Page 133 of The Woman By the Lake

“From what I could tell, this was the same with Roosevelt and Lincoln. But it was the way in which they were brought up that Roosevelt became the dominant of the two.”

“What does that mean?” Riggs asked.

“It means, he was a clear favorite of their parents. It’s like the Carpenters’ experience.”

Now, he’d lost me.

Fortunately, he kept talking.

“The Carpenter family thought Richard was the prodigy. As such, the entirety of that family shifted all their attention to Richard. When it emerged that it was Karen who had the singular talent, they couldn’t adjust.”

Oh.

He was talking about the Carpenters musical group, fronted by Karen’s extraordinary voice, backed by Richard’s not-as-extraordinary, but still skillful talent at a keyboard.

I was again following him.

“This caused some dysfunction with that family, but with Roosevelt and Lincoln, Roosevelt actually was the prodigy. As twins, and this is a guess, Roosevelt couldn’t abide being singled out as a favorite because he had the double issue of feeling that awkwardness, at the same time, feeling his brother’s pain at not being the same. And just to say, that’s vice versa for Lincoln. My further guess is, this was the primary reason Roosevelt left home in Seattle as soon as he could and came to MP to forge his own path. It was also why he looked after his brother in the many ways he did, along with shaping the man he became, solitary, except for the bond with his brother, and not big on attention.”

Again, this tracked.

Delphine came in with four coffee mugs hooked precariously in her fingers, and seeing this, Cade got up immediately to help her dole them out.

Once we had our mugs, she sat on the side of his desk next to where he sat in his chair, and he idly wrapped his fingers around her thigh.

Man, they were cute together.

Cade went back to it.

“I’ll share this is entirely theoretical, but with the way Roosevelt and Lincoln grew up, and Roosevelt’s protectiveness of his brother, I think this formed an unusual bond. Particularly when Sarah came into their lives.”

Now we were getting to the good stuff.

Cade kept going.

“In their depositions, the Whitaker parents reported that Roosevelt always had a thing for writing. And they had evidence to that effect. The guy started writing essays and short stories when he was thirteen and had finished his first book by seventeen. This is an explanation why they got published so young. He’d already spent years honing his craft.”

I hadn’t thought about how young he had to have been to have that many books published by the time he died, but he’d only been forty-three when that happened.

So that was astonishing.

Cade continued, “In depositions taken from the different editors the men had, it was shared, on the first three books, they definitely worked together. Roosevelt plotted and wrote the action-driven narrative. Lincoln was responsible for the snappy dialogue and interpersonal relationships. However, two things happened. One, the series became popular for its action, not its relationships. And two, Roosevelt learned as he went along how to cover the things Lincoln did. Future books were more action focused, and the editors said that Lincoln contributed very little to all of them, except to do a final pass-through after Roosevelt wrote the book, making tweaks. From book four onward, he acted as more of an editor, not a writer.”

Riggs and I looked at each other because we’d already heard word of this, though it was fascinating to have it confirmed.

Cade carried on speaking.

“Sarah arrives on the scene, and in her parents’ deposition, everything that has anything to do with the brothers and Sarah, they refer to the brothers in plural. She met them. She became involved with them. The sister reported that Sarah actually met Roosevelt first, but he quickly introduced her to his brother.”

“Is that significant?” I asked, thinking that they were twins, so it wouldn’t be.

“It is, if my theory is correct, and Sarah and Lincoln had an open marriage, with the third member of that situation being Roosevelt,” Cade answered.

“Fuck,” Riggs grunted.

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

“Oh yeah,” Delphine murmured before taking a sip of coffee.

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