"Maybe." He kept his attention directed outside. "My wife and I had difficulty with those roles in our marriage. Who was going to be in charge of what? Who was going to be in charge of whom?" He turned his focus back to Diana. "My occasional...indiscretions only made matters worse."
Diana straightened in her chair. "Was Margie Todd one of your indiscretions?"
"All of that is so far in the past, Ms. Greene. Margie was a silly girl, na?ve and inexperienced. She didn't understand anything about the world."
"Her mother told me you offered to put up a reward when she disappeared, but you never wrote the check—"
Bolton stiffened. "You've been talking to that woman," he said, his face flushing. "Let me tell you I most certainly did write that check. Five thousand dollars. I gave it directly to Mrs. Todd to establish that fund."
"You didn't give it right to the bank?"
"No. There was some urgency about getting the reward funded, so I gave it to her. She came here and picked it up. But was a reward ever established? No. I have no idea what she did with the money."
"So, she's lying?"
"She's lying. You may not understand this, but when people have a lot of money, they often find themselves being manipulated by others who want that money too." He stood up. "I don't want to take up more of your time."
Diana stood up as well, knowing she was being dismissed. She followed Bolton to the front door and stepped back while he held it open for her.
"There is just one more thing, Mr. Bolton."
"Yes?"
"When I first got here, you said something like, 'It's all beginning again.' What exactly did you mean by that?"
A light breeze came through the open door, lifting the strands of hair on top of Bolton's head. He tried to smooth them down with his right hand.
"These things," he said, "that should have been left in the past. "
"Things like Margie Todd?"
He shook his head, squinting against the day's bright sunlight. "I'm thinking of so many more things than that," he said. "So many things that you and even I will never really understand. Never."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nate Ludwig faced his ten o'clock Introduction to Folklore class in the Woodard Lecture Hall and fixed the sleepy students with what he thought of as a stern glare. He cleared his throat and waited for the shuffling of notebooks and disconnecting of iPods to cease. Then he started.
"I know you've been riveted to every word I've said up until this point." No laughs. Too early still. "And I know many of you are freshmen, and so you have spent the last few days getting to know Fields University and the town of New Cambridge. At this point, I'd like to do a little data collecting from all of you." Some uncomfortable looks. What is data collecting? Is this like a quiz? "Don't worry, I won't be grading you on this. There are too many of you and I'm far too old to bother trying to remember your names." Some laughs. They liked jokes at the professor's expense. Cheap, but it helps them wake up. "So, has anyone heard anything that they think of as folklore or legend in their brief time on the Fields' campus?"
The phenomenon never ceased to amaze Ludwig. All he had to do was ask a question and one hundred heads suddenly decided to look down at their desktops. They avoided eye contact with him at moments like these as though he were a rabid dog or an angry bear.
"Come on," he said. "This is your chance to talk rather than listening to me drone on and on." A few more laughs. But he knew they actually preferred listening to his droning. It required less of them. "I can stand here all day," Ludwig said. "I had a Geritol this morning."
No laughs. They didn't know what Geritol was.
But it didn't matter. He spotted a tentative hand in the third row, a young man with a baseball hat obscuring his eyes.
"Yes, sir?" Ludwig said, pointing at the kid.
"I heard that if your roommate dies or commits suicide, you get a 4.0 for the semester. Is that true?"
"You must not like your roommate very much," Ludwig said, earning his biggest laugh of the day. "Or else you doubt your ability to get a 4.0." Even more laughter. They were warming up. "I hate to disappoint all of you who have been plotting to kill your roommates, but no, you don't get a 4.0 if your roommate dies during the school year. On the bright side, they will let you re-take your classes without penalty, so if you find yourself struggling and thinking of withdrawing..." They all laughed again. "But you're correct. That's an excellent example of campus folklore, and it isn't just found at Fields. Almost every college or university in America has some variation on that story. Are there others you can think of?"