How they fit in

We're walking through the aisles of bookcases and metal shelves piled with things unwanted by one and hopefully purchased by someone else. There are computer keyboards, shoes, frames, coffee mugs, board games, jean jackets in every size and degree of fading, work shirts, boots, chairs, buttons, political signs, posters, albums, and all other sorts of stuff packed into the rooms of the Texas Junk Company. Including, oddly, loose personal photographs of families, children, a house, lives. I pick up a photo from a stack of books. It's of two young boys sitting beside each other and smiling into the camera, a Sears-type posing.

Odd. I wonder who would buy something like that.

She answers immediately: Murderers would.

What?

You know, it's all part of their routine, how they fit in. They buy photos like that, and put them in frames in their house so that people will think it's their family.

Putting the photo back in its place and moving on, I look back at her and say, I don't think they go to that much trouble.

Well, some probably just buy the frames and leave the picture that comes in the frame.

No, I really don't think they go to that much trouble.

Well, I don't know any but I think that's what they do.

When we got into the car, I was still laughing, and I promised her that her little theory would end up here. She's a smart girl, graduated from Carnegie Melon and went on to get her Masters Degree in Environmental Science from UT. But now I think that she has perhaps watched the Robin Williams movie, One Hour Photo, one too many times.