What Has Become Of You Part 16

"And no more volunteering. We know what we need to know now."

She remained in the window as the detectives and the officer left her apartment, and she saw them reappear on the sidewalk and get into their car. They didn't look as though they were saying anything to one another, and they didn't look back up toward her window as they drove away.

Vera stepped from the window to survey the mess they had left behind. They had made a good show of putting things back, which was more consideration than she felt she deserved, but nothing was organized exactly as she liked it. She began to replace things, to repack her milk crates till the files were in the order she wanted them in, to pick up the silky dresses that had slipped off their hangers as the detectives had rifled through her closet. She neatened the piles of papers that sat next to where her laptop always sat; now the s.p.a.ce was empty, just like the s.p.a.ce above the wall where the four girls' pictures had been displayed. The blank white wall taunted her. There was one piece of tape still stuck to the plaster-the one on the far end, the spot where Jensen Willard had squinted down at her only minutes before.

Vera thought for a long time, staring at that single piece of tape. She had several different ideas at once, each larger and more overpowering than the next.

When her studio was once again in order, she took her phone out of her purse and called Sue MacMasters's number. "Sue?" she said to the answering machine. "This is Vera Lundy again. I think you're going to get a phone call about me later. Or maybe the dean will. Either way, I'm just letting you know now that I'm not coming back to Wallace after the break. I'm just establishing that now so that you won't have to bother with calling me yourself. I can fax you the grades I've recorded since February."

She hung up the phone and remained seated on her bed for some time, unsure of what she felt about this. She knew she should feel sad. She knew she should feel ashamed. She knew she should, on a purely mercenary level, feel worried about where her next paycheck was coming from. But all she could think was: It is strange how things can change so quickly.

No more job, she thought again. No more afternoons at the copy center. She remembered the envelope in her tote bag then, the one with the New York postmark that she'd picked up at headquarters. She had forgotten all about it.

Vera felt around in her bag until her fingers latched on to the stiff envelope. Pulling it out, she held it in her hands for a moment, then sc.r.a.ped one bitten-off fingernail against the seal until the envelope was open.

Inside was a greeting card with an image she had seen before. And as soon as Vera saw it, looking straight into the rolling eye of a carousel horse, she knew that this card had not been sent to her by a donor.

The face of the card was a reproduction of the original cover of The Catcher in the Rye on it-the scarlet cover with its loose, fluid drawing of the Central Park carousel. The horse's body was contorted as though in agony, its one visible eye telegraphing something to Vera-violence, she thought, or terror.

She did not want to open the card, but she made herself do it. At first she thought the inside was blank. Then, at the very bottom, in the tiniest, faintest hand lettering she had ever seen-a handwriting she was sure she had seen before-was this message: Bret would like to meet you. He knows more than he's saying.

Vera turned the card over, half expecting to see something else written on the back, but there was nothing but the bar code and the copyright. Bret would like to meet me; he would like to speak to me, she thought, and her mind flashed back to Sufia Ahmed, so self-possessed as she'd stood before her in the cla.s.sroom: Miss Lundy, I would like to speak to you.

Not long after that, the girl was dead.

It is strange how things can change so quickly, Vera thought again. But what can be done can also be undone.

She was sure that the handwritten note had been sent by Jensen, just as she was sure that she was the recipient of this message for a very particular reason. I'm the elect one, Vera thought; I'm the one she's reaching out to. But why? What is she trying to tell me about Bret?

Chapter Eleven.

It was early in the morning, so early that most people were still in their beds, but the Dorset bus station already had a hard-luck a.s.sortment of people waiting to board-people so derelict and defeated that they were nodding off in their metal seats before their buses even arrived. Vera moved past them all to get to the ticket counter, and when it was her turn to be waited on, she took out her credit card and placed it in front of the seller. "I'd like a round trip to New York City," she said.

"When will you be returning?"

"I don't know exactly. Maybe I'd better make it a one-way."

"There's a transfer in Boston."

Vera nodded, studying the ticket seller for a minute, and then reached for the newspaper she had stashed in her tote bag. The paper was folded so that the most recent article about Jensen Willard stood out. "By any chance," she said, holding it up for her to see, "does this girl look familiar to you? Do you remember selling this person a bus ticket within the last week? She might have used a different name."

"No. I know who that is, though. That's the girl who's gone missing." She handed Vera her ticket. "Bus leaves at eight thirty."

Almost everyone in Dorset recognized Jensen's face by now, Vera surmised. It wasn't often that its young residents went missing. She wondered how the girl would feel, knowing she was becoming a local celebrity of sorts, that the BRING JENSEN HOME committee and the Dorset police forces were so actively looking for her. Probably, in typical Jensen fashion, she would shy away from the scrutiny just as much as she craved it.

Vera felt both hopeful and afraid-an antic.i.p.atory feeling that she always felt at the onset of traveling anywhere, though this time it was weighted with the uncertainty of what was to come. She had brought a book with her, a mammoth volume called The Comprehensive Book of True Crime, which she'd been wading through for months; she had thought it might be a relaxing diversion for her bus trip, but she now regretted her choice of reading material. Burying herself in such a sordid book among the slumped figures that were also waiting for the bus seemed an inauspicious way to start her journey.

With a half hour to kill before her departure, she crossed the street and went into the variety store, glancing at the newspaper rack; she didn't see Jensen Willard's picture today-that seemed a good sign-but then the headline under the fold made her do an almost comical double take. She picked up the newspaper and read the article where she stood.

Missing Girl Last Seen with Teacher A new development in the case of Jensen Willard, the 15-year-old Dorset girl who has been missing since March 30, came to light when an employee of the Roundview Hotel returned from a trip out of state and recognized Willard's picture in the Journal. According to the employee, Willard checked into a room at the hotel on the evening she disappeared. The Roundview Hotel is located on Wheaton Road, right next to the address where Willard was dropped off by her stepfather.

Detective Ray Ferreira and Detective Helen Cutler, who have been working together on the case, found surveillance records indicating that Willard later left the hotel with a woman. This woman has been identified as Vera Lundy, 39, who was Willard's subst.i.tute teacher at the Wallace School.

Sue MacMasters, head of the English department at the Wallace School, responded to a query by email: "Given recent occurrences, Vera Lundy is no longer under our employ as of today."

Lundy, who was questioned by police, claims to have visited Willard because she was worried about her mental state. Willard is known to have been treated for depression within the past year. Lundy reportedly walked the girl a few houses away from her Pine Street address. This was the point at which she was last seen.

Ferreira says that Lundy's involvement is not considered suspicious. But librarian Lillian Platt, who refers to Lundy as a "regular" at the Dorset branch of the Southern Maine Community Library, says, "She comes here every week to check out books about murderers. Sometimes more than once a week. I find that very peculiar."

Vera's first reaction was to find this depiction of herself preposterous; in a different circ.u.mstance she would have found it funny. The librarian, of all people, with her unfounded dislike for Vera-what did she know? And didn't librarians owe their patrons a little privacy? Then she thought of all the people she knew in town who would read this article-her former students, the Cudahys, even Paul and Amy Nimitz-and became more circ.u.mspect. She purchased the newspaper along with a copy of Vogue and a cup of coffee, trying not to seem furtive in her body language as she completed her transaction; though her photo was not included, she would not have been surprised if the clerk had pointed at her and said, "Hey, aren't you that teacher? The one in that article right there?" She hid the newspaper in her bag with the older issue before anyone could see it and draw that parallel.

Back at the bus station, the line for those waiting to board was growing, and some had trickled outside; a few of these people, she could tell, were native New Yorkers who had found themselves in Maine and were anxious to get out. She wondered if she looked more like one of them or like one of the slumped, defeated people inside the terminal. She hoped for the former as she waited outside with all of them, feeling the morning sun on her face.

She wondered who Sue MacMasters had found to take her English cla.s.ses and what her students would be doing that day-other than talking about her, of course, and wrapping up the final discussion of The Bell Jar. It didn't seem right to Vera that someone else was finishing what she'd started. She wondered, too, if any of the students would miss her. She was certain that she would miss some of them, if only a little bit; such a strange feeling, Vera thought, to be missing other people when they aren't missing you. It was the closest thing she could imagine to being a ghost-the phantom in the room that is unseen, unsensed, unwanted.

Four hours later, Vera had completed the first leg of her trip and had boarded the Boston bus bound for New York City. Almost five hours of riding remained, but her knees were already stiff from sitting still for so long-an unwelcome reminder that her joints were not as resilient as they'd been when she was a Princeton graduate student commuting on holiday visits.

She shared her seat with a gentleman whose face was cut deeply with wrinkles, a man who sat with his legs spread so far apart that she had tried to make herself smaller to prevent his bony knee from touching hers. Shortly after the bus had left Boston, the man took notice of her and started pulling mysteriously stained religious tracts out of his pockets, thrusting them under her nose and asking, "Have you been saved?" When that didn't get a desired reaction, he leaned in so close that she could feel his dry lips brushing her earlobe, and he whispered, "Ever been with an older man?" She had the window seat and felt pinned in place; all the other seats on the bus were taken, and she didn't dare ask to switch with anyone. She remembered reading a news item a while back about a woman who got stabbed to death on the back of a bus, and no one noticed till they reached their stop, hours after the fact.

Eventually the man fell asleep, his mouth hanging agape. Vera reached into the tote she kept at her feet and reread the copy of Vogue she had already flipped through. She felt around in her bag a little more, trying her hardest not to wake the man, and took out a yellow legal pad and pen she'd brought. Turning to a blank page, she wrote a heading at the top: "Possibilities: What Bret Might Know." After underlining this heading several times, she began to compile a list: Possibilities: What Bret Might Know.

1. Jensen killed herself, and Bret knows all about it. Possibly even knows where the body is.

2. Jensen has run away someplace (New York City?), and Bret knows where she is.

3. Jensen has been abducted but is alive. Bret knows something about who took her.

4. Jensen was abducted and is dead. Bret had a hand in it somehow.

Vera wrote down the number five, but then her fingers wrapped more tightly around her pen, as though to restrain it from what it wanted to write. She wondered if it was the word dead that had stopped her cold. Or perhaps it was because the word abducted itself struck her as sinister and strange, like an operation requiring the removal of a vital organ: I had an abduction that needed twenty-seven st.i.tches.

Possibility no. 2, on the other hand, was inviting-a possibility filled with other, greater possibilities and part of what had brought her to this point. If Jensen was actually in New York City, despite what the cops thought, then Vera stood a chance of finding the girl herself. And what a coup that would be-how redemptive in the eyes of the Cudahys and the police, if the person indirectly responsible for their daughter's disappearance was the one to bring her home.

Folding her notebook page over, Vera started a secondary list: Possibilities, Part 2: Jensen is in New York. (Places?) 1. Columbia University area (Jay Hall-where Bret is?) 2. Holden tour: Central Park (Lake where the ducks are? Or by the carousel??) 3. Grand Central Station 4. Rink at Rockefeller Center (would it be open??) 5. Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Natural History?

6. Near Salinger's apartment???

Columbia University seemed the best prospect, but Vera felt she could not rule out some of the others; Grand Central Station was an excellent place to hide if one was feeling especially daring. She couldn't really picture Jensen Willard at the ice rink (too sporty) or at the Museum of Natural History (too nerdy), but the Metropolitan Museum was a possibility; she saw Jensen as the sort of burrowing creature who would like small, dark corners and cubbyholes to hide in, just as Vera herself would.

Where, she wondered, was the best dark cubbyhole of all? And what had driven her to into its recesses? She closed her notebook and allowed herself to doze, waking up only periodically from the jolts of the bus.

When the bus pa.s.sed through Stamford, Connecticut, she called her old friend Elliott on her phone; she got his voicemail and spoke in a low voice so as not to disturb the other pa.s.sengers, especially the man sleeping next to her. "I'm leaving Stamford now," she said. "It shouldn't be too much longer. I'll be seeing you soon."

She had first called Elliott on the previous afternoon, not long after her apartment had been searched-email was no longer an option, with her laptop confiscated-and when he heard of her plans, Elliott's response had been typical for him: "You're a nutter, Vera. I see nothing has changed."

"I'm looking forward to seeing you, too, you old coot," Vera had replied.

Elliott Kinkel had been a fellow student in Vera's graduate nonfiction workshop at Princeton. Twelve years older than Vera and known to be cantankerous, he had not been well liked in the writing workshop; when commenting on others' pieces, his suggestions were sound, but his delivery lacked finesse. Vera, who did not make friends easily but enjoyed the challenge of winning over difficult people, had liked him instantly. After graduation, when both he and she had moved to New York City apartments in Morningside Heights, they often rented movies together and critiqued the screenplays, for Elliott considered himself a budding screenwriter. Most of his half-written efforts were crime dramas, which Vera had edited with enthusiasm; his writing, she thought, was actually pretty good, exhibiting a flair for hard-boiled dialogue.

Though she hadn't seen him in three years, she knew he would not hesitate to help her out in her unique situation. Years before, when the lease on her New York apartment had run out and she had yet to find a new place, he had let her sleep on his sofa bed for three weeks and had even cooked all her meals, not asking for a penny in return. She didn't like to take advantage of anyone's kindness, but Elliott enjoyed showing a magnanimous side under all his crotchety layers. When better times came, she had repaid him, in her fashion, by buying him an expensive, framed Pop Art print that he'd had his eye on-Richard Hamilton's Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?-and as far as Vera knew, that print still hung in his living room.

In Port Authority now, the signs at last brought Vera to the train she wanted-the number 1, 2, and 3 train-and she scuttled to the very end of the subway platform, where she knew she stood better odds of getting a seat. When her train arrived, however, the front car was packed; she squeezed her way in and ended up with her face pushed into a tall man's armpit as he clung to the overhead grip. Another man behind her had his crotch pressed against the cleft of her bottom. Despite the fact that all these pa.s.sengers were too close for comfort-or maybe because of it-no one made eye contact or said a word, but continued to hang on for dear life as the train b.u.mped and swayed its way uptown.

Sweating a little, she climbed out of the station and into the daylight of West 116th Street and Broadway. And there was Elliott, waiting for her as promised, sitting at one of the little round outdoor tables outside a coffee shop Vera used to frequent-though the coffee shop was now a pizza place.

He stood up, seeing her, and enfolded her in a hug before she could protest.

"You look like death warmed over," he said, holding her out at arm's length. "Maine has not been good to you."

"Oh, shut up. You've looked better yourself."

It wasn't true. Elliott had more gray hair than he had the last time she'd seen him, but his face was still unlined, and his eyes, behind his thick gla.s.ses, shone with good humor. Elliott still wore the facial expression he'd always had-that of a wide-eyed adolescent boy who has accidentally peeped at an attractive, semiclad woman through a window and is unsure whether to find this a wonderful development or a scandalous one.

"Terrible greeting I gave you. Can I redo it? Welcome back to the city, Vee, and let's pretend you're looking well. What do you want to do first? Get a drink? Some food?"

"I've kind of gone off drinking. I suppose I could eat."

"Dine in, takeout, or some of Elliott's home cooking?"

Elliott was one of the few people she knew who could get away with referring to himself in the first person. "I think eating at home would be good. I'm pretty wiped out from the trip."

He reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. "You're all soft and bony. No muscle tone at all. You don't work out, do you? I remember when you used to have a derriere."

"That was a while ago, wasn't it?" Vera said. "Gosh, all the way back in the days when I was a nubile grad student."

Elliott had the same apartment he'd had for eleven years-at the corner of La Salle Street and Claremont Avenue, which was technically in Harlem, though not in Harlem proper. Vera had lived next door for four of those years. She felt a great deal of nostalgia as they walked the city blocks toward Claremont. She intuited that Elliott had asked her to meet him at the 116th Street station instead of the nearer 125th Street so that they might enjoy this brief walk together, this literal stroll down memory lane.

Inside Elliott's apartment, she saw that the lumpy, misshapen sofa bed was still there. Vera immediately went to his bookshelves to look at his books-many of which were how-to guides for aspiring screenwriters-and to ogle his DVD collection. "You have a lot of new movies," she observed, "and some of the old ones are gone."

"Sold 'em," Elliott said. "Out with the old, in with the new. Quit pawing at my books and tell me what's going on with you. You sounded pretty nonsensical on the phone yesterday. Missing students, dead girls in parks, and something about Holden Caulfield? All I can gather from that is that you've been on some kind of murderous rampage. b.u.mping off your students one at a time because they can't use commas correctly. Am I getting warm?"

"Don't even joke," Vera said, dropping down so heavily onto the sofa bed that a puff of dust shot up from its cushion. "I'll explain everything. Just give me some time to decompress first."

While Elliott went into the kitchen to start frying up hamburgers, she began to tell him about all that had happened over the past few weeks-half speaking, half shouting over the sound of sizzling meat and clattering pans.

"See, this is what happens when you leave civilized New York for the wilds of Maine. I tried to warn you." Elliott's voice carried over his labors in the kitchen. "And look where you are now-jobless, with a prize pupil who's probably in the mountains reading scripture with her adopted cult leader parents as we speak." Hearing her pointed silence, he poked his head in the living room doorway and said in his normal tone of voice, "Aw, you know I'm kidding, Vee. You want two hamburgers or one?"

"Two," Vera said. "Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, I'm going to the Columbia campus and looking around there for Jensen."

"You think maybe she's staying with that boyfriend?"

"I don't know. It seems worth a shot. I know I've got to track Bret down, at the very least, to see if he really does know anything."

"But why would this Jensen kid send you that message? Have you thought about that? Doesn't it kind of make you wonder if you're being played in some way? I think you should have just given that card to the police if you really do think it amounts to anything."

"I've already been played, Elliott. The police have had their eye on me for quite some time. This is my attempt to get myself un-played."

"Ah," Elliott said, approaching with a plate of hamburgers. "Pride goeth before a fall, and all that." He tossed an open bag of potato chips on the coffee table in front of her and set up condiments-ketchup, mustard, and pickle relish-all in a row. "What I want to know," he said, "is why are you so determined to find her yourself? Isn't this kind of out of your reach? It's definitely beyond the confines of your job description."

"Mm," Vera said noncommittally. She cracked open one of Elliott's Diet c.o.kes and took a haul straight from the can.

"You think this Jensen kid is in trouble," Elliott said, plunking himself down on the ottoman in front of her. "You think she's running away from something. And I think you have a pretty good idea of what that is."

Vera took a big bite of her first burger and took her time chewing it; Elliott was one of the few people whom she could eat comfortably in front of. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said once she'd swallowed.

"Oh, come on. This girl sounds like she's been dropping hints since day one. Kids kill other kids all the time nowadays, haven't you heard? Whole different world from when you and I were young."

"Don't be absurd," Vera said, trying to laugh; all that came out was a choking sound, and she placed a hand to her throat as though to blame the food. "If you could see this girl, you'd know how impossible what you're suggesting is. She's tiny. She's not imposing."

"Manson was tiny, too. So was Charles Starkweather. So was Mussolini."

"Let's drop it. But before we do, let me explain one thing, okay? And I'm only going to say this once, so you'd better listen. I'm the one who's potentially in trouble for Jensen Willard being lost. So I'm the one who's going to find her and bring her back. It has nothing to do with my reputation-that's already shot. It has to do with what I think is right."

"Oh, Vee," Elliott said. "You're a nutter, but you've got a good heart."

"What, this leathery old thing?" she said, tapping at her breastbone.

After Vera had eaten a second burger and followed it up with a large wedge of store-bought chocolate silk pie when it was offered, Elliott asked, "How much money do you think you'll need to get around tomorrow?"

"As little as possible. Maybe some subway fare and a few extra bucks. I will pay you back."

"You can pay me back by fattening yourself up," he said, "though at this rate, old Elliott'll do that for you in no time."

Vera felt refreshed the next morning, having slept surprisingly well on the old sofa bed. Elliott, who operated under a schedule of his own making, could still be heard snoring through his closed bedroom door as she got up, dressed quietly, and slipped out of the apartment.

She walked down Broadway until she reached the gates of College Walk, the main entrance to Columbia University's central campus. She pa.s.sed by students who were draped all over the steps of the Low Library, taking in a little sun near the Alma Mater statue; elsewhere students were seated on benches outside or on tables, studying or just idling between cla.s.ses. The more she looked around, the more she felt justified in her earlier thought that the Columbia campus might be a good place to disappear. She tried not to think about Esther Greenwood's line from The Bell Jar-the one a.s.serting that New York City is also a great place to kill yourself.

Bret Folger's dormitory, Jay Hall, was easy to spot; it was one of the taller, newer, and uglier buildings on campus, not far from the Butler Library. She found an unoccupied stone bench within view of Jay's entrance and took a seat there, carefully smoothing her skirt over her knees. She had brought her Comprehensive Book of True Crime with her so she could sit and look as though she were studying while keeping one eye on those who were coming and going. Two copies of the Dorset Journal also remained in her tote bag-the one where Vera was mentioned and the one with Jensen's picture on the front page.

An Asian girl with a small backpack sat on the far end of Vera's bench, lighting up a cigarette. Vera watched her out of the corner of her eye for a bit, debated whether to speak to her, and then reached into her tote bag and pulled out the older of the two newspapers. "Have you seen the girl in this picture around on campus?" she asked, showing it to her.

The girl looked over. "I don't think so," she said.

"What about Bret Folger? Do you know Bret Folger? He lives in Jay."

"I live off campus," the girl said. She leaned again toward the picture and looked at it for more than a second this time. "Maybe she does look familiar. I can't really tell. It's not a good picture." She stood up and ground out her cigarette and left, clearly annoyed at having her would-be reverie broken by an intrusive woman with a newspaper. Vera couldn't blame her.