Харлан Кобен - Found

Why did she have Dad cremated and not tell me?

I didn’t have a clue.

Why would she bury an urn of ashes as though it were his body? Again no clue. But I had seen the authorization form. That was her signature.

Or was it?

I had already been dumb enough to be fooled via common Photoshopping that Luther was an old Nazi from World War II. Maybe the answer here was just as simple. Maybe Mom hadn’t signed the document. Maybe someone had simply forged her name.

Again the obvious question: Why?

Answer: Take it a step at a time. See if Mom signed the papers. If she didn’t, then we check on the notary. We see where that leads. But first things first.

I needed to see my mom.

• • •

“You’re up early,” Uncle Myron said a little too cheerfully.

“I’m going somewhere with Ema.”

“Where?”

I didn’t want to get into my trip to the Farnsworth School. “Just somewhere.”

He didn’t like it, but he didn’t push it either. Uncle Myron was eating a bowl of unhealthy kid cereal and reading the back of the box. He did this every morning.

“Can I pour you some?”

He also asked this every morning. I’d rather just pour sugar down my throat. “No, thanks. I’ll scramble up some eggs.”

“I can do it for you.”

He also made this offer every morning. Once I let him make them. They were terrible. Myron couldn’t cook. He has trouble reheating a pizza without messing it up.

“I’m good, thanks.”

I broke the eggs, added a dash of milk. Uncle Myron had purchased some truffle oil for me. That was a secret I had learned from my mother. It was expensive, but when I could get it, a dab of the oil made the eggs a lot tastier.

“I need to see my mom,” I said.

Uncle Myron looked up from the cereal box. “You can’t.”

“I know she’s in rehab.”

“And you know the doctors said we had to stay away for at least two more weeks.”

“It’s important.”

Myron stood. “You want to ask her about the cremation.”

“Right.”

“It won’t help,” he said. “I mean, think about it. What’s she going to tell you, Mickey?”

I stayed silent.

“If your mom says she didn’t do it, maybe she was just so high she doesn’t remember. If she says she did it...” Myron stopped, thought about it. “Well, okay, maybe that would end whatever quest you’re on.”

“I’m going to call the rehab,” I said. “But I’m going to need you to back me up on this.”

Uncle Myron let loose a long sigh but he nodded. “Okay, sure. But we need to do what’s best for your mom. You get that, right?”

Of course I got that. He sat back down and started eating the kid cereal again. I moved to the stove. I had forty minutes until I was meeting Ema at the bus station. Then I remembered something.

“Hey, Myron?”

“What?”

“I saw you at Schultz’s gym. You were talking to Mr. Schultz and Randy.”

Myron took another bite of cereal. He may have nodded, I wasn’t sure.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“I’ve known the family for a long time. Mr. Schultz grew up in this town.”

“Did he go to Kasselton High?”

“Yep.”

“Your year?”

“No,” Myron said. “Your father’s.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. “Did they know each other?”

“Your father and Mr. Schultz? Sure. They knew each other since grade school.”

I tried to imagine that — a world where Buck’s father and my father played at recess or whatever as little kids. It was hard to see. “So yesterday you were talking to him and Randy.”

“Right.”

“What about?”

He took another spoonful of cereal, jammed it into his mouth, chewed too loudly for all the time it had sat in milk. “Do you know what I do for a living?”

“I thought you were retired,” I said.

“Temporarily, yeah. I mean, I sold my business. But do you know what I used to do?”

“You were a sports agent, right?”

“Right.”

I was using a wooden spatula to work my eggs.

“So that’s why they wanted to see you?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

Was Uncle Myron being intentionally thick? “Did Randy want you to be his agent?”

Myron’s words came out slowly. “I don’t think so.”

“What, then?”

“When I was training to become an agent, I went to law school.”

I knew about that. After Myron’s basketball career came to an abrupt end, he ended up at Harvard and became an attorney. “So?”

“So what people tell me is confidential.”

“When you’re acting as a lawyer.”

“Right.”

“So you’re Randy’s lawyer?”

“No.”

“I don’t get it, then.”

Uncle Myron started fidgeting. “Why are you so interested?” he asked.

“No reason,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. Then: “Do you know he has a brother, Buck?”

“Yeah, I know. He’s a senior. He’s given you some trouble, right?”

“Not anymore.”

Myron nodded. “Mr. Schultz told me. Buck moved back in with his mother. Something about a custody dispute. He was pretty upset about it.”

“So was that what he wanted to talk to you about?” I asked.

“I’m not a divorce lawyer,” Myron said.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a no.”

I waited. Uncle Myron started reading the back of the cereal box closely now, as though it were religious scripture. “You’re not going to tell me what you guys were talking about, are you?”

He didn’t bother glancing up. “No, Mickey, I’m not.”

“Could you tell me if it had anything to do with Buck?”

Uncle Myron weighed that request before saying, “It doesn’t.”

“So,” I said, “the fact that Randy wanted to talk to you and Buck all of a sudden had to go live with his mom — that’s just a big coincidence?”

“Yes,” Myron said.

But I could hear in his tone that even he didn’t believe it.

I met Ema at the bus stop. “It isn’t a VCR tape,” she said.

“What is it, then?”

“Something called a Betamax. Sony made them. I guess they were popular in the eighties, but they’re obsolete now.”

“So how do we watch it?”

“I don’t know. We could look online, I guess. See if anyone is selling a machine on eBay or something. Or we could go back to Bat Lady’s house and use the one in the tunnel.”

“You heard her.”

Ema nodded. “Never go back. She was pretty adamant about that.”

The bus hit some traffic near the Tappan Zee Bridge, but still made it in less than three hours. There were three Farnsworth students on our bus — all wearing jackets and ties — so we followed them. Campus was closer than we’d expected, less than a half-mile walk.

We stayed a step behind the three boys. Every once in a while they would turn around and look at us, wondering, I guess, why we were following them. Sometimes they stared openly at Ema. There may have been derision in their eyes, I couldn’t say for sure. Ema was decked out in her customary black — black clothes, black hair, black nail polish, black lipstick. Tattoos ran up and down her arms and across her neck.

I could almost feel her growing uncomfortable next to me, so I decided to break the tension by speaking: “Hey, guys.”

They all turned now and squinted at us.

“Do you know Jared Lowell?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” one of them said. The kid had a big mop of blond hair. “Why, you guys friends?”

I looked at Ema. She looked at me. Man, I hadn’t thought this through. “Uh, sort of.”

Under her breath Ema muttered, “Smooth.”

Blond Mop said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”