Christopher Bohjalian - The Double Bind

“I’m quite sure he did. Why does that surprise you?”

“That homeless man I told you about. That very old homeless man. Bobbie Crocker. I was thinking-I guess I am thinking-that he was really a Buchanan.”

“Bobbie might have been the boy’s name. But it might also have been William. Billy, perhaps. Yes, Billy rings a bell. But so does Robert. Of course, none of it matters because that boy was killed in some accident when he was sixteen or seventeen years old.”

“The man I’m talking about spent a couple of weeks in the shelter before we found him an apartment,” Laurel continued. “But he hung around the offices and the day station a lot. He died the other day with absolutely no family that we know of, but the social worker who went through his possessions came across that envelope with the old snapshots. And there are some of the Marshfield mansion-the place where Tom and Daisy Buchanan had lived-and one of a little girl and a little boy with the old house in the background. They’re standing beside a car from the 1920s.”

“You’re sure it’s the same house?”

“Yes, absolutely! And there’s another one of Jay Gatsby’s place-the country club-and the man himself with that sports car of his.”

“Well, I still don’t see why you would jump to the conclusion that this homeless man was a Buchanan. The son died. It’s common knowledge that Tom and Daisy’s son died. And you said this fellow’s name was Campbell, didn’t you?”

“Crocker,” Laurel corrected her.

“I think that effectively closes the case. Why would he be calling himself Crocker if his last name was Buchanan?”

She sat back in her chair and took a deep breath to calm herself. She could see her aunt’s nose and lips scrunching together the way they did whenever the woman was discussing something she considered unpleasant. Laurel ’s mother had the same tendency. They both looked like they were eating lemons, and it was an extremely unattractive family tic.

“Maybe it closes the case. But maybe it doesn’t,” she said. “Why do you think he had all these pictures?” Laurel knew that she sounded argumentative. But she kept thinking about what Bobbie had said about his childhood. She feared for a moment that she was bunching up her face, too.

“Oh, Laurel, please don’t be disappointed with me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are, I can hear it in your voice. You’re angry because I don’t share your belief that this homeless man-”

“He wasn’t homeless. We found him a home. It’s what we do.”

“All right, then: formerly homeless. You’re angry because I have my doubts. Maybe the children in that picture really are Pamela and Billy-or Bobbie. Whatever. But how do you know that this person didn’t come across the pictures in a Dumpster somewhere? Or some antique store? Maybe he found a photo album in the garbage and saved a few of the images. As you’ve told me yourself, the homeless-excuse me, formerly homeless-sometimes save the damnedest things.”

She stared for a moment at the little boy, trying to find a resemblance to Bobbie Crocker. A glimmer in the eyes, maybe. The shape of his face. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t that there might not have been a resemblance. But it was hard to discern one because so much of Bobbie’s face was obscured by that impenetrable beaver beard.

“And, of course, this all presupposes that the little boy in the photo is Pamela’s brother and the little girl is Pamela,” her aunt continued. “Why would you make such a leap? Why couldn’t they be two other children visiting the house? Guests, maybe?”

“I guess they could be.”

“Yes! Maybe they were friends of the family. Or cousins,” the older woman added, her voice regaining its typically agreeable lilt. In the background, Laurel could hear that Martin had skipped ahead on the CD all the way to the king’s first big number, and was belting out “A Puzzlement” with his usual flair. What Martin lacked in pronunciation, he more than made up for in enthusiasm.

“But I really have a hunch I might be on to something here,” she said.

“Then maybe you should talk to Pamela Marshfield. Why not? Show her the pictures. See what she says.”

Laurel reached for the photo with her phone on her shoulder and gazed at the little girl. The child looked entitled and intense; when she envisioned her as an elderly woman, she saw someone who was more than a trifle intimidating.

“Do you know where she lives now?”

“Haven’t a clue. But the Daytons might. Or the Winstons.”

“The Daytons are the family that bought her house?”

“That’s right. And the Winstons built that elegant Tudor on some of the land she’d once owned. Mrs. Winston is very old now, too. I believe her husband has passed away. I think she lives there alone.”

Laurel ’s office door was wide open, and she saw a slightly walleyed young man with spaniel ears and a scrawny turkey neck hovering in the hallway outside it. His hair was dyed the color of orange Kool-Aid, and he had long cuts on both emaciated arms, one stitched till it disappeared beneath the sleeve of his sweat-stained gray T-shirt. He was a mess, and Laurel could tell by his deer-in-the-headlights stare that he couldn’t believe he was here at the city’s shelter for the homeless.

“I have a client,” she told her aunt. “I think I need to go now.”

“All right. You let me know if you find out anything interesting about your mystery man,” Aunt Joyce said, and they exchanged their good-byes and hung up. Then Laurel rose to greet her new client. She had the sense that he had been hungry for a very long time, and so she suggested that they stroll to the kitchen for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The intake forms could wait until after he’d eaten.

H IS MOTHER NAMED HIM WHITAKER, which was also her father’s name. His older brother recast him as Witless when they were arguing siblings in Des Moines. His resident adviser his first year at college christened him Witty, because he tended to hide his nervousness and insecurity behind a thick veil of irony. The RA thought this was clever, and for a while the young man had feared the name was going to stick. It didn’t. Thank God. That would have been too much pressure. And so most people simply viewed him as Whit. At least that was how he introduced himself, and that’s what the other tenants in the apartment house, including Talia and Laurel, called him that summer and autumn.

He had two buddies helping him move his stuff in, including a bruiser with whom he’d once played rugby, but Talia and Laurel were around that Saturday morning and offered to help, too. He was instantly smitten by both. Talia had exquisite, almond-shaded skin and a raven’s black mane that she wore in a single long braid that fell almost to her waist. She managed to make gray sweatpants and a yellow UVM T-shirt look like loungewear from a lingerie catalog. She was disarmingly tall and moved with the grace and poise of a dancer. He assumed that every one of the teenage boys at her church had a crush on her-that is, if she didn’t leave them intimidated and mute-and every one of the girls wanted to emulate her. She was, clearly, a rock-and-roll pastor.

Laurel was wearing a ball cap with her homeless shelter’s slogan on the front, “Homeland Security Begins with a Home,” and her blond ponytail rose over the plastic fit strap in the back like a fountain. It actually bounced against her neck as she raced up and down the stairs with boxes of his CDs and plastic garbage bags full of his clean shirts and socks. She was wearing a pair of pink Keds and denim capris, and he was mightily impressed by those calves. Gastrocnemius. Soleus. Peroneus longus. The muscles that were extending her feet as she moved. The girl had calves that were glorious. A biker’s calves. A swimmer’s calves. A-okay, he admitted to himself, it wasn’t merely a professional’s appreciation-lover’s calves.