“He wouldn’t have lied to us about the reading, would he? Is that why he didn’t tell us about it until afterward?”
DeMarco paused to gather his thoughts. “As far as you know,” he finally said, “did Thomas appear to take a special interest in any particular female student?”
“He took special interest in all of his students.”
“You know what I’m asking, Nathan.”
“I never saw any evidence of it. Not once.”
“He never confided in you about his interest in anyone?”
“No.”
“Okay. Then tell me this. Do any of his female students have a serious illness? Maybe a terminal illness?”
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
“How about a slight limp? Can you think of any female student who walks with a slight limp?”
“I don’t… No. No, none of that. He wasn’t having an affair. Why are you asking me these things?”
“Take care, son,” DeMarco said, and he ended the call.
? ? ?
DeMarco was working on a feeling now, the kind of thing people call a gut instinct, though with DeMarco the feeling was lodged a good eight inches above the gut, just below his sternum, something with the heaviness of metal, warm, and irregularly shaped, as if he had swallowed a chunk of lead steak and it was lodged there, making both swallowing and breathing difficult.
Perhaps the heaviness sat like a lump of lead in DeMarco’s chest because he was a hundred percent certain that a telephone call would reveal that Huston had not given a reading in Cincinnati on the Thursday night in question. He was certain that Huston had been with Bonnie that night. Shacked up somewhere? If so, he wouldn’t have wanted the motel charge showing up on his credit card statement. So before DeMarco looked up the telephone number for the English Department at Cincinnati State University, he made a short visit to Trooper Carmichael’s desk.
“Do me a favor and pull all of Huston’s bank records for the past three months. What I’m looking for are any withdrawals made on Wednesdays or Thursdays during that time. From all checking accounts, joint or otherwise. Probably from an ATM. Let me know when you have something.”
In his own office again, DeMarco opened Cincy State’s website, clicked his way to the English Department, MFA program, director Alice Bramson. She wasn’t in her office so he left a voice message asking her to return his call ASAP. Then he tapped the side of his thumb against his desk, thought about walking down the hall for another cup of coffee, knew he didn’t need it, didn’t want it pooling atop the lump of lead steak working its way up into his throat. “I hate fucking waiting,” he said aloud. It didn’t relieve any pressure. “I hate fucking waiting!” he shouted. That felt better, but it didn’t accomplish anything except to bring Trooper Carmichael to his threshold.
“You just gave me this a minute ago. I’m working as fast as I can.”
Softly, DeMarco told him, “I wasn’t speaking to you. Thank you very much. Please close my fucking door.”
Forty
By midafternoon, DeMarco knew three things.
Fact one: According to Dr. Alice Bramson, Thomas Huston had not given a reading at Cincinnati State University since the publication of his second novel. She would have loved it if he had appeared there more regularly; she adored his work; she still had fond memories of his previous visit. Nor had he given a reading anywhere in Cincinnati that night, guaranteed; otherwise, she would have been in attendance, her copy of his latest novel in hand, awaiting his signature.
Fact two: On each of the nine Thursdays previous to the death of his family, Thomas Huston had made withdrawals from an ATM approximately twelve miles from his home. All were made not from his and Claire’s joint checking or savings accounts but from his personal checking account. All of those withdrawals but one had been for eighty dollars, all made within twenty minutes of 7:30 in the evening. The other withdrawal, made two Thursdays before his family’s deaths, occurred at 6:42 in the morning and was in the sum of three hundred dollars, the maximum withdrawal allowed per day. On the day previous to that withdrawal, at 4:16 on Wednesday afternoon, he had made a similar withdrawal of three hundred dollars.
From this information, DeMarco was able to surmise two things: that the withdrawals of eighty dollars each week were used to cover his admission to whatever strip club he had visited that night, his drinks, plus his champagne room visits. The combined six-hundred-dollar withdrawals were not.
The third fact DeMarco was able to glean from his information was this: Bonnie had lied.