loved the snow. He’d dig through it and toss it up with his muzzle and snap at the snowflakes, trying to catch them.”
    Ramirez had obviously hung up, but she would call back if she couldn’t track down Chiwere. I put the exclusion back on and went over to the developer. The image of Mrs. Ambler was still on the screen. The bath hadn’t affected the detail that much. You could still see the wrinkles,the thin white hair, but the guilt, or blame, the look of loss and love, was gone. She looked serene, almost happy.
    “There are hardly any good pictures of dogs,” I said. “They lack the necessary muscles to take good pictures, and Aberfan lunged at you as soon as he saw the camera.”
    I turned the developer off. Without the light from the screen, it was almost dark in the room. I turned on the overhead.
    “There were less than a hundred dogs left in the United States, and he’d already had the newparvo once and nearly died. The only pictures I had of him had been taken when he was asleep. I wanted a picture of Aberfan playing in the snow.”
    I leaned against the narrow shelf in front of the developer’s screen. Katie looked the way she had at the vet’s, sitting there with her hands clenched, waiting for me to tell her something terrible.
    “I wanted a picture of him playing in the snow, but he always lunged at the camera,” I said, “so I let him out in the front yard, and then I sneaked out the side door and went across the road to some pine trees where he wouldn’t be able to see me. But he