“Was she—happy when you knew her? How did she seem in class?”
“She seemed…perfectly fine, but looking back, she couldn’t have been, could she? While being stalked, harassed. She was like that, though—reserved, very private, as I said.”
Schuyler nods in his distracted way. Paul lets himself relax again. The man doesn’t seem interested inhim, but he still can’t tell where his interest lies. He doesn’t understand these odd questions or why he’s chosen to share the news article about her early attacker. Is there new evidence of some kind? Schuyler’s next question is another surprise.
“Professor, do you think a person’s photographs can reveal their state of mind?”
“Absolutely.” Paul nods energetically, slipping right into professor mode. He’s glad to find himself on solid ground. “They can reveal the photographer’s background, his perspective on life, his hopes and fears—and yes, his state of mind, too. Or hers,” he adds, giving Schuyler a significant look.
“So you see all of that in Judith’s work?”
“I do. All that and more. In fact, now that you’ve told me about what happened to her…early on, I can see evidence of it in the work. Of her psychological scars, I mean. You must have seen her self-portraits, Detective?” Schuyler nods. “They’re quite something, aren’t they?” Paul asks, like a proud father.
“They are. They’re—disturbing.”
“I agree. And even more so now. I can see how those shots of her own face in shop windows, water, and mirrors must have helped her…plumb her own depths. But in a safe way. A way that kept her from looking too directly at them. What she didn’t want to see, the mirror saw for her, the pond saw for her, and so on. I can understand now why she was so private about her photographs, why she didn’t want to publish them—until she finally did,” he says, catching himself. He twists his empty hands in his lap and longs for a damn cigarette. He wouldn’t have slipped like that if he’d had a cigarette.
“Why do you think she changed her mind?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe because I’d asked her so many times that she finally gave in just to shut me up,” he says, grasping for levity. Schuyler doesn’t laugh.
“I was struck by the picture in the butcher shop window.”
Paul nods, preparing himself to lecture on the striking photographHarper’schose as the cover for their issue, but Schuyler continues.
“It’s odd, isn’t it? To take a picture of yourself with all those hanging sides of beef, and then a few days later, you end up dead? It seems…” He searches for the word, looking at Paul.
“Tragic?” Paul offers.
“No. Purposeful,” he says bluntly. “Meaningful. You know, we studied those photographs—and the negatives, too—for any sign of her stalker. The first team did it, and now I’ve done it, too. She told her husband the man was in there, ineverypicture she took of herself. And we didn’t see a thing. Don’t you find that strange?” Schuyler’s favorite word. This time, though, it rings in Paul’s ears.Strange.It’sverystrange. Just as Paul catches Schuyler’s meaning, the revelation ringing like a bell in his head, the man abruptly stands and extends his hand. As if he wants to stop him from saying it aloud.
“Thank you for coming by, Professor. It’s been very helpful.” Paul can do nothing but extend his own hand and let the man crush it.
A few minutes later, he’s outside the station gulping cold, fresh air. He’s able to light a cigarette—at last, and just barely—with his trembling hand.They think she did it herself, he thinks, over and over, without any sense behind the words.My god, she did it herself.
28.
Schuyler didn’t come out and say it, of course, but it’s what he was insinuating: that Judith was mentally ill, that she invented the stalking story, that she…killed herself.
Stunned by the phrase, Paul forgets to exhale a chest full of smoke and bends over, coughing. A woman wearing an unfashionably long skirt walks a wide circle around him; he focuses on the black leather of her low heels, the reassuring sound of an ordinary woman walking. When he recovers, he straightens and looks around at the small, orderly houses lining the streets. They all resemble Judith’s house: small brick ranches with tidy lawns. He thinks of Judith in this destabilizing new light with a deep, physical pang, and begins putting one foot in front of another.
Loosened a little by the forward movement, Paul asks himself if what he’s thinking—what he thinks Schuyler is thinking—could really be true.
Having known her—calm, steady, and quiet as she was—he can’t see the detective’s idea as anything but outlandish, even offensive. But he felt it, didn’t he? Felt the truth of it in that stifling small office? And beyond that, there was evidence—or alackof it, rather: no stalker in Judith’s portraits, no fingerprints on the murder weapon, no sign of her attacker anywhere. And now he knows how psychologically scarred she must have been—and he himself has offered photographic proof of hertroubled mind. Schuyler let the various strands of this theory hang separately, but Paul gathers them together quickly and hangs on, despite his own revulsion and resistance:Judith did this to herself.
It only makes sense, he thinks, walking now at a furious pace, if Judith’s mind were warped enough to make herbelieveshe was being stalked, to see the man over and over again, to hear his words, even feel his touch. Was that possible? And most of all, could her mind have really brought her to the point of stabbing herself? Killing herself? He thinks instantly of Malcolm, his psychologist friend. They haven’t met up for a while, but he could buy him a drink and run it by him—in strictest confidence.
My god, if it were true…it would be a stunning draw for the show. He flinches from the thought at first, but as the seconds go by, he begins to understand why it might be not only beneficial but alsonecessary. This is part of Judith’s story, after all: Judith the artist, the photographer, the public figure. Posthumously, sure, but that’s all the more reason for Paul to broadcast what he’s learned. The story of her life doesn’t belong to him, or even to Judith anymore. And certainly not to Tom Stanley. All of it, all ofher, belongs to the viewing public: art critics, gallerists, and Judith’s growing cadre of fans. Even fans like Charlie, yes, he thinks with an internal flinch. They need to approach her work and view it with the full story in mind; it will change how they perceive and critique it, how they place it in the scope of art history. This has nothing to do with Paul, really! He’s merely the vessel, the mediator, bringing it all to light for the public good. He has a duty to do it, as her mentor and manager.
Paul loops back to his car with a determined stride. Tomorrow, he’ll visit the library to search for theSomerset Daily Registerarticle; he wants to be able to refer to its specifics while he’s writing. Because even if he ends up discarding the suicide theory, hehasto use her childhood attack. That alone would alter the narrative around Judith: the woman who survived one attack only to die, years later, in another. He’ll also read any follow-up articles he can find, about the search for her attacker.Schuyler said the man had “vanished,” just like Judith’s murderer; Paul wants to make sure that’s the case, and he wants to glean anything else he can from Judith’s hometown rag. Then he’ll run it all by Malcolm. He veers toward the nearest pay phone booth to make his call. He reaches Malcolm’s secretary and leaves a message that reads:Please call Paul Sorenson. It’surgent.
29.
Malcolm is already seated at the bar, foamy mug of beer before him, when Paul arrives a half hour late to the King’s End. He’d spent all day in the basement of the main library, scrolling through rolls of microfiche until his head was pounding. It paid off, though; he found the original article and several follow-ups about the fruitless search for Judith’s assailant. Seeing them made Schuyler’s story come alive: it really did happen, and though the articles were written with standard neutrality, Judith’s suffering vibrated through the words. What she must have endured in the aftermath, with minimal comfort from her withholding grandmother, who’s quoted tersely in one of the articles as saying, “It’s a shame.” What an odd phrase to use about your granddaughter’s molestation:It’s a shame. As if it were a slight accident, or as if Judith were somehow to blame. Paul starts to think itmustbe true—that this formative incident, probably long smothered, simmered in Judith until it spilled over, flooding her vulnerable psyche. He doesn’t have the right words or means to express it—that’s why he’s come to Malcolm—but he senses he’s right.
Paul claps Malcolm on the back and sits beside him, simply relishing the pleasure of reuniting with an old friend for a moment. So much has changed in his own life since he last saw Malcolm that it’s almost like seeing a ghost—or perhapsPaulis the ghost, a new iteration of himself living a surreal new life. Even watching Kent, the bartender, pour two fingers of whiskey over rocks and slide the glass toward himwith a nod is slightly disorienting. But the first burning sip sets him right, brings him back to his body and the present and his purpose.
“How you been, Malc? How’s things?” he asks.
