The Fifth Reflection

by Ellen Kirschman

  “Might the children feel differently about these pictures in the future?” I ask. Frank gives me a look.

  “They might. I worry about that sometimes. Don’t we all hate it when our parents pull out baby photos of us lying naked on a bearskin rug? But it’s a chance I’m willing to take. My nieces and nephews love me. These images are hardly the sum total of our relationship. I bathed them, fed them, stayed up with them when they were sick, went to their recitals and soccer games. They know I’m a photographer and that these images are how Aunt JJ makes art. To me, these images are not real children in the same sense that a map is not the territory it depicts. That distinction is lost on some people, particularly my critics. I shouldn’t be surprised about that, but I am.” She looks around at the gathering crowd. “I should move on, say hello to some other people.” She shakes my hand with both of hers. “Nice to meet you, Dot. I hope our paths cross again sometime soon.”

  “Now what do you think?” Frank asks after JJ is absorbed by the crowd.

  “I think her ‘map is not the territory’ comment is an intellectual rationale for taking the pictures she wants to take, damn the consequences. Or maybe she has exactly the consequences she wants. The gallery is full, the program catalogue is flying off the shelves, and there is a line of people waiting to buy her photos.”

  “That’s pretty cynical.”

  “You asked.”

  “Frank.” JJ’s voice drifts back through the murmur. “Come over here for a minute, there are some photographers I’d like you to meet.” He turns away from me without a word.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I overheard what you just said and I couldn’t agree with you more.” The woman talking to me in a whisper is about the only other person in the room my age and one of a select minority without tattoos, piercings, or Technicolor hair. “If this is art, I’ll eat my hat.” She laughs. “Sorry. That’s an old-fashioned saying, isn’t it? I feel pretty old-fashioned in this crowd.” She looks at me for some affirmation. She’s a tall, trim woman with a pleasant face hardened by a bit too much makeup that reveals, rather than conceals, small spidery lines around her mouth and eyes. “So, how are you connected to JoAnn Juliette?”

  “My fiancé is her student.”

  Her face shifts slightly. “Does he take portraits of children, too?”

  “I don’t know, to tell the truth. He’s new at this. He hasn’t shown me any of his work yet. What’s your connection to JJ?”

  She points to Chrissy’s pictures. “I’m Chrissy’s stepmother.” She musses her hair with a manicured hand and then pats it back into shape. “Sorry,” she says. “I get nervous when I see these pictures. All these people. You just don’t know who’s here or why.” She shakes her head and apologizes again. “My husband thinks I’m overreacting. Maybe I am.” She expels a long sigh and extends her hand. A diamond the size of a sugar cube glints in the overhead lights. “I’m sorry, my name is Kathryn Blazek. And yours?”

  “I’m Dot Meyerhoff.”

  “Are you a photographer, too?”

  I hesitate. The minute anybody finds out what I do for a living, I get asked for my professional opinion about somebody’s miserable marriage or their drunken nephew. Sometimes I say I’m a ceramicist who fixes crack pots for a living and wait to see if they get the joke. Kathryn Blazek doesn’t look like she’s in a joking mood.

  “I’m a psychologist,” I say. Her eyebrows tilt.

  “Really? Do you mind if I ask your opinion?” I don’t answer because I know from experience it won’t make a bit of difference if I do or don’t. “Do you think these are wholesome pictures? Is it good for children, safe for them, to be posing like this?” The same question I asked JJ. Only more direct.

  “I couldn’t say. I don’t see children in my practice. I’m a police psychologist.” I take a sip of champagne and wait for the inevitable questions. Remember that cop who shot that girl? Why didn’t she shoot her in the leg instead of killing her? I got a speeding ticket when I was only five miles over the limit and there was no one else on the road. Why aren’t the police out looking for the real criminals?

  “How interesting. Police officers have such difficult jobs. Your work must be very challenging.” She looks around the room again. “Could I ask one more question? If these were your children, would you be concerned?”

  This is not a question I should answer. She’s asking for my professional opinion. I don’t know her, her stepdaughter, her husband, or her husband’s ex-wife.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve put you on the spot. I’m not asking for your professional opinion, just your general reaction. As a mature woman.”

  “Yes,” I say. “If these were my children, I think I would be concerned.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so very much.”

  Frank is quiet over dinner. He gets that way when he’s irritated. “Are you angry with me?” I ask.

  “Why should I be angry with you?”

  “Because I didn’t react to JJ’s work the way you were hoping I would.”

  “Your reaction is your reaction. I didn’t have any expectations.”

  I want to hit him with the Vietnamese pancake we’re sharing. He doesn’t have trouble sharing his opinion about what he calls the important things of life, religion and politics, but the closer we get, the harder it is talk about our differences because we have so much more to lose. Confrontational partners make for a loud, rowdy marriage. One confrontational type paired with a risk-averse partner and you have a seesaw relationship where one side never gets off the ground. Put two risk-aversive people together and problems can go unresolved for years until one tiny unimportant thing—a favorite sweater that should not have been put in the dryer, a toilet seat left up or down—unleashes a torrent of suppressed feelings. That was how it was in my first marriage. Two psychologists who couldn’t talk to each other about unpleasant stuff. I’m determined not to repeat the pattern.

  “Come on, Frank. I can tell when you’re upset.”

  “JJ is important to me. She gets what I’m trying to do with my photos.”

  “How important?”

  “She’s encouraging. Generous with her time. Her critiques are spot on. I’m learning a lot from her.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “You insulted her with your questions.”

  “I did not.”

  “You implied that she is an irresponsible mother. That she put these children in harm’s way.”

  “Apparently, I’m not the only one.” I haven’t told him about Kathryn Blazek and I don’t intend to. It was a brief moment that will amount to nothing.

  “She gets hate mail, threats, nasty reviews every time she has an exhibit.”

  “You said so yourself, her work is edgy. She has to expect that kind of reaction.”

  “Not from her friends.”

  “I’m not her friend. You are. I just met her.” I pour tea to fill the silence. “She’s a serious artist. No question. And there’s something very appealing about her. But I think she’s defensive about her work and in denial about the consequences of what’s she’s doing. She’s sexualizing children.”

  “And you’re pathologizing her art. Sometimes, Dr. Meyerhoff, to quote one of your heroes, ‘a cigar is just a cigar.’”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I DO A lot of counseling on the hoof, just walking around the police department, casually checking in with people. Funny thing about cops, when you come to them, it’s not counseling. Same thing when you’re standing up and talking or riding in a patrol car together. But if you’re sitting down behind a closed door—doesn’t make any difference if it’s my private off-site office or my little broom-closet office at headquarters, or even what we’re talking about, it could be last night’s Giants game or the best place to eat tacos—it’s counseling.

  I’ve been hoping Manny would contact me, but he hasn’t. I feel pretty certain that he wouldn’t hesitate to call me if he was having trouble. On the other ha
nd, my job is a little more complicated than just talking to people with problems; it’s my job to spot problems before they happen. Given that the number one problem in the PD is Chief Pence, the person who signs my annual consulting contract, sometimes the issues get complicated. I would have preferred that Pence had talked to me before he appointed Manny to the ICAC task force. But since he didn’t do that, the best thing I can do now is try to support the person he chose. Which is why I’m heading over to Manny’s office in the sheriff’s substation a few blocks from Kenilworth HQ.

  The substation, a single-story gray cinder block structure that might once have been a garage or a repair shop, is wedged between a taqueria and a discount shoe store. It was meant to be a local outpost, a place where the largely Spanish-speaking residents of this unincorporated area of Kenilworth could feel comfortable dropping in to talk to local law enforcement. Many of the residents in this neighborhood are undocumented, worried about deportation, and fearful of reporting crimes or acting as witnesses. No amount of reassurance, in Spanish or English, that the sheriff is not interested in their legal status seems to have overcome anyone’s apprehension. Frank and I eat and shop in this area a lot. Not once have I seen the door open or the lights on.

  I ring the doorbell. A crackling version of Manny’s voice comes over the ancient intercom and tells me to wait at the door. An older woman pushing a grocery cart along the broken sidewalk glances at me and then looks away when I smile at her.

  “Nobody home, lady.” A middle-aged man steps out from the shoe store. He has boot-black hair and is wearing an untucked guay-abera shirt with embroidered pleats in the front and back.

  “Someone just spoke to me on the intercom.”

  Manny opens the door. He looks surprised, as though he hadn’t recognized my voice. He shakes hands with the man from the shoe store and exchanges a few words in Spanish. “This is Hector. Hector, this is the police department doctor. I think she’s here to check up on me.” He raises his eyebrows and makes a face. Twirls a finger next to his head, sign language for crazy.

  Hector shakes my hand. “Just in time. Manuelo’s a hard case, Doctor. I’ve known him since he was a kid.”

  A woman with two children walks into his store. “Hasta luego. I got to go sell shoes.”

  Manny opens the door to the substation. The huge open space has been sliced in two by a plywood wall that stops two feet short of the ceiling. The front room is small and furnished with an old wooden desk and some battered office chairs. Lopsided notices are stuck to the wall with push pins. There’s nothing remotely welcoming or even slightly related to the Hispanic culture. Manny walks me through the second room, a large hollow space that smells of burnt rubber and grease. The walls and floor are painted gray, with blotches of red showing through the worn spots. There’s a short hall with three doors at the back of the room lit by a flickering fluorescent fixture. One door leads to the outside, another to a grungy bathroom I hope I won’t need to use, and the third to Manny’s office.

  He opens the door and gestures me in with a comic bow. “Welcome to ICAC headquarters.”

  The office is painted a light-sucking institutional green and the walls are bare. There’s a black metal filing cabinet, a peeling Formica table, four chairs, three computers, and a pile of unopened cartons. The only personal item in the room is propped on top of a computer. A studio portrait of Manny’s baby in a pink dress with painted fluffy white clouds behind her. A lock of her dark hair is pulled up in a little bunch that looks like a small palm tree is growing out of her head. She’s holding a toy lamb and smiling at the camera. I flash back to the photo of JJ’s daughter, Chrissy. How she was posed. How her face and body invited speculation. There is nothing open to interpretation about the image of Manny’s daughter. It’s neither aesthetically challenging nor compelling like JJ’s portraits. Just a record, a single moment in the life of an ordinary little girl in a little girl’s dress holding a little girl’s toy. There must be millions of similar photos on mantelpieces all over the world. But only one eye-stopping, heart-grabbing photo of Chrissy.

  “Carmela,” Manny says. “Her name is Carmela.” He opens his briefcase and takes out another picture and sets it next to Carmela’s on top of the computer. “And this, as you know, is my Lupe.”

  “Look at the computers they gave us. Ancient. My computer at home is faster. I can’t even make a cup of coffee for you, but we could go across the street for a Mexican Chocolate, if you want.” I look at my watch. I love Mexican Chocolate, but it’s too late in the afternoon for caffeine.

  “I had no idea you volunteered for the task force. I wondered why I haven’t seen much of you.”

  He sits on the edge of the table, facing me.

  “At first it was going to be temporary. Just helping out. Somebody on the team got sick. The chief told me to keep a low profile. Work from headquarters until the guy came back. Guess what?” He walks around the table and sits. The chair complains. “The guy got medically retired. So the chief made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “What do you mean you couldn’t refuse?”

  “First of all, there’s a big pay bump. If I do it for a couple of years, Pence’s going to make me Sergeant. I got a kid now, we can use more money.”

  “How’s Lupe like this assignment?” He wrinkles his nose like I’ve just released something very smelly into the air. He shrugs and pulls at the corners of his mouth, puffing out first one cheek and then the other. My question apparently requires considerable thought.

  “She doesn’t like the hours. Pedophiles work at night. And she worries too much.”

  “What does she worry about?”

  “That I’m getting contaminated. That the stuff I see is affecting me somehow. I tell her, I’m not getting personally involved. All I’m doing is looking at crime scenes.”

  “You’re looking at real children who are being hurt in real time.”

  “I’m looking for evidence. Just enough to meet evidentiary standards so I can get a warrant and make an arrest.”

  “What about pretense calls? You’re talking to guys who are prowling the Internet looking for pictures of naked children. Or worse, wanting to meet children to have sex with them. How does it feel to pretend to be one of those creeps?”

  “C’mon, Doc, you sound like my wife. This is my chance to do something important. Make a difference in some kid’s life. Get a few perverts off the street. Now that we have Carmela, it’d be good for me to know what these creeps are up to. It will help me keep her safe. Plus, to tell you the truth, Doc, I was getting bored with leaf blower complaints and barking dogs. I need a little excitement.”

  This is the typical progression. In the beginning of their careers cops are so overwhelmed with novelty and newfound power they would work for free. Give them a few years and boredom sets in. They start looking around for ways to restimulate the feeling of excitement and passion.

  “It might help you keep Carmela safe, but having Carmela might make it harder for you not to identify with the victims.”

  “Do you know how peer-to-peer files work, Doc? How people share music or movies over the Internet? You find the site you want, enter a search term, and you can download whatever you’re looking for to a computer anywhere in the world. That’s how these guys trade images. I could show you if I could get IT to fix this freaking computer.” He slaps it on the side. Carmela’s picture falls over. Manny picks it up, rubs the glass with a corner of his t-shirt, and puts it back. “What the pervs don’t know is that we’re watching them. We get an IP address, match it to the owner, get a warrant, and make an arrest. We busted a guy last week. A tweaker. Had fourteen hundred images and three hundred videos on his computer.”

  “So you never actually look at the videos or the photos yourself.”

  There’s a small twitch at the corner of his eye. “Yeah. I looked at a couple. We had to verify that he was trading porn. The guy was a frigging hoarder. Boxes and crap all over the place. He actually u
rinates in an empty Gatorade bottle because he doesn’t want to take time away from his hobby to go to the bathroom.”

  “What’s your reaction when you look at these videos?”

  “There’s just not that much to see. You know, just some guy’s . . . you don’t want to hear this, Doc.” Now he’s protecting me. This is what cops do, protect other people from the things they see, and in the process, protect themselves from revisiting unpleasant memories. I can tell that if I show any reaction, any emotion, he’s going to back off. I wonder if Lupe is doing the same.

  “Sorry, Doc,” he says, and looks at his watch. “I gotta get back to headquarters. I need to move some stuff over here and bug the IT guy again.” He pushes out of his chair sending it squealing into a file cabinet. “Thanks for dropping by.”

  I stand. I’ve pushed this as far as I can at the moment. “Would it be okay if I check back with you in a couple of weeks?”

  “If it makes you feel better, sure.”

  “I’d like to make one suggestion before I go.” He nods. I pick up the photos of Carmela and Lupe and move them away from the computer. “It might be better to keep these pictures away from your computer screen. Just in case. I have a feeling that it might be important to keep a bright line between work and home.”

  I sit in my car outside Manny’s hole-in-the-wall office. Here I am in the midst of one of the highest income-producing regions in the country, with the biggest share of America’s high-growth, high-wage sectors. A skinny little stretch of land that lays between the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Coastal Range and accounts for 43 percent of all venture capital investments in the country. Where the hell is the venture capital to buy Manny a decent computer so he can track down pedophiles?