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The technician cuts the power.

Using evidence tools, he lifts the compass from the coil and places it on a padded tray.

A narrow seam has opened along the outer edge of the base.

“It has a magnetic latch,” I whisper.

Marquez photographs it before allowing the technician to continue.

He inserts a thin tool into the seam.

The brass base separates.

Beneath it lies the curved piece of blue lighthouse glass we expected.

But the prism is thicker than it appeared on the X-ray.

The technician lifts it carefully.

A narrow strip of film has been sealed inside a groove cut along the back.

Only one frame.

Not an entire roll.

Marquez carries it beneath a magnifying light.

A negative image appears against the white surface.

Four men stand inside a warehouse beside stacks of wooden crates.

Thomas identifies the first two.

“Lawrence Vail and Charles Kessler.”

The third man is Arthur Bell.

The cook who recorded every ship entering Blackwater.

The fourth man stands partly in shadow.

I lean closer.

He is younger in the photograph, but I recognize the cold smile.

“Donald Cross.”

Marquez studies the crates.

“They’re marked as emergency medical supplies.”

“They weren’t,” Thomas says.

“How do you know?”

“Because that warehouse belonged to Pacific Maritime Restoration. They never handled medical cargo.”

Along the lower corner of the image, my father captured a shipping manifest lying on a table.