The young man put the chili on the table, along with their water and silverware.
“Talk to me, Diana,” Jonathan said when the man left. “Why did you want to meet me here?”
She took a bite of chili, then another, not sure how to ask him what she needed to ask him. Not sure what she would do if his answers showed him to be a villain in all this.
“Is it about April Fool?” he asked.
Her heart skipped a beat. So he did know something.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like that? You told me last night you thought April Fool might have something to do with the kidnapping and the note.”
She took a long sip of water. She had been the one to bring up April Fool last night. His question could have been perfectly innocent. She needed to get herself under control. “You’re right,” she said. “I am worried about that.”
He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I understand you want to leave no stone unturned,” he said, “but isn’t looking for a connection to something that happened over forty-five years ago a bit far-fetched?”
Far-fetched. She bristled. Was he trying to divert her from discovering the truth about him?
“Nothing is too far-fetched,” she said, holding his eyes.
He blinked and turned away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. You should be pursuing every possibility. What can I do to help?”
It could have been a lawyerly tactic to cover his own involvement, but she would play along.
“One of the members of Stormdrain attended Columbia Law School,” she said. “He would have been a student when you were.”
“You mean Jeffrey Schwartz?”
Her chin shot up. “How did you know I meant him?”
“Everyone knew about Jeffrey. It was quite a big deal at the law school back then. One of our own being involved with April Fool and going underground. Then, of course, he became big news in ’81 after the killings at the bank, and again about twenty years ago when that crazy man came forward claiming to be Jeffrey Schwartz.”
She was relieved he was so matter-of-fact in the way he talked about him. “Sometimes I forget these were once front-page stories,” she said.
Jonathan rubbed one of his inflamed knuckles. “But I had also known Jeffrey personally. He started with me in ’68. We were in the same Constitutional Law study group.”
“You knew him? How well?”
“Not very, I’m afraid. Jeffrey was brilliant—I remember that. He had the sharpest mind in our group when he spoke, which wasn’t often.”
“Did you have contact with him outside of your study group and class?”
He shook his head.
“Did you know he was involved with Stormdrain?”
“Not until after April Fool.” He took a bite of chili. “In fact, now that I think of it, I can’t say I recall Jeffrey in any of my classes during our second year. I probably would never have given him another thought except for his involvement with those terrible tragedies.”
“Have you seen or spoken to Jeffrey since?”
He had a shocked expression on his face. “Of course not. Why are you asking me this?”
“As you said, I’m leaving no stone unturned.”
He shook his head. “These things happened long ago, Diana. It was an awful time for many of us. Must you exhume it?”
“Yes, I must,” she said. “Did you know anyone else involved with Stormdrain?”
He dropped his eyes abruptly, as though she had hit a nerve. He took a sip of water, then smoothed his few graying hairs over the bald spot on the top of his head. “I knew a woman in the group. We dated for a short while.”
“Jesus,” she said. “You dated someone in Stormdrain and never told me?”
“Why would I have told you? I dated several women in college and law school.”
Under ordinary circumstances, this would have made sense. Jonathan hadn’t known about her own involvement with Stormdrain, so there would have been no reason to bring up some woman he had once dated. Yet, with Ethan’s disappearance, this took on a whole new significance.
“I don’t know what she saw in me,” he said. “I was a boring law student, and she was this wild firebrand.”
Wild firebrand. There was only one woman in Stormdrain who fit that description. “What was her name?” Diana asked.
“What does it matter?” he said.
“Who was she, Jonathan?”
He shied back like a horse at the question. Or maybe it was her tone of voice.
“Gertrude,” he said. “Gertrude Morgenstern.”
He had dated Gertrude. How could she not have known?
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Her voice was too loud in her own ears.
He stared at his freckled hands, folded in front of him on the table. “It wasn’t something I was proud of.”
The bell on the front door chimed. A young man and woman in their jogging clothes came inside. It registered that the man had one prosthetic leg.
Diana made an effort to slow down her breathing. If she wanted Jonathan to open up, she had to stop being accusatory.
“I never told anyone about my relationship with Gertrude,” Jonathan said. “Can you imagine what it might have done to me politically if it had come out that I once dated one of the organizers of Stormdrain?”
Diana knew exactly what it would have done. It would have leveled his career. He never would have been considered for the Supreme Court. She took another sip of water. Her brain was getting foggy with overload. Jonathan had dated Gertrude. Jeffrey Schwartz had dated Gertrude.
“How long did you see each other?” she asked, making an effort to keep her voice even.
“Three months or so. Rarely in public. I’m not sure if she didn’t want us to be seen together, or she enjoyed our private time as much as I did. I’m a little ashamed to say, I was happy enough with the arrangement. She would come to my room late at night, then leave a few hours later. I didn’t get very much sleep those three months.”
“Did you know she was also seeing Jeffrey Schwartz?”