Christopher Bohjalian - The Double Bind

“Did his friend die, too?”

“It was just someone he met in Grand Forks. Maybe friend suggests a greater connection than there was. Yes: He died, too.”

“What was his friend’s name?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Do you recall the town?”

“In North Dakota?”

Laurel nodded.

“It was near Grand Forks. It may even have been in Grand Forks. It was on old Highway 2. I do remember that.”

“Would any of your cousins know anything about the accident-or about your brother?”

“Oh, we both played often with our cousins from Louisville. The Fays, William and Reginald. But they’ve passed away. Maybe they told their children something, but contacting them would be a lot of work for little gain.”

“So you don’t believe this homeless person, Bobbie Crocker, was your brother.”

“Why would you believe that he was? My Lord, even if Robert hadn’t died, why would he have disappeared? Why would he have changed his name?”

Laurel had to restrain herself from answering simply: mental illness. Suddenly, she was nervous that if she didn’t scoop up the pictures that very moment Pamela Marshfield would, and so she slid the images toward her and then dropped them into her envelope. She saw the woman was watching her.

“You have more pictures with you, don’t you?”

“No,” she said simply. Technically, she knew, she couldn’t give the pictures to Pamela anyway because they weren’t hers to dispose of. But would anyone really have cared? Unlikely. Nevertheless, Laurel couldn’t bring herself to part with them-neither the snapshots she had with her, nor the material back in Vermont -and there was one critical reason why. She had the sense that Pamela was lying. The woman was denying that Bobbie Crocker was her brother and dismissing a BEDS client as a person. Laurel considered this unforgivable. Here she was living in an estate on the ocean while her brother had died in the stairwell to his small, single room in what had once been a run-down hotel. Withholding the photos was a way of penalizing her.

Besides, if she was going to unravel the mystery of how the man had gone from the mansion across from her childhood swim club to a dirt road and a homeless shelter in northern Vermont-and Laurel wanted to know now more than ever-she might need those pictures in her research.

Did she think there might be consequences? It crossed her mind. But she understood as well as anyone that often the trajectories in one’s life were built entirely upon unintended results. Obviously, none of her clients ever planned to wind up at BEDS.

“What else then is in that envelope?” Pamela was asking her.

“Oh-”

“If they’re pictures of my brother, don’t you believe I have a right to see them?”

“They’re not, they’re-”

“Child, please, hand them to me now. I insist,” the old woman said, and then she reached across the small table with the speed of a snake and simply pulled the envelope from Laurel’s fingers as if the twenty-six-year-old were a toddler who had hold of a piece of precious crystal. Laurel was too surprised to stop her.

“Well,” Pamela said, drawing the single syllable out into a short sentence as she began to flip through them, lingering on the one of Jay Gatsby. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. They’re not of Robert now, are they?”

“No.”

“My brother, of course, never knew this awful man. Apparently, I met him once or twice, but I was too young to remember anything.”

“Where did you meet him?”

The woman glanced up at her, offered a small practiced frown, and then proceeded to ignore the question completely: “People only know his side of what happened, you know. Gatz’s, that is. That, of course, was his real name. James Gatz. He changed it to Gatsby. That’s the sort of man he was. And yet everyone was always completely under his spell. See? Just look at the people at this party. Or this one. Gatz hypnotized people with his money.”

“And your parents didn’t?”

“No.”

She seemed to be contemplating the image of the old pool, the one in which Gatsby was murdered, before returning the pictures to the envelope. Then she leaned it up against her cup and saucer. Reflexively, Laurel reached across the table to retrieve it, inadvertently toppling her hostess’s teacup as she did. It fell into the woman’s lap, but it didn’t break and it was, fortunately, empty. Still, it was an awkward moment, and Laurel rose to apologize.

“I am so sorry,” she said, fumbling. “Please tell me it didn’t spot your skirt.”

“You might simply have asked for the pictures, Laurel,” she said, her voice a low rumble of condescension. “Trust me: I had no intention of stealing them. Merely touching that one of Mr. Gatz has left me with an almost overwhelming desire to wash my hands.”

“Your skirt?”

“My skirt is fine.”

“I’m really sorry,” Laurel repeated, aware even as she spoke that she had allowed whatever power she had to be eroded completely by one paranoid rush. Nevertheless, she still had the sense that had she not grabbed the prints back, Pamela Marshfield would indeed have held on to them.

Now the woman shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. “So, tell me,” she said. “What do you plan to do next?”

Laurel wasn’t precisely sure what she meant, and so she told Pamela of her intention to try to restore Crocker’s work and see what images existed in the negatives. She admitted that she hoped someday BEDS would give the man the solo show that his photographs deserved. When she was finished, Pamela rose and she knew they were done-or almost done.

“I presume you understand now that this photographer was not my brother?” she asked, and they started through the French doors and into the living room, the heels of their shoes echoing along the strip of gleaming white hardwood floor that separated two great, thick Oriental carpets. The ceiling was vaulted, and from it hung a massive art deco chandelier, the hundreds of bulbs encased in globes the shape of delicate angel wings.

Laurel thought for a moment about the woman’s question. She believed just the opposite was true. “Where is he buried?” she asked, instead of answering her directly.

Pamela stopped. “You want proof? You want the body, is that it? Would it put your mind at ease if we exhumed my dead brother’s corpse and had strands of his hair DNA-ed?”

“I’d just like to see the plot…if I may.”

“No,” said Pamela. “You may not.”

“Because…”

“Fine, go see the plot. I can’t stop you. It’s in the family mausoleum in Rosehill.”

“Rosehill?”

“Chicago, young lady. It’s a cemetery in Chicago -where my father’s people are from. You can go there and see it for yourself. It’s not far from the crypts for the Sears family and Montgomery Ward. My advice, however, is that you leave this alone. Just let go of this bone-and, yes, I am aware that was a rather grisly pun-and leave it alone. Surely you have better things to do with your life. And I would hate to see you compromise your years with a dangerous obsession.”

“Dangerous?”

She smirked. “Unhealthy, perhaps, might have been a better choice of word. Nevertheless: my brother and your homeless people. It doesn’t sound like a promising combination.”

Laurel didn’t feel threatened-not yet-but she did have the distinct sense that she had been warned. And that only made her want to continue her search with more vigor. When she climbed into her car, she found it interesting that her hostess had never once asked how a homeless man had come into possession of the family pictures.