A Photographic Death

by Judi Culbertson

  He sighed. “I have to.”

  “Then let’s figure something out.”

  It took the three of us forty minutes to agree on anything. We didn’t want to tell the story, but what we said had to be compelling enough for the editors to pay attention and run it in the newspaper.

  “My friends will know it’s me,” Hannah fretted.

  “We won’t send it to Cornell,” I said. “If she were there you would have seen her by now.”

  How to be compelling and not say too much was a challenge. Not having a name we could use was another complication. We decided to go with an attachment with a photo of Hannah at nineteen and the following:

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?

  We lost touch with her several years ago and need to contact her for medical reasons. Confidentiality precludes further details. If you know of her or have any questions, please contact lstgrl@gmail.com.

  The account was one I had created solely for this purpose.

  “What if it goes viral?” Hannah said.

  Having the story picked up and sent around the Internet, around the world, would be an answer to my prayers. But I couldn’t tell Colin and Hannah that. “It’s not going to be that sensational,” I reassured her.

  Still, I could dream.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “HOW ARE YOU feeling?” I asked Hannah. She had finished the last batch of e-­mails a few minutes earlier and was slumped across from me at my worktable in the barn.

  “Scared.” She looked at me directly and I saw that her eyes, pure blue in childhood, had taken on subtle green and brown flecks. Her beautiful dark gold hair was pulled carelessly back onto her neck.

  “Scared how?”

  “Oh, scared that we’ll find her. Scared of what she’ll be like when we do.”

  “But it could be exciting to meet the one person on earth who has exactly the same DNA as you.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “I never wanted another me. One is too much.”

  My heart dropped. “Are you that unhappy?”

  “No!” Her eyes flashed. “Who said anything about being unhappy? All I want is to do what I’ve planned, without any complications.”

  “Why would this stop you from being a vet?”

  “She might have other ideas. I want to live upstate and have a practice. And a big house where I can have lots of my own animals.” And be left in peace.

  “And kids?”

  “No. I don’t want to get married. Animals are good. Animals love you no matter what.”

  When had my daughter become so insecure? “I love you no matter what.”

  Now she laughed. “You have to. You’re my mother.”

  “I’d love you anyway. I love the way you care about animals. I love the way you say what’s on your mind. I’m just not sure you trust me.”

  “Trust you? Trust you how?”

  How could I put it into words? “Trust that I’m not going to betray you. That I’m not going to love anybody else more than you. Let’s say you had a litter of kittens in your upstate farmhouse, and you loved them all. But one accidentally got outside and you couldn’t find her. Would you decide since you had three anyway you didn’t really need another and just let her fend for herself? Maybe die of hunger or exposure? Or would you go outside and try to find her no matter what?”

  I didn’t need to say more. Tears had already started to fill Hannah’s eyes, and in a moment I was hugging her hard.

  HANNAH FELT NO ambivalence at all about approaching Howard Riggs. She brushed her hair down around her face and wore her light blue parka. She even put on some coral lipstick she found on my dresser. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Howard seemed immune to feminine charms—­masculine charms too, come to think of it. I had no idea what got Howard up in the morning.

  Marty, Susie, and I waited in the bookshop for Hannah to come back from her mission, joking nervously. We had promised to come and rescue her if she was not back in a half hour.

  I first met Howard long before I became a bookseller, when I brought down several cartons of books to sell to him. His shop had “Fine First Editions and Rare Art Titles” painted in gold on the window and the books were attractively displayed. But as soon as you stepped inside, you were in front of a rickety sale table of mistakes labeled “Future Treasures.” The experience went downhill from there.

  Howard Riggs had been in his thirties in those days, a wire-­taut man with sandy hair and gold-­rimmed glasses through which he surveyed the world sourly.

  I’d entered the shop and asked if he bought books.

  He sighed and threw out an arm. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  After I set the carton on the floor, he slipped on a pair of thin white vinyl gloves, then poked at the books like a proctologist. Would he tell me they had hemorrhoids? His diagnosis was worse. Straightening up and peeling off the gloves, he gave me an outraged look. “Don’t ever waste my time like this again.” He looked like he was about to kick the carton. “And take this dreck with you!”

  As if I would try to sneak a few onto his “Future Treasures” table.

  In hindsight I’d learned how bad the books really were: outdated textbooks of Colin’s, a children’s paperback series, cookbooks my mother had given me that I’d never used. Books that no self-­respecting dealer would make shelf room for.

  Perhaps that was the moment I had decided to learn everything I could about book values.

  I knew that Howard treated Susie like something he picked up on his shoe, and Howard and Marty had a history that went back years. Unlike me, Marty had the financial means to keep Howard in his place.

  Hannah was back in fifteen minutes.

  “You’re in one piece,” I said.

  She looked around, but spoke to me. “Mom, he was so nice! He didn’t have a good first edition of Kon-­Tiki, so he went online to this book site and showed me how I could find one.”

  “You’re sure you went to Howard Riggs Books?”

  “Uh-­huh. It looked just like you said.”

  “What did he say about the Harper Lee book?”

  Hannah rubbed the bridge of her nose, embarrassed. “I didn’t ask him. He was so nice that I didn’t want to try and trap him. I didn’t buy anything, and he still said to stop back anytime.”

  “Do you think he knew who she was?” Susie asked me.

  I shook my head. “How could he?”

  Marty sighed. “Well, I’ve changed the locks and paid Jen for the damage. Any more books missing, someone else is going to pay.”

  He glared at us to make sure we knew who we were.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  HANNAH WENT BACK to Cornell the next morning. Her vacation wasn’t over yet, but she said she could get more studying done at school, and I didn’t try to stop her. What was there for her to do at home anyway? In the three days after she left, I received several responses to the e-­mail about Caitlin, editors trying to find out the details. One assured me that he would print it on the front page only if we “came clean.” Another demanded to know if she was wanted by the police.

  The best thing about the e-­mails was that they confirmed ours had been received.

  Then late Thursday morning, I received another:

  Hi,

  The girl you’re looking for was Betsy Cavanaugh. Unfortunately she died in a skiing accident when she was fifteen. I’m sending you a photo of her so you can see if it’s her. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

  There was no signature. I looked to see which college the e-­mail had come from, but I saw only a Hotmail address.

  My heart banged like the drum in a funeral march. I scrolled down to the photo of a smiling, red-­cheeked girl in a dark green parka. It could have been Hannah in high
school.

  No, it can’t be. We can’t have come this far to find this.

  The girl could only be Caitlin. She could have been Hannah except for a small white scar at the base of her chin.

  I couldn’t move.

  A mad rush of images: Stratford-­upon-­Avon, Nick Clancy, DCI Sampson, the White Swan. Trees outlined in snow, Garnet Hill Books, Micah’s confession. All for nothing. All the effort to persuade Colin and Hannah had been for nothing. We might as well have left the tragedy buried, spared ourselves this fresh pain. Patience had been right, although she hadn’t known why.

  How could Caitlin be dead? How could she be dead?

  There were ­people who didn’t seem any different from me who went through life protected. It was as if they were living under a clear plastic dome where nothing tragic could reach them. Until what happened to Caitlin, I had thought I was under there too. But I wasn’t. I hadn’t been saved from losing my little girl or from Colin deciding the marriage was over. Not from Jason’s difficulties and family estrangement or close friends dying young. I was just the kind of person who could lose a daughter in a skiing accident.

  But to come so close to actually finding her . . . This was unbearable. I couldn’t stand it. Something inside me was about to explode, scattering my body all over the room. When they finally came to search for me in the barn, they would find only traces. I pounded my fists on the worktable. No, no, no! It couldn’t be happening to us again.

  I couldn’t stay there, I had to move, find someone to talk to before this pressure destroyed me. Not someone from my family; that would only make it worse. Friends . . . but I hadn’t seen my college roommate, Gail, since September, and Bianca Erikson was over an hour away in Springs. I doubted I could drive that far. I thought of Bruce Adair then. He could calm me down if anyone could and I wouldn’t have to explain anything. Bruce—­I had to talk to Bruce!

  Of all the times I had called and found him in his office, this time his phone rang six times and went to voice mail. I didn’t have his cell phone number, I didn’t know if he had a cell phone. He was just contrary enough not to own one.

  I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it.

  Maybe he was teaching a seminar. No, second semester hadn’t started. What if he were away on vacation? Please God, no—­he never goes on vacation! But what if he had? What if he were in the Caribbean with some star-­struck young poetess? Or teaching an intersession course in Colorado or Illinois?

  It didn’t matter. I had to find him. Grabbing my parka from the chair, I didn’t even bother to zip it. My van started immediately despite the cold, and I raced to the university. These days, with e-­mail and cell phones, ­people were rarely out of touch. Even if Bruce were in Tahiti, the division secretary would know how to reach him, I promised myself as I pulled into the parking garage. It made no sense if he didn’t have a cell, but I clung to the fantasy anyway.

  What if the whole department closed in January?

  But I couldn’t think that, I had to focus on finding Bruce. Otherwise I would have to think about my poor lost child. Doomed. She was doomed right from the beginning, fated like a princess in a fairy tale to be stolen, fated to be sold into slavery or die young. Far from being protected under the dome, she had been born under an evil star. Unlike most fairy-­tale heroines, she hadn’t survived it.

  THE DEPARTMENTAL SECRETARY was just returning from lunch, removing the headscarf from her salt-­and-­pepper curls and starting to unbutton her tweed coat. I wasn’t sure if she knew who I was but I forced myself to smile.

  “Is Bruce Adair around?”

  “He’s not in his office?”

  Ah. I hadn’t known how heavy my apprehension had been until it slipped away, a yoke being lifted from my shoulders. “When I called him before there was no answer.”

  “He may still be at lunch. But check.”

  Thank God, thank God.

  I let go of one last image, Bruce sunning himself on a beach in Martinique.

  Just then we both turned as we heard Bruce’s voice. He was laughing up at a skinny young woman, probably a teaching assistant, who towered gawkily over him. One thing I loved about Bruce was his self-­confidence regardless of his scoliosis or his height.

  He stopped laughing when he saw me. “Delhi! You have news?”

  I nodded mutely. He knew I was waiting for responses from the college newspapers.

  Motioning me along, he unlocked the door and I stepped into the familiar office with its waist-­high bookshelves and my tinted photographs of England. Something about the room seemed to wrap its arms around me. You’re no worse off than you were a year ago, it chided.

  But I was.

  Bruce moved to the specially designed chair behind his desk, and I stumbled into the student seat across from him.

  “It must be good news or you wouldn’t have come in person.” He tilted his head, watching me. “Is it?”

  I couldn’t say anything.

  “Well, it’s early for you to get a response. There hasn’t been much time for your appeal to be published. It’s intersession and—­”

  “She’s dead. She died at fifteen in a skiing accident. I got an e-­mail.” My horror was too deep for tears. “I’ll pay your money back. I didn’t—­”

  “Delhi. Where is this e-­mail?” He sounded much too calm for the news.

  “On my laptop. At home.”

  “Show me.” He gestured at me to bring my chair around, then turned to his computer, and motioned at the keyboard. “Get your mail.”

  I did as he asked, my fingers slipping as I tried to type. With only a handful of responses on this new account, the last e-­mail was easy to find.

  Bruce read it, looked at the attached photo, and studied it again.

  Then he turned and looked at me, his Scottish features relieved. “It’s bogus.”

  “Bogus?” I felt as if I had never heard the word before.

  “Bogus. A hoax. Not real.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “Why do I think that? A few reasons. Hotmail accounts are suspect in my book. Second, when ­people get an e-­mail they want to respond to, they press reply to make sure the address is correct. That way the message they’re answering is also shown. It’s definitely more work to send a new message entirely. It’s unusual. More than that, this message is unsigned. An anonymous message from a suspect account . . .”

  “Are you just trying to make me feel better?”

  “Watch this.”

  He opened the Google screen and typed in “Betsy Cavanaugh, skiing accident.”

  Nothing pertinent came up. He tried “Elizabeth Cavanaugh” and added “Obituary” to the name. A number of genealogical entries appeared, but no one who had died later than 1980.

  “I bet if you go to Facebook you’ll find a lot of Elizabeth Cavanaughs. But none will be the right one. Because she doesn’t exist.”

  “You’re saying that Caitlin didn’t die?”

  “I’m saying that someone wants you to think she did. You’re supposed to read this ‘friendly’ e-­mail, feel devastated, and call off your search.” He eyed me sternly. “That’s what you were going to do, isn’t it?”

  “No! That’s why I came to you. I had the feeling you would know what to do.”

  He smiled, then looked at me soberly. “Now whoever it is knows you’re actively looking for her. And they know where you live.”

  “But I didn’t put my address in the e-­mail. Or my name.”

  “Delhi, think. They know whose child they took. Colin has a high profile. Anyone who sent this message knows how to find him. And you.”

  “You think it’s from her kidnappers?”

  “Probably. Someone could have recognized the photo you sent and told her. Or her parents. What makes me think it isn’t just a prank is the photo of her they sent
of her at fifteen. Who else would have that?”

  I nodded mutely.

  “How many colleges did you send your appeal to?”

  “Thousands. Can’t we find out from Hotmail who opened the account?”

  “With a court order, maybe. But there’s nothing criminal in this e-­mail.”

  “It’s not criminal to send an e-­mail saying someone’s dead?” I felt outraged.“Cruel, maybe. But not a crime. You do think it’s Caitlin in the photo?”

  “She looks exactly like Hannah at that age. She has a little scar on her chin that Hannah doesn’t, but otherwise . . . yes.”

  “Let’s try something. Send a message back to them and see how they respond.”

  “What—­what should I say?”

  “That they’ve made a mistake and this isn’t the same girl. Thanks, but you’ll have to keep looking. Something like that.” He turned the keyboard toward me.

  I moved closer to Bruce so I could see the screen, then hit reply and typed shakily, Thanks for the information, but this isn’t the girl we’re looking for. We’ll need to keep looking. I didn’t sign my name either.

  “Is that okay?”

  Bruce read it over and hit send. “Now we wait.”

  Nothing happened.

  “So they know about you, but you’re ahead of the game too. You have a more recent photo of her.” He smiled at me. “So get back to work.”

  I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

  “And watch your back, Delhi. I mean it.”

  I kept checking my e-­mail. There was no response until the next day.

  COLIN CALLED THAT night. Since Hannah had gone back to Cornell, he hadn’t stopped by for dinner. I found that disappointing.

  “Any news?”

  “Not really.”

  “Nothing?”

  What was he expecting in less than a week? He was the most impatient man I knew.

  “Well—­a ­couple of school editors want more information. They say they won’t print the notice until they know more.”

  “That’s it?”

  “There was another e-­mail saying she was—­not alive anymore.” I was reluctant to give the words any power by saying them aloud. “But it was a hoax.”