There were scratches on the brass plate of the lock. He didn’t remember having seen them before. He shut the door. It closed fine. Then he flipped the deadbolt lock. It just turned freely and then spun back without locking. Kane tried again. The same thing happened. He flipped it several times in a row. Each time the lock sprung back to the open position. Kane was convinced then that someone had busted his lock. But why wasn’t anything missing? The only thing Kane was certain of now was that with the lock on his door useless, all hope of getting a much-needed good night’s sleep was long gone.
It took Kane a while to even begin to calm down. He’d never felt such a violation before. Of all the things he had lost in his life, none had been taken from him in this way. The idea that someone could have found the videotape and taken it disturbed him deeply. It was all he could focus on now. If that had happened, if the worst had happened, how would he get it back? Where would he even start to look for it, for those who had taken it? What could they do with it? He didn’t even want to think of that, or of the trouble it could make for Meg if it fell into the wrong hands.
Kane struggled to control his thoughts, to push the fear out of his head. But it held strong. Eventually he started to think that maybe he should call the police, if not to report the break-in then to at least ask for one of the detectives who had come by this morning and find out from him if his door had been hanging open. He assumed they would have told him if it had been. Weren’t they looking for odd, for out-of-the-ordinary? A door ajar was certainly that. So was a busted lock. Still, Kane needed to do something, anything, and calling the police was something, the only something he could think of right now. Kane walked back into his bedroom and was looking at his phone on the table beside his bed, wondering whether or not to go ahead and make that call, when suddenly the phone rang. The sound startled him, and a fresh dose of cold fear burst through him again. He thought quickly of Mrs. Wright on the other side of the paper-thin wall and lunged for the phone, picking it up at the tail end of the second ring.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Hello. I’d like to speak with Deacon Kane, please.”
Kane didn’t recognize the voice. A student, maybe. But not young-sounding enough. And it was a deep voice, with a touch of something Southern in the accent. He’d remember a voice like that, he thought.
“Yeah, speaking,” Kane said. “Who is this?”
“My name is Reggie Clay. I’m a private investigator. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
Kane waited a moment. A guilty mind moves slowly. A confused mind moves even more so. The words private investigator made Kane immediately think of Meg’s husband. But his busted front door also came to mind. The only certainty to come from this confusion for Kane was the fact that he should speak carefully.
“What about?” Kane said finally.
“I’ve been hired by the family of one of your students, a boy named Larry Foster. I understand you’ve been informed what happened to him.”
“Yeah.” He thought he should say something more, something about how horrible the boy’s death was. But he didn’t. Caution won out over compassion.
“I thought maybe you and I could meet in person,” Clay said.
“When?”
“Well, now, if it’s convenient. I’m a bit pressed for time. The boy’s funeral is in a few days—”
“How did you get this number? It’s unlisted.”
“From the college. A man named Ed Dolan.”
Kane thought about that for a moment, thought about Dolan, then said, “And you’ve been hired by the boy’s family?”
“That’s right.”
“The thing is, I’ve already talked to two detectives this morning. I told them everything I knew.”
“Our investigation is independent of the one being conducted by the police. I understand that it’s a pain in the ass for you, but it’s important for the family that I try to find out everything I can about their son’s death. It’s important to them that I find out what I can as soon as I can. You can understand that, right?”
Kane thought of his son. He nodded once, even though there was no one there to see it. “Yeah, sure,” he said finally.
“Foster was a student of yours, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“I thought maybe you might know something that could help us put things together. Something the detectives didn’t think to ask you.”
“I didn’t know Larry very well.” Don’t even remember which one he was, can’t even see his face, Kane thought. “I didn’t even know him at all, to be honest.”
“Still, I’d like to talk with you, if I could. I’m right around the corner. I could come by in five minutes. It won’t take long.”
Kane’s thoughts wandered. He couldn’t help that. Thoughts of his own son were never that far away. But he didn’t want to think of that, to be reminded of his boy, not now, not with Meg on the other side of town, stuck at home with her uncaring husband. Meg’s skin, the smell of her hair, the feel of being inside her world, inside her—these things and only these things kept those painful thoughts away, or at least made them close to bearable when they wouldn’t leave him be. The last thing Kane wanted was to talk to some private dick about a dead boy he barely knew. The last thing he wanted was to think of someone drowning, of the thoughts that must go through the mind at that moment when reflex takes over and water, against all wishes, against all instincts, is drawn into the lungs. He didn’t want to think of the terror his own son must have felt in that second, and in the horrible, torturous moments that led up to it. He didn’t want to think that way, of his own son, of someone else’s son, of anyone.
At that point Kane’s mind, or part of it, anyway, came back. He looked around his room, at his few things. Still, nothing out of place.
“What did you say your name was?” he said.
“Reggie Clay.”
“I’d like to help you out, I really would. Now’s just a bad time. Maybe tomorrow. You can come by my office.”
“Mr. Kane, I’d consider it a favor if you’d talk with me now. And I’ve got a very good memory for favors.”
Kane thought then about the useless lock on his door, and of the sleepless night that loomed ahead now because of it. He thought, too, of Meg’s husband. Maybe a private dick who owed him something wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have.
Kane took in a breath, then let it out.
“Yeah, all right,” he said, “why don’t you come by now. I live on Nugent Street.”
“I have the address.”
“The door’s at the front.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Kane hung up, then sat on the edge of his bed and waited. Not even three minutes had passed when he heard the sound of footsteps, heavy ones, on his stairs. He listened to them climb toward the top but waited for the knock on his door before he stood.
Kane wasn’t expecting what he found waiting for him on the other side of his door, not by a long shot. The man in his hallway was huge, easily one of the largest men Kane had ever seen. This stranger, black, with a shaved head, was built for nothing less than pulling freight. He was almost as tall and as wide as the doorway itself. Maybe Kane should have known by the way the man’s voice sounded over the phone. But he didn’t. There was always the chance that this wasn’t the man who had called, Kane realized, a little too late, so he asked to see identification. He was holding the door with his right hand, ready to swing it closed if came to that, not that it would have mattered much. The door was thin, nothing much more than panels of light wood. The freight-train stranger could have easily made his way through if he’d wanted to. He held up his credentials for Kane to see. It was the only move the man made. This seemed deliberate to Kane, like maybe this man was used to people reacting to him in this way and had long since adopted this manner because of it. According to the two licenses—driver’s and PI—the man standing patiently outside his door was in fact the Reggie
Clay who had called a few moments ago. Still, Kane didn’t take his eyes off the man as he stepped back from his door, letting Clay inside. Once through, Clay closed the door, and suddenly Kane’s tiny front room seemed smaller than it ever had.
Kane stepped back till he was standing in the narrow hallway that connected the front room with the back room. He stood facing the front room, his bathroom to his left, his kitchenette on his right. But he stood closer to the stove, and the heavy pot that sat empty on the front burner.
Though he didn’t want it to show, Kane was still jumpy, still edgy from coming home and finding his front door open and deadbolt broken. Somewhere inside his troubled mind he was considering the possibility that maybe this Clay fellow had something to do with the break-in. What wild ideas will spring from a guilty conscience, Kane thought then. Still, anything was possible, and some coincidences aren’t coincidences.
Clay stayed in the center of the front room, his back to the door. He stood with his hands hanging open at his sides. He didn’t make a survey of the room in which he was standing. He was still consciously not making unnecessary moves. But he did glance at the scratches on Kane’s face, though he did so only quickly and didn’t look again. Whatever it took to put a man at ease.
Kane watched his visitor. The handle of the pot was just inches away from his right hand. He kept it in his peripheral vision, calmly ready to grasp it if he needed to. And then what?
“You said on the phone the family hired you to find out about Larry’s death,” Kane began.
“That’s right.”
“Like I said, I didn’t really know the kid. I wish I had, though. If I’d known he was suicidal, maybe I could have done something to help him.”
“Well, actually, Mr. Kane, we have reason to believe that the boy’s death wasn’t a suicide, or an accident.”
“You think he was murdered?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know what he was into outside of class, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I was able to talk to his roommate a few moments ago. He said Larry was crazy about some girl in one of his classes. He couldn’t remember her name, said it was fancy or something like that.”
Kane nodded. “Yeah, that would have to be Colette.”
“What class of yours is she in?”
“One of my writing workshops.”
“So I could get her address from the registrar’s office?”
“Actually, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because she isn’t signed up. I let her sit in.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“She asked. She was working on an extended piece and wanted some feedback. I read what she had, and it wasn’t half-bad, so I told her it was okay with me.”
“Do you do that a lot?”
“No. But I’d probably do it for anyone who was a serious writer, and who asked me.” And female. And attractive.
“So she and Larry were friendly?”
Kane shrugged. “Everyone was drawn to her. Men and women.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. Colette is . . . special. Magnetic. Alluring.” He shrugged again. “Everyone was drawn to her,” he repeated.
“Did you get the idea that she and Larry were involved?”
“This is a bit awkward,” Kane said. “But I really don’t have a mental picture of which one Larry is—was.”
Clay thought that was a little odd, to say the least. A whole semester spent teaching the Foster boy and Kane couldn’t put the face with the name. But Clay didn’t say anything about that. He looked at Kane. The guy was ragged, past ragged, even, clearly the worse for wear, whatever his wear happened to be. Clay had been around drunks enough to know a man intimately familiar with the inside of a bottle when he saw one. But more than that, this Kane fellow, scrawny, hair mussed, eyes badly bloodshot, looked lost, the kind of lost that comes to men who spend their time wishing they were somewhere other than where they were. Where was it Kane wanted to be right now? Clay wondered.
“Maybe you could describe him to me,” Kane said.
“He was a freshman. Thin, built pretty much like you, about your height. Dark hair, blue eyes. I’ve never met him, but I’m told he was friendly, always quick to laugh at a joke. He was from up around Rochester. Always wore the same ragged blue sweater.”
Kane nodded. He could see him now, see him sitting beside Colette, hanging on her every word, waiting for her in the hallway whenever she stuck around after class to talk to Kane, to ask him questions about writing, about getting published. If it hadn’t been for Meg, and for Kane’s own laziness, maybe something there . . .
“Yeah, okay,” Kane said. “I remember him now. Of course. Larry. Wrote bad poetry, was working on his first short story.”
And now he was dead, Kane thought. But Kane didn’t want to think about that. It would lead his mind into shadowy places best avoided, or at least put off till drinking dulled his memory.
“So did you get the idea that Colette and Larry were involved, maybe seeing each other outside of class?”
“I got the idea that Larry wished they were. But whether they were or not, I couldn’t say.”
“What else can you tell me about Colette?”
“Her last name is Auster.”
“Auster?”
“Yeah.”
“How old is she?”
“About twenty-five maybe.”
“What does she look like?”
“She’s tall, a few inches taller than me, but athletically built. Maybe a hundred and thirty pounds. Dark hair, pale skin. She wore black a lot. And these thick leather bands on her wrists. She was kind of like this rock ’n’ roll chick, but there was something about her that was refined. You know what I mean? Refined, classy. I don’t know, maybe even elegant. She had muscles in her arms and back, sleek. I figured she’d been a dancer at one point, or maybe she just did yoga or something like that.”
“Was she enrolled at the college?”
“No.”
“Had she ever been?”
“At some point she was. But a while back, I think.”
“You don’t have her number, or know where she lives, anything like that?”
“No. She’d usually sit in for a few classes in a row, then disappear for a week, maybe two. She just came and went. That was her thing. She was secretive. Like I said, men and women were drawn to her. When she wasn’t around, people used to wonder about where she was, what she was doing. One kid even wrote a poem about that. It was pretty amusing, actually.”
“When was the last time she sat in on your class?”
“I don’t know. A week or so ago.”
“Did you happen to tell the detectives about her?”
“No. She didn’t come up.”
“What did they ask?”
“Not much. They wondered if I had any of Larry’s writings in my office. They seemed set on the idea that he had committed suicide.”
Clay nodded, thinking about that. Kane waited, watching him.
Finally, Clay said, “Can you tell me anything more about Colette Auster?”
“That’s about all I know. Like I said, she was secretive. It was her thing.”
“What’s her novel about?”
Kane didn’t have to try hard at all to remember that. “It’s what they call a confessional.”
“Memoir?”
“Not strictly. It may be autobiographical, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s erotic, but literary, and it reads like fiction.”
“Like Anaïs Nin maybe?”
Kane was surprised by this. “You’ve read Anaïs Nin?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m big on the French intellectuals.”
Kane thought about all that, nodding. He looked Clay up and down.
“Anything else?” Clay said.
“I think she works at a bar. She invited me there for drinks one night. On her, she said. But I don’t remember the na
me of the place.”
“Do you remember what town it was in?”
“No.”
“Was it by any chance a place called The Still?”
“I really don’t remember. Sorry.”
“Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of right now.”
Clay looked at Kane for a moment, was about to say, “So what happened to your face, man?” But he didn’t. Honestly, he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to have to care.
“Listen, you’ve been very helpful,” Clay said instead. “I appreciate this. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”
He reached inside his coat and removed a business card. He placed it on the arm of the short sofa. That sofa, and a standing lamp, were the only pieces of furniture, the only anything, in that tiny room.
Clay nodded goodbye and turned to leave but stopped when Kane spoke.
“How are his parents doing?”
“Not very well.”
“I wouldn’t think they would be. Give them my sympathies, okay? Their son was a good kid. They must be going through hell right now.”
Clay nodded. “They are, yeah.”
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