“It would be a noble death.”
I filled him in on Carlotta—he’d only known bits of it—and he closed his eyes against the news. He said, “I was always in love with her.”
“I know.”
“What it was, I had a crush on the two of you together. Not in a porny way, not like—it was the two of you as a duo. You were always having so much fun.”
I understood, even if I didn’t want to: Geoff and I would banter for hours, make each other laugh, but I was an oily-faced schlub and couldn’t flirt in the slightest. Carlotta would strum her guitar and look stunning. Together, we filled all his needs.
“We were never a duo,” I said. “There was Fran.”
“Sure. Fran was who I talked to about it.”
I said, “You know my absolute favorite memory of Carlotta?” I told him the story, which he’d surely once known: I’d been hanging out in the art studio as she finished a clay bust of Frida Kahlo, when Dorian Culler invited himself in, sat on the edge of the big metal table, tried juggling some of the thick acrylic paint tubes. We ignored him as we’d ignore a mountain lion we met in the woods, hoping our silence would cloud our scent.
“Carlotta,” Dorian said, “if I may call you that. I’m worried about our friend Bodie. You see, I’m in a serious relationship now, and I’m not sure she can handle it. True fact: That’s not even eyeliner around her eyes, she’s just been crying over me.”
While I stood frozen, Carlotta reached under the counter for a tube of blue oil paint. She squeezed some onto a brush and, stepping toward Dorian, painted a thick blue streak down his forehead and nose.
“Jesus!” he said, and hopped off the table and wiped at his face with his sleeves, but now the paint was all over. “You fucking psychopath.” He left the studio.
Carlotta said, “The best part, he’s gonna wash that with soap and it won’t work.” She laughed loud enough that he could surely hear it all the way down the hall.
At dinner that night, he was still pale blue.
“He looked like a Smurf,” I told Geoff.
Geoff laughed gleefully. He said, “That guy had issues. Miserable little dude.”
I was kind of stunned by the idea. Specifically: the notion—it should have been obvious—that Dorian’s harassment wasn’t about me. It had nothing to do with who I was or what I looked like; I was just a convenient prop, someone who wouldn’t bite back. It should not have taken me this long to realize. It should not have taken Geoff pointing it out.
Behind Geoff, someone in a puffy red parka had walked to the gazebo and now circled it slowly, holding an iPad in front of his face. As far as I could tell it wasn’t Hector or anyone else from the defense team. Not that it mattered—Geoff wasn’t a witness—but it might look odd that I was playing out some awkward Romeo-and-Juliet scenario in back of the inn.
I said, “You want to come in? Over the railing?”
He shook his head. “Believe it or not, I still have two conference calls tonight. But let’s do breakfast. And then—I dug up the stuff I promised your students. Well, your former—”
“Stuff?”
“They’d been bugging me for photos, but it was all in my mom’s house. Old concert programs, whatever. I used to save things. I’m allowed to see them, right? Your students?”
“You can do whatever you want. You can talk to them, but only individually, because Britt’s a witness and Alder’s recording for the podcast, so he’s press. And you can talk to me. But none of us can talk to each other.”
“This puts me in an interesting position of power,” he said, and grinned. “How shall I abuse it?”
I put one pointer finger on his forehead and said, “Should I push you? Noted economist plummets to untimely end.”
He reeled his head back, fake-flailed with one arm, then angled toward the lawn and jumped, landing hard enough that I worried he had hurt himself. The man in the red parka turned to see what happened, hustled a few steps closer and into the lights of the hotel. But Geoff was fine. Geoff was already bounding off, calling that he’d see me at breakfast.
Then I saw: The man in the red parka was Dane Rubra. He looked up at me curiously. He was taller than I’d imagined, his stringy hair hidden under a gray winter cap.
The moment he recognized me back was a clear jolt; he went from looking up to staring up, stunned.
He did nothing, said nothing—just stood, six yards away, and for a moment we were two figures in a geometry problem. The dead girl’s onetime roommate is ten feet up on a balcony. Her YouTube avenger is eighteen feet from the inn and a little downhill. Solve for the line of their awkwardly locked eyes.
To put him out of his misery, I said, “You’re Dane.” I beckoned him closer.
He started to hold his iPad up in its thick green protective case as if to film me, then thought better, lowered it. This was a man who, in recent videos, had grudgingly thanked me for my work, but had also taken every opportunity to point out where he thought I or Alder and Britt had erred.
He said, “So we meet.” As if I’d been waiting for him. As if he and I were the two main characters in this drama. He was right below me now, nostrils flaring the way they flared on-screen when he thought he was onto some new lead, or when he talked with palpable hate about Robbie.
“I figured you’d be lurking,” I said, not unaware of my word choice. “You finding good stuff?”
“Sure. Maybe. Hey, you’re testifying about the dots, right? What are you planning to say?”
“You know I can’t answer that. Plus, I think you’re recording.”
He looked bewildered, then glanced at the iPad, still gripped in front of his crotch. He said, “No, I—” and flung the device across the frozen lawn like a Frisbee. It landed against one of the icebergs of old, brown snow.
“I’m still not telling you,” I said.
Seeing the iPad lie there, I realized I had an unprecedented opportunity—speaking to Dane in person with no email trail, no recording phone. There were other ways, besides the witness stand, to get information into the world. There were other ways to blast out your name, in time for some relevant person to hear it and come forward. And whatever I told Dane could make it online by tomorrow.
I sat down cross-legged, so my face was closer to his. I said, “Can I give you some advice, though?” He seemed to brace for something, like I was going to tell him to get a life. I added, “A lead.”
“Be my guest.”
I said, “I was never the biggest Robbie Serenho fan. He was that guy we all knew in high school, the big shot. And he wasn’t a great boyfriend to Thalia. But that doesn’t mean he did anything. You’re missing the obvious.”
Dane laughed awkwardly. I could tell he wanted to defend himself against such an accusation, but didn’t want to blow his chance of hearing what I had to say. He said, “I’m listening.”
“I hinted about it on the podcast, but the lawyers wouldn’t let me say the name. Dennis Bloch, the music director. He was definitely having sex with her. You have a guy whose marriage is on the line, whose job is on the line. Thalia’s about to graduate, maybe he can’t handle that. There’s something off about him to begin with, right? Not so much in being attracted to her”—I added because Dane was, himself, clearly a man in his forties with a thing for an adolescent Thalia—“but to manipulate her like that, take advantage of her, break every rule. He ruined her life. Chances are he took it, too.”
It was a melodramatic speech, to be sure. But I knew by then the way Dane talked, the way he thought.