A Photographic Death Read online

  “Oh, brother,” Hannah groaned, finally awake. I turned and saw she was scowling at the caterer’s van parked in the circular drive. On its white side a carrot, a lamb, and an asparagus stalk joined hands in a jig.

  Hannah was upset by the lamb dancing to its doom, and I wondered if all pre-­veterinary students were vegetarians. At least today there would be a wider choice for her.

  My own stomach was jumping, making me wonder how much I could eat myself.

  Chapter Three

  PATIENCE WAS AT her best when she had to do nothing more than be the perfect hostess. She appeared in the driveway as soon as we opened the car doors and hugged each of us warmly. Her light hair was swept back in its perfect French braid, and she had on a black cashmere turtleneck that emphasized a handcrafted silver necklace. I noticed how slender she looked in pin-­striped slacks and wondered if I should get a pair.

  When we were standing in the slate-­tiled foyer, she asked if she could take my jacket for me.

  “No, it’s part of my ensemble.”

  “Of course.”

  When we were growing up in the parsonage in Prince­ton, we had ­people for lunch every Sunday after church. Twice a year Bishop Morrison and his wife came for Confirmation. When Patience and I were twelve and David Livingstone (no one ever called our brother just David) was ten, Mrs. Morrison tried to draw us into the conversation by asking what we wanted to be when we grew up.

  I told her piously that I was going to be a missionary to Darkest Africa. I wanted to travel and I didn’t know how else to get there. David said he was going to be a stunt pilot, and then she turned to my sister.

  “And what do you want to be when you grow up, Patience?”

  Pat smoothed the napkin in her lap. “Rich.”

  Of the three of us, she was the only one whose wish had come true, though David Livingstone seemed happy making weird films in L.A. and I had traveled the world with Colin.

  My sister moved us toward the fieldstone fireplace and the wineglasses arranged on the coffee table in rows like a marching band.

  “Where’s Ben?” I asked.

  Mild exasperation. “Upstairs taking a shower. He just got back from playing squash.”

  “On Thanksgiving?”

  “You know how compulsive he is, Delhi. He has to play every day of the year no matter what. Come sit down.”

  I still didn’t move. “Where are the girls?” Usually they would be there by now, admiring their older cousins, and all over me.

  “Tara and Annie Laurie?”

  “You have others?”

  “They had an invitation to go skiing in Vail for the long weekend.”

  “Vail, Colorado?” I couldn’t imagine letting my daughters, especially when they were barely teenagers, fly halfway across the country and miss a major holiday.

  “They were thrilled.” Our eyes flashed, then she said briskly, “Red or white?”

  “I’ll start with white.”

  Colin and Jane moved right into the Cabernet Sauvignon, and Hannah didn’t drink, though today I wished she would. She was the one who would be most affected by what I had to say.

  “This Chardonnay is lovely,” I tempted her.

  “Mo-­om. You know I don’t like wine.”

  “It’s something you develop a taste for. As an adult,” Jane said.

  “As I can see you have,” Hannah snapped.

  “Exaggerate much?”

  “Come on, girls. It’s a holiday.” And you’re not in junior high school like your cousins.

  “You got here!” Ben appeared, his dark curly hair damp, a white towel around his neck. He bore down on us like a city bus.

  “You’re not even dressed.” Patience looked askance at his T-­shirt and sweatpants.

  Ignoring her, he came over to where I was warming myself by the fire. As always, he ran an appreciative hand through my long hair, using it to pull me toward him for a kiss. “Hey, beautiful. I don’t know why Pat didn’t get these curls.”

  “We both had straight hair when we were small. I don’t know what happened to mine.” I knew Ben fussed over me to irritate my sister, and sometimes I was glad. Though today, I didn’t want to upset anyone. “How’s Brooklyn?”

  “Still there. Glad I bought it when I did.”

  Shorthand for Ben’s shrewdness as a young man in guessing which areas would gentrify fastest and buying up whole blocks. Having a father willing to put up seed money had helped.

  “Prices coming back?” Colin asked as Ben strode over to shake his hand.

  “Yeah. I was lucky. They never dropped into the catastrophere.”

  Then he was hugging Jane and Hannah and complimenting them, asking about their lives. Ben was their favorite uncle, albeit their only functioning one. Colin’s sister had never married, and we rarely saw David Livingstone. We’d taken the children to see his magnum opus, The Tomato That Ate Akron, but they had not been impressed.

  “Time to eat,” Pat announced. “Ben, go get dressed! We’re paying String Bean by the hour.”

  What was it about the very wealthy that let them spend a fortune on something extravagant, then suddenly decide they had better economize? It was like buying a yacht as big as an ocean liner, then refusing to sail it anywhere because fuel was so expensive.

  THE TABLE WAS arranged in front of the window like Leonardo’s Last Supper so that we all could have a view of the choppy gray-­blue ocean and empty beach. As the hosts, Ben and Pat to the corner seats, so that they had to turn their heads to look out. Instead of saying grace as the twelve apostles might have, we lifted our glasses and toasted each other for being the ­people we were, then fell upon the miniature crab cakes. Two young women in white jackets and houndstooth pants next served us pumpkin bisque with corn sticks.

  The main course was everything that Patience had promised: succulent turkey, sweet potatoes molded in the shape of a pumpkin with lines of pecans for the ridges, and a turkey-­shaped cranberry mold. He kept his head, but tipped over as ­people dug into his sides.

  A few bites and my appetite was gone. I decided to test the waters. ­“People are always telling me I look like someone they know. Their sister-­in-­law’s sister or someone they met on a cruise. We must be a popular genetic type.”

  Patience and Jane looked surprised, but Hannah said, “It happens to me all the time. The first week of classes, this guy came up and gave me a big hug. He looked like Leonardo DiCaprio.”

  “Wow,” Jane said. “Was it?”

  “Naw.” Hannah stabbed a broccoli floret. “But I wasn’t who he thought either. Someone he met sailing right around here a ­couple years ago.”

  That jolted me. “Did he say what her name was?”

  “Probably. But I don’t remember.”

  “I have an opportunity for you,” Ben broke in, helping himself to more oyster stuffing and grinning at me. “A friend of mine has an investigative agency, the largest on the island.”

  Of course, the largest. Ben only dwelt in superlatives.

  “He’s looking to expand into stolen artwork and books, so I was telling him about you. How smart you were and how you know everything about rare books. Do you have a business card I can give him?”

  “You hate my business card.” With Ben and the job opportunities he came up with for me I never knew whether he honestly believed I was the best for or if he just felt sorry for me.

  A look of pretend disbelief infiltrated his dark eyes. “You still haven’t gotten a new one?”

  “I’m working on it.” A lie. I happened to like my card with its image of my Siamese cat, Raj, sniffing at several leather-­bound volumes, and the caption, “Got Books?” My pertinent information was on the back.

  “Well, when you get something that looks professional, send me a few. No hurry, he won’t be putting it together for a few month
s.”

  “Okay. Sure. Thanks.” Although I didn’t need anything else to do—­I was busy with my book business and helping out when I was needed in my colleague Marty’s bookshop—­the idea of tracking down lost books instead of always trying to buy them to sell had a certain appeal.

  “Would this be full-­time?” Colin was looking for a way to get me gainfully employed with retirement benefits. I had already turned down his suggestions of being a food demonstrator at Trader Joe’s and assisting at the university day care center. Since Colin had assured the director that working with small children was my first love, he had taken that refusal hard.

  “I was only trying to help you.”

  “Do me a favor; don’t help me.”

  Since he had been considering the possibility of our getting back together, he had been pressuring me to finish the B.A. he’d interrupted when I was nineteen.

  “Of course it would be full-­time,” Ben assured him.

  “Nothing wrong with that.” The two men grinned at each other.

  I drank more of the red wine I had switched to with the main course. When I was in college, I went to the boardwalk in Ocean City with several friends and visited a fortune-­teller. I was already seeing Colin, a teaching assistant and fledgling archeologist, but was wondering if he was in the cards—­so to speak. The Gypsy, a young woman who did not express herself well in English, said, “You will always be surrounded by ­people with money, but not you—­you will never have any money yourself.” It was not what I had come there to hear, but so far it had been true.

  She had also promised me that love was waiting for me to claim it, a prediction that emboldened me to leave Douglas College at the end of my sophomore year and marry Colin. She hadn’t predicted how long love would last.

  When the dinner plates were being cleared, Patience pushed back her chair with the look of a gym teacher rousing a bunch of slugs. “Time for our walk!”

  The tradition was to walk a mile or two on the dramatic winter beach, then come back and have dessert in front of the living room fire. When we were done, Colin, Ben, Jane, and the little girls would go outside and shoot baskets and the rest of us would nap.

  I knew that once everyone was scattered, my chance would be past. “We can’t. Not yet!”

  Now that I had everyone’s attention, I stared out at the ocean for inspiration. “This is all wonderful, but someone is missing.”

  “He could have been here if he weren’t so stubborn,” Colin said grimly.

  “Not Jason.”

  “If you’re talking about my daughters—­” Trigger-­happy as ever, Patience was ready for the fight.

  “No, no, not the girls. I know they’re off having fun. I’m talking about Caitlin.”

  A silence as palpable as the mist that was gathering at the edges of the beach, fell over the room.

  “Who’s Caitlin?” Hannah asked, bewildered.

  Chapter Four

  IN THE SILENCE I could hear the rattle of the dessert cart in the hallway and smell fresh-­brewed coffee. Evidently Patience had not told them there would be a break between courses.

  We sat as still as a photograph in a glossy magazine.

  Then Colin came to life and grabbed my arm. “What are you doing? Why are you bringing this up now?”

  “Who’s Caitlin?” Hannah repeated.

  “No one.” Colin looked around me to our daughter. “Forget it, Hani. Your mother’s just getting maudlin. She’s had too much to drink.”

  “I’m not getting maudlin.” I turned to Hannah on my other side, frantic to get the words out before Colin silenced me. “A long time ago you had a twin sister. She drowned when you were two—­or so we believed. Jane was four and I was pregnant with Jason.”

  “I had a what?”

  Colin groaned, a sound so primeval that I jumped. “Don’t do this,” he hissed into my ear. I turned and our eyes locked, mine imploring, his unyielding. In that look were years of challenge, disappointment, and love.

  In the momentary silence, the caterers emerged from the hallway with the dessert cart. It was as if they had been lying in wait for a pause. We turned to stare at the cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and chocolate-­dipped strawberries.

  The young woman carrying a silver tray with the coffeepot and china cups gave me a curious look.

  I could not imagine any of us eating dessert, but Colin and Ben helped themselves to everything. The rest of us agreed to black coffee.

  As soon as the caterers had retreated to the kitchen, Jane looked around Colin at me. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “We never talked about it. It didn’t happen here; we were in England for six weeks. Dad was in an archeology program. We went to the same park every day.”

  Surely she was too young for the wrinkled lines creasing her forehead. “Were there swans and boats?”

  “You never told me I had a twin?” Hannah broke in.

  “We weren’t trying to hide it from you . . .” Yet that was exactly what had happened.

  I waited for Colin to explain to Hannah why he had insisted on our never mentioning Caitlin, why he hadn’t wanted them to grow up under the shadow of death.

  But he was staring out at the beach.

  “What happened?” Jane asked.

  I gave Colin a rapid glance, but he wasn’t trying to stop me. “That day in the park everything was the same as always. Hannah was napping on the bench and you and Caitlin were playing. I was taking photos and—­I got distracted. Caitlin suddenly disappeared and ­people thought she had fallen into the river.”

  Colin clattered his fork on the plate, startling everyone. “At least tell the truth. You were napping too.”

  I turned to look at him. “No. I wasn’t. I know I said that but—­it was all so crazy. I was afraid if I told you I was taking photos, you would have killed me.”

  In those days photography had been my passion, my way of escaping from the endless round of dirty diapers and runny noses and tears. At home, as soon as the children were in bed, I’d fled to my darkroom, working into the early hours printing and tinting photos. The quiet darkness was an addiction. As sleepy as I was during the day, I came alive in those night hours. It was the woman I would have been if I had never met Colin.

  Growing up I had never daydreamed about having a family, of being surrounded by children. I’d read endlessly, imagined myself in exotic places, even saw myself as an archeologist or explorer. I loved the children fiercely, they were mine, but they were something I had taken for granted.

  Until I lost one, due to my preoccupation. After that I never took another photograph.

  “You thought falling asleep sounded better?” Colin was menacing beside me. I felt he might grab my shoulders and start shaking me.

  I realized that I should have told him about the note first, that we should not be having this conversation in front of everyone. “I—­yes. And after I kept saying it a part of me started believing it. When I finally admitted the truth and told someone else, she pointed out that if I was standing right by the water, I would have heard a splash or seen Caitlin fall in. And I was right by the edge of the river. I—­”

  “But I thought the police had investigated everything.” Patience couldn’t keep out of it any longer.

  “Of course they did.” Colin’s voice was too loud for the alcove. “They interviewed everyone who’d had been in the park that day. We even hired a private detective. Who found nothing.”

  Through the miasma of wine and coffee I tried to remember what had been in the detective’s report. Surely, for all the money we borrowed from Colin’s parents to pay him, he had turned up something. “But the police never found her. They said that was unusual for that part of the Avon.”

  “But not impossible.” Colin held up a professorial hand, a gesture he would have used to silence a classro
om. Everyone looked at him, waiting. He addressed the girls first. “I’m sorry you had to learn this from someone in a drunken stupor. It’s something that happened long ago. We didn’t want you to grow up thinking something terrible would happen to you too. We didn’t want it to overshadow your childhood. Losing your sister was the worst thing that ever happened to us. But your mother has conflated another day when she was taking pictures with the day it actually happened. Her memory is unreliable.”

  I was so furious that I couldn’t think of which lie to address first. I was not in a drunken stupor. I was not mixing up the days. My memory was as good as anyone’s. I told myself to calm down. I needed to explain why I was bringing it up now. “What I was doing that day isn’t the point.” I reached in my Mexican jacket pocket and pulled out the fragile blue envelope. “This is the point.”

  A rustling, a squeaking of chairs, as ­people shifted to look.

  It was addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Fitzhugh,” which was odd for two reasons. First, no one who knew Colin would address him as anything but Dr. Fitzhugh. Second, I had never taken Colin’s name, keeping my own name, Laine, right from the start. They would know that, too. I had stared at the red and green stamps of Queen Elizabeth and a blurred postmark I could not read and been mildly curious. Curious the way someone would be when opening a letter from someone they did not know.

  Now I pulled out the white paper inside, unfolded it, and laid it flat on the table so that the ­people closest to me could see. In large black letters it read:

  YOUR DAUGHTER DID NOT DROWN.

  When Colin and the girls had seen it, I passed it to Patience, who scanned it and gave it back so I could show it to Ben. “It came in the mail Monday,” I said. “I can’t tell what part of England it’s from.”

  Colin picked up the envelope and studied it. Again, everyone seemed to be waiting for his official pronouncement. He did not disappoint them. “A mean trick. Someone’s idea of a sadistic joke.”

  A sadistic joke? “But why now?” I argued, shocked. “Almost twenty years later? Who’d even know about it now?”