Harlan Coben - Six Years

I remembered my six-year-old promise. Natalie had said, “Promise me you’ll leave us alone.” Us. Not him or her. Us. At the risk of sounding cold and perhaps overly literal, there was no “us” anymore. Todd was dead. That meant, I firmly believed, that the promise, if it even could still exist because the “us” no longer existed, should be declared null and void.

I booted up the computer—yes, it was old—and typed Natalie Avery into the search engine. A list of links came up. I started going through them, but quickly got discouraged. Her old gallery page still had some of her paintings up. Nothing had been added in, well, six years. I found a few articles on art openings and the like, but again all of them were old. I clicked the button for more current links. There were two hits on white pages, but one woman named Natalie Avery was seventy-nine years old and married to a man named Harrison. The other was sixty-six and married to a Thomas. There were the other routine mentions you would find for pretty much any name—genealogy sites, high school and college alumni pages, that kind of thing.

But really, in the end, nothing appeared relevant.

So what happened to my Natalie?

I decided to try googling Todd Sanderson, see what I could find there. He was indeed a physician—more specifically, a surgeon. Impressive. His office was in Savannah, Georgia, and he was affiliated with Memorial University Medical Center. His specialty was cosmetic surgery. I didn’t know if that meant serious cleft palates or boob jobs. I didn’t know how that could possibly be relevant either. Dr. Sanderson was not big on social networking. He had no Facebook account or LinkedIn or Twitter, none of that.

There were a few mentions of Todd Sanderson and his wife, Delia, at various functions for a charity called Fresh Start, but for the most part there was very little to learn here. I tried throwing in his name with Natalie’s. I got bupkis. I sat back and thought a moment. Then I leaned forward and tried their son, Eric Sanderson. He was only a kid, so I didn’t think there’d be much, but I figured that he’d probably have a Facebook profile. I started there. Parents often choose not to have a Facebook page, but I’ve yet to meet a student who didn’t have one.

A few minutes later, I hit bingo. Eric Sanderson, Savannah, Georgia.

The profile picture was, poignantly enough, a photograph of Eric and his late father, Todd. They both had wide smiles, trying to hold up a big fish of some kind, happily struggling with the weight. A father-son fishing trip, I figured with the pang of a man who wants to be a father. The sun was setting behind them, their faces in shadow, but you could feel the contentment radiate through my computer monitor. I was struck by a strange thought.

Todd Sanderson was a good man.

Yes, it was only a photograph and, yes, I was aware of how people could fake smiles or entire life scenarios, but I sensed goodness here.

I checked out the rest of Eric’s photographs. Most were of Eric and his friends—hey, he was a teenager—at school, at parties, at sporting events, you know the drill. Why does everyone make pouty lips or hand gestures in photographs nowadays? What’s up with that? Dumb thought but the mind goes where it goes.

There was an album simply titled FAMILY. The photos ran through a gamut of years. Eric was a baby in some. Then his sister joined. Then there was the trip to Disney World, other fishing vacations, family dinners, church confirmation, soccer games. I checked them all.

Todd never had long hair—not in any of them. He was never anything but clean-shaven.

So what did that mean?

Not a clue.

I clicked on Eric’s wall or whatever you call that opening page. There were dozens of condolence messages.

“Your dad was the best, I’m so sorry.”

“If there is anything I can do.”

“RIP, Dr. S. You rocked.”

“I’ll never forget the time your dad helped out with my sister.”

Then I saw one that made me pause:

“Such a senseless tragedy. I will never understand the cruelty of human beings.”

I clicked for “older posts” to come up. There, six more down, I found another that caught my eye:

“I hope they catch the a&&hole who did this and fry him.”

I brought up a news search engine and tried to find out more. It didn’t take long to stumble across an article:

HOMICIDE IN SAVANNAH

Local Surgeon Murdered

Popular local surgeon and humanitarian Dr. Todd Sanderson was killed in his home last night in what police believe may have been a robbery gone wrong.

Someone tried my front door, but it was locked. I heard the rustling of the doormat—in a fit of originality, I hide my spare key beneath it—and then the key was in the lock and the door opened. Benedict came in.

“Hey,” he said. “Surfing porn?”

I frowned. “No one uses the term ‘surfing’ anymore.”

“I’m old-school.” Benedict headed to the fridge and grabbed a beer. “How was your trip?”

“Surprising,” I said.

“Do tell.”

I did. Benedict was a great listener. He was one of those guys who actually listened to every single word and remained focused on you and only you and didn’t talk over you. This isn’t faked either, and he doesn’t just save this for his closest friends. People fascinate him. I would list that as Benedict’s greatest strength as a teacher but it would probably be more apropos to list it as his greatest strength as a Don Juan. Single women can fight off a lot of pickup routines, but a guy who genuinely cares about what they say? Gigolo wannabes, take note.

When I finished, Benedict took a swig of his beer. “Wow. I mean . . . wow. That’s all I can say.”

“Wow?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure you’re not an English professor?”

“You do know,” he said slowly, “that there is probably a logical explanation for all this, right?”

“Such as?”

He rubbed his chin. “Maybe Todd is one of those guys with several families, but they don’t know about each other.”

“Huh?”

“Lotharios who have lots of wives and kids and one lives in, say, Denver, and the other lives in Seattle, and he divides his time between them and they don’t know. You see it on Dateline all the time. They’re bigamists. Or polygamists. And they can get away with it for years.”

I made a face. “If that’s your logical explanation, I’d love to hear your far-fetched one.”

“Fair point. So how about I give you the most obvious one?”

“The most obvious explanation?”

“Yes.”

“Go for it.”

Benedict spread his hands. “It’s not the same Todd.”

I said nothing.

“You don’t remember the guy’s last name, right?”

“Right.”

“So are you sure that it’s the same guy? Todd isn’t the most uncommon name in the world. Think about it, Jake. You see a picture six years later, your mind plays a few tricks with you, and voilà, you think it’s your archenemy.”

“He isn’t my archenemy.”

“ Wasn’t your archenemy. Dead, remember? That puts him in the past tense. But seriously, you want the most obvious explanation?” He leaned forward. “It’s all a simple case of mistaken identity.”

I had, of course, already considered this. I had even considered Benedict’s conning bigamist explanation. Both made more sense than . . . than what? What else was there, really? What other possible—obvious, logical, far-fetched—explanation was there?

“Well?” Benedict said.

“It makes sense.”

“See?”

“This Todd—Todd Sanderson, MD—looked different from Natalie’s Todd. His hair is shorter. His face is freshly shaven.”