The Double Bind

CHAPTER TWELVE

KATHERINE MAGUIRE turned her face up toward the mid-morning September sun, eyes closed, as she walked with a city attorney named Chris Fricke down the brick road that had anchored the Burlington pedestrian shopping concourse for decades. She was listening to this lawyer carefully, but she was also savoring the warmth on her eyelids.

“The attorney’s firm is in Manhattan, but he actually has a place up in Underhill-a second home, not an office. So he knows a little about BEDS,” Chris was telling her, the woman’s heels clacking on the bricks underneath every third or fourth syllable. Chris had been one of the city attorneys who assisted BEDS for six years now, almost since the day she had passed the bar and started working for Burlington. She was a little older than the BEDS executive-Chris was in her mid-fifties, Katherine guessed-and genuinely inspiring: She hadn’t even started law school until the younger of her two sons had started high school. Like most of the City Hall minions, she was energetic, determined, and absolutely confident, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that what she did made a difference in the world. She actually volunteered time at the shelter, which was more than most of the attorneys who worked with BEDS ever did. She had made an effort to get a sense of just how rotten it was on the streets and what the homeless population really needed, and thus had won Katherine’s loyalty as well as her respect.

“He saw the ad we placed in the newspaper?” Katherine asked her.

“Or his client did. Either way, he heard about what we found and he thinks the photos might belong to his client. He said she’s an older woman, lives way out on Long Island.”

“And he wants us to turn them over to him?”

“You sound disappointed,” the lawyer said.

“Well, I am. I wanted to make sure they didn’t belong to someone because that’s the right thing to do and because I wanted to cover our bases. But of course I want BEDS to have them. I honestly never thought a real owner would ever show up.”

“We don’t know for sure this is a real owner. I described the stuff that was in the box, and she could be. They could be pictures of her house, and she could be one of the kids in the snapshot.”

“You said this is an older woman. How old?”

“Mid-eighties. Old enough to match the girl in that one picture. But she’s no crumbly,” said Chris. “She may be well into her dotage, but it sounds like she is one very tough old bird. Still healthy, still with it.”

“Did the lawyer say why she wants the photos?”

“Because she’s in some, I guess. Or her house is. And she’s an art collector, and some time ago some of her photos disappeared. Some negatives, too. So she wants us to turn over the whole kit and caboodle. And she certainly doesn’t want Laurel to print anything. She wants us to send everything to the lawyer so she can recover the images that she says are hers.”

“Is she claiming to be any relation to Bobbie?”

“Just the opposite. Insists she’s no relation. Says she did have a brother, but he died some time ago. She and her lawyer aren’t sure where Bobbie got the snapshots of her family or her house or the prints that were part of her collection. But she feels violated, and she wants the images back.”

Katherine stopped where she was and turned from the sun to the attorney. “Do we have to do that?” She realized that she sounded petulant, and she didn’t like that tone in her voice. But it had been a reflex.

“Not necessarily. We need to examine this a little more closely. Here’s the irony: If this woman were related to Bobbie Crocker, then she might have a right to the photos as the sole surviving member of his family. But because she isn’t related to him, it’s much more difficult for her to claim ownership. Just because she’s in them doesn’t mean she has a right to them.”

Katherine felt a little flushed and decided it wasn’t just from the sun. “Look, I want Bobbie to have an art show. He deserved that, you know. But we denied it to him when he was alive because we didn’t take him seriously. At least I didn’t.”

“You really feel bad about that, don’t you?”

“A little, yes. But there are other issues, too: First of all, those photos are great PR for the people we serve. They show that a person who did something extraordinary with his life, who had met important people, could also wind up homeless. Second-and maybe this isn’t second at all-I’m hoping that the collection might be worth serious money for BEDS, if we can sell the show as a fund-raiser.”

“That’s not a problem-assuming, of course, we don’t have to turn everything over to this woman on Long Island.” Chris glanced at her watch and resumed clicking her way down Church Street to her office at City Hall. After a moment, she added, “And don’t be surprised if this lawyer calls you-or Laurel.”

“Really?”

“He might. He didn’t get what he wanted out of me, and so he might try to reach one of you.”

“Oh, I hope he doesn’t call Laurel.”

“Any special reason why?”

“Bobbie-or whomever-took some photos of the swim club where Laurel hung out as a child. And I gather there’s at least one of a girl on a bike up in Underhill-on the same dirt road where Laurel was attacked.”

“A girl Laurel’s age?”

“I think so. I haven’t seen it, but Laurel came across it and told me about it. It seems to have shaken her up. And the combination of those photos has led her to become very…involved.”

The lawyer knew Laurel ’s history, too, and Katherine saw her glance nervously at her now. “That’s a creepy coincidence.”

“The swim club or the girl on the bicycle?”

“Both,” said Chris.

“But it is just a coincidence,” Katherine told her, suddenly feeling a little defensive. “Nothing more. Has to be, right? And I had no idea there were pictures of either when I suggested she look through them.”

Chris shook her head. “Still. It had to be a little unnerving for Laurel to know a homeless schizophrenic was taking pictures of that swimming pool. And then of a girl on a bike.”

Katherine considered reminding her that Bobbie probably wasn’t homeless back then. But she also understood what Chris was getting at, the vulnerability, and so she restrained herself. For the first time, she began to wonder if she’d made a serious mistake when she’d given Laurel that box of old photos.