that row from Portsmouth to Smuttynose would have been brutal. He’d have had to row almost thirty miles in the dark. And it was the first week in March.”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” says Rich. “I couldn’t do it. I’m not even sure I could do it on a flat surface.”
“Also, I’ve read parts of the trial transcript,” I say, “and I can’t figure out why the prosecution didn’t do a better job. Maren Hontvedt’s clothes were blood-soaked, but the defense didn’t really pursue this. And the coroner was very careless with the murder weapon — they let the sea spray wash off all the fingerprints and blood on the journey back to Portsmouth.”
“Surely, they had fingerprinting techniques then,” says Rich.
“On the other hand,” I say, “Wagner seems to have no alibi for that night, and the next morning he’s reported to have told people he committed murder.”
“Jean doesn’t always get to pick her assignments,” Thomas says. He sounds apologetic.
“A crime of passion,” says Rich.
“A crime of passion?” Adaline narrows her eyes. “In the end, a crime of passion is just sordid, isn’t it? At heart. We think a crime of passion has a morality all its own — people have thought so for years. History is full of judgments that forgive crimes of passion. But it doesn’t have a morality, not really. It’s pure selfishness. Simply having what you want.”
“I think it’s the knife that makes it seem like a crime of passion,” says Thomas. “It was a knife, wasn’t it?”
“An ax.”
“Same thing. It’s the intimacy. With a gun, you can kill a person at a distance. But with a knife, you have to touch the victim — more than touch. Manhandle. Subdue. It would seem to require, at least for the several seconds it takes to complete the deed, a sustained frenzy or passion.”
“Or a lucrative contract,” says Rich.
“But even then,” argues Thomas, “there would have to be something in the act — the handling of the victim, the feel of the knife against the flesh — that attracted the killer to that particular method.”
“Thomas,” I say, nodding at Billie.
“Mommy, take a picture of the pancakes,” she says. “Before they’re all gone?”
I reach behind me into my camera bag and bring out the Polaroid. I shoot the platter with the pancakes that are left, and then rip the film out and give it to Billie to hold. She’s a pro at this, and holds the corner casually.
“The Masai,” I say idly, “believe that if you take a photograph of a person, you have stolen his soul. You have to pay them for the picture.”
“The soul is for sale then?” asks Adaline.
“Oh, I think the Masai are shrewder than that.”
“See, Adaline? Look!” Billie stands on the bench to hand Ada-line the Polaroid. As she does, she cracks her head on the sharp corner of an overhanging cabinet. The color leaves Billie’s face, and her mouth falls open, but I can see that in this company my daughter is determined not to cry.
I reach over and fold her into me. The photograph flutters onto the table. She presses her face into my chest, and I feel her breath through the opening of my robe. Adaline picks up the Polaroid. “Lovely picture, Billie,” she says.
I kiss Billie’s forehead, and she pulls away from me, turning in her seat, trying bravely to smile. Adaline hands the picture to Billie.
“Very game,” says Adaline to me.
“Thanks.” I envy you.
I look quickly up at her and catch her eyes. Does she mean Billie? Or does she mean having my daughter with me? Or does she mean Billie and Thomas — the whole package?
“Sometimes I imagine I have caught a likeness of a person’s soul,” I say carefully. “Occasionally, you can see it. Or what you imagine is the true character of that person. But of course, it’s only a likeness, and that likeness is only an image, on the paper.”
“But you can fool with images,” she says. “Didn’t I read that somewhere? Can’t you change the image?”
“You can now,” I say. “You can do it almost flawlessly with computers.”
“So you could, theoretically, create another character, another soul.”
“This is assuming that you believed the camera could capture the soul in the first place,” I say.
“This is assuming that you believed in the soul at all,” says Thomas. “That what you saw was not simply an arrangement of organic particles.”
“But surely you believe in the soul,” Adaline says quickly, almost defensively. “You of all people.”