My discouragement increased when I suddenly realized how many places had been named after saints. More thumbtacks got added to the map. I soon didn’t have any more.
14
“How does a person create a false identity?”
Payne considered my question while tapping fish food into the tank. His chair creaked when he settled his weight into it. “The way it used to be done, first you pick a city where you’ve never lived.”
“Why?”
“To prevent your real identity and your assumed one from contaminating each other. If you were raised in Cleveland, you don’t want the character you’re creating to have come from there, too. Otherwise, someone investigating your new identity might go there, show your photograph around, and find someone who remembers you under your real name.”
I nodded.
“So you go to a different part of the country. But avoid small communities where everybody knows everybody else and can tell an investigator immediately whether someone who looks like you ever came from there. Pick a city; there’s less continuity; memories are shorter. Let’s say you choose Los Angeles or Seattle. Go to the public library there and read newspapers that came out a few years after you were born. You’re looking for disasters— house fires, car accidents, that sort of thing—in which entire families were killed. That detail’s important because you don’t want anyone left alive to be able to contradict your story. Study the obituaries of the victims. You’re looking for an ethnically compatible male child who, if he had lived, would be the same age you are now.”
“And then?”
“Let’s say the victim you choose to impersonate was named Robert Keegan. His obituary will probably tell you where he was born. You send away for a copy of his birth certificate. Not a big deal. People lose copies of their birth certificates all the time. Public—record offices are used to that kind of request.”
“But …” I frowned. “If Robert Keegan died, won’t there be a note about it on his birth certificate, some kind of cross—reference?”
“Not in the days before computers became an essential part of our society,” Payne said. “The year that you were born, information wasn’t exchanged efficiently. The authorities would send you the copy of Robert Keegan’s birth certificate without giving it another thought. Wait a while so that a further inquiry about Robert Keegan won’t attract attention. Then contact the hall of records for a copy of Robert Keegan’s death certificate. The reason I mentioned Los Angeles and Seattle earlier is that the states of California and Washington put Social Security numbers on their death certificates. Many parents apply to get a Social Security number for their children while they’re filling out birth certificate forms in the hospital, so the odds are Keegan had one, even though he died young. With his birth certificate and his Social Security number, you can get a driver’s license, a passport, and any other major identification that you need. You can get a job, pay taxes, and open a bank account. In short, you can assume his identity.” Payne gave me a long look. “But we’re not talking about you.”
“No, we’re talking about my brother. If Lester Dant were dead, could Petey have assumed his identity the way you just explained?”
Payne kept studying me. “Before your brother was first arrested, photographed, fingerprinted, and booked as Lester Dant? Theoretically.”
“Then I’m not crazy.” I let out a long breath. “Petey and Dant could be the same person. Dant could be Petey’s alias.”
“But it didn’t happen,” Payne said.
“What?”
“Your brother didn’t assume Lester Dant’s identity.”
“How can you be so damned sure?”
“Because earlier this morning, I paid a visit to Gader. We knew each other when I was with the Bureau. For old times’ sake, I asked to be allowed to review Dant’s file.”
I felt uneasy about what Payne was leading up to.
“The file was very revealing,” Payne said. “You were so insistent that your brother and Dant were the same man, Gader had Dant’s background double—checked. There’s no death certificate anywhere. Moreover, Dant didn’t even apply for a Social Security number until he was a teenager. The signature on the application is consistent with the signatures Dant had to give at the various times he was arrested. Dant and your brother are two different people.”
“No.”
“It’s the truth,” Payne said.
“That means my wife and son are dead!”
“Not necessarily. Without evidence to the contrary, there’s always a reason to hope.”
“Without their corpses, you mean.”
Payne didn’t reply for a moment. “I’m sorry, Mr. Denning.”
I stared toward the fish tank. “You didn’t see the look in Petey’s eyes when he told me about the goldfish that he and I had buried in the backyard and how the neighbor’s cat dug it up. He didn’t say it as if he were remembering something he’d heard. His eyes had the clarity of someone who’d been there. That was Petey talking to me.”
“Perhaps. But I haven’t the faintest idea how you can prove it.”
“I will.” I stood. “Believe me, somehow I will.”
“Before you go, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
I stopped at the doorway and looked back at him.
“From my years with the Bureau, my nose is sensitive to the smell of cordite. That smell is on my right hand from when we shook hands when you came in. Have you been using firearms, Mr. Denning?”
15
“Ready on the firing line!” the female instructor barked.
We straightened.
“Ready on the right!”
We checked in that direction.
“Ready on the left!”
Through safety glasses, we checked in that direction, making sure that nobody was doing anything careless.
“One,” the instructor yelled, “grip your holstered weapon! Two, draw and aim from the waist! Three, raise your weapon to your line of sight! Four, press the trigger!”
Eight almost—simultaneous shots filled the long, narrow indoor shooting range. They echoed off the concrete walls, my protective earphones making the reports sound oddly distant.
Although the instructor was directly behind me, she too sounded muffled. “Aim to the right of the target! To the left!”
We obeyed, not firing, but checking for other targets, which she’d warned could pop up at any time.
“Weapon to your waist! Secure it!”
As one, the eight of us completed the sequence and took our hands from our holstered firearms.
The range became silent.
“Not bad,” she said. “Let’s see if anybody hit anything.”
Each of us stood in a slot, with a ledge in front for ammunition and spare magazines. A button to the left engaged a motorized pulley that brought in the targets.
The instructor studied the results. “Okay. Nobody hit the bull’s—eye, but I don’t expect you to at this point. At least none of you missed the target completely. Denning, you hit closest, but you’re still a little high and to the left. Practice more dry—firing at home. Stop twisting your wrist when you press the trigger.”
She went on to correct the other students. We put masking tape over the holes in our targets, touched a button that returned the targets to the end of the gallery, and straightened when she shouted, “Ready on the firing line!”
16
I went to a fitness center every day. I’d never been in top physical condition, but since Petey had taken Kate and Jason, I’d fallen apart. A junk—food diet in combination with too much alcohol and no activity had caused me to put on twenty pounds. No longer. I hired a trainer. Knowing that I had to start slowly, I was nonetheless impatient to get on with it. I progressed from thirty to sixty minutes a day on the machines. I started jogging, at first at the center’s indoor track and then outside in the cold. One mile. Two. Five. I lost the weight I’d put on. Fat became muscle.
I took self—defense classes. Angle. Force. Mass. Architect’s language. I no longer pretended to try to work. As far as I was concerned, I had only one job, so I disbanded my company, giving my employees a generous severance package. When I wasn’t preparing myself by shooting and physical training, I spent my time searching the Internet, using other Web addresses that Payne had given me.
In my former life, I’d always been too busy to explore the Internet. Now I was amazed at how much information I could obtain, provided that, thanks to Payne, I knew where to look. I found Lester Dant’s birth information, which was exactly as the FBI had indicated: He’d definitely been born in Brockton, Indiana, on April 24, a year before Petey had been born. I searched the databases for every state in the union but couldn’t find corresponding death information about Lester Dant. Without proof that Petey had assumed Dant’s identity, I grudgingly tested the FBI’s theory that Dant had assumed Petey’s identity, but no matter how far I spread my search, I couldn’t find any proof that Petey had died, and, if he had, whether he’d been murdered.
Thanksgiving (the holiday’s name made me bitter) had passed. Kate’s parents had asked me to spend it with them. I’d refused, hardly in a social mood. But then I’d thought that they were as desolate as I was and we might as well try to console one another. The three of us drank some wine and watched football in the kitchen while we made the dinner, but I never managed a holiday spirit, constantly worrying that the Denver police or Gader and Payne had mislaid the phone number I’d given them in case Kate and Jason were found while I was away.
For Christmas, Kate’s parents came to visit. But as soon as I saw Kate’s father, I wished that I’d saved them the trouble and gone to them. I could barely conceal my dismay at how this once tall, robust man had been so stooped by his heart condition, aggravated by worry. As hard as we tried to be festive, we kept remembering former, better Christmases, like when I’d been dating Kate in college and I’d realized I was making progress when she’d invited me to spend Christmas with her and her parents.
Of the many difficult things about the season, choosing the tree had been especially hard for me because Kate and Jason had always joined me—a big family event. As soon as we’d gotten home with it, we’d always begun putting on the decorations, often not finishing until after dark. This time, every bulb that I’d put on the tree racked me with greater loss. Normally, there’d have been plenty of presents under the tree, but this year, Kate’s parents and I had agreed not to exchange gifts. After all, there was only one thing we wanted, and it couldn’t be put under a tree. As usual, Kate’s mother made eggnog. It was as delicious as every other year, but I could hardly get it down. A few days later, they went back to Durango. Kate’s father felt so poorly that her mother had to drive.
Phil Barrow invited me next door for a New Year’s Eve party. I did my best to be sociable, but for me, the holiday was a wake. I went home an hour before the countdown at midnight. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember what Kate and Jason sounded like.
Spring came.
May.
June.
They’d been gone a year.
17
“I’m leaving town,” I told Payne.
“Yes, sometimes it’s a good idea to get away from bad memories,” he said.
“I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind if I had my mail forwarded to you.”
“Sure,” Payne said. “No problem.”
“I’ve asked the police and the FBI to leave messages with you in case they learn something new.”
Payne nodded. “I’ll phone you the second I hear anything. Just give me the number where you’ll be and—”
“At the moment, that’s a little uncertain. I’ll have to phone you.”
“You don’t know where you’re going?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you don’t just board a plane without having a reservation to someplace.”
“I’m not going on a plane. I thought I’d simply get in my car and drive. See the country. Go wherever the roads take me.”
Payne’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you kidding?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Go wherever the roads take you? Give me a break. You’re up to something. What is it?”
“I told you. I just need to get away.”
“You worry me.”
I avoided his gaze and looked at the fish tank.
“Don’t tell me—you’re going out there to try to find him,” Payne said.
I kept looking at the fish tank.
“How the hell do you figure to do it?” Payne demanded. “It’s impossible. You don’t have a chance.”
At last, I looked back at him. “I’ve done everything else I can think of.”
“Without any leads? It’s for damn sure you’ll be going where the roads take you. All you’ll do is wander.”
“But I do have leads,” I insisted.
Payne leaned his ample body forward. “Tell me.”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Give it a try.”
“Petey wanted to take my place.”
“And?” Payne looked baffled.
“Now I’m going to do it in the reverse. I’m going to take Petey’s place.”
“What?”
“I’m going to put myself in his mind. I’m going to think like him. I’m going to become him.”
“Jesus,” Payne whispered.
“After all, we’re brothers.”
“Mr. Denning …”
“Yes?”
“I’m as sorry for you as it’s possible to be. God help you.”
Part Three
1
Put myself in Petey’s mind? Think like him? It was desperation, yes, but what was the alternative? At least it would be motion. It would keep me from losing my own mind.
I went to the street where Petey had first approached me outside my office— or what had used to be my office. The time was shortly after 2:00 P.M., as it had been exactly a year earlier. Petey had shouted my name from behind me, which meant that he’d been waiting to the left of the building’s revolving door. I walked to a large concrete flower planter, where I guessed that he’d been resting his hips. I studied the front door, trying to put myself in his place. Why hadn’t he gone into my office? As I leaned against the planter, feeling invisible to the passing crowd, I understood why he’d done it the way he had. In my office, he’d have been under my control, whereas on the sidewalk, yelling my name from behind me, he was in charge.
I recalled our initial conversation, this time from his perspective as he told me things that only my brother could have known, seeing my amazement, winning me over. I went to the delicatessen across the street, where our conversation had continued. I sat where he had sat. I imagined myself from his perspective as he continued to persuade me that my long—lost brother had finally returned. I went home and pretended to be him coming into my house, looking around, seeing all my possessions, the things that he’d never been able to have. Was it at this point that his plan had formed? I deserve this, not you, he would have thought. Picking up this and that object, he would have worked hard to conceal his anger. You ruined my life, and this is what you got for it, you bastard.
Kate would have been easy to look at: her long legs, her inviting waist. But what about Jason? What would Petey really have thought of him? A damned nuisance. Petey’s background didn’t leave room for paternal instinct. But Jason was part of what Petey would’ve had if I hadn’t destroyed his life by sending him home from the baseball game. Jason went with the package, with the attractive wife and the big house, so Petey wanted him. Petey wanted everything that I had.
I recalled the dinner that Petey had eaten with us and how polite he’d been, helping to clean the dishes. Later, he’d played catch with Jason. He must have hated every second of it, just as he’d hated pretending to enjoy reminiscing about our childhood before I ruined his life. But the worst moment of all, the most hateful for him,
would have been when I’d brought him the baseball glove that he’d dropped when the man and woman had grabbed him. He must have wanted to shove the damned glove down my throat.
I went to Petey’s room. I lay on his bed. I stared up at the ceiling and discovered that I’d picked up the baseball glove and was slamming my fist into it again and again. He would have wanted a smoke, but he wouldn’t have ruined his plan by lighting up in the house and annoying Kate. So he’d crept downstairs, through the French doors off the kitchen, into the moonlit backyard, where he’d sat angrily on a lounge chair and lit a cigarette. I remembered looking from our bedroom window and seeing him down there. I imagined him pretending not to notice when my face appeared. I put myself in his mind. What are you doing up there? he’d have thought. Screwing the wife, are you, bro? Enjoy it while you can. It’ll soon be my turn.
2
The next morning, I went to the barbershop where I’d taken him. I sat in the chair, feeling the scissors against my head, imagining that he’d festered from the insult that I thought he looked like shit and I was going to make him presentable. Then I went to the Banana Republic where I’d bought him new clothes. Then the shoe store. Then the dentist, where I’d made him feel self—conscious about his chipped tooth, reinforcing his sense that I thought he looked like shit.
When I walked into the dentist’s office, the receptionist glanced up in surprise. “We weren’t expecting you today, Mr. Denning. We’re just about to close for lunch. Is this an emergency?”
“No.” Confused, I realized that I’d almost tricked myself into believing that I could truly repeat the pattern from a year ago. “I must have gotten my days mixed up. Sorry to have bothered you.”
As I reached unsteadily for the doorknob, I remembered waiting in the reception area while Petey had gone in to have his teeth cleaned and the chip in his tooth smoothed away. I tried to project myself into Petey, to imagine him sitting angrily in the dentist’s chair. Since he hadn’t been to a dentist in years, he would have been nervous, tensing a little as the dentist came at him with …