“Friends?” Nathan said, then shook his head.
They walked in silence awhile longer. They reached the sidewalk finally and turned right, continued beside the long line of cars parked at the curb.
DeMarco said, “So Thomas didn’t consider Denton a friend? You know this for a fact?”
“He would never come right out and bash somebody, you know? He just wasn’t like that. But Denton’s constant self-promoting… Thomas found it distasteful, to say the least.”
DeMarco said, “Tell me about the self-promoting.”
“He never passed up a chance to put himself in the spotlight. The man was constantly angling for the department chair, full professorship…or just to be the center of attention. He was obsessed with it. Just like today. Insisting on giving the eulogy. And then turning it into the Robert Denton show.”
DeMarco thought he recognized the young man’s car as they passed it, a blue BMW coupe. But Nathan continued walking. DeMarco remained silent.
Nathan said, “Every time he published a poem in some obscure literary journal, he’d send out a press release, for Chrissakes. To the local papers, the campus paper, the alumni newsletter. He’d even send out emails to the entire student and faculty lists.”
“And Thomas didn’t approve of that?”
“To him it was all about the work, you know?”
DeMarco nodded. “He was a special man, all right.”
They came to DeMarco’s car then. Both men paused beside the right rear fender. DeMarco turned to face the young man and waited.
Nathan stared past him. “Even that thing up in Albion,” he said. “He even sent out press releases on that. That one really got Thomas’s hackles up.”
At the mention of Albion, something pinched at a corner of DeMarco’s brain, in the same brain wrinkle that had been twitching with uneasiness. “What thing in Albion?”
“At the correctional facility. The poetry class for the inmates.”
“Denton taught a class at the prison?”
“From what I hear he’s been teaching a class there every semester for the past couple of years at least. He sends out a new announcement every semester.”
All of a sudden DeMarco felt a heaviness in his chest, a tightness that made his heart beat fast and his breathing come quick and shallow. “I take it you weren’t aware that Carl Inman did his time in Albion. Until a few weeks ago.”
The young man locked his eyes on DeMarco’s. “Are you serious?” he said. “Fuck, you are serious.”
“You really didn’t know?”
“I swear to God I didn’t.”
Sixty-Six
DeMarco could have contacted the correctional center by telephone, but then he would have had no excuse for not going home. Home was as gray as the sky and as stagnant as a grave. The thirty-minute drive to Albion would provide not only a sense of movement, some kind of forward progress, but would also allow him time to consider all the implications of this latest bit of news. Nathan’s tip about the poet might in fact be a dead end, but DeMarco doubted it. The pinch in his brain that had been harassing him since Huston’s death had not only subsided now but had been replaced by a kind of lightness, a decrease in intercranium pressure. The day seemed brighter by a lumen or two, the air fresher. Something had been changed by Nathan’s revelation. The fog of ignorance was lifting.
The new deputy superintendent for the facility was a slight man of medium height named Gallagher. DeMarco had hoped to be received by Superintendent Woods himself, as soft jowled and sturdy looking as a bloodhound. Gallagher, on the other hand, reminded DeMarco of a robotic Chihuahua, his every movement small and quick and preceded by at least five motionless seconds while his brain whirred through the binary code. Unfortunately, today was the superintendent’s day off. But DeMarco’s request was little more than a clerical matter and hardly required a blue tick’s temperament. He sat beside a potted ficus and watched Gallagher pull up the information on his computer.
Gallagher said, “Professor Denton has taught a two-week course in writing poetry five times so far. One every June, one every January. Scheduled to teach for us again at the first of the year.”
“How about the class rosters?” DeMarco said.
Gallagher stared at the computer screen, motionless but for two finger taps to scroll down the page. Finally he said, “Carl Inman, no.”
“Never? Not even one of the five times?”
“Correct,” Gallagher said.
DeMarco leaned back in his chair. He leaned away from a ficus leaf that was tickling his ear. “Would you know if Professor Denton had any other association with the inmates? Any opportunity for individual meetings, that kind of thing?”
“It’s unlikely,” Gallagher said. “Two guards are present at every class meeting. Class sizes ranged from…seven to twelve.”
“Are your visitation records computerized?”
“Yes, sir, they are.”
“Could you check to see if Denton signed in to visit Inman at any time?”
“Two years sufficient?”