Six Years

“Logan Airport,” I said.

“Nice trip?”

“Delightful. You said we needed to talk.”

“In person. Come straight to my office from the airport.”

“I’m not welcome on campus,” I said.

“Oh, right, I forgot for a second. Judie’s again? Be there in an hour.”

Shanta was sitting at the corner table when I arrived. She had a drink in front of her. The drink was bright pink and had a pineapple on top. I pointed at it.

“All you’re missing is a little umbrella,” I said.

“What, you figured me as more a scotch-and-soda girl?”

“Minus the soda.”

“Sorry. With me, the fruitier the drink, the better.”

I slid into the chair across from her. Shanta picked up the drink and took a sip from the straw.

“I heard you were involved in a student attack,” she said.

“Are you working for President Tripp now?”

She frowned over her fruity drink. “What happened?”

I told her the whole story—Bob and Otto, the van, the self-defense killing, the escape from the van, the roll down the hill. Her expression didn’t change, but I could see the wheels moving behind her eyes.

“You told the police this?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?”

“I was pretty drunk. They seem to think I fabricated the bit about being kidnapped and killing a guy.”

She looked at me as though I were perhaps the biggest fool ever to inhabit this planet. “Did you really tell the police that part?”

“At first. Then Benedict reminded me that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to admit to killing a man, even if it was in self-defense.”

“You get your legal advice from Benedict?”

I shrugged. Once again I thought about keeping my mouth shut. I had been warned, hadn’t I? There was also the promise. Shanta sat back and sipped her drink. The waitress came over and asked what I wanted. I pointed at the fruity drink and indicated that I wanted a “virgin” one of those too. I don’t know why. I hate fruity drinks.

“What did you really learn about Natalie?” I asked.

“I told you.”

“Right, nothing, zippo, zilch. So why did you want to see me?”

The portobello sandwich came for her, the turkey BLT on rye for me. “I took the liberty of ordering for you,” she said.

I didn’t touch the sandwich.

“What’s going on, Shanta?”

“That’s what I want to know. How did you meet Natalie?”

“What difference does that make?”

“Humor me.”

Once again she was asking all the questions, and I was giving all the answers. I told her how we met at the retreats in Vermont six years ago.

“What did she tell you about her father?”

“Just that he was dead.”

Shanta kept her eyes on mine. “Nothing else?”

“Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know”—she took a deep sip and shrugged theatrically—“that he used to be a professor here.”

My eyes widened. “Her father?”

“Yep.”

“Her father was a professor at Lanford?”

“No, at Judie’s Restaurant,” Shanta said with an eye roll. “Of course at Lanford.”

I was still trying to clear my head. “When?”

“He started about thirty years ago. He taught here for seven years. In the political science department.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Yes, that’s why I called you here. Because I’m such a top-notch kidder.”

I did the math. Natalie would have been very young when her father started teaching here—and still a kid when he left. Maybe she didn’t remember being here. Maybe that was why she didn’t say anything. But wouldn’t Natalie have at least known about it? Wouldn’t she have said, “Hey, my father taught here too. Same department as you.”

I thought about how she came to campus with those sunglasses and hat on, how she wanted to see so much of it, how she had grown pensive during the walks on the commons.

“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I asked out loud.

“I don’t know.”

“Was he fired? Where did they go afterward?”

She shrugged. “A better question might be, why did Natalie’s mom start using her maiden name?”

“What?”

“Her father’s name was Aaron Kleiner. Natalie’s mother’s maiden name was Avery. She changed it back. And she changed Natalie and Julie’s name to her maiden name too.”

“Wait, when did her father die?”

“So Natalie never told you?”

“I just got the impression it was a long time ago. Maybe that’s it. Maybe he died and that’s why they left campus.”

Shanta smiled. “I don’t think so, Jake.”

“Why?”

“Because here’s where it gets really interesting. Here’s where Daddy is just like his little girl.”

I said nothing.

“There is no report he ever died.”

I swallowed. “So where is he?”

“Like father, like daughter, Jake.”

“What the hell does that mean?” But maybe I already knew.

“I looked into where Professor Aaron Kleiner is now,” Shanta said. “Guess what I found?”

I waited.

“That’s right—zippo, nada, zilch, nothing. Since he left Lanford a quarter century ago, there has been absolutely no sign of Professor Aaron Kleiner.”

Chapter 19

I found old yearbooks in the school library.

They were in the basement. The books smelled of mold. The glossy pages stuck together as I tried to flip through them. But there he was. Professor Aaron Kleiner. The picture was fairly unremarkable. He was a nice-enough-looking man with the usual posed smile, aiming for happiness but landing somewhere closer to awkward. I stared at his face to see if I could spot any resemblance to Natalie. There might have been. Hard to say. The mind can play tricks, as we all know.

We have a tendency to see what we want to see.

I stared at his face as though it would give me some kind of answer. It didn’t. I checked through the other yearbooks. There was nothing more to learn. I scanned through the political science pages and stopped at a group picture taken in front of Clark House. All of the professors and support staff were there. Professor Kleiner stood right next to department chair Malcolm Hume. The smiles in this photograph were more relaxed, more natural. Mrs. Dinsmore still looked to be about a hundred years old.