A Photographic Death

by Judi Culbertson

  I laughed.

  “My point is that even without this tragedy, your husband might have changed.”

  I looked into the fire and thought about that. Were we just ­people after all?

  “What are you going to do?” Thad brought me back to the bookshop, the cozy room we were settled in.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why haven’t you posted the photos online? The Internet is a wondrous thing.”

  “My other daughter, her twin, doesn’t want us to find her. I’ll ask her now, but—­”

  “Knowing her sister is alive may change her mind.”

  Would it? And was it really true? I couldn’t help myself, I reached across and grasped his hands. “What if this story is another lie? Nick Clancy is a little crazy. Maybe a lot crazy. What if this is just some sick fantasy he’s dreamed up to explain why his mother died? What if he made it up for the attention?”

  Thad squeezed my hands back. “But you know that his mother did dress up as a nanny and play a role. You have the photo that proves it. Your daughter remembers her too. Nick may be as cracked as the queen’s china, but the story isn’t just his.”

  “No.”

  We sat, hands linked by goodwill and our love of books, not caring that we would never see each other again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  BY THE TIME I went back to the White Swan, the sky, which had been the creamy white of old pearls, had darkened. Too little, too late. But that didn’t apply to our situation, did it? Still, it was hard to keep the other ifs from swamping the boat. If only I had turned around unexpectedly and seen the nanny with my girls. If only Jane had insisted on looking inside the stroller for her promised rabbit and seen Caitlin instead. If only the police had investigated Priscilla Waters’s note and found her. If, if, if.

  Trust no one. I should have heeded that. If I had, we might have headed in a different direction. But I didn’t.

  I did think about Constable Donnelly, a young man focused on getting his education. Where had he suddenly gotten the money to head off to university? If we found him, would he admit he had been paid to look the other way? Frantic, I reminded myself that we had less than a day left. Without DCI Sampson’s cooperation, there was no way to find Donnelly. If I asked now, would Sampson tell me where he was?

  Jane was waiting in the lobby, rosy-­cheeked and lovely. She stood up as I came over to her. “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”

  “The retired actress?”

  “Nope.”

  “DCI Sampson?”

  She grinned, grasping me by the arm and steering me toward the bar. “Micah Clancy.”

  “No! Really? He’s really around?”

  “Actually, he’s not coming for dinner. He’s meeting us for a drink.”

  “Not at the Singing Bard, I hope.” A bad joke.

  “Nope, he said outside it in the alley.” She laughed at my shock. “Here at seven.”

  “Well done, Jane!”

  She checked her watch. “Do you want to call Daddy first?”

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “I texted him that we had some news. That you’d call later.”

  “Really? That’s so—­” It took me a moment to find the word. “Thoughtful of you. Really thoughtful.”

  “I figured you’re the one he should hear it from.”

  “Thank you. Let’s go upstairs.”

  She looked longingly toward the bar. “We could get a drink.”

  “No, I need somewhere private.”

  When we were settled in the two chairs near the window, Jane retrieved her phone from her purse and pressed a number on speed dial, then handed it to me.

  “Hey-­lo, kid,” Colin answered jovially.

  “It’s me,” I said. “We found some things out.”

  “So Janie said.”

  Thad Daniels had warned me not to spring it on Colin.

  “You remember the nanny that Jane said tricked her? She’s dead now but we found her son. He said she was an actress, paid to dress up that way and take Caitlin. Supposedly as a joke. But Caitlin was in his apartment all that night, then his mother turned her over to the ­people who paid her.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “That someone kidnapped Caitlin. This boy’s mother. She didn’t drown.”

  “Do the police know about this?”

  “That’s where we talked to him, at the police station.”

  “And they believe that’s what happened.”

  “As far as I know.”

  “And who were these kidnappers?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.”

  Silence. Sitting across from me, Jane was biting her lip between her teeth.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in. We’re meeting with the older brother tonight to see if he knows any more.” And then, stupidly, I began to cry. I rarely cry. “We should have paid more attention to what Jane was trying to tell us. We should have insisted that the police investigate more. The nanny, Priscilla Waters, even sent the police an anonymous note saying someone had taken Caitlin. They didn’t listen to her either. It’s all such a mess!”

  “We did our best.”

  “I know. But where do we go from here?”

  “We hope Caitlin has a good life.”

  Incredulous, I broke the connection.

  Chapter Thirty

  “THINK HE’LL BE wearing a mask?”

  I smiled at Jane. “Did he sound like he would be over the phone?”

  “No, he sounded nice. He was the one who suggested meeting. Like he was anxious to talk to us.” Jane shifted her elbows on the white cloth and sat up a little. Her cap of light hair shone in the candlelight. “When Marjory called him and told who we were, he didn’t seem that surprised.”

  “Maybe Nick called him.”

  “Maybe. But he said they weren’t in touch. Wait—­is that him?”

  We both looked at the tall, black-­haired man who had spotted us and was moving quickly toward our table. A flash of paranoia: Was he coming to avenge his mother’s memory and finish what his brother had started? But he didn’t look crazed. Unlike Nick in his hoodie, he had on a suede jacket and a deep blue dress shirt that accentuated his eyes. He was even handsomer than Nick.

  When he reached us, he held out his hand to me and smiled at Jane. “I’m Micah Clancy.”

  Smooth.

  We introduced ourselves as he sat down in the vacant chair. “Are you enjoying Stratford?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Not so much. But we’re not here on vacation.”

  “Ah. Why did you come?”

  I looked into those striking blue eyes. “The note.” At that moment I had no doubt that he was the one who had sent it. His lack of surprise at our being here and his desire to meet with us made me sure. And if I was wrong, no damage done.

  But he nodded. “I hoped it would make you come here.”

  WE DIDN’T TALK more about it until he was holding a glass of Jack Daniel’s, which he insisted on paying for himself.

  “It was a terrible thing my mother did. I didn’t realize how bad until my daughter turned two a few months ago. Then it all came rushing at me. I knew if anything like that happened to Angelique, I’d kill myself.”

  The kidnapping . . . or something worse? I suddenly felt too frightened to hear what he had to say.

  He took a sip of whiskey. “I should have let you know years earlier. But it was all such a muddle, my mother dying suddenly, us leaving Stratford. I spent the next few years trying to get away from my crazy father.”

  “How old were you?” I asked.

  “Fourteen. I knew university was my only hope. But trying to do that and support myself, it took a long time.” Then suddenly he turned up his palms dramatically; maybe he was an actor. �
�There’s no excuse. I’m sorry.”

  Jane caught her breath.

  ­“People do what they have to do,” I said. “When they can. Your note changed everything. Nick told us what your mother did. But he didn’t know anything about the ­people who paid her.”

  Nick sighed. “I wish I did. All I know is that they had a lot of money and they weren’t English. My mother said that at least English ­people wouldn’t be such rotters.”

  “She didn’t say what they were?” Jane’s first question.

  He drank more Jack Daniel’s, looking regretful. “No. I think it was a married ­couple.”

  “Do you know anything about the—­car?” A sensitive question.

  “The car? Oh.”

  Perhaps Priscilla had never seen their car until she heard it behind her and turned. And then it was too late to tell anyone.

  Micah moved restlessly in his chair. He might have been thinking of leaving. But he sighed and sat back. “My mother did something else. Something there was no excuse for . . .”

  I couldn’t stop the flashes of alarm bursting over me. Something to Caitlin?

  “What was it?” I whispered.

  He finished the drink and set it down. “She told them that if they didn’t give her more money she was going to the police.”

  Oh. He didn’t know that we had already heard that from Nick.

  “They agreed, and she was meeting them to get the money the night she—­the night she never came home.”

  “What did you think had happened?”

  “I was so dumb. The way the constable explained it, it just sounded like another sorry accident.”

  “But if it were just an accident, wouldn’t they have found the money on her? If she had already met with them.”

  And the penny dropped. “My God. I never thought of that. They never even gave it to her.”

  “Either that—­or they took it back.”

  It was a picture you didn’t want to think about.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “WE CAN’T GO home yet,” Jane protested when we got back to our room and started gathering our things in little piles. “We don’t know enough!”

  We were flying home Sunday so that she could be back at work Monday morning, ready to start the week. I had thought four days would give us plenty of time to look at the newspaper archives, talk to the police, and post Caitlin’s picture. We hadn’t counted on Priscilla Waters and having to go a layer deeper—­like archeologists who had discovered that the burial chamber they were excavating was only a sham and that the real tomb was somewhere underneath.

  “We can always come back.” But I knew we wouldn’t. We hadn’t exactly wrung Stratford dry, but Caitlin would not be found here. The search had opened up, not narrowed. Even if we could eliminate ­people not interested in a Caucasian child, that left the rest of the world. Caitlin could have seemed perfect to a German or Swedish ­couple who had driven across the continent. I had never been to Scandinavia but it felt remote, unforthcoming. A child like Caitlin could be lost among other children just like her and never be seen again.

  I pictured Caitlin in Norway or Denmark happily finishing her studies and preparing for a career. How would we ever find her there? We wouldn’t find her there.

  “It went too fast,” I said ruefully. We had to leave for Birmingham Airport at seven tomorrow morning to get down to London for our international flight home. The same cabby who brought us to Stratford was taking us down. No doubt he would want to know all about how we enjoyed the Christmas Market.

  Lots of fun until Shakespeare attacked me.

  “And we found out the most important thing.” Something occurred to me then. “We have to talk to DCI Sampson!”

  Jane looked up from the floor where she was trying to fit the gifts she had bought into her carry-­on. “He won’t be there now.”

  “I know. But someone will be and they can patch me through. Or give me his number.”

  “What if he’s gone out somewhere?”

  “Jane, he’s the head of everything! He has to be on call.”

  “Maybe they do things differently here.”

  Why was she giving me such a hard time? “I’m only going to call him, not go over there. It’s not even that late. We have to tell him what Micah said.”

  “My phone’s in my bag.”

  “Well I don’t have the number.” It seemed insurmountable, a pyramid with no visible entrance. “Never mind, I’ll just go.” I moved toward my jacket on the bed.

  “Don’t be so touchy, Mom. Siri will find him for you. What do you need to tell him, anyway?”

  “You’ll hear.”

  To my relief, Constable Bradford was on duty. I explained to him that I needed to talk to DCI Sampson. “We’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning,” I pleaded.

  “How are you feeling? That was some spill you took.”

  “Much better, thanks.”

  Yesterday’s news.

  “So sorry it happened and I hope you’ll come back again anyway! Here’s his number.”

  Sampson did not sound as happy to hear from me as his constable had. I imagined he had been listening to music or watching the telly, a glass of whiskey at his elbow. “What is it, Ms. Laine?”

  “We talked to Micah Clancy, Nick’s brother? He remembered his mother saying that the kidnappers weren’t English. Which leaves—­”

  “The rest of the world.”

  “Okay. Yes. But I was thinking, if they were from somewhere else, unless they drove all the way from Europe, they must have rented a car. So you could check on cars rented during that time period, especially if they were returned with damage after the hit-­and-­run.”

  “The car could have been leased in London. We’re talking in the thousands.”

  “But not all with damage.”

  “This was nineteen years ago.”

  “Don’t you have a cold case unit? Like New Tricks where those retired policemen—­”

  “I know the program. And no, we have nothing like that here. There’s no backlog of unsolved crime. We’ll be revisiting the hit-­and-­run now that we have new information, but it was thoroughly examined when everything was fresh.”

  I felt deflated. “Can I call you sometimes to see if you’ve found out anything?”

  “You may do that. Just not every day.”

  I said good-­bye and consigned him to his calm and pleasant life in England’s green and pleasant land.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  DECEMBER RACED ON. Unlike the years when the children were younger—­the years of Christmas concerts, letters to Santa, and gingerbread houses—­this holiday was a minimalist’s dream. I was so busy filling book orders and helping out at the shop that I didn’t notice the sparseness until Hannah came home and insisted we have a Christmas tree. It stood alone in the living room like a paid mourner at a funeral. Yet every time I came in the house, its piney scent gave off the promise that next year had to be better.

  Jason had decided not to come home. He begged me to give him the fare money to buy a laptop instead. He reminded me of how isolated he was without a computer.

  “But we want you here,” I pleaded. “We’ll work something else out about the computer. Dad—­”

  “Dad doesn’t want me home. And I don’t want to see him.”

  “This is the first Christmas you won’t be with us. What will you do?”

  “Mom, it’s just another day. I have friends who’ve invited me over.”

  “But I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “So come out. You love the Southwest.”

  “I will. When things calm down.” Yet who knew when that would be?

  “Ma, I’ve gotta run.”

  “No, wait. I have to tell you something.”

  He waited.


  “Long ago—­before you were born, I mean—­Hannah had a twin sister. We were in England and she disappeared. We thought she had drowned, but—­”

  “I know. About the twin.”

  “You . . . know?”

  “One time Grandma slipped and said you’d had four children. And I was looking at your portfolio of photos a few years ago and I saw Hannah with another little girl just like her. I thought it was trick photography, but I asked Dad.”

  “What did he say?”

  Denied it, of course.

  “He told me about the little girl who had drowned, but said I wasn’t to ask you about it, that it would only make you depressed. So I didn’t.”

  I could not have been more surprised if Santa and his reindeer had pushed their way into the barn and started unloading gifts.

  “The thing is, she didn’t drown. That’s why Jane and I went to Stratford, to try and find out what really happened. Do you have time to hear this?”

  “I do now.”

  So I told him everything. I had planned to talk to him at Christmas face-­to-­face, but I couldn’t put it off if he wasn’t coming home.

  “Holy shit.” He sounded awed. “This girl is alive?”

  “It seems that way. But Dad and Hannah don’t think we should pursue it.”

  “They’re crazy. Always were.”

  “I can’t believe you knew about it and never said anything.”

  “In this family? Sorry, Mom,” he added.

  “You think we’re that bad?” I thought with longing of my own family, the perfect home I had grown up in.

  “Naw. Artists need to come from crazy homes. Anyway, I’m late.”

  “Okay. Bye, sweetheart.”

  After he hung up I stood holding the phone for a long moment, thinking about what he’d said. If we ever found Caitlin, would she think we were crazy too?

  THE GIRLS WANTED gift cards, but I needed them to have a few presents to open, so I went to Macy’s and spent more than I should have on sweaters, gloves, and Godiva. I always gave them books, of course. It was a family tradition that no doubt made me happier than it did them. Colin was impossible to buy for. Finally I picked out a deep red cashmere scarf and, from my stock, a signed copy of William Carlos Williams, whose poetry Colin admired.