High Crimes

“So, what does this mean?” Devereaux said. “Before 1985 — when he was, what, over thirty — he had no credit cards, no AmEx, no Visa, no MasterCard. And I check some more — the IRS has no returns on file for him before then either. So he lists all these jobs with companies that no longer exist, and he paid no Social Security and filed no tax returns.”

“What am I supposed to make of all this?” Claire said. She could not think. She stared. She felt vertiginous.

“Well, I have a buddy works out of L.A., and I asked him to take a little trip down to Hawthorne. Right near LAX—”

“And he didn’t go to Hawthorne High,” Claire interrupted. “You don’t have to tell me this. I’ve figured it out.”

“There’s no record at the high school. None of the teachers, the old-timers, remember him. No one in the Class of ’73 remembers him. He’s not in the yearbook. Plus, going back in the old phone directories, there’s no record his parents ever lived there. No Nelson Chapman ever lived there. Now, I’m not saying the FBI isn’t full of shit. I’m not saying your husband committed any crime. I’m just telling you that Tom Chapman doesn’t exist, Claire. Whoever your husband really is, whatever he really is — he’s not who you think he is.”

After class, Claire returned to her office, met with a few frantic students — the semester was almost over, and final exams were imminent — then checked her e-mail.

Unfortunately, the dean had only recently discovered e-mail and had started using it to send every notice, in addition to any stray thought that crossed his mind. He’d left several pointless memos. There were a couple of press queries — attempts to get to her through the back door — but she knew how to deal with them: complete and utter silence. No answer. And a long-winded, chatty message from a friend in Paris.

And a message whose return address she didn’t recognize, in Finland. It was addressed to Professor Chapman, which was strange, because almost everyone knew her as Professor Heller. She read it, then read it again, and her heart began to thud.

Dear Professor Chapman,

I am interested in having you represent me in a matter of great urgency and utmost personal concern. Although circumstances prevent me from meeting with you in person, I will be in touch directly soon. Telephone, including voice mail, insufficiently private. Please do not believe the incorrect impressions about my case that you may have been given. When we meet I will explain all.

Fondest regards to you and your offspring.

R. LENEHAN

R. Lenehan, she knew at once, referred to their favorite small restaurant in Boston’s South End, a place called Rose Lenehan’s, where they’d had their first date.

She clicked the reply icon and quickly typed out:

Very eager for meeting soonest.

9

In the middle of the night Claire sat up suddenly, drenched in sweat. Her heart racing, she walked around the darkened bedroom, the only illumination coming from a streetlight outside, until she found the drawer where they kept the family photos. The FBI search team had left it more or less alone. They were interested in more revealing, more immediate things — itineraries, travel times, flight numbers, that sort of thing.

There were countless pictures of Annie, album after album of photos from her birth to her last school picture. She had to be one of the most fully documented children in the history of the world. There was an album of pictures of herself, a bunch of baby pictures: Claire with Jackie, Jackie tagging along behind Claire and Claire looking aggrieved. A number of pictures of the family, Claire, Jackie, and their mother, who always seemed to look tired. A lot of pictures of Claire on a vacation in Wyoming with some college friends. Shots of her college graduation (she’d had a miserable outbreak of acne and had gained a lot of weight during spring semester senior year, and so never allowed herself to look at these pictures).

And Tom’s photos?

One baby picture, a small black-and-white with a scalloped border. It might have been any generic baby; it looked nothing like the adult Tom, but baby pictures often bear no resemblance to the adult.

And photos of him as a boy? None.

High school? Nothing.

College, too. Nothing.

There were no pictures of Tom except that one generic baby picture. No high-school yearbook with pages defaced by long goodbye notes in loopy handwriting from girls who had had unrequited crushes on Tom.

What kind of person had no pictures of himself growing up?