Craig Smith - Cold Rain

‘Functional?’ he asked.

I answered with the first lie that came to mind. ‘Oh yeah! A couple of times a year we have people out and cook the meal right there, pioneer-style.’ Dalton, who clearly enjoyed antiques smiled fondly at the notion. I said next time we would invite him. I glanced at Jacobs, who exuded all the warmth of an andiron.

I included him in the invitation as well. Why not? It didn’t cost me anything. As I spoke I was fairly sure Kip Dalton wasn’t buying my line, but I didn’t care.

I continued talking about the old cookware we used and the flavour of coffee boiled on an open fire. I said it was quite a sight to see everyone standing around a fireplace like this all dressed up in early nineteenth century costumes.

Molly, who was used to my nonsense, didn’t bother telling the men I was lying. Usually, she enjoyed it, what I could spin out on short notice, but I expect she thought it wasn’t a very smart thing to do with a couple of detectives. After I had run down a little, Dalton moved about the kitchen, inspecting the old plank board table, the original brick floors and walls, the bric-a-brac on the various shelves.

‘I was out here about ten years ago,’ he said. ‘Place didn’t look anything like this.’

‘It was all here,’ Molly answered, ‘but some fool thought he ought to modernize it.’ She was talking about her father and his ill-conceived attempt to turn Bernard Place into an apartment building.

I asked what had brought him out to the house ten years ago. He had been on patrol, he said. He and his partner had found a party and had run the kids off after putting the fear of the law in them.

Jacobs spoke now, his first words since muttering ma’am at the introductions. ‘Seems like they had a lot of trouble selling this place. Sat empty for years.’

‘That wasn’t the reason. There were two owners, a brother and sister. One wanted to sell the place. The other didn’t.’

Jacobs nodded at Molly’s explanation. ‘A squabble over the family inheritance?’

‘Isn’t it always?’

When she asked them their business with me Kip Dalton pretended it wasn’t very urgent. ‘We got a call from the university this morning. One of the graduate students up there in your department is teaching a couple of courses, and she didn’t show up for her classes yesterday. Some people checked around. The usual. They went by her house, called her parents, contacted the hospitals. She just disappeared.’

Molly looked at me, as certain as I was, I think.

‘Johnna Masterson?’ I asked.

Dalton tried not to look surprised. ‘One of her friends said she was going to talk to you about some kind of complaint she filed earlier this semester.’

‘I haven’t spoken to Johnna since early October.’ I thought about leaving it there, but the instinct for self-preservation saved me. ‘Two nights ago she called here and wanted to meet me in town. I drove in and she stood me up. You mind telling me who the friend was?’

Detective Jacobs stepped on my line. ‘Where exactly were you supposed to meet her?’

I turned toward Dalton as I gave my answer. ‘The Denny’s on Washington Avenue,’ I said. Jacobs had succeeded in upsetting me without doing very much besides staring at me with his arms folded across his skinny chest.

‘What evening was this?’ Jacobs asked.

‘Tuesday,’ I answered, ‘the day of Walt and Barbara Beery’s funeral.’ I wondered what had moved me to tell them about a funeral I hadn’t even attended.

Kip Dalton pulled a tiny notepad from his shirt pocket. Using a cheap ink pen, he wrote down the information. Jacobs asked about times. Molly said Johnna had called at about ten-fifteen. ‘I remember because I was expecting a phone call, and I answered.‘

Molly glanced at me. I took it from there.

‘She sounded upset,’ I told them.

From beyond our intimate triangle Detective Jacobs intruded again, ‘Why would she be upset?’

‘I don’t know. She said she wanted to talk to me about a mutual acquaintance, one of the teaching assistants. Buddy Elder. He wasn’t the friend who told you she wanted to talk to me, was he?’

Kip Dalton answered that in fact he wasn’t. Someone else. He didn’t offer any names. I knew how rumours could float in an environment like that. Pass a story to a couple of sources and it would come back to you as fact within the hour. Buddy Elder was the source of this information no matter where they had picked it up. I didn’t think it was a good idea to press my cause too aggressively. Let them find Buddy on their own, I thought, and they’ll believe he’s involved in this.

‘She didn’t speak to you again?’ Dalton asked.

‘No.’

‘What time did you get home?’ Dalton asked.

‘Around three-thirty.’

They pushed around the edges as if they were not really very interested. How well did I know Johnna?

Was she the kind of young woman who might decide to disappear for a few days? Prone to depression?

Flighty? What did I know about her friends?

Boyfriends? I did not go into speculations. I told them the truth. She had impressed me as an extremely dedicated, level-headed student. She had dropped by my office a couple of times, presented one story in my class. ‘When I first met her,’ I said, ‘she seemed a bit prudish, but the first short story she wrote was hilarious. It was called “Sexual Positions,” a total knock-down-drag-out comedy.’ Kip Dalton wanted to know if I thought she was promiscuous. I told him I thought she was talented. I got a look from Molly at this, but I didn’t care.

As we walked both detectives back toward their Jeep Detective Dalton gave Molly and me a worldly smile: ‘I’m inclined to think a young woman that age probably met the love of her life and just took off without telling anyone.’ He shrugged indifferently.

‘She’ll probably get around to calling her friends in a day or two and wonder what all the fuss is about.’

‘Not Johnna Masterson,’ I said. Kip Dalton looked at me questioningly. He wanted to hear my theory.

‘She was committed to her work,’ I said. ‘Taking off without saying anything would cost her too much: her teaching assistantship, her future prospects for a teaching position, and a semester of coursework with the grade of F. That kind of stuff happens with undergrads who haven’t invested their own money in their education, but not with a graduate student, certainly not someone like Johnna Masterson. Even if she found the love of her life, they could wait a couple of weeks until the end of the semester.’

‘That’s pretty much what everyone told us,’ Dalton said, apparently still not convinced.

The two men thanked us again for our help and climbed into their Jeep. After Dalton started the car, they sat for several seconds. Finally, Jacobs rolled down the passenger window. ‘You care if I ask you something, professor?’

He spoke softly and I walked toward him, so I could hear him better. No, I didn’t care.

‘Just now you were talking about Miss Masterson in the past tense. I was wondering, why you did that?’

I said I wasn’t aware that I had. I smiled like the killer. I felt a twitch in my neck kick in. Detective Jacobs assured me I had. ‘I’ve been on leave the past few weeks,’ I said finally. ‘Johnna was in my class, but since I’m not teaching it now, I guess I was thinking back. She was committed.’

Jacobs smiled at me sceptically the way people do when they’re standing in the front of a lying used car salesman. ‘You think she still is? Committed, I mean?’

‘Hard to say,’ I offered. ‘People change, don’t they?’

I heard myself talking without being able to stop. I was desperate for them to leave, and they just sat there listening while I told them Johnna could have had a secret life for all I knew. Call girl, drug addict, any damn thing!