You would likely tell me (as your mother has) that I could rectify this deficit with your sisters, but it is human nature to yearn for the things we cannot have.
Have I told you about Claire’s new young man, Paul? He certainly yearns for Claire, though she has made it clear that he can have her. The match is an uneven one. Claire is a vibrant, beautiful young woman. Paul is neither vibrant nor particularly attractive.
After meeting him, your mother and I had some fun at the boy’s expense. She called him Bartleby, after the well-known scrivener: “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn.” I likened him more to some form of rat terrier: arrogant. Easily bored. Too smart for his own good. Partial to ugly sweaters. I opined that he is the kind of man who, absent the right kind of attention, can do great harm.
Is this last sentence revisionist thinking? Because I can clearly remember sharing your mother’s Bartleby appraisal the first time we met Paul: annoying and harmless and likely to soon be shown the door.
It is only now that I see the meeting in a more sinister light.
Claire brought him home during the Georgia–Auburn game. In the past, I have always felt slightly sorry for any man Claire brings home. You can see it in their eager eyes that they think this is something—meeting the girl’s parents, touring the town where she grew up, just around the corner is love, marriage, the baby carriage, etc. Sadly for these young men, the opposite tends to be true. For Claire, a trip to Athens typically heralds the end of a relationship. For your baby sister, this town is tainted. The streets are tainted. The house is tainted. Perhaps we—your mother and I—are tainted, too.
Pepper had warned us in advance about Claire’s new beau. She seldom approves of her sister’s boyfriends (likewise, Claire never approves of hers; I feel certain you would have been their tie-breaker), but in this instance, Pepper’s description of Paul was not only alarming, but spot-on. I have rarely had such a visceral reaction to a person. He reminds me of the worst kind of student I used to have—the kind who is certain that they already know everything worth knowing (which invariably leads to an animal’s unnecessary suffering).
If I am being honest, the thing about Paul Scott that bothered me the most was the way he touched my daughter in front of me. I am not an old-fashioned man. Public displays of affection are more likely to make me smile than blush.
And yet.
There was something about the way this man touched my youngest child that set my teeth on edge. His arm linked through hers as they walked up to the house. His hand stayed at her back as they climbed the stairs. His fingers laced through hers as they walked through the door.
Reading back that last paragraph, it all sounds so innocuous, the typical gestures of a man who is making love to a woman, but I must tell you, sweetheart, that there was something so deeply unsettling about the way he touched her. His hand literally never left her body. Not once the entire time they were in front of me. Even when they sat on the couch, Paul held her hand until she was settled, then he threw his arm around her shoulders and spread his legs wide as if the girth of his testicles had turned his kneecaps into oppositely polarized magnets.
Your mother and I exchanged several glances.
He is a man who is comfortable airing his opinions, and confident that every single word that comes out of his mouth is not just correct, but fascinating. He has money, which is evident from the car he drives and the clothes he wears, but there is nothing moneyed about his attitude. His arrogance comes from his intelligence, not from his wallet. And it must be said that he is clearly a brilliant young man. His ability to at least sound informed on any subject matter points to a voracious memory. He clearly understands details if not nuance.
Your mother asked about his family, because we are southern and asking about someone’s family is the only way we can distinguish the chaff from the wheat.
Paul started with the basics: his father’s tour in the Navy, his mother’s secretarial schooling. They became farmers, salt-of-the-earth people who supplemented their income with bookkeeping and seasonal work with the UGA grounds crew. (As you know, this latter part-time work is not uncommon. Everyone at some point or another ends up working in some capacity for the school.) There were no other relatives but for a seldom-seen uncle on the mother’s side who passed away Paul’s freshman year at Auburn.
It was because of his childhood isolation, Paul said, that he wanted a big family—a fact that should have pleased your mother and me but I saw her back stiffen alongside mine, because the tone in his voice indicated just how he would go about achieving that.
(Trust me, sweetheart, there is a reason centuries of fathers have fought brutal wars to protect the concept of Immaculate Conception.)
After relaying the basics, Paul got to the part of his history that made your little sister’s eyes glisten with tears. That was when I knew he had her. It seems harsh to say that Claire never cries for anyone, but if you only knew, my sweet girl, what became of us after you disappeared, you would understand that she didn’t cry because there were no tears left.
Except for Paul.
As I sat there listening to the story of his parents’ car accident, I felt some old memories stirring. The Scotts died almost a full year after you were gone. I remember reading about the pile-up in the newspaper because by that time, I was reading every page in case there was some story that connected back to you. Your mother remembers hearing from a patron at the library that Paul’s father was decapitated. There was fire involved. Our imaginations ran wild.
Paul’s version of events is far more rosy (he is certainly the boot-strapper in this story), but I cannot fault a man for wanting to own his past, and there is no denying that the tragedy works its magic on Claire. For so many years, people have been trying to take care of your little sister. I think with Paul, she finally sees an opportunity to take care of someone else.
If your mother were reading this letter, she would tell me to get to the point. I suppose I should, because the point is this:
Here is the inscription Ben Carver wrote for me in the Dr. Seuss book:
“First you must have the images. Then come the words.”
Robert James Waller.
Images.
Ben had taken and distributed images of his crimes. This was part of his legend, his infamy. There were said to be hundreds of photographs and films on the black market that showed him with various victims. But Ben was already in prison. He was not giving me a clue to his own crimes. He was giving me a clue to his competition.
Images.
I had read that word before—many times before.
As with all the suspects in your disappearance, Huckleberry blacked out one particular man’s name, but here are the details I transcribed from a deputy investigator’s notes in your case file:
XXXXXX XXXXX peeping Tom. Seasonal gardener for UGA grounds crew, arrested 1/4/89; 4/12/89; 6/22/90; 8/16/91— all charges dropped. Targets older female teens, blonde, attractive (17–20). MO: stands outside ground-floor windows and takes what he calls “images”—photographs or recordings of women in various states of undress. Deceased 1/3/1992 (car accident; wife also deceased; 16 y.o. son in boarding school/Alabama).
Images.
The peeping Tom was alive when you went missing. He sought out young women around your age, around your hair color, around your beauty. Had he stood outside the window to your ground-floor bedroom and taken images of you? Had he watched you brush your hair and talk to your sisters and undress for bed? Had he seen you on campus when he was working for the grounds crew? Had he followed you to the Manhattan that night? Had he followed you again when you left the bar?