Slowly, she put the ticket down again, on the top of the pile, and then changed her mind: she tucked it into her pocket. Next, she picked up the For Ada disk that thus far she had been leaving at David’s house. Better to keep them both out of the hands of others, she thought.
She carried these two items with her for the rest of the day, searching for a place she might keep them safe. She found a giant, ancient dictionary, four hundred pages in length, in Liston’s basement. It looked unused and unsuspicious. Into its pages she inserted the For Ada disk and the train ticket, and then she closed it with a satisfying clap. After some further exploration, she decided she would put it on the top shelf of the closet in her bedroom at Liston’s house, so high that she could not see it without craning her neck. She had to climb onto a chair to reach it. She would keep the documents together there, tucked safely inside the dictionary—along with any other evidence she could find.
One thing David had done, according to Liston, was create a will; but with parts of his identity in question, and with Ada’s maternity in question, it was not a valid legal document, according to the lawyer Liston had spoken with. Already there were problems with St. Andrew’s, with the payments that settled his bill each month. Upon his death, the distribution of his worldly goods would come into serious question. Though Liston had tried to be subtle in her investigation, careful not to spread rumors at the Bit without due cause, in the days following her talk with Ada she called every member of the lab, one after another, to ask them what they knew. And everyone professed to know nothing.
“Oh my God,” Hayato said, softly, on the phone—Ada was eavesdropping, of course—“was he pathological? I don’t understand.” And it was all Ada could do to prevent herself from crying out at him and Liston both in rage.
In the evening, after work, Ron Loughner sometimes came over and met with Liston, and Liston carefully invited Ada to join them. She accepted, but only, she told herself, to keep track of what was being said about David. The first time, Loughner asked her to draw her family tree as well as she could, naming those relatives whose names she could remember. She told him what she could about what David had told her, recalling the conversations she had had with him prior to his move to St. Andrew’s—the old Finnish ancestors, the governor of Massachusetts, the Amory family. She told him that David’s mother and father were Isabelle and John Fairfax Sibelius, and that his father went by Fairfax as his first name. She told him that David had had no siblings and no cousins his own age. She told Loughner what David had told her: that both of his parents were dead, and that a family called Ellis had purchased their home. She told him, roughly, where their home had been.
“Thank you, Ada,” said Ron Loughner. “This will be very helpful.”
Ada nodded formally. She felt traitorous and low. But she viewed Loughner as an unwelcome but necessary ally in her quest to learn the truth.
One evening, Ada, from upstairs, heard the familiar sound of Liston lifting the telephone receiver in the kitchen, and she ran to the hallway.
By the time Ada had joined the call, as quietly as she could, it took her a few moments to determine who was on the other end.
“It’s so very good to hear from you,” a voice was saying. “Of course I remember.” There was a slurring, monotone quality in the person’s speech, as if from disease; whoever it was sounded very old, and had a lovely, refined Brahmin accent. His voice was familiar to Ada. It rang a bell someplace deep in her memory.
Liston explained why she was calling. “I’m sorry to be the one to inform you,” she said. “I was shocked myself. But I’m wondering if you can recall anything about his hiring, what you knew.”
Of course: it was Robert Pearse, President Pearse, David’s former friend and ally, before his dreaded successor McCarren came along. It had been President Pearse who’d hired David permanently out of the Bit’s graduate school many decades before. He had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s several years prior; Ada recalled David, concerned, sadly telling her the news. It had caused a serious change in Pearse’s speech, but beneath it Ada recognized, with a surge of warmth, the voice of the man who had once been their friend. He had always kept a stash of Mars bars in his desk. He had given Ada one each time he saw her.
There was a pause on the other end.
“Do you recall anything odd about his paperwork or references?” asked Liston, trying again.
“I recall nothing of the sort,” he said. “My goodness, Diana. I’m having trouble understanding you.”
“I know,” said Liston quickly. “It’s possible that this might be a misunderstanding. But we’re having some legal trouble now, you know, about guardianship for Ada.” She was speaking formally, unnaturally. She did not sound like herself. She had always been flustered around Pearse: Ada could sense it from the time she was very young. There was something about him, Liston had confessed once to David, that reminded her of a priest.
“That poor child,” said Pearse, and Ada imagined him in his large and gracious study—she and David had been to his home once, a stately row house on Beacon Hill—shaking his head.
“He came here in—let’s see—must have been 1951 or ’2,” continued Pearse. “He was a standout graduate student here. Integral to the building of the GOPAC under Maurice Steiner. Furthermore, I recall speaking with his undergraduate thesis advisor at Caltech personally. Donald Powell. Unfortunately, I believe he’s since died.”
“Okay,” said Liston, nervously.
“That will be true of most of the faculty who once taught him, I suppose,” said Pearse. “My goodness, he’s been here at the Bit for nigh on thirty-five years.”
“Caltech says they have no record of him,” said Liston.
“A mistake, I’m afraid,” said Pearse, the volume of his voice increasing unexpectedly. “How ridiculous. Powell was a friend of mine. I can tell you with certainty that David Sibelius was his protégé as an undergraduate. A sort of genius, I think. And I know the two remained in touch for some time.”
In that moment Ada loved President Pearse nearly as much as David. Relief and gratefulness surged through her. Was it possible, she wondered, that it was all a misunderstanding?
“Furthermore, I knew his people,” said Pearse. “The Sibeliuses, out of New York. I know their relationship with David was strained, but I can’t imagine why they would have said he was missing when they knew very well he was here at the Bit.”