25
A NEEDLE
New Orleans, Louisiana
Amaia studied the photographs in the case file. School yearbook pictures showed the boys. There was a studio portrait of the father. The only time the wife appeared was with the rest of the family. Amaia paid particular attention to the carefully posed family portrait. Martin was a characterless little gray man. Everything about him, from the tight knot of his tie to the stiffly starched collar of his spotless white dress shirt, suggested meticulous attention to detail. His horn-rimmed glasses would have suited a college professor. Amaia perceived him as a man obsessed with control. His posture, carefully combed hair, and short-trimmed nails cried out that this insecure man was used to being dominated by his beady-eyed mother. Lenx hadn’t been permitted to live with his own family in a separate home; they all had to stay under his mother’s roof. Amaia was certain he’d found that humiliating. She was convinced Lenx had never managed to escape his mother. Perhaps in an effort to dominate a woman for a change, he’d married the mousey little woman peering back at the camera.
The boys were entirely different. They smiled, carefree and sincere. They looked happy. Lenx’s daughter wore her cascade of red hair tousled and spread carelessly over her shoulders; her smile was warm and confident. Amaia noticed a modest but slightly provocative touch of red lipstick, in contrast to the sober, undistinguished dress, undoubtedly worn only for the photo session. The Lenx family stood close together, looking directly into the camera. Except for Martin, who stood to one side in three-quarter profile.
Amaia picked up the solo portrait. Martin was wearing the same suit and tie, so the photograph was probably taken the same day. She noted that his pose was exactly the same as in the group photo—the way he held his hands, the tilt of his chin, his shoulders up and slightly back. The only difference between the poses was Lenx’s mouth. In the family photo, there was an icy cut to his lips, while in the solo image, his lips were relaxed, almost smiling. She zoomed in. With a bit of effort, she deciphered the legend stamped at the bottom: Clayton Gray Photography, with a telephone number.
The fixed line they’d used scarcely an hour earlier to talk with Emerson and Tucker was wired into the station’s emergency equipment. It had been ringing regularly for the past few minutes, so they’d stopped using it for outgoing calls. Wondering if Gray was still active, she tapped the number into the cell phone Dupree had provided her after they arrived in New Orleans.
Clayton Gray was alive and well. More importantly, he remembered the Lenx family.
Amaia asked him if anything had caught his attention at the time.
“My wife tells me I chose the wrong career. Instead of going into photography, I should have been a psychologist. I can look at the way a young couple poses in their wedding photos and tell you with just about a hundred percent accuracy if they’ll still be together two years later!” He chuckled. “Has something to do with the way they stand for the photo, what they do with their hands, and especially their mouths. More than the eyes. People claim the eyes are the mirrors of the soul, but I read a lot more in the way you hold your mouth.”
Amaia smiled. “It’s what they call nonverbal language. Do you remember taking that photo?”
“Well, most of the time I can remember more or less how things went, and if I need to be sure, I check my photo logs. But when it comes to the Lenx family and what happened, I’ve gone over everything related to them again and again. The details are impossible to forget, practically burned into my memory. He came to my studio about two months before the . . . the . . . you know. The father, Martin, visited us three times before he made up his mind. Really demanding fellow. We show all our potential customers an album with samples of our best work. But that wasn’t enough for Lenx. He insisted on inspecting the studio itself, the backdrops we had, even got me to show him the various types of lighting. By the time he brought his family in, he’d decided everything, down to where to place each member of the family.”
“He sounds like someone who really likes to be in control.”
“Yes, well, it didn’t do him much good that day. Everything started off just fine. They went to their places and I took a few trial shots. But Mr. Lenx wasn’t satisfied. He repositioned them maybe eight times. The boys seemed to enjoy it, but it was too much for the wife. Then Mr. Lenx decided I should take the photo without the younger boy. Mrs. Lenx said that was a ridiculous idea. She was a timid little thing, but when she got going, she put a stop to it. The final picture, the one that ended up in all the papers, was the very first one I took. I didn’t keep the rest of the proofs. But in that photo—I have it in front of me right now, by the way—there’s lots of information, at least as I see it.”
“All right, Mr. Gray,” she replied in an admiring tone, “tell me what you see in that portrait.”
“Pay attention to Lenx’s mouth. It looks like a gash made by a hatchet.”
She murmured her agreement. That was exactly the impression she’d had.
“I’ve seen that a lot in my forty years as a professional photographer. It’s what I call the Wet Bride Syndrome.”
Amaia zoomed in on Martin Lenx. She studied it and ran her finger along the man’s lips.
“The wet bride? Explain that to me.”
“Fortunately, things have changed over the years. Getting married isn’t young folks’ main objective in life anymore, and I think that’s an improvement. But it used to be, for a long time, for most women and many men. These days a formal wedding ceremony is just kind of a pleasant celebration. But I’ve known some cases where the women, it’s usually the women, were so in love with the idea of a formal wedding that it got to be absurd. I call it the Wet Bride Syndrome because it’s more common among young women, girls who’ve been dreaming about their wedding day their whole lives.” He laughed aloud. “Not dreaming about falling in love, mind you, but fantasizing about getting married. They visualize that day, plan the ceremony and reception, and imagine every little detail.”
She nodded. “I know what you mean.”
Gray continued enthusiastically. “But then reality steps in. The hard truth is that it rains a lot in Wisconsin. Those young brides get up that morning, ready for the most important day of their lives, and when they see it’s raining, they want to postpone everything. That’s when that sour expression appears, obvious on the faces of some brides, nearly invisible on others, but there’s no mistaking the resentment.
“That’s the nasty look you see there on Martin Lenx’s face. He’s a wet bride. He wants to give up because things didn’t go the way he planned. And look at his wife’s face, it’s almost as obvious there. She’s upset, she knows something’s going wrong, she realizes that her husband’s resentment is only the tip of the iceberg, and they’re headed for disaster. But just then she’s too overwhelmed to admit it, she pretends nothing’s wrong and she poses for the photo . . . I’ve seen that a fair number of times.”
“Do you think Lenx was deciding right then what he was going to do?”
“That day, I don’t know. He told me, and later it was in the papers, that he expected to be hired to manage a local bank, but they turned him down just a few days later. Something was going on during the photo session, though; just look at the way he kept repositioning the children. It almost got to be a game of musical chairs, where he tried to eliminate one of them . . .”