Paul wandered off to the kitchen. ‘CNN reported that there was a spontaneous candlelight vigil for Meredith and the other victim on the steps of the Capitol last night.’
‘I saw some video clips this morning,’ I called after him. ‘I wonder what Lynx News has to say. Meredith Logan was one of theirs, after all.’ I aimed the remote and switched the channel.
On Lynx, John Chandler was reporting. Either his regular make-up person was on vacation, or something was getting to him. Meredith’s murder? Me? Something had deepened the railroad tracks that ran across his forehead, the creases on either side of his nose, darkened the shadows under his eyes. As I watched him talk, I found myself trying his face on against the few pictures I had of Zan.
Recently, I’d been doing a lot of mental Photoshopping with men of a certain age. Dying their hair, styling it differently, moving their parting from the right to the left and vice versa. I’d drawn a full head of hair on James Carville, given Bill O’Riley eyeglasses and a beard, taken fifty pounds off Rush Limbaugh. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t exempt. Clinton’s hair was right, but I decided his nose was too big to be Zan’s. You never know, though. The former president did get around.
Nothing was happening on the TV, so I decided to go high-tech. Carrying the few photographs I had of Zan, I trotted downstairs to Paul’s office and powered up the scanner. While it was digesting the photographs of Zan, I went online to Google, selected Images, and downloaded several full-face publicity shots of John Chandler.
Finally, I imported the images into iPhoto and clicked on ‘Faces,’ bringing up Apple’s face recognition software, an iLife application I’d never gotten around to using. I informed the software that the guy standing on the church steps was Zan, then sat back to watch as the software suggested matches.
A picture of Paul. Not Zan, I clicked.
A picture of Dante. Not Zan either.
A photo of me, mugging it up for Halloween. Definitely not Zan.
I turned the tables, telling the software that John Chandler was John and asking it to find more faces that looked like John. It suggested Paul (but not Dante), a stranger we’d photographed while hiking the Appalachian trail, and the assistant priest at St Katherine’s Episcopal Church, but never once hit on Zan.
Google’s Picasa gave me similar results, helpfully picking out faces in the background, like photographs on people’s desks, and objects in the background – an unlaced tennis shoe? – and inquiring if they were Zan.
‘What are you doing?’ Paul asked, coming up behind me with a half-eaten apple in his hand.
‘Face recognition software,’ I said. ‘The low-tech version, apparently.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No.’
‘It always seems to work on TV,’ Paul said, chewing thoughtfully. ‘Chica, chica, chica, chica, ding! A match! Pull that guy away from the blackjack table and kick him out of the casino!’
‘The photos I have of Zan are too low-resolution to be of any practical use,’ I complained. ‘And the software seems to gag on facial hair or sunglasses. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it picked out that picture I took of a buffalo in Yellowstone Park and asked, “Is this Zan?”’
Paul squeezed my shoulder. ‘I’m fixing some sandwiches, do you want one?’
I turned off the computer and gathered up my things, feeling discouraged. ‘You go ahead, hon. I’m not particularly hungry.’
‘OK, but if you change your mind, I’ll be in the kitchen.’
Back upstairs, I sulked in front of the television. Chandler was interviewing a woman who’d been Photoshopped to the max. She’d had so much plastic surgery that nothing moved when she talked except her mouth, not even her hair. I stared at the screen in morbid fascination, watching for something – anything – to shift on the smooth, flat expanse of her countenance. I failed, but was so caught up in the effort that I could only partially focus on what she had to say about self-defense tactics for women.
And Your Point Is? devoted the last twenty minutes to coverage of Meredith Logan’s vigil, including Chandler’s interview with Meredith’s grieving parents via satellite from Lawrence, Kansas. Photographs of the slain woman slid on and off the screen, interspersed with quotes from her Facebook page, and clips from YouTube videos of Meredith in happier times, some of them clearly shot on the campus of Bryn Mawr. The dead woman was the same age as Emily and my daughter’s friend. Just thinking about it made my stomach roil.
Chandler ended his program by announcing a survey. Did we think the DC police were handling the investigation properly? John Chandler wanted – no, begged - for my vote.
I flipped the television off in disgust. Would it help the unfortunate victims to know that, say, seventy-six percent of the people watching Lynx News that afternoon – the ones who managed to drag their fat, conservative asses out of their chairs long enough to dial an 800-number, that is – thought the DC police were incompetent?
‘Sometimes I think they just make the news up,’ I sputtered, when Paul rejoined me carrying his sandwich. ‘They’re so biased that they don’t even try to be subtle about it.’
He sat down on the arm of the sofa nearest my feet. ‘Why do you bother to watch, then, if it makes you so mad?’
I shrugged. ‘To keep my blood pressure up?’
‘That’s my Hannah! Remember when Chandler was interviewing that conservative bishop from Pittsburgh, the one who made all the derogatory remarks about the Archbishop of Canterbury and that gay bishop, Gene Robinson?’ Paul took a bite of his sandwich.
‘Robert Duncan?’
‘That’s the guy.’
‘I can’t even stand to look at him. Those big round glasses. Fleshy face. Goofy grin. When Chandler deferred to him and kept calling him “Archbishop Bob,” I nearly barfed. Duncan’s been deposed, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Now Duncan’s aligned himself with the Anglican Church in Kenya,’ I continued. ‘Will you kindly tell me what an Archbishop in Africa has in common with an Episcopal church in Plano, Texas?’
Paul licked mayonnaise off his fingers. ‘I think you’re being a little hard on Chandler, Hannah. He’s fair enough, I think. At least he doesn’t finish his guest’s sentences for them, or goad them into yelling at one another like brawling drunks.’
‘Oh, I agree. He’s polite and Catholic to the core. Yes Father, no Father, let me kiss your ring, Father.’
‘Since when do you have a problem with Catholics?’
‘I don’t! But Chandler’s right up there with Pope Benedict on keeping the ban against allowing priests to marry. Mother Church better wake up, in my opinion, or pretty soon every Catholic priest in the United States will come from South America. Or, he’ll be a disgruntled Anglican who left the Episcopal Church because he objected to either women and/or gay and lesbian people in the priesthood. In that case, it’s OK if you’re already married. Pope Benedict said so.’
Paul opened his mouth to put in his two cents’ worth, but was interrupted by the telephone. I raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe that’s Hoffner!’
Paul answered, listened for a second, gave me a thumbs up, then handed the phone to me.
‘Hannah Ives?’ the caller said.
‘Yes. James Hoffner, I presume.’
Hoffner cleared his throat. ‘I represent a client who tells me that you have some papers that belong to him.’
‘Who might that be?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say.’
‘Then, I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you whether I have any papers that belong to your client or not.’
‘Mrs Ives. These papers are treasured family items. Old letters and photographs. My client would like to have them back.’
‘How do I know that these letters and photographs actually belong to your client?’ I asked. ‘How do I know he didn’t find them on the street? For that matter, how do I know they aren’t stolen?’