A Groom wirh a View

you.”
    Jane and Shelley made their departure. “Errol, we’ll be upstairs if anybody needs us. Get yourself something to eat,“ Jane said.
    They slipped quietly into Livvy’s room, searched as thoroughly as they could without messing anything up, but found nothing. Moving on to Mrs. Crossthwait’s room, it was the same story. It was just as they’d left it when they’d packed up her things and loaded them into her car.
    “We might as well try the attic while we’re up here,“ Jane said.
    “I’d rather eat,“ Shelley grumbled, but obediently followed along.
    The door was still unlocked from the last time they’d been up there. It was getting dark, however, and Jane tripped over the small rug lying just inside the room. She caught herself from falling and found a kerosene lamp to light. Holding it high, they both gazed around the room, which looked much more ominous and crowded at night.
    “Look! There it is!“ Jane exclaimed, crawling over a box of petrified fishing reels.
    She hauled out the small suitcase and set the lamp on the floor. Shelley helped clear a free space in the middle of the room and they sat down to examine the contents. There were a couple sweaters sandwiching a scrapbook.
    Sloppily etched on the cover in gold ink was the name Dwayne Hessling.
    Jane shivered. “I already don’t like this.”
    “It is creepy,“ Shelley said.
    They flipped the first few pages quickly, then went back and studied them more carefully. Every page featured Dwayne. Pictures cut from school yearbooks, high school newsletters. A newspaper clipping about Dwayne being part of an amateur baseball team.
    Other pictures showed him walking along the street (Captioned: Dwayne on his way to work). Lounging on a beach someplace. Waving to someone off to his left from a boat (A party in Evanston). Getting into his car (Dwayne leaving my apartment). Shoveling snow off a driveway with a couple other young men. Opening the door of a shop.
    Shelley was frowning. “These last shots are all weird somehow. What is it about them?“
    “None of these pictures are posed,“ Jane said, staring at Shelley. “He isn’t looking into the camera in any of them.”
    Shelley nodded solemnly. “He didn’t know they were being taken.”
    They huddled a little closer and looked at the third to the last page. It was a photo of Dwayne and Kitty standing next to each other. But the backgrounds didn’t match. It was a composite of two pictures that had been cut and carefully fitted together.
    It was captioned, Dwayne and me on our first date.
    The second to last page had a marriage license application form. Kitty’s part had been filled out and signed by her. Dwayne’s part was also completed, but his signature was in the same ink and handwriting as Kitty’s.
    And on the last page, a cigarette butt had been glued to the page. The caption read, The cigarette Dwayne smoked after the first time we made love.
    Shelley shuddered. “That’s revolting. “Jane frowned. “And it’s not true.“
    “How on earth would you know?“ Shelley asked, laughing nervously.
    “Because one of the few times Livvy and I had a planning meeting, I asked her about smoking. Whether I should have ashtrays out at the lodge. She said it didn’t matter, even though neither of them smoked, and went on to say that Dwayne was about the only person she’d ever known who’d never even tried smoking because he’d made some kind of deathbed promise to his grandfather.“
    “But Dwayne was a con man. I wouldn’t believe anything he said.“
    “You’re right about that. But Shelley, look at this book. It’s sick. It’s something like demented fans of famous people put together and then go shoot their idols. She followed him around, taking pictures of him when he didn’t know it. All these pictures were taken where there were several or many other people around and he wouldn’t notice her lurking in the area with a camera.“
    “She was stalking him,“ Shelley said. “She made up the whole fantasy and convinced herself it was true. Until she actually saw and heard him marry Livvy. The fantasy dissolved, if only for the moment it took to stab him. And... ! And that’s why she trashed Dwayne’s room. The fantasy was under severe duress. It was crumbling. It was her warning to him.“
    “We have to take this to Mel,“ Jane said.
    “In a second. Jane, how could this have anything to do with Mrs. Crossthwait? Surely there aren’t two people here