Read A Photographic Death Online
Authors: Judi Culbertson
I
DIDN’T BOTHER
getting undressed and going to bed. When I got home I dropped my jacket and bag on the kitchen table, grabbed the alpaca throw from Colin’s wing chair, and lay down on the couch. I planned to only sleep for a few hours, enough to clear my head, then call DCI Sampson and get things started.
It was just before 6 a.m. when I woke up, After putting water on to boil for French press coffee, I went upstairs and changed into my usual jeans and a thrift-shop sweatshirt. This one was red and advertised a dude ranch in upstate New York.
Downstairs I waited impatiently for the coffee to finish. I had put DCI Sampson on automatic dial. I expected we would be having a lot of future conversations.
“Ms. Laine.” He sounded resigned.
“You know my missing daughter, the one who was supposed to have drowned? She didn’t drown, she’s
alive
. I met her yesterday!”
“Oh, yes? Well, congratulations. I’m impressed. You’re a true force of nature.”
“The Crosleys, her kidnappers, live in Rhode Island. I’m calling to give you their address.”
A pause. “And why would I want their address?”
“So you can arrest them. Have them extradited, I mean.”
“For what?”
“For kidnapping my daughter in Stratford! And killing Priscilla Waters. They’re murderers.” I heard my voice, too high-pitched, too loud, and told myself to calm down. I took a breath. “The FBI can’t do anything until there’s an extradition order.”
“Ms. Laine, the only evidence of anything I have on this case is a car rental record along with several thousand others from the same time period. The vehicle was returned without damage and no—”
“They had it repaired! Can’t you check repair records?” But as I said it I knew how hopeless that was. Of the thousands of shops all over England, how many of them kept records nearly twenty years old or would be willing to go through their files?
“In the unlikely event that we did find repair information on that car, they could say that they went into a ditch or a grazed a tree and there would be no way to prove otherwise. We worked diligently to try and solve that case when it happened. We canvassed that road for any witnesses. We found the cabdriver who had dropped Priscilla off at an intersection a half mile away. But he saw nothing and did not wait. Now we have even less.”
“You have a name.” It was so clear to me. Why couldn’t he see it?
“And you have your daughter back.”
“But Nick Clancy doesn’t have his mother.”
“Nor will he.”
“He could have the satisfaction of seeing justice done. Of seeing her killers in jail.”
“He won’t be seeing them in any English jail unless those people fly over here and confess. Perhaps in America you can file a civil suit about your daughter. She must be a young lady by now.”
“Wait a minute! I don’t want a civil suit. I want these people punished! I want them to admit what they did. We can never get that lost time back—but I want them in jail for the rest of their lives.”
“Extradition is a serious matter. Even if we had evidence linking them and the car to what happened—which we don’t, and we investigated it thoroughly—a twenty-year-old hit-and-run would not be given priority.”
“But what about the kidnapping? That’s what I’m talking about.”
“Evidence, Ms. Laine. We need some tangible evidence that these were the people involved.”
“Caitlin’s the evidence. Her DNA matches ours. You heard Nick Clancy tell you that his mother took her from the park for money.”
“I did.”
“Would it help if I contacted Scotland Yard?”
“No. They don’t have jurisdiction here. I’ll look into it further.”
“Thank you.”
I sat back down at the kitchen table.
When I was growing up with my minister father, parishioners would come to him with their troubles at all hours. The phone would ring, sobbing people would arrive and be hurried into the study. The door would be shut tightly. I would overhear bits, but I was always on the edge, not old enough or important enough to know the story.
Patience and David Livingstone hadn’t cared. But I couldn’t wait to grow up, God help me, so I could be in the middle of important adult dramas.
Be careful what you wish for.
W
I
NTER WAS HANGING
on.
After another cup of coffee, I trudged out to the barn to get to work. There was no snow in the forecast, which at least would have made the homes and meadows around me look picturesque. It wasn’t even March, which meant at least another month of overcast skies.
Colin was teaching until noon so I couldn’t report DCI Sampson’s response. I had talked to Jane on the ferry, omitting Sheila’s insinuations about Colin, and answering her questions about Caitlin. Perhaps she would see more hope in DCI Sampson’s response than I did.
I was sitting at my worktable listing some books I had bought at a library sale last August, when there was a knock on the barn door and it was pushed back. “Hi?”
At first I thought it was Hannah. But then I recognized the navy snowboarding jacket. “Caitlin—I mean, Elisa!”
“Can I come in?”
“Of course you can.” I stood up quickly.
If this had been one of the Harlequin romances that my friends passed around in high school, we would have embraced and lived happily ever after.
But I don’t live in that book.
I brought her around to the shabby chocolate brown velour couch that I had brought from my parents’ house. No matter where you sat, it sank down unevenly, tipping you to one side or the other.
“Take off your coat. I think it’s warm enough in here.”
“Oh—I can’t stay.” She unzipped her jacket though. Underneath she was wearing a red ski sweater with white reindeer. Today her hair was pulled back in a ponytail the way Hannah wore hers.
I smiled at her, but my hands were icy and my heart was beating much too fast.
What do you mean you can’t stay? I found you after nineteen years and you can’t stay?
“Did you drive down here by yourself?” I knew it was a loaded question.
“Not exactly.” She tilted her head and gave me an apologetic smile. “Someone who works for my father brought me.”
In a black Ford sedan?
She looked around. “You have a lot of books.”
“I sell them.”
“I saw that on your card.”
I nodded. “Your father—Colin Fitzhugh—is an archeologist and poet. Hannah is a senior at Cornell, she wants to be a vet. Jane’s in finance in Manhattan, and Jason’s in Santa Fe finding himself.”
A rueful grin. “I know that feeling.”
“Really? You’re a literature major?”
“I love books and sports. Winter sports,” she amended. “But I’m not sure how to make them into a life. Anyway . . .”
“Anyway, I’m glad you came.” I didn’t want to ask her why; I was afraid what the answer would be. Instead I got up from the couch and went to my worktable. “I want to show you something.”
I came back with a clutch of papers and handed her a photograph I had removed from one of the albums at Thanksgiving. It showed three little girls in navy coats and straw hats with flowers, smiling up at a younger me and clutching their new Easter rabbits.
Caitlin took it in both hands and studied it. “Is that
me
?”
“That’s you next to Jane. Your grandmother gave you the bunny. I have albums with photos of you.”
“Thanks, but I can’t—”
“Another time then.” I felt like Scheherazade.
Keep talking
. I told her about going to Stratford-upon-Avon for the summer and how we used to go to the park every day. “Your—‘adoptive’ father, Ethan Crosley, was part of the group of archeologists.”
I watched her face, but couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
Then she moved restlessly, and I said, “I know you have to go, but this is what happened.” Rapidly I told her about Priscilla Waters and how she had deceived Jane, then handed her several photocopies. “These are the stories that were in the papers.”
She read them, wide-eyed.
“I went back to Stratford last month and talked to Priscilla Waters’s sons. They remember you being in their apartment overnight. Before she gave you to the people who paid her to take you.”
“This is so different from anything I’ve heard! Except that my parents adopted me after you died in an accident in England. That’s all they said, they never told me about a
twin
. Why didn’t they adopt her too?”
I sighed. “Priscilla Waters was the one who died. She demanded more money for kidnapping you and was hit by a car on her way to collect it.”
“How awful!”
I looked into her eyes, blue with green flecks, so much like Hannah’s. “It was deliberate, a hit-and-run. What did your mother say when you saw that I was alive?”
She looked at her lap. “That she hadn’t wanted to tell me the truth, that you were a terrible mother. You—took drugs and neglected me. That’s why you were forced to sign the papers.”
There was no end to their treachery. “For the record, I’ve never even smoked anything. I was too busy having babies to get drunk. And how did she explain why your father, Colin, signed papers—was he a drug addict too?”
“She said he thought it was the best thing for me.” She looked past me to the books on the shelves.
“I’d like to see those papers. I’ll bet any handwriting expert would say they were forged. And if we’d signed any papers—which we never would have—why did Priscilla Waters steal you from the park and say you drowned? You saw the newspapers.” I told myself to calm down, that getting angry would only push her away. In a softer voice I said, “You must have had a reason for coming.”
I pressed my hands together in my lap to keep them from shaking. This was the part I didn’t want to know. This was the part I had to know. Would she tell me she never wanted to see me again?
She nodded sadly, like a woman about to fire someone who couldn’t do the work. “I came to tell you to leave me alone, to just forget the whole thing.”
“Is that what
you
want?”
“I don’t know!” She turned on me as if I were deliberately trying to confuse her. “I didn’t know anything about the drowning. Or having a twin! I don’t know anything about being stolen. But I trust my parents.”
Perhaps I should have tried to woo her then. I could have told her that her “parents” lied because they loved her, that we loved her too and we could all work something out.
Instead I heard myself say, “What they did was
unconscionable
. They paid someone to kidnap you, and killed her when they were afraid she’d go to the police. They bought forged court papers to pretend they’d adopted you. And that’s just for starters.”
She pulled back from me. “That’s crazy. They’d never do something like that. They
aren’t
criminals. Even if this woman took me, they probably didn’t know that when they adopted me.” She reached out her arm to me as if their safety were the only thing important to her. “Please don’t get them into trouble.”
The easiest thing in the world: Just promise her you won’t.
If you do that, maybe they’ll let you see her again.
But I couldn’t. I breathed in the drafty air of the barn and looked at her. “I know you don’t know me the way you do the Crosleys. How could you? But I remember you very well. My whole life was changed when I thought you’d drowned. I loved you then and I love you now.” I reached out and grasped her hand before she could pull her arm back. The top felt winter-rough, but her fingers underneath were soft. “I’m not your ‘birth mother.’ I’m your only mother. I wanted you to know the true story. What happens now is up to you.”
“But you promise not to—report them or anything?”
“You know I can’t promise that.”
I let go of her hand then and stood up. She stood up too and fumbled with her jacket zipper.
I couldn’t help myself. I reached over and grasped it firmly, zipping it almost to her neck. We were standing very close for a moment.
Then she pulled away, turned, and walked toward the door. Grasping the knob, she went through and pulled the door shut hard.
I
WENT BACK
to my desk chair and sat down, propping up my head that felt too weak to stay upright on its own. I replayed the clear bright notes, the snatches of melody, the whole unfinished symphony. Had I given her enough information? I’d thought I had until she wondered why the Crosleys hadn’t adopted her twin too. Didn’t she understand that she had been stolen from us, that because they already knew us, the Crosleys couldn’t be thought of as an innocent third party who’d arrived late on the scene? Would she ever realize that they were the ones who had nearly destroyed my family?
Her
family?
I let my eyes close. When I started looking for Caitlin in December I had been as determined as a crusader pushing through the woods brandishing a torch, not caring what got burned along the way. I had been on a mission that could have destroyed the whole forest. Luckily I hadn’t. Even Caitlin, whose life Colin had been so worried about upsetting, seemed more intrigued, if confused, than devastated. Of course, knowing she was adopted all along had cushioned the shock, though they had lied to her about a few little things.
Colin had stressed that her well-being was paramount. And it was. If I never saw her again—and I might not unless it was across a courtroom—I had to accept that she was satisfied with the life she had. But that didn’t mean I had to give Ethan and Sheila a free ticket to ride.
Then I thought of something else. Today was Friday. Bruce Adair was coming to dinner tonight and I had completely forgotten. That meant a trip to the supermarket.
Now.
First though, I called Colin and Jane to tell them about Caitlin’s visit. Colin answered his phone as he was heading into a classroom and had time only to absorb the basic facts. Jane was more expressive.
“You saw her again? How come she only appears to you? Couldn’t you make her stay around so we could meet her?”
“Re-kidnap her? I don’t think so.”
“But does she want to meet us?”
“I don’t think she knows what she wants right now.”
H
AVING
B
RUCE FO
R
dinner meant cleaning the downstairs of the farmhouse and buying chicken to fry. Despite his protestations, I owed him big-time. I made Spanish rice, cornbread, and green beans with almonds to round off the meal, and then, my creativity exhausted, bought a small cheesecake for dessert. I set the dining room table with my mother’s Limoges china and red candles.
All the time I worked I was obsessed by the thought that Colin might drop by as he often did these days. How would I explain Bruce? I couldn’t. I thought about calling Colin and warning him off, telling him I was not feeling well. But I was done lying to protect myself. What happened happened from now on.
Bruce had promised to bring wine and I knew it would be better than anything I could afford. He arrived at seven, suitably dapper in a tweed jacket and argyle vest, his cheeks rosy from the cold. He’d brought two bottles of wine, a white Viognier and a red Côtes du Rhône.
I took the bottles from him and laughed. “You’re planning for a long night.”
“I wasn’t sure which we’d want. Wine is the gift that keeps indefinitely.”
While we ate I filled him in on everything that had happened.
“Bruce, I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
I sighed and drank more red wine. “Colin doesn’t want a civil suit. Caitlin wants me to drop it completely. It won’t go well for me, whatever I do. She’ll either hate me for getting them in trouble, or she’ll listen to them and refuse to see me anyway. I can’t believe she believes them instead of me.”
Bruce lowered his chin and gave me a considering look over his wineglass.
“Oh, okay, I can believe it. She’s listened to them most of her life. But what about the facts?”
“Well, she knows she didn’t drown. And you’ve told her that she was kidnapped from the park and that you never signed any papers. But do you have any physical evidence that they ran that actress down?”
“No. But it makes sense.”
Bruce looked thoughtful in the candlelight. “I don’t know British law, but in this country you wouldn’t have much of a case. There were no witnesses to the hit-and-run. No one even knew about it till the next day. A car was rented to the Crosleys, but there’s no proof either of them were driving it anywhere near there. I doubt the car itself exists any longer.
“There are no witnesses to the abduction either. Jane, but she only implicates Priscilla, not the Crosleys. You have no evidence that they even knew each other.”
“But Sheila admitted it to me!”
“Did anyone else hear her?”
I played with my glass. “No.”
“I’m talking about what can be proved in law. What you have is conjecture. If you and your next-door neighbor had a fight and you came out the next day and found your front tire flat, you might be sure he did it. But unless there were any eyewitnesses, the only people you could call are AAA.”
He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “A few years ago I came out of the bank and found a note under my windshield giving me the license plate number of a car that had backed into mine. I looked and sure enough there was a dent in my fender. So I called the police. But the person who left the note hadn’t given any contact information, and without an eyewitness—the cop said whoever left the note could be trying to frame someone he didn’t like. So that went nowhere.”
“I get it.” But I couldn’t accept it. I’d supposed that as soon as I told DCI Sampson where the Crosleys were they would be whisked off to England, put on trial, and jailed forever. Caitlin would renounce them, turn to us, and we would—not live happily ever after, maybe, but we would work things out. She would be part of our family again.
“Your best hope is for Caitlin to come to believe what actually happened and renounce them. Join your family and forget them.”
Good luck with that.