Dead Sleep

“For a while. Waitressing, a laundry, menial stuff. After she started drinking, not even that.”

“Why did your father marry her?”

“I honestly think he did it because it was the only way she would have sex with him.”

Lenz smiles wistfully. “That was common in my generation. Your mother was beautiful?”

“Yes. That was the irony that crippled the marriage. She looked exotic, but she wasn’t. That was her Alsatian blood, I guess, the exotic part. Outside, a mysterious princess – inside, plain as pabulum. All she wanted was a man to build her a house and come home from work every day at five-thirty.”

“And Jane wanted the same thing?”

“Absolutely. From her father and her husband, when she found one. Dad never gave it to her, but she found a husband who did.”

Lenz holds up his forefinger. “A few moments ago you used the word ‘disappeared’ about your father. Isn’t it generally accepted that he died in Vietnam?”

“Yes. Cambodia, actually. But I’ve never accepted that. I never felt that he was dead, and over the years there’ve been occasional sightings of him in Asia by former colleagues. I’ve spent a lot of money through the years trying to find him.”

“What sort of scenario do you envision? If your father survived, that might mean that he chose not to return to America. That he chose to abandon you, your sister, and your mother.”

“Probably so.”

“Do you think he was capable of that?”

I pull back my hair, digging my fingernails into my scalp as I go. “I don’t know. I always suspected that he had a woman there. In Vietnam. Maybe another whole family. Lots of servicemen did. Why should photographers be any different?”

Lenz’s blue-gray eyes flicker with cold light. “Could you forgive him that?”

The central question of my life. “I’ve spent a lot of time in distant countries photographing wars, just as he did. I know how lonely it can be. You’re cut off from the world, sometimes from any friendly contact. You might be the only person for a hundred miles who understands English, living in a hell no one else will ever really see. It’s a loneliness that’s almost despair.”

“But Vietnam wasn’t like that. It was bursting with Americans.”

“Dad worked a lot of other places. If I find out he’s alive – or that he did survive for a while – I’ll deal with it then.”

“You said you never felt your father was dead. What about Jane? Do you feel she’s dead?”

“I felt it twelve hours before I got the call.”

“So you two shared the sort of intuitive bond that many twins speak of?”

“Despite our differences, we had that. It’s a very real thing, in my opinion.”

“I don’t dispute it. You’re being very forthcoming with me, Jordan, and I appreciate that. I think we could save a lot of time if you would just describe what you consider the seminal events in your lives as siblings.”

“I don’t recall any particularly seminal events.”

Lenz’s eyes appear soft, but there is a hardness beneath them, a cruelty even, and it shows now. Perhaps that’s a requirement for his type of work.

“This is not psychotherapy, Jordan. We don’t have weeks to labor through your defense mechanisms. I’m sure if you think about it, certain events will come to mind.”

I say nothing.

“For example, I noticed in your file that you never graduated high school. Jane graduated with honors, participated in all sorts of extracurricular activities. Cheerleading, debate, et cetera. You did none of that.”

“You guys really dig, don’t you?”

“I also discovered that you had the highest ACT score in your school. So.” He folds his arms and raises his eyebrows. “Why would such a student drop out?”

The small jet suddenly seems smaller. “Look, I don’t see how questions about my high school life are going to help you understand Jane.”

“What happens to one child happens to the other. Think back. The two of you are twelve years old. Your father has died, your mother can’t cope, there’s no money to buy necessities. You’re twins, you have the same teachers, yet you turn out opposites. What’s the story?”

“You just summed it up, Doctor. Let’s move on to something that might actually help you find Jane’s killer. That’s the goal here, right?”

Lenz only watches me. “You’re a photographer. You use filters to produce certain visual effects, yes? To modify light before it reaches the film?”

“Yes.”

“Human beings use similar filters. Emotional filters. They’re put in place by our parents, our siblings, our friends and enemies. Will you concede that?”

“I guess.”

“Daniel and I intend to use you for a critical purpose in this case. But before we bring you into contact with any suspects, I must understand you. I need to be able to correct for your particular filter.”

I look at the porthole window to my left. There’s not enough moonlight to show clouds. We could be at five thousand feet or thirty-five thousand. That’s how I feel in relation to my past and future, unanchored, floating between the unknown and the known-too-well. Lenz wants my secrets. Why? Psychiatrists, like photographers, are essentially voyeurs. But some things are between me and my conscience, no one else. Not even God, if I can help it. Still, I feel some obligation to cooperate. Lenz is the professional in this sphere, not me. And he is trusting me not to screw up his investigation. I suppose I have to trust him a little.

“The years after my father disappeared were difficult. The truth is, Jane had been living as though he were dead for several years before that. Her strategy was assimilation. Conformity. She studied hard, became cheerleader, then head cheerleader, and kept the same boyfriend for three years. I give her a lot of credit. Being popular isn’t easy without money.”

“Money seems to be a recurring theme with Jane.”

“Not only with her. Before Dad was gone, I didn’t realize how poor we were. But by thirteen, you start to notice. Material things are part of high school snobbery. Clothes and shoes, what kind of car you have, your house. Mom wrecked our car, and after that we didn’t have one. She drank more and more, and it seemed like the power company cut our electricity every other month. It was embarrassing. One day, prowling through the attic, I discovered three footlockers filled with old camera equipment. Mom told me that when she got pregnant with us, she persuaded Dad to open a portrait studio, to try to make their lives more stable. I don’t know why he went along with her. It never came to anything, of course. But he kept the equipment. A Mamiya large-format camera, floodlights, a background sheet, darkroom equipment, the works. Mom wanted to sell it all, but I threw a fit and she let me keep it. Over the next few months, I taught myself to use the stuff. A year later, I was running a portrait studio out of our house and shooting snaps for the Oxford Eagle in whatever spare time I had. Our lives improved. I was paying the light bill and buying the groceries, and because of that, I could pretty much do what I wanted.”

Lenz nods encouragement. “And what did you want?”

“My own life. Oxford’s a college town, and I rode all over it on my ten-speed bicycle, watching people, shooting pictures. Sony introduced the Walkman in my junior year of high school, and from the moment I got one, I lived with a soundtrack pouring into my ears and a camera around my neck. While Jane and her friends were dancing to the Bee Gees, I listened to homemade tapes of my father’s records: Joni Mitchell, Motown, Neil Young, the Beatles, and the Stones.”

“It sounds like an idyllic childhood,” Lenz says with a knowing smile. “Is that what it was?”

“Not exactly. While other girls my age were riding out to Sardis Reservoir to fumble around in backseats with guys from the football team, I was doing something a little different.”

A deep stillness settles over Lenz’s body. Like a priest, he has heard so many confessions that nothing could surprise him, yet he waits with a receptivity that seems to pull the words from my mouth.

“The first week of my senior year, our history teacher died. He was about seventy. To fill his shoes, the school board hired a young alumnus named David Gresham, who was teaching night classes at Ole Miss. Gresham had