Calendar Girl
Detective Craig Lindeman drove his Toyota Camry down Main Street past Wrigley's Drug Store, where Mrs. Wrigley was busy decorating the large display window with plastic Easter eggs, plush rabbits, brightly colored artificial flowers and armfuls of pastel-shaded Easter grass. It was mid-March, and the first signs of spring were spreading through Quiet Valley.
"And none too soon," Lindeman said with a sigh. "I'm sick of seeing snow."
It had been a long winter, and he, for one, welcomed the milder weather.
The detective whistled a cheerful tune as he walked into the police station with his coffee cup in hand. Sadly, his good spirits came crashing down around him when he saw the dour look on his partner's face.
"We've got another one," Detective Tom Vermeer informed him grimly. "An eighteen-year-old art student. Her boyfriend is a truck driver. He just got back from Florida this morning, walked into their apartment and found her body. He called in the report about ten minutes ago."
"Let's get over there," Lindeman said, resigned to having to put in another long, physically and mentally exhausting day.
When the two police detectives arrived at the victim's small apartment, Sgt. Ronald Nash, who, among his other official duties, served as the department's crime scene photographer, was already there taking pictures of the room and the girl's body. Like the two previous victims, this one was young and pretty.
Tom leaned over and whispered to his partner, "Hey, Lindeman, I think I finally figured out why Nash volunteered to photograph these corpses."
"Oh, yeah, why is that?"
"Because that's as close as he'll ever get to a beautiful, naked woman."
Tom chuckled at his own joke; Lindeman just smiled. Craig was one of the few people on the force who treated the sergeant with respect. He had always felt sorry for Nash, a skinny, nerdy-looking man with a haircut that made him resemble a marine recruit in his first week of basic training. Nash was thirty-two years old, still lived with his parents and had to endure the barbs and jokes of his fellow officers at the department, which he managed to do with complacency. Nash was, if nothing else, a good-natured fellow who was able to take a joke, even if it was at his own expense.
* * *
It was Saturday night, the time of the week when most single adults—and more than a few married ones—left their natural habitats and cast aside the stress or boredom of their daily lives by either getting drunk or searching for a night of romance at their local bars. As usual, Fawn Sheridan sat alone at her computer in her luxury townhouse, listening to Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday on her Bose turntable and drinking sweet-tasting pink Catawba wine from a Waterford Crystal glass. For her, Saturday was just another square on the calendar, no different from any of the other six days. A self-employed commercial photographer, Fawn spent her nights taking pictures and then digitally enhancing them with Adobe Photoshop.
Photography was more than just an occupation to Fawn; it was also her hobby, her art and her life. Her great love affair with the camera began in high school. A lonely, unhappy adolescent, she looked with envy at the pretty girls in their stylish clothes, their trendy hairstyles and their mothers' makeup. How she had longed to be one of them, to wear the latest fashions, to swish her hips while sashaying down the halls of Thomas Jefferson High School, to smile coquettishly with glossed lips and to wink with thick lashes lushly coated with mascara.
Those sensual pleasures, however, were something Fawn would only experience in dreams. Her parents were religious fundamentalists so strict they made the Amish look like hedonists. The list of human frailties they considered sinful would fill a volume the size of the Manhattan Borough phone book. The austere, Spartan lifestyle they enforced had been torture for the youngster.
Then in her freshman year, when asked to pick an elective course to substitute for sex education—a class her parents had forbidden her to take—Fawn chose photography. At first, she had no great interest in the course, but she soon discovered that she could capture her dreams on film with her parents being none the wiser.
She began innocently enough by taking a few photographs of the high school cheering squad. Eventually, she left the schoolyard behind and sought her subjects on the public streets: secretaries, shop girls, female professionals and young matrons—all pretty and all stylishly attired.
In the three years that followed, Fawn's collection of photographs, which she kept carefully hidden in Ziploc freezer bags buried in the soft ground behind her parents' garage, grew in proportion to her expertise with the camera. Young Fawn Sheridan had found her calling. Regardless of what plans her mother and father had made for her future, she intended to become a fashion photographer.
* * *
"Here's the autopsy report on number five," Tom announced, tossing a large brown envelope on Lindeman's already messy desk.
"The victim did have a name, you know. 'Number five' reminds me of that movie robot."
"Sorry, Craig, it's just easier for me to remain objective when I don't think of them in terms of young women. This last one was the same age as my daughter," he said sadly.
"Maybe the FBI profiler they're bringing in will help us solve the case."
"Yeah, sure he will. And maybe I'll win the publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes and retire to Tahiti!"
"Have a little faith, Tom. The guys at behavioral sciences have a pretty good record at solving serial murders."
"It doesn't take a federal clown with a Ph.D. to know that we're looking for a psycho. What sane man would strangle five innocent young girls and then butcher them like that?"
"The victims were all beautiful, single and, from what we've been told, all had active social lives. I assume the perp was sexually attracted to them."
"But none of these girls was raped," Tom interrupted.
"True. The killer could be dysfunctional or, more likely, the girls rejected him. Sexual frustration would explain the viciousness of the attacks."
"Frustration, huh? Whatever happened to just going home and taking a cold shower?"
* * *
Fawn Sheridan critically eyed her latest work on the Macintosh's monitor. It was the last shot in a series of photographs commissioned by Dementia Records, one of which would appear on the cover of the new CD by the Marauding Mayhem Masters. Half-naked women with red horns protruding from their heads and black feathery wings sprouting from their backs were shown writhing in either ecstasy or agony in the fiery pits of hell. Superimposed over the base photo were semitransparent images of weeping altar boys and stern-looking nuns.
As Fawn experimented with the brightness and contrast of the gothic she-demons, she thought wistfully of the tall, slender models she had once longed to photograph, imagining the women wearing classic designs by Givenchy, Oscar de la Renta or Christian Dior.
One sign of maturity is realizing that nothing in our adult lives is ever what we imagined it would be when we were young. Fawn's daydreams of runways in Paris faded into the reality of shabby studios above abandoned warehouses, and the old-fashioned photographic dark room was replaced by a digital image editing program. Worst of all, in Fawn's opinion, was that haute couture itself had given way to body paint, thongs and Halloween costumes just as surely as the mellow tones of Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday and the peace-and-love anthems of the Sixties had succumbed to the violence and vulgarity of rappers and hard-core rockers like the Marauding Mayhem Masters.
"Oh, well," she said with a sigh of resignation, "in the words of the great Bob Dylan, 'The times they are a-changing.'"
* * *
"Tell me, Nash," Vermeer taunted, "how can you sleep at night after seeing those poor dead girls?"
"You and Lindeman see the same sights I do," he replied. "Don't you sleep?"
"It's not the same thing. You photograph them from every angle."
"Oddly enough, it's less personal when you see them through a camera's viewfinder."
"Being dead makes them a lot more passive, too, doesn't it?" Vermeer laughed.
"Okay, Tom," Lindeman cautioned, taking pity on the young sergeant. "We can all tolerate a little good-natured ribbing now and then, but you don't know when to ease up."
"It's okay," Nash said. "I'm used to Lt. Vermeer's jabs. Besides, he's not the only one around here who likes to poke fun at me."
"The guys don't mean anything by it," Lindeman explained. "They're just trying to deal with the pressures of the job."
"By belittling me."
"Maybe if you spent a little time with the guys when you're not on duty, you'd get to know them better. Why don't you join the department's softball team or bowling league? Or just stop off at the local bar for a few beers with them some evening when your shift is over."
"I don't have time for socializing with my coworkers after hours. Just because I'm not married, it doesn't mean I don't have any commitments outside the department."
Lindeman raised his eyebrow, and Vermeer nearly choked on his cup of coffee.
"You don't suppose Nash has got a girl?" Vermeer asked as soon as the young sergeant left the room.
"You never know," Lindeman replied.
* * *
It wasn't until long after midnight that Fawn put aside the photograph she had taken of romance author Gigi LaMarr bedecked in layers of diamonds and a sable coat. She had digitally removed the writer's wrinkles so that Gigi would appear younger on the book jacket of her newest novel.
Thankfully that's done! the photographer thought with relief and then turned her attention to her personal projects.
Money was money, and art was art. The CD covers and book jackets paid the bills, but her private collection satisfied a fundamental need to create beauty.
She thumbed through the finished prints beginning with Miss January, the statuesque blonde whom Fawn had first seen gracefully speeding down the snow-covered slopes at Hunter Mountain. The tall blonde was followed by Miss February, the feisty redheaded little waitress who swore like a sailor with her charming Irish brogue. That vulgar but adorable lass was followed by Miss March, the petite brunette she met on the dance floor at Club Victoria. Then there was the athletic Miss April, who taught aerobics at a Gold's Gym in Boston. Miss May, another blonde, was the most voluptuous of the group. Miss June, on the other hand, was thin almost to the point of being anorexic.
The latest in Fawn's assortment of calendar girls was Miss July. Her name was Pearl, and Fawn had met her at the offices of Dementia Records. She had exquisite violet eyes, high cheekbones and long, silky dark hair that cascaded down her back. It was a shame she wasted her beauty and brains on a long succession of Dementia's recording stars. With her exotic looks and natural grace, she could have modeled for Versace.
Why do so many women settle for so little?
Fawn had to fight almost insurmountable odds to get where she was now. And she had done it based solely on her brains and talent; she had not been gifted with the classic bone structure of Miss July or the shapely curves of Miss May, nor had she been born to wealthy parents as had the woman Fawn had chosen to be Miss August.
* * *
The police chief, having been chewed out by the mayor earlier in the day, took his anger out on the men who were assigned to solve the killings that had plagued Quiet Valley for the past nine months. Just this week, victim number ten was found, yet the police were no closer to finding the madman responsible.
"I swear, Vermeer," the chief screamed, "you couldn't find your own ass with a road map and a compass."
"We just haven't been able to get a break yet," Lindeman claimed apologetically.
"I'd expect to hear something like that out of your pal, Vermeer, but you're the best we've got on the force. You should know a good cop breaks the case himself. He doesn't rest on his laurels waiting for the breaks to come to him. Now what, if anything, have you got on this guy?"
"There's very little physical evidence. The FBI profile has proved to be of no help since the description fits one-fourth of the male population of Massachusetts, including some of the guys on this force. We've checked out all known sex offenders, wife beaters, stalkers and even guys accused of harassment in the workplace. I've got men keeping an eye on the bars, checking out Internet dating sites and monitoring chat rooms."
"And, so far, we've only turned up a few peeping toms," Tom added.
"Look, chief, we want to find this guy as much as you want us to find him—probably more since we're the ones who have to see firsthand what Jack's done to those poor girls."
"Jack?"
"The guys at the station nicknamed the killer Jack, as in Jack the Ripper. But we don't let anyone outside the force hear us call him that."
"Make sure you don't. If the papers start referring to him as Jack the Ripper, the public will be in an uproar. They'll take it out on the mayor, he'll take it out on me and guess who I'll take it out on."
"We got you, chief. No more Jack the Ripper remarks."
"One other thing, Lindeman. Find him before he kills number eleven!"
* * *
Fawn walked through the food court of the Quiet Valley Mall on her way to the camera store. As she neared its entrance, she passed a large papier-mâché turkey in the center of the mall. Standing in front of the bird was a young woman dressed as a pilgrim. Not even the severity of the outfit could hide the beauty of the form beneath. Fawn walked over to the woman, who smiled at her and handed her a flyer.
"Here's a coupon for fresh turkeys at Shaw's. Only fifty-nine cents a pound."
Fawn took the flyer and introduced herself.
"I'm a commercial photographer. I was wondering if you've ever done any modeling."
"No, but I've always wanted to try it," the young woman replied with a cheerleader's enthusiasm.
Fawn reached into the pocket of her blazer and took out one of her business cards.
"I'm currently putting together a calendar. I think you'd be perfect for Miss November. Here's my number. Why don't you give me a call and we can set up a photo session?"
"Sure. But would I have to take off my clothes?" the girl asked self-consciously.
"No. It's not that kind of calendar," Fawn replied with a laugh.
* * *
"Where's Nash?" Vermeer asked. "He's usually one of the first guys to show up."
Lindeman, who was concentrating on the most recent crime scene, hadn't noticed the absence of one of his team.
"Maybe he had car trouble," Craig said. "Don't worry; he'll get here."
"Yeah. I guess our young lady will keep until he does."
"Very funny, Tom. What's that you've got there, Williams?" Lindeman asked one of the crime scene investigators who had been collecting carpet fibers and hair samples and sealing them in plastic bags.
"It's another one of that photographer's business cards," he said handing it over to Lindeman.
"What do mean by 'another one'?"
"It's the same as the one we found in the apartment of that waitress who was murdered."
The detective looked at the mauve-colored rectangular-shaped piece of cardboard. It bore an art deco design and read FAWN SHERIDAN, PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER in an elegant calligraphic font. The name was followed by an address and phone number.
"How come this is the first I've heard of it?" Lindeman yelled, in an uncharacteristic display of anger.
"When I found the other one, I showed it to Nash. I knew he went to photography school before joining the force, so I figured he might have heard of her. Nash thanked me, pocketed the card and said he'd check her out."
"Vermeer! Did Nash ever mention a photographer named Sheridan to you?"
"Nah. You know Nash. He keeps to himself."
"Why wouldn't he share this information with us? We're heading up the investigation."
"Maybe she's the one. You remember, the 'commitment' he told us about. He probably wants to keep her name out of the investigation."
Later that afternoon, Lindeman and Vermeer returned to police headquarters.
Lindeman called to the sergeant at the desk, "Let me know when Nash shows up, will you? I want to talk to him."
"Nash called in sick today. If it's important, I can get him on the phone for you."
"I guess it can wait until ...."
Lindeman was interrupted by the ringing of his phone.
It was Matt Dolan, one of the department's best forensics men.
"I've got some good news for you. I think our man finally picked the wrong lady to tangle with."
"She looked pretty dead to me when I saw her," Lindeman said.
"Oh, she's dead, all right. But she was a martial arts student and quite strong. That girl must have put up one hell of a fight. She's the first one who had skin tissue under her nails."
"That's great. Hey, I've got something I want you to take a look at. It's a business card we found at the scene. It probably won't lead to anything, but could you check it out just the same?"
Lindeman FedExed Fawn Sheridan's business card, safely protected in an evidence bag, over to the forensics lab.
* * *
Detective Lindeman drove his Camry down Main Street past Wrigley's Drug Store, where Mrs. Wrigley was busy decorating the large display window with Christmas trees, cotton-like sheets of artificial snow and an animated Santa Claus. It was late November, and the first signs of Christmas were spreading through Quiet Valley. Lindeman had been working on the strangler case since January and was still waiting for a break.
"Hi, partner. How was your Thanksgiving?" Vermeer asked when Lindeman entered the police station.
"I'd have been a lot more thankful if we had caught this guy. Is Nash in yet?"
"Nah. He's still out sick."
"Still? It's been almost a week. What's wrong with him?"
"Some bug. Who knows? Oh, Dolan sent you a report on that business card."
"Yeah? What did he say?" Lindeman asked, his interest piqued.
"He ran tests on the card stock and the ink—nothing. The card is one of those homemade jobs. Nowadays anyone with a computer can make his own business cards. This particular card stock can be purchased at any Staples or Office Depot. The same goes for the ink. He did manage to lift a couple of good prints off of it, but they belonged to you, Williams, Nash and the victim herself. So, there's no help there either."
"It was a long shot, anyway," Lindeman said, trying to hide his disappointment. "You know, Tom, when Williams showed me that card I really had a hunch that it might lead to something. So much for hun—Wait! Did you just say Nash's prints were on that card?"
"So? He's part of our team. His prints are there because he was at the scene of the crime doing his job."
"Wrong, Tom. Nash called in sick the day Williams gave me that business card. Nash wasn't at the scene of the last murder—at least not when the rest of us were there."
* * *
Craig Lindeman and Tom Vermeer drove to the Nash family home. They rang the bell and waited. No one answered.
Lindeman signaled to the two patrolmen waiting in the car that he and his partner were going inside.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Tom asked with uncertainty.
"This is the address given on his employment records," Craig replied.
"Damn! This guy is even weirder than I thought," Vermeer remarked as they searched Nash's home.
The rooms were empty: void of furniture, rugs, lamps and any other sign of human life. The kitchen had no refrigerator or stove, and there were no groceries in the cabinets.
"Didn't Nash say he lived here with his parents?" Lindeman asked.
"I thought he did. Maybe they retired and moved down to Florida. This might be his place now, a poor attempt at a bachelor pad."
"I never saw a bachelor pad without a bed or a stereo. There's nothing here except a few toiletries in the bathroom and a handful of clothes in the bedroom closet."
"So, what do we do now, wait for Nash to come back to work?"
"No. I've got a pretty good idea where we might find him."
"You think he's shacked up with that Fawn Sheridan dame?"
"Something like that," Craig said mysteriously. "Why don't we go have a look at Miss Sheridan's place, Tom?"
* * *
"Whew!" Vermeer whistled when Lindeman pulled up in front of Sheridan's apartment. "I never knew taking pictures paid so well. If I did, I wouldn't have sold the Minolta I got for Christmas when I was sixteen."
Again, the two detectives rang the bell and waited for an answer. Again, there was none. But they couldn't just barge into this apartment—not yet, anyway. First, they had to obtain a search warrant. Lindeman radioed ahead to speed up the process. Then they headed back to the station.
Before they arrived, a message came over the radio: "Lindeman, guess what? We found Nash's parents."
"Oh, yeah? Do they know where their son is?"
"Not likely; we found them buried in Nash's cellar. The medical examiner estimates they've been there for years."
Lindeman immediately turned the car around and headed back to Fawn Sheridan's apartment.
"I'm not taking my eyes off that place," he said. "Williams can bring the warrant out to us once it's issued."
"If Nash killed his parents, he probably killed those eleven women, too," Tom suggested. "What do you think the chances are of us finding this Fawn Sheridan alive?"
His partner only shrugged.
* * *
Lindeman, Vermeer and Williams entered Fawn Sheridan's swank townhouse with the search warrant in Craig's jacket pocket.
"At least there's no corpse here. Maybe she's alive, after all," Vermeer said hopefully.
Lindeman stared at him, not voicing the terrible doubt he felt.
"Let's take a look around and see what we can learn about Miss Sheridan, shall we?"
"I'm no expert, but I doubt these furnishings, rugs and drapes came from Sears," Vermeer said.
"They look custom-made and very expensive," Lindeman replied.
"Wait till you get a look at these clothes," Shawn added, looking into the photographer's closet. "My wife's entire wardrobe probably didn't cost as much as one of these dresses. Look at the labels: Chanel, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana."
"What do you think a classy dame like that would see in a geek like Nash?" Tom asked.
"Maybe they share a common interest," Lindeman said enigmatically.
The detective's doubt was fading, and his nagging hunch was fast becoming a certainty.
The door to Fawn's studio was locked, but Williams had the door open in a matter of seconds. Erté prints adorned the walls, adding to the art deco theme of the room. The décor was marred only by the state-of-the-art computer system that sat atop Fawn's desk.
As Tom looked around the studio, he remarked, "I can't wait to get a look at this girl. If she's anything like this place—wow!"
Lindeman opened Fawn's file cabinet and pulled out a thick folder containing samples of the photographer's work.
"Take a look at these," he told his partner after viewing the contents, "maybe then you won't be so anxious to meet this femme fatale."
Inside the folder were copies of photos she had sent to Dementia records.
"Now I see what you mean about her and Nash having a common interest. They both like to photograph the dead."
"No. These pictures are of living women; they're only made to look dead. My son is a fan of a band called the Marauding Mayhem Masters. This photo is on one of their CDs. Sheridan must work for the record label."
"Dead or alive, it's pretty sickening stuff," Vermeer declared, dismissing the pictures and stuffing them back into the envelope.
"What's this?" Lindeman asked, searching through a drawer in Fawn's desk.
He removed several hanging folders full of correspondence and dumped them on the floor. Hidden beneath them there was a false bottom in the drawer. Lindeman took out his pocketknife and pried the top open. Inside was a single compact disc.
"What's on it, music?" Tom asked.
"We'll soon find out."
Lindeman turned on the computer and stuck the CD into the drive. Then he clicked on the icon to view the contents.
"January, February, March, April—those are probably bookkeeping records," Tom read the file names with disappointment.
"No. These are image files."
Lindeman double-clicked on January.jpg and waited for the file to open.
"Shit!" Vermeer swore as he and Lindeman both straightened up with surprise.
The image on the screen was that of the strangler's first victim. The beautiful blonde, her mortal wounds painfully obvious, was superimposed against a snowy winter scene. The caption MISS JANUARY appeared below the body. Lindeman opened up one file after another, February, March, April—all the way up to October.
"Only the last one, Miss November, isn't here," Lindeman observed.
"Nash was sick, remember? He probably never got the chance to photograph that one."
Lindeman ejected the CD and carefully put it inside an evidence bag.
"Hey," he called to Williams who was waiting in the living room. "Call headquarters and have them send over a forensics team. Tell them I want every inch of this place dusted for prints."
"Why go through all that trouble?" Vermeer asked him. "You know Nash was connected with this girl. He had to have been the one who gave her those photographs. His prints are bound to be all over this place."
"I'm counting on that. What I'm interested in discovering is whether or not there are any other prints here."
* * *
The patrolmen and forensics team had gone. The lights were turned off. There was no indication from outside that anyone had been in Fawn Sheridan's apartment. Half a block away, Vermeer and Lindeman sat watching the house from inside the Camry.
"Why are we staking out this place?" Tom complained. "There are at least a dozen guys on the force who could do as good a job. Christ, I've been up since six this morning."
"If you want to go home, I'll radio for someone to come pick you up. But I'm not leaving."
"If you're determined to stay, so will I. But do you mind if I get a few winks while we wait for her to show up?"
More than an hour later, Lindeman shook Vermeer awake.
"This is it."
Vermeer woke and saw a well-dressed woman unlock the door to Fawn's apartment and go inside. Lindeman took his gun out of its holster and approached the house with stealth. He knocked on the door.
"Police! Open up."
After several minutes, Lindeman nodded to his partner, and the two men burst through the door. They found Fawn in her studio, searching desperately for the missing CD that she had kept hidden in her drawer.
"You're too late. We already found it," Lindeman said quietly.
Fawn stood up, turned around and raised her hand. Lindeman and Vermeer found themselves looking down the barrel of a .44 Magnum.
"I thought you were more used to shooting with a camera than a gun."
Fawn Sheridan said nothing. Beneath the long locks of auburn hair that were partially covering her face, Lindeman could see a large bruise on her cheek, now beginning to fade.
"Miss November fought back, didn't she?" Lindeman asked calmly.
Vermeer had no idea what his partner was talking about.
"Is this the first time you were beaten? What about your parents, did they beat you? Is that why you killed them?"
"My parents?" Fawn spat out in a falsetto voice. "Oh, no. They wouldn't hit me. That would have been a sin. In fact, they considered any sort of physical contact between people a sin."
"Including homosexuality?"
"Wrong profile, Lindeman. I'm not gay."
The act was dropped. Vermeer could now recognize the voice. It belonged to Sgt. Ronald Nash.
"What are you then, a transvestite?"
"You guys always have to place labels on everything, don't you? Why? Does it make things easier for you to understand if you can give them a name?"
"Maybe it will help us to better understand why you killed those women."
"Ah, so that's it? You want to hear about the rotten childhood I had: how all the other kids used to torment me because my parents were religious fanatics who wouldn't allow their son to play sports, listen to music, watch television or talk to girls because they saw Satan's hand in everything. But you don't have to look too deeply into my past for the answer, Lindeman. Just talk to your partner here or your fellow officers down at the station. They'll tell you what an outcast I am."
Suddenly, the bright red enamel on Nash's press-on fingernails flashed as he turned the gun toward his own temple and pulled the trigger.
* * *
The mayor was pleased; his town was finally free of the madman that had terrorized it. The chief of police was pleased, even though Nash marred his department's otherwise spotless record. Vermeer was pleased. Now that the killings had ended, his life could return to its usual leisurely pace. Only Lindeman was not pleased, although he did feel a sense of relief. He had gotten his much-needed break in the case and subsequently found the killer. He had not expected it to be Nash, however.
Unlike many of his fellow officers, he had never made fun of the sergeant, yet he remained silent when the others did. Why hadn't he stuck up for Nash? Why hadn't he chastised the jokers who mercilessly taunted him?
He shuddered to think how many other troubled men, women and children there might be in the world, potential killers lying dormant like unexploded land mines. How many were even now being subjected to ridicule and abuse, remaining calm on the outside, while inside a time bomb was ticking? How many, Lindeman wondered fearfully.
Probably way too many.
The cat photograph below © Henryk Kaiser.
Salem was Mr. October for last year's Favorite Familiars calendar.
