The wooden smile did not so much as flicker, but then again wood never does. Beehive moved back to the desk. She gave us one more look as though to say, I may not be sitting right with you but I’ll be watching.
“You’re too tall,” Sylvia Avery said to me.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just sit the hell down so I don’t strain my neck.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Again with the sorry. Sit, sit.”
I sat on the couch. She studied me for a bit. “What do you want?”
Sylvia Avery looked small and wizened in that wheelchair, but then again who looks big and hardy in them? I answered her with a question of my own.
“Have you heard from Natalie at all?”
She gave me the suspicious stink eye. “Who wants to know?”
“Uh, me.”
“I get cards now and then. Why?”
“But you haven’t seen her?”
“Nope. That’s okay though. She’s a free spirit, you know. When you set a free spirit free, it flies off. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”
“Do you know where this free spirit landed?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but she lives overseas. Happy as can be with Todd. I’m looking forward to those two having kids one day.” Her eyes narrowed a bit. “What’s your name again?”
“Jake Fisher.”
“You married, Jake?”
“No.”
“Ever been married?”
“No.”
“You got a serious girlfriend?”
I didn’t bother answering.
“Shame.” Sylvia Avery shook her head. “Big, strong man like you. You should be married. You should be making a girl feel safe. You shouldn’t be alone.”
I didn’t like where this conversational route was taking us. It was time to change it up.
“Miss Avery?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what I do for a living?”
She looked me up and down. “You look like a linebacker.”
“I’m a college professor,” I said.
“Oh.”
I turned my body so that I could get a clearer look at her reaction to what I was about to say. “I teach political science at Lanford College.”
Whatever color had remained in her cheeks drained away.
“Mrs. Kleiner?”
“That’s not my name.”
“It was though, wasn’t it? You changed it back after your husband left Lanford.”
She closed her eyes. “Who told you about that?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Did Natalie say something?”
“No,” I said. “Never. Not even when I brought her to campus.”
“Good.” Her quivering hand came up to her mouth. “My God, how can you know about this?”
“I need to speak to your ex-husband.”
“What?” Her eyes widened in fright. “Oh no, this can’t be . . .”
“What can’t be?”
She sat there, hand on mouth, saying nothing.
“Please, Miss Avery. It is very important I talk to him.”
Sylvia Avery squeezed her eyes shut tight like a little kid wishing away a monster. I glanced over her shoulder. Beehive was watching us with open curiosity. I forced up a smile as fake as hers to show that all was okay.
Sylvia Avery’s voice was a whisper. “Why are you bringing this up now?”
“I need to speak to him.”
“It was such a long, long time ago. Do you know what I had to do to move past that? Do you know how painful this is?”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“No? Then stop. Why on earth would you need to find that man? Do you know what his running off did to Natalie?”
I waited, hoping that she’d say more. She did.
“You need to understand. Julie, well, she was young. She barely remembered her father. But Natalie? She never got over it. She never let him go.”
Her hand fluttered back toward her face. She looked off. I waited some more, but it was clear that Sylvia Avery had stopped talking for the moment.
I tried to stay firm. “Where is Professor Kleiner now?”
“California,” she said.
“Where in California?”
“I don’t know.”
“Los Angeles area? San Francisco? San Diego? It’s a big state.”
“I said, I don’t know. We don’t speak.”
“So how do you know he’s in California?”
That made her pause. I saw something skitter across her face. “I don’t,” she said. “He may have moved.”
A lie.
“You told your daughters he remarried.”
“That’s right.”
“How did you know?”
“Aaron called and told me.”
“I thought you didn’t speak.”
“Not in a very long time.”
“What’s his wife’s name?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. And I would not tell you if I did.”
“Why not? Your daughters, okay, I get that. You were protecting them. But why wouldn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes shifted from left to right. I decided to bluff.
“I checked the marital records,” I said. “You two were never divorced.”
Sylvia Avery let out a small groan. There was no way Beehive could have heard it, but her ears still perked up like a dog’s hearing a sound no one else could. I gave Beehive the same “all’s fine” smile.
“How did your husband remarry if you two were never divorced?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“What happened, Miss Avery?”
She shook her head. “Let it be.”
“He didn’t run away with a coed, did he?”
“Yes, he did,” she said. Now it was her turn to try to sound firm. But it wasn’t there. It was too defensive, too practiced. “Yes, Aaron ran off and left me.”
“Lanford College is a small campus, you know that, right?”
“Of course I know it. I lived there for seven years. So what?”
“A female student quitting to run off with a professor would have made news. Her parents would have called. There would have been staff meetings. Something. I checked the records. No one dropped out when your husband vanished. No female student dropped her classes. No female student was unaccounted for.”
This again was a bluff but a good one. Campuses as small as Lanford do not keep secrets well. If a student ran off with a professor, everyone, especially Mrs. Dinsmore, would know her name.