“Thank you,” I said. “I hope to justify your confidence.”
“I’m not asking for my daughter back,” she said. “All I want to do is bury her. Know where she is, so I can visit on Christmas and anniversaries. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for, does it?”
“No, ma’am. Thanks for your time.” I opened the car door.
“Can I have that back?” she said.
Pointing to the stack of report cards.
“Oh, sure. Sorry.”
“Anything you need a copy of, I can get you.*
I gave her hand a squeeze and left.
39
FIVE P.M. The psych building was nearly empty.
I spotted Gene Dalby from down the hall. Standing at his office door, keys in hand, his gawky frame limned by institutional fluorescence.
“Coming or going?” I said.
“Alex—hey, there. Going, as a matter of fact.”
“Could you spare a few moments?”
“Look at this,” he said. “I don’t see the guy for years and now he’s becoming a fixture.”
I didn’t speak. The look on my face murdered his smile.
“Something wrong, Alex?”
“Let’s go inside, Gene.”
“I really am in a hurry,” he said. “Things to see, people to do.”
“This is worth making time for.”
“Whoa, sounds ominous.”
I didn’t answer.
“Fine, fine,” he said, unlocking the door. His ring was full of keys, and the tremor in his hand made it peal like a wind chime.
He sat at his desk. I stayed on my feet.
“Let me lay it out for you,” I said. “On the one hand, I’d never have known about Shawna if you hadn’t mentioned her. So that’s a point in your favor—why would you open a can of worms? On the other hand, you lied to me. Pretended not to know her. ‘Some kind of campus beauty queen’ was the way you put it. ‘Shane something, or Shana … I don’t recall her exact name.’ But she was in your class. I just had a look at her transcript. Psych 10, Dalby, Monday Wednesday Friday three P.M. You taught Intro in addition to Social. The heavy teaching load you told me about.”
He ran his hand through his hair, raising spikes. “Oh, come on, you can’t be serious. Do you know how many kids are in a—”
“Twenty-eight,” I said. “I checked with the registrar. Your section was a last-minute add-on, for students who hadn’t gotten into the four scheduled sections. Twenty-eight kids, Gene. You’d remember each student. Especially a student that looked like Shawna—”
His giraffe neck corded. “This is horseshit, I don’t have to sit and listen to—”
“No, you don’t. But you might want to, because it’s not going to go away.”
His hands clawed the desk. He removed his glasses, repeated “Horse-shit.”
I said, “But you’re not kicking me out.”
Silence.
“So you lied, Gene, and I have to wonder why. Then, when I start adding up some things I’ve learned about Shawna, it gets really interesting. Such as the fact that she had a definite attraction to older men. Older, wealthy men—she was very clear about wanting the finer things in life. Ferraris. With your dot-corn income, you’d fit that bill. She also prized intelligence—what she called intellectuality. Once again, who better than you, Gene, to satisfy that criterion? Back in grad school you were tops in the class. Had a talent for thinking profound things out loud.”
“Alex—”
“Also,” I said, “I’ve seen pictures of her father. He died when she was four, so she really didn’t remember him. Probably idealized him. Did she ever show you his picture, Gene?”
He glared at me. Flushed. A pair of huge fists rolled along the desktop. Ripping off his glasses, he flung them at the wall. They thudded against his books and landed on the rug.
“Ineffectual,” he said. “Can’t do anything right.”
“Bob Yeager,” I said. “Six-four plus, red-blond hair, jug ears, a basketball star in high school—weren’t you a starting forward all the way through college?”
He buried his face in his hands. Muttered, “My glory days—”
“The resemblance is damn striking, Gene. He could have been your brother.”
He sat up. “I know damn well what he could’ve been. Yes, she showed me a goddamn picture. The first goddamn time she came in here during goddamn office hours. To talk about an exam. Allegedly. And she’s wearing this little black dress, sits down and it rides up. … I stick to the topic, she’s a bright kid. . . . Then she whips out this picture of her old man. Thought it was funny. I told her I wasn’t a Freudian— Alex, I didn’t do anything. Never seduced her, it’s not what you think, the whole thing was just a terrible— Oh, shit. You’re not going to believe me, are you?”